Speeches (Lines) for Antonio in "The Tempest"

Boatswain. I pray now, keep below.

Antonio. Where is the master, boatswain?

Boatswain. Work you then.

Antonio. Hang, cur! hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker!
We are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.

Sebastian. I'm out of patience.

Antonio. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards:
This wide-chapp'd rascal--would thou mightst lie drowning
The washing of ten tides!

Gonzalo. He'll be hang'd yet,
Though every drop of water swear against it
And gape at widest to glut him.
[A confused noise within: 'Mercy on us!'--]
'We split, we split!'--'Farewell, my wife and
children!'--
'Farewell, brother!'--'We split, we split, we split!']

Antonio. Let's all sink with the king.

Sebastian. He receives comfort like cold porridge.

Antonio. The visitor will not give him o'er so.

Gonzalo. Therefore, my lord,--

Antonio. Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!

Sebastian. He will be talking.

Antonio. Which, of he or Adrian, for a good
wager, first begins to crow?

Sebastian. The old cock.

Antonio. The cockerel.

Sebastian. Done. The wager?

Antonio. A laughter.

Adrian. Yet,--

Antonio. He could not miss't.

Adrian. It must needs be of subtle, tender and delicate
temperance.

Antonio. Temperance was a delicate wench.

Sebastian. As if it had lungs and rotten ones.

Antonio. Or as 'twere perfumed by a fen.

Gonzalo. Here is everything advantageous to life.

Antonio. True; save means to live.

Gonzalo. How lush and lusty the grass looks! how green!

Antonio. The ground indeed is tawny.

Sebastian. With an eye of green in't.

Antonio. He misses not much.

Gonzalo. That our garments, being, as they were, drenched in
the sea, hold notwithstanding their freshness and
glosses, being rather new-dyed than stained with
salt water.

Antonio. If but one of his pockets could speak, would it not
say he lies?

Gonzalo. Not since widow Dido's time.

Antonio. Widow! a pox o' that! How came that widow in?
widow Dido!

Sebastian. His word is more than the miraculous harp; he hath
raised the wall and houses too.

Antonio. What impossible matter will he make easy next?

Sebastian. I think he will carry this island home in his pocket
and give it his son for an apple.

Antonio. And, sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring
forth more islands.

Gonzalo. Ay.

Antonio. Why, in good time.

Gonzalo. Sir, we were talking that our garments seem now
as fresh as when we were at Tunis at the marriage
of your daughter, who is now queen.

Antonio. And the rarest that e'er came there.

Sebastian. Bate, I beseech you, widow Dido.

Antonio. O, widow Dido! ay, widow Dido.

Gonzalo. Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I
wore it? I mean, in a sort.

Antonio. That sort was well fished for.

Sebastian. Very well.

Antonio. And most chirurgeonly.

Sebastian. Foul weather?

Antonio. Very foul.

Gonzalo. Had I plantation of this isle, my lord,--

Antonio. He'ld sow't with nettle-seed.

Sebastian. Yet he would be king on't.

Antonio. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the
beginning.

Sebastian. No marrying 'mong his subjects?

Antonio. None, man; all idle: whores and knaves.

Sebastian. God save his majesty!

Antonio. Long live Gonzalo!

Gonzalo. I do well believe your highness; and
did it to minister occasion to these gentlemen,
who are of such sensible and nimble lungs that
they always use to laugh at nothing.

Antonio. 'Twas you we laughed at.

Gonzalo. Who in this kind of merry fooling am nothing
to you: so you may continue and laugh at
nothing still.

Antonio. What a blow was there given!

Sebastian. We would so, and then go a bat-fowling.

Antonio. Nay, good my lord, be not angry.

Gonzalo. No, I warrant you; I will not adventure
my discretion so weakly. Will you laugh
me asleep, for I am very heavy?

Antonio. Go sleep, and hear us.

Sebastian. Please you, sir,
Do not omit the heavy offer of it:
It seldom visits sorrow; when it doth,
It is a comforter.

Antonio. We two, my lord,
Will guard your person while you take your rest,
And watch your safety.

Sebastian. What a strange drowsiness possesses them!

Antonio. It is the quality o' the climate.

Sebastian. Why
Doth it not then our eyelids sink? I find not
Myself disposed to sleep.

Antonio. Nor I; my spirits are nimble.
They fell together all, as by consent;
They dropp'd, as by a thunder-stroke. What might,
Worthy Sebastian? O, what might?--No more:--
And yet me thinks I see it in thy face,
What thou shouldst be: the occasion speaks thee, and
My strong imagination sees a crown
Dropping upon thy head.

Sebastian. What, art thou waking?

Antonio. Do you not hear me speak?

Sebastian. I do; and surely
It is a sleepy language and thou speak'st
Out of thy sleep. What is it thou didst say?
This is a strange repose, to be asleep
With eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving,
And yet so fast asleep.

Antonio. Noble Sebastian,
Thou let'st thy fortune sleep--die, rather; wink'st
Whiles thou art waking.

Sebastian. Thou dost snore distinctly;
There's meaning in thy snores.

Antonio. I am more serious than my custom: you
Must be so too, if heed me; which to do
Trebles thee o'er.

Sebastian. Well, I am standing water.

Antonio. I'll teach you how to flow.

Sebastian. Do so: to ebb
Hereditary sloth instructs me.

Antonio. O,
If you but knew how you the purpose cherish
Whiles thus you mock it! how, in stripping it,
You more invest it! Ebbing men, indeed,
Most often do so near the bottom run
By their own fear or sloth.

Sebastian. Prithee, say on:
The setting of thine eye and cheek proclaim
A matter from thee, and a birth indeed
Which throes thee much to yield.

Antonio. Thus, sir:
Although this lord of weak remembrance, this,
Who shall be of as little memory
When he is earth'd, hath here almost persuade,--
For he's a spirit of persuasion, only
Professes to persuade,--the king his son's alive,
'Tis as impossible that he's undrown'd
And he that sleeps here swims.

Sebastian. I have no hope
That he's undrown'd.

Antonio. O, out of that 'no hope'
What great hope have you! no hope that way is
Another way so high a hope that even
Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond,
But doubt discovery there. Will you grant with me
That Ferdinand is drown'd?

Sebastian. He's gone.

Antonio. Then, tell me,
Who's the next heir of Naples?

Sebastian. Claribel.

Antonio. She that is queen of Tunis; she that dwells
Ten leagues beyond man's life; she that from Naples
Can have no note, unless the sun were post--
The man i' the moon's too slow--till new-born chins
Be rough and razorable; she that--from whom?
We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again,
And by that destiny to perform an act
Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come
In yours and my discharge.

Sebastian. What stuff is this! how say you?
'Tis true, my brother's daughter's queen of Tunis;
So is she heir of Naples; 'twixt which regions
There is some space.

Antonio. A space whose every cubit
Seems to cry out, 'How shall that Claribel
Measure us back to Naples? Keep in Tunis,
And let Sebastian wake.' Say, this were death
That now hath seized them; why, they were no worse
Than now they are. There be that can rule Naples
As well as he that sleeps; lords that can prate
As amply and unnecessarily
As this Gonzalo; I myself could make
A chough of as deep chat. O, that you bore
The mind that I do! what a sleep were this
For your advancement! Do you understand me?

Sebastian. Methinks I do.

Antonio. And how does your content
Tender your own good fortune?

Sebastian. I remember
You did supplant your brother Prospero.

Antonio. True:
And look how well my garments sit upon me;
Much feater than before: my brother's servants
Were then my fellows; now they are my men.

Sebastian. But, for your conscience?

Antonio. Ay, sir; where lies that? if 'twere a kibe,
'Twould put me to my slipper: but I feel not
This deity in my bosom: twenty consciences,
That stand 'twixt me and Milan, candied be they
And melt ere they molest! Here lies your brother,
No better than the earth he lies upon,
If he were that which now he's like, that's dead;
Whom I, with this obedient steel, three inches of it,
Can lay to bed for ever; whiles you, doing thus,
To the perpetual wink for aye might put
This ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who
Should not upbraid our course. For all the rest,
They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk;
They'll tell the clock to any business that
We say befits the hour.

Sebastian. Thy case, dear friend,
Shall be my precedent; as thou got'st Milan,
I'll come by Naples. Draw thy sword: one stroke
Shall free thee from the tribute which thou payest;
And I the king shall love thee.

Antonio. Draw together;
And when I rear my hand, do you the like,
To fall it on Gonzalo.

Ariel. My master through his art foresees the danger
That you, his friend, are in; and sends me forth--
For else his project dies--to keep them living.
[Sings in GONZALO's ear]
While you here do snoring lie,
Open-eyed conspiracy
His time doth take.
If of life you keep a care,
Shake off slumber, and beware:
Awake, awake!

Antonio. Then let us both be sudden.

Alonso. I heard nothing.

Antonio. O, 'twas a din to fright a monster's ear,
To make an earthquake! sure, it was the roar
Of a whole herd of lions.

Alonso. Old lord, I cannot blame thee,
Who am myself attach'd with weariness,
To the dulling of my spirits: sit down, and rest.
Even here I will put off my hope and keep it
No longer for my flatterer: he is drown'd
Whom thus we stray to find, and the sea mocks
Our frustrate search on land. Well, let him go.

Antonio. [Aside to SEBASTIAN] I am right glad that he's so
out of hope.
Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose
That you resolved to effect.

Sebastian. [Aside to ANTONIO] The next advantage
Will we take throughly.

Antonio. [Aside to SEBASTIAN] Let it be to-night;
For, now they are oppress'd with travel, they
Will not, nor cannot, use such vigilance
As when they are fresh.

Sebastian. A living drollery. Now I will believe
That there are unicorns, that in Arabia
There is one tree, the phoenix' throne, one phoenix
At this hour reigning there.

Antonio. I'll believe both;
And what does else want credit, come to me,
And I'll be sworn 'tis true: travellers ne'er did
lie,
Though fools at home condemn 'em.

Sebastian. But one fiend at a time,
I'll fight their legions o'er.

Antonio. I'll be thy second.

Sebastian. Ha, ha!
What things are these, my lord Antonio?
Will money buy 'em?

Antonio. Very like; one of them
Is a plain fish, and, no doubt, marketable.