The Tempest Alonso Quotes

You fools! I and my fellows
Are ministers of Fate: the elements,
Of whom your swords are tempered, may as well
Wound the loud winds, or with bemocked-at stabs
Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish
One dowle that’s in my plume: my fellow-ministers
Are like invulnerable.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 3, Scene 3. Ariel calls Alonso, Antonio and Sebastian fools because they think they can attack agents of Fate like him, having drawn their swords. Just as their swords cannot cut the winds or water, Ariel says that they cannot cut off even one of his feathers. He and his fellow spirits are invulnerable, he warns.

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.

All three of them are desperate: their great guilt,
Like poison given to work a great time after,
Now ‘gins to bite the spirits. I do beseech you
That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly
And hinder them from what this ecstasy
May now provoke them to.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 3, Scene 3. Gonzalo uses a simile when he compares the guilt of Alonso, Sebastian and Antonio to poison, which given time to work now begins to bite at their consciences. He asks the others to follow them to ensure that they do no harm.

Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,
Mine eyes, even sociable to the show of thine,
Fall fellowly drops…
O good Gonzalo,
My true preserver, and a loyal sir
To him you follow’st! I will pay thy graces
Home both in word and deed.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1. When Prospero releases the shipwrecked passengers from his magic spell, he singles out Gonzalo first of all for high praise for everything he has done to help him during his island exile – "my true preserver". Prospero says that he is moved to tears by Gonzalo’s goodness. Prospero lauds Gonzalo for remaining loyal to his king Alonso, and he promises to reward everything Gonzalo has done with words and actions.

Flesh and blood,
You, brother mine, that entertain’d ambition,
Expell’d remorse and nature; who, with Sebastian,
Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong,
Would here have kill’d your king; I do forgive thee,
Unnatural though thou art.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 5 Scene 1. Prospero excoriates his brother Antonio, saying that he followed his ambition and lost compassion and their natural bond as brothers. With Sebastian he was ready to kill his king Alonso. However, despite the fact that Prospero brands Antonio as "unnatural" – i.e. a monster – he decides to forgive him.

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).

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.

Sir, my liege,
Do not infest your mind with beating on
The strangeness of this business; at picked leisure
Which shall be shortly, single I’ll resolve you,
Which to you shall seem probable, of every
These happen’d accidents; till when, be cheerful
And think of each thing well.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1. Prospero is speaking to Alonso, who is astonished and upset at the strange and unnatural things that have occurred – much of them brought about by Prospero’s magic. He tells him not to fixate on them, that he will explain everything when the time is right.
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