Thrashing out our tempest

  

This posting is encouraged

by the warmth of two sweet

people in France and is

dedicated with great love

to the memory of two friends 

from the stage with whom I 

stayed up late in this play.

All four deserve better.

The late Tony Tanner reminds 

us, this play was inspired by 

writings of the first Dickie

Hakluyt, Diverse Voyages 

touching the Discovery of

America, 1582. Plus que ça

change ..

I have known more men 

who were young when 

they were trained by 

business or commerce 

schools in batches, 

as meat to be browned 

for a stew, than I have 

known men who struggled 

with Prospero, though

they were young, as 

they lay dying.

Those liberal Arts being all my study,

The government I cast upon my brother

And to my state grew stranger,

being transported

And rapt in secret studies.

I never thought to buy a ticket 

to Mitt Romney's education. I 

put my study where my heart was, 

and never did look back. But now 

I'm offered a stew much reduced 

in its ingredients' concentration 

by a simmering I disdained, and 

I'm not the first or only one.

I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated

To closeness and the bettering of my mind

With that which, but by being so retired,

O'erprized all popular rate, in my false brother

Awakened an evil nature, and my trust,

Like a good parent, did beget of him

A falsehood in its contrary as great As my trust was ..

.. He .. like one

Who having unto truth, by telling of it, 

Made such a sinner of his memory

To credit his own lie, he did believe

He was indeed the duke, out o' the substitution

And executing the outward face of royalty

With all prerogative. Hence his ambition growing - 

Dost thou hear?

To have no screen between this part he played

And him he played it for, he needs will be

Absolute Milan.

     We all were sea-swallowed, 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.

  

William Shakespeare

The Tempest

  I, ii, 74-77; 89-96;

          97-109, excerpt

  II, i, 246-249

The Arden Shakespeare

Frank Kermode, editor

op. cit.

Tony Tanner

Prefaces to Shakespeare

op. cit.