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Will you grant with me That Ferdinand is drowned?

Antonio
Will you grant with me
That Ferdinand is drowned?
Sebastian
He’s gone.
Antonio
Then tell me,
Who’s the next heir of Naples?
Sebastian
Claribel.

We all were sea-swallowed, though some cast again,
And by that destiny to perform an act
Whereof what’s past is prologue

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’ th’ moon’s too slow—till newborn chins
Be rough and razorable; she that from whom
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.
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 ev’ry 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 forever; 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.
 They draw their swords.
Sebastian
O, but one word.
 They talk apart.
 Enter Ariel, invisible, with music and song.
Ariel, to the sleeping Gonzalo
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, to Sebastian
Then let us both be sudden.
Gonzalo, waking
Now, good angels preserve the King!

Source:
Act 2
Scene 1
Line 276

Source Type:
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