Prospero
Come away, servant, come. I am ready now.
Approach, my Ariel, come
Ariel
All hail, great master! Grave sir, hail! I come
To answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curled clouds: to thy strong bidding task
Ariel and all his quality.
Learned and respected gentleman.
Ariel may be talking about all the skills or 'quality' he has here, or he may be talking about the other spirits of the island who work with him.
Prospero
Hast thou, spirit,
Performed to point the tempest that I bade thee?
Ariel
To every article.
I boarded the king’s ship: now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flamed amazement: sometime I’d divide
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards and bowsprit would I flame distinctly,
Then meet and join. Jove’s lightning, the precursors
O’th’dreadful thunderclaps, more momentary
And sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks
Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune
Seem to besiege and make his bold waves tremble,
Yea, his dread trident shake.
I went on-board the king’s ship and appeared as fire on the prow of the ship, then in the middle of the ship, on the deck and in the cabins.
Quicker than the eye can follow.
What do these lines suggest about the strength of the storm?
Prospero
My brave spirit!
Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil
Would not infect his reason?
Who was so calm and together that this turmoil would not make him go mad?
Ariel
Not a soul But felt a fever of the mad and played
Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners
Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,
Then all afire with me: the king’s son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring — then like reeds, not hair —
Was the first man that leaped; cried ‘Hell is empty
And all the devils are here.’
Everyone except the sailors jumped into the turbulent sea and left the ship which was all flaming with my presence.
Prospero
Why, that’s my spirit!
But was not this nigh shore?
Why do you think Prospero seems so pleased that everyone on the ship was scared?
Ariel
Close by, my master.