Isaac Asimov - Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1

The fame of the myth fixed this particular picture of the Harpy and made it appropriate for Ariel to assume the guise of one when the feast was snatched away from the Neapolitan King and his followers.

But Ferdinand's ordeal is over. Prospero is satisfied with him and tells him that he may marry his daughter. To make up for the pain caused him, Prospero puts on a spirit show for the happy couple. The classical goddesses are brought down to bless them.

Iris comes in first, calling on another:

—Act IV, scene i, lines 60-61

Ceres (the Roman version of the Greek goddess Demeter) is the personification of the cultivated and fruitful soil, and all the food it produces. (We get our word "cereal" from her name.) She is naturally one whose blessing will ensure a fruitful marriage. After having enumerated Ceres' products, Iris says:

—Act IV, scene i, lines 70-74

The "queen o'th'sky" would be Juno, of course (the Greek Hera), who is that because she is the wife of Jupiter (Zeus). Juno was considered by the Romans to have marriage and motherhood as her prime concern; she was the idealized wife. It was her place, therefore, to preside over the festivities on this occasion. The peacock was considered particularly sacred to her and these birds were supposed to draw her chariot.

Iris is the personification of the rainbow. Since the rainbow, though clearly in the heavens, seems to arch down to earth, it is easy to imagine it as a bridge linking heaven and earth, and one along which a messenger can travel. The bridge and the messenger become one and Iris is pictured here as serving Juno, in particular. The "wat'ry arch" is, of course, the rainbow, which appears after a rain, when the air is full of water droplets.

The rainbow attribute of Iris is indicated by Ceres' first words when she enters:

—Act IV, scene i, line 76

Ceres has one reservation about attending the festivities. She says to Iris:

—Act IV, scene i, lines 86-91

Dis is one of the Roman equivalents of the Greek god of the underworld, Pluto. Pluto seized Persephone, the daughter of Demeter (Ceres), and took her to the underworld to be his queen. Demeter located her only after a weary search and even then could only arrange to have her returned for part of each year. It is only in that part that Demeter allows the earth to bear crops; while Persephone is underground the earth lies blasted and cold. (This is an obvious way of mythologizing the cycle of summer and whiter, see page I-5.)

Pluto would not have fallen in love with Persephone had he not been wounded by the arrows of blind Eros (Cupid), the son of Aphrodite (Venus), which is why Ceres holds her grudge.

Actually, Venus and her son have no place at the celebration. They are the personification of erotic love and Prospero has made it plain that Miranda is to remain a virgin until the marriage rites are fully performed. Iris says, therefore, of Venus:

—Act IV, scene i, lines 92-94

Paphos (see page I-15) was a city where Venus (Aphrodite) was particularly venerated.

Juno now enters and says to Ceres:

—Act IV, scene i, lines 103-5

This "wedding masque," which occupies so much of the play, may have been deliberately inserted to apply to a real wedding at which The Tem pest was to be shown; or else, since the wedding masque was there, the play was thought particularly appropriate for such a celebration.

At any rate, The Tempest seems to have had one of its early productions in the winter of 1612-13 as part of the festive preparations for the marriage of Elizabeth, the daughter of King James I, with Frederick V of the Palatinate (son of the Frederick IV who was ridiculed by Portia in The Merchant of Venice, see page I-506).

The two were married in February 1613, both bride and bridegroom being seventeen years old. Juno's statement that they be "honored in their issue" came true, as it happened. The couple had thirteen children.

Juno and Ceres sing, and with that done, a dance must be next. For that purpose, Iris makes a new call:

—Act IV, scene i, lines 128-31

The nymphs were the spirits of wild nature, pictured as beautiful young women. (The very word means "young woman.") These came in a number of varieties. The nymphs of the mountains were "oreads," those of the trees were "dryads," and those of the rivers and streams (whom Iris has called) are "naiads."

Properly speaking, if the nymphs were called, satyrs ought also to have been called, for they were the male counterpart, masculine spirits of the wild. However, the nymph-satyr association is an almost entirely erotic one (see page I-630), which we memorialize these days by the use of "nymphomania" and "satyriasis" as medical terms, and that would have been unsuitable for the celebration Prospero designed for the young people. Instead, harvestmen are called, and a chaste pastoral dance is staged.

At the conclusion of the dance, Prospero bethinks himself that Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo are plotting to kill him and realizes he must get back to business. He ends the masque and when the young couple look troubled, he says:

—Act IV, scene i, lines 148-58

This is a surprisingly somber speech for what is, essentially, a happy play, especially since it comes at a particularly happy time for Prospero, who sees the best part of his plan coming to such lovely fruition.

It is almost irresistibly tempting to think Shakespeare is talking to himself at this point. At the time Shakespeare wrote The Tempest he was forty-seven years old, the prime of middle age by our standards, but quite old in his time. He may have felt the infirmity of the years creeping up on him and he may have been thinking more and more of death. As a matter of fact, he had only five more years left to live, for he died in 1616 at the age of only fifty-two.