The Tempest

So you probably all think I’m some lightning-fast reader or something. Oh, nay. Not so. It’s just that plays are relatively short, as books go. You know, they’re meant to be performed in the course of a couple hours, so… you get the drift.

Anyway, The Tempest is a lovely romance — you could interpret that as love story, but I really mean it more like this: “a medieval tale dealing with a hero of chivalry, of the kind common in the Romance language” (from my OS X Dictionary widget). It’s a tale of transformation, like King Lear, only not tragic. And really, everyone is transformed. Well, maybe except Miranda and Ferdinand, who just seem to be perfect from the get-go.

But on the love-story angle, I did tear up when I read this from Ferdinand:

[…] My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up.
My father’s loss, the weakness which I feel,
The wrack of all my friends, nor this man’s threats
To whom I am subdued, are but light to me,
Might I but through my prison once a day
Behold this maid […] (52-53)

Isn’t that beautiful? And then later, when Prospero has him (Ferdinand) hauling logs, Miranda:

If you’ll sit down,
I’ll bear your logs the while. Pray give me that:
I’ll carry it to the pile. (74)

And Ferdinand doesn’t even yet know her name!

Shakespeare can really tell it.

So again, I’ve added all performances I can find to my Netflix queue. I’m a little disappointed, though, because Peter Greenaway’s film, Prospero’s Books, is not available on Netflix.

References are to The Pelican Shakespeare edition.