Speeches (Lines) for Sebastian in "The Tempest"

Boatswain. Down with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring
her to try with main-course.
[A cry within]
A plague upon this howling! they are louder than
the weather or our office.
[Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZALO]
Yet again! what do you here? Shall we give o'er
and drown? Have you a mind to sink?

Sebastian. A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous,
incharitable dog!

Gonzalo. The king and prince at prayers! let's assist them,
For our case is as theirs.

Sebastian. I'm out of patience.

Antonio. Let's all sink with the king.

Sebastian. Let's take leave of him.

Alonso. Prithee, peace.

Sebastian. He receives comfort like cold porridge.

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

Sebastian. Look he's winding up the watch of his wit;
by and by it will strike.

Gonzalo. Sir,--

Sebastian. One: tell.

Gonzalo. When every grief is entertain'd that's offer'd,
Comes to the entertainer--

Sebastian. A dollar.

Gonzalo. Dolour comes to him, indeed: you
have spoken truer than you purposed.

Sebastian. You have taken it wiselier than I meant you should.

Gonzalo. Well, I have done: but yet,--

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.

Sebastian. A match!

Adrian. Though this island seem to be desert,--

Sebastian. Ha, ha, ha! So, you're paid.

Adrian. Uninhabitable and almost inaccessible,--

Sebastian. Yet,--

Antonio. Temperance was a delicate wench.

Sebastian. Ay, and a subtle; as he most learnedly delivered.

Adrian. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly.

Sebastian. As if it had lungs and rotten ones.

Antonio. True; save means to live.

Sebastian. Of that there's none, or little.

Antonio. The ground indeed is tawny.

Sebastian. With an eye of green in't.

Antonio. He misses not much.

Sebastian. No; he doth but mistake the truth totally.

Gonzalo. But the rarity of it is,--which is indeed almost
beyond credit,--

Sebastian. As many vouched rarities are.

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

Sebastian. Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report

Gonzalo. Methinks our garments are now as fresh as when we
put them on first in Afric, at the marriage of
the king's fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis.

Sebastian. 'Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our return.

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

Sebastian. What if he had said 'widower AEneas' too? Good Lord,
how you take it!

Gonzalo. I assure you, Carthage.

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 the rarest that e'er came there.

Sebastian. Bate, I beseech you, widow Dido.

Alonso. No, no, he's gone.

Sebastian. Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss,
That would not bless our Europe with your daughter,
But rather lose her to an African;
Where she at least is banish'd from your eye,
Who hath cause to wet the grief on't.

Alonso. Prithee, peace.

Sebastian. You were kneel'd to and importuned otherwise
By all of us, and the fair soul herself
Weigh'd between loathness and obedience, at
Which end o' the beam should bow. We have lost your
son,
I fear, for ever: Milan and Naples have
More widows in them of this business' making
Than we bring men to comfort them:
The fault's your own.

Gonzalo. My lord Sebastian,
The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness
And time to speak it in: you rub the sore,
When you should bring the plaster.

Sebastian. Very well.

Gonzalo. It is foul weather in us all, good sir,
When you are cloudy.

Sebastian. Foul weather?

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

Sebastian. Or docks, or mallows.

Gonzalo. And were the king on't, what would I do?

Sebastian. 'Scape being drunk for want of wine.

Gonzalo. I' the commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things; for no kind of traffic
Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,
And use of service, none; contract, succession,
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;
No occupation; all men idle, all;
And women too, but innocent and pure;
No sovereignty;--

Sebastian. Yet he would be king on't.

Gonzalo. All things in common nature should produce
Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony,
Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,
Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,
Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance,
To feed my innocent people.

Sebastian. No marrying 'mong his subjects?

Gonzalo. I would with such perfection govern, sir,
To excel the golden age.

Sebastian. God save his majesty!

Antonio. What a blow was there given!

Sebastian. An it had not fallen flat-long.

Gonzalo. You are gentlemen of brave metal; you would lift
the moon out of her sphere, if she would continue
in it five weeks without changing.

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

Alonso. What, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes
Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts: I find
They are inclined to do so.

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

Alonso. Thank you. Wondrous heavy.

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.

Sebastian. O, but one word.

Gonzalo. What's the matter?

Sebastian. Whiles we stood here securing your repose,
Even now, we heard a hollow burst of bellowing
Like bulls, or rather lions: did't not wake you?
It struck mine ear most terribly.

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. [Aside to ANTONIO] I say, to-night: no more.

Alonso. Give us kind keepers, heavens! What were these?

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.

Francisco. They vanish'd strangely.

Sebastian. No matter, since
They have left their viands behind; for we have stomachs.
Will't please you taste of what is here?

Alonso. O, it is monstrous, monstrous:
Methought the billows spoke and told me of it;
The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder,
That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced
The name of Prosper: it did bass my trespass.
Therefore my son i' the ooze is bedded, and
I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded
And with him there lie mudded.

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

Prospero. You do yet taste
Some subtilties o' the isle, that will not let you
Believe things certain. Welcome, my friends all!
[Aside to SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO]
But you, my brace of lords, were I so minded,
I here could pluck his highness' frown upon you
And justify you traitors: at this time
I will tell no tales.

Sebastian. [Aside] The devil speaks in him.

Alonso. If this prove
A vision of the Island, one dear son
Shall I twice lose.

Sebastian. A most high miracle!

Caliban. O Setebos, these be brave spirits indeed!
How fine my master is! I am afraid
He will chastise me.

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

Alonso. Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler?

Sebastian. He is drunk now: where had he wine?

Trinculo. I have been in such a pickle since I
saw you last that, I fear me, will never out of
my bones: I shall not fear fly-blowing.

Sebastian. Why, how now, Stephano!

Alonso. Hence, and bestow your luggage where you found it.

Sebastian. Or stole it, rather.