The Tempest Irony Quotes

You taught me language; and my profit on ‘t
Is, I know how to curse: the red plague rid you,
For learning me your language.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2. The monster bites back! Caliban is reacting angrily to Miranda’s attack on him as a savage that she tried to educate. He says that he gained nothing of value from the education, except that he learned how to curse. He hopes that she dies of the plague for teaching him her language. Ironically Caliban is also capable of using beautiful, poetic language, as in his "Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises" speech (Act 3, Scene 2). At the heart of The Tempest is the vexed and toxic relationship between the colonized and colonizer, Caliban and Prospero. Caliban deeply resents Prospero’s and Miranda’s attempts to "civilize" him and sees them only as oppressors. He is rebelling against the use of language as a tool of colonization and repression. His threatening words in this passage are foreshadowing of his plot later in the play to kill Prospero and take his daughter.

Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father’s wreck,
This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2. Ferdinand, son of Alonso the King of Naples, sits on a bank after surviving the shipwreck and weeps for his father whom he believes is lost. This is dramatic irony, as the audience already knows that all the ship’s passengers including Alonso are safe. Ferdinand hears a beautiful song sung by Prospero’s invisible spirit Ariel and is enchanted by it and finds comfort in it.

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2. Ariel sings a song to Ferdinand about his father Alonso and how death is part of the natural process. He uses an extended metaphor in commenting on Alonso’s death, or the appearance of it, as something positive in the cycle of life. Ferdinand thinks his father has drowned, but the audience already knows that he safely washed up on the island, so this is an example of the use of dramatic irony. Ferdinand is confused, as Ariel is invisible and he doesn’t know where the music is coming from. He is also sad, as the song convinces him that his father is indeed drowned.

PROSPERO: [to Ferdinand] Follow me.
[To Miranda.] Speak not you for him. He’s a traitor.
[To Ferdinand.] Come,
I’ll manacle thy neck and feet together.
Sea-water shalt thou drink; thy food shall be
The fresh-brook muscles, withered roots, and husks
Wherein the acorn cradled. Follow.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2. Prospero’s imperialistic nature comes to the fore as he threatens to take Ferdinand into captivity, manacle his neck and feet together, give him sea water to drink, and mussels, old roots and empty acorn shells for food. He tells Miranda not to speak for him as he is a traitor. There is a certain dramatic irony here, as the audience is aware that Prospero is in favor of the love union between Ferdinand and Miranda and actually set it up, but he doesn’t want Ferdinand to feel that he has won his daughter too easily.

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.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 2, Scene 1. The theme of colonialism and the relationship between the European colonizer and native colonized people are explored throughout The Tempest, especially in Prospero’s control of the island and Caliban. But it’s also not far under the surface of the kind and noble Gonzalo. Here he delivers a speech about his idyllic plantation, a new colony of commonwealth, where lack of social rank, labor, riches and poverty would deliver a utopia. Work would be abolished and people would live a life of leisure. Gonzalo imagines creating this perfect state on an island like the one they are on. There would be no kingship, he pledges. Yet he would be ruler and "execute all things." Spoken like a true colonizer! The irony here in Gonzalo’s commonwealth speech is clear.

SEBASTIAN: Yet he would be king on’t.
ANTONIO: The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 2, Scene 1. As Gonzalo describes how he would colonize the island and build a perfect state without laws and social hierarchy, Sebastian and Antonio continue to ridicule him with sarcastic comments. But they do highlight inconsistencies in Gonzalo’s imagined paradise and the irony in his speech. For example, Alonso says he would have no sovereignty, yet at the same time he would be king. These are important observations in a play which deals with the themes of freedom, power and servitude.

These be fine things, an if they be not sprites.
That’s a brave god and bears celestial liquor.
I will kneel to him.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 2, Scene 2. Caliban thinks that Stephano and Trinculo are gods after he is given some liquor by Stephano, probably his first experience of alcohol. It is no surprise that Caliban, who feels mistreated and and enslaved by Prospero, would seek to align himself to the first new humans that he meets on the island. This desperation speaks to his desire for revenge against his master. But it is also ironic that he wishes to break away from the power of one master, only to give himself to another.

I’ll show thee the best springs; I’ll pluck thee berries;
I’ll fish for thee and get thee wood enough.
A plague upon the tyrant that I serve!
I’ll bear him no more sticks, but follow thee,
Thou wondrous man.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 2, Scene 2. In this humorous scene, Caliban promises to follow his new "god" and master, the drunken Stephano. He will show him the best springs, pick berries, fish and fetch wood for him – being a native inhabitant, Caliban knows the island well and is close to nature. There is an irony in Caliban cursing his enslaver Prospero with plague, while switching allegience to Stephano who has branded him a monster and is hardly going to treat him much better.

I prattle
Something too wildly and my father’s precepts
I therein do forget.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 3, Scene 1. Miranda confesses that she is babbling on and on, forgetting her father’s wish that she should be modest in her speech. Nevertheless, she has disobeyed her father’s wishes by confessing her attraction for Ferdinand. This is an ironic moment, as the audience is already aware that her father Prospero who is listening to the lovers’ exchanges approves of her disobedience.

FERDINAND: Ay, with a heart as willing
As bondage e’er of freedom. Here’s my hand.
MIRANDA: And mine.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 3, Scene 1. The kneeling Ferdinand’s offers his hand to Miranda, after she says she is his wife if he will marry her and asks if he will be her husband. She does likewise, as they affirm their love for one another. Since the audience already knew that Prospero had planned the marriage of the young couple before they ever pledged themselves to each other, this is an example of dramatic irony.

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.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 3, Scene 3. Alonso says this in response to the frightening shapes and sounds created by the spirit Ariel, who appeared as a terrifying harpy. Alonso uses a metaphor compares the thunder he heard to the deep and dreadful sound of an organ-pipe. This passage is an example of dramatic irony, as the audience is already in on the act and knows that Ariel was commanded by Prospero to perform his terrifying act to scare away his master’s adverseries. The audience can actually see Prospero watching and Ariel overseeing the whole show. Alonso’s use and repetition of the word "monstrous" to describe what is going on suggests that the conjuror Prospero may himself be monstrous.

FERDINAND: This is strange: your father’s in some passion
That works him strongly.
MIRANDA: Never till this day
Saw I him touched with anger so distempered.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1. Ferdinand remarks about Prospero’s strong mood and Miranda tells him that she has never seen her father in such an angry state. Their puzzlement is an example of dramatic irony. Prospero’s anger is over the treachery plotted against him by Caliban with the aid of co-conspirators Stephano and Trinculo – which the audience already knows, but the young couple do not.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1. This famous speech spoken by Prospero to Ferdinand is often regarded as Shakespeare’s retirement speech. With beautiful use of metaphors and similes, he talks about life, mortality and the inevitability of death. We are said to be made of the stuff of dreams and life is a cycle, beginning and ending with sleep. Here Prospero has staged a masque performed by spirit actors as an engagement present for Ferdinand and Miranda. He suddenly remembers Caliban’s plot against him and abruptly cuts short the masque performance, and the spirit actors melt into thin air as does the imagined setting – the "baseless fabric". In his speech Prospero says that the performance is all an illusion, a dream that will disappear like the natural order of things in this world. He is speaking about the illusory nature, not just of the theatric performance and magic, but of life itself. The irony of what Shakespeare says here is that his theatrical and literary legacy has endured more than any other writer in the English language in history. Four centuries after his death, Shakespeare is still the most famous name in English literature and theater.

If thou be’st Prospero,
Give us particulars of thy preservation;
How thou hast met us here, who three hours since
Were wreck’d upon this shore; where I have lost –
How sharp the point of this remembrance is! –
My dear son Ferdinand.
…Irreparable is the loss, and patience
Says it is past her cure.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1. Alonso wants to know how Prospero survived on the island and talks about the irreparable loss of his son Ferdinand. This is dramatic irony, as Ferdinand has survived, which the audience and Prospero already know.

A daughter?
O heavens, that they were living both in Naples,
The king and queen there! That they were, I wish
Myself were mudded in that oozy bed
Where my son lies. When did you lose your daughter?

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1. Alonso’s speech is an example of dramatic irony, when the audience knows something that the character is unaware of. It’s also an example of foreshadowing, an indication of a future event. Here Alonso declares that if both Ferdinand and Miranda were alive (which the audience knows they are), he would be happy to see them married, and they would be the future king and queen of Naples (foreshadowingt their marriage and accession to the throne will after Alonso).

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in ‘t!

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1. An astonished Miranda, who has been raised in seclusion on an island with few people, is delighted with the new world she has discovered full of these wonderful people she has met. Miranda’s most famous lines are full of optimism and hope of new beginnings. But as an inexperienced teenager who has led a sheltered life, her "goodly creatures" and "beauteous" comments on seeing Alonso and his courtiers dressed in their finery are somewhat ironic. Some of the people she is meeting have shown themselves to be selfish, disloyal, cruel and murderous.

Sir, she is mortal;
But by immortal Providence she’s mine.
I chose her when I could not ask my father
For his advice, nor thought I had one. She
Is daughter to this famous Duke of Milan,
Of whom so often I have heard renown,
But never saw before; of whom I have
Received a second life; and second father
This lady makes him to me.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1. Ferdinand tells his father Alonso that Miranda is not a goddess but a mortal human being. By the grace of God she is his. He chose her when he could not ask his father Alonso’s permission because he thought he was dead. He tells Alonso that she is daughter to the Duke of Milan Prospero, who gave him a second life and is a second father to him. The irony is that all the others, and the audience, know who Prospero is and how he was cruelly usurped.
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