" /> Ariel Quotes: The Tempest - 40 Important Quotes with Analysis

The Tempest Ariel Quotes

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.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2. Speaking his first lines in the play, the spirit Ariel shows his loyalty to Prospero by telling him that he is willing to do whatever his master Prospero asks of him. But his is also the language of a slave and submissive who does his master’s bidding without question.

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.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2. Prospero asks his spirit servant Ariel did he carry out all his orders with regard to the raising of the tempest. Ariel gives an account of how he frightened all the passangers on the king’s ship by appearing in flames in different parts of the ship.
hell and devils image quote from William Shakespeare In Devils

Hell is empty,
And all the devils are here.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2. Ariel to Prospero, relating what Ferdinand cried out as he plunged into the water from the shipwreck. Ferdinand recognizes the true and evil nature of his father King Alonso and the royal party with whom he traveled. In the full quote, Ariel uses a simile to compare Ferdinand’s hair to reeds: "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.’"

Not a hair perished;
On their sustaining garments not a blemish,
But fresher than before: and, as thou badest me,
In troops I have dispersed them ’bout the isle.
The king’s son have I landed by himself;
Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs
In an odd angle of the isle and sitting,
His arms in this sad knot.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2. In reply to Prospero, Ariel assures that the shipwreck passengers are all safe, not a hair on their head was harmed and there was not even a blemish on their garments. In keeping with Prospero’s orders, they were scattered over the island, Ariel himself brought the king’s son Ferdinand to safety and he was sitting in a corner of the island feeling sad.

Safely in harbour
Is the king’s ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou called’st me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vexed Bermoothes, there she’s hid.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2. Ariel in his conversation with Prospero says that King Alonso’s ship is hidden in a large deep bay in the still stormy Bermoothes island, where Prospero once commanded him to fetch magic dew. Some scholars believe that Bermoothes referred to Bermuda, which in Shakespeare’s time was considered an enchanted and stormy island inhabited by devils and witches.

Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,
Let me remember thee what thou hast promised,
Which is not yet perform’d me.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2. When Prospero arrived on the island, he freed Ariel from a pine tree where the witch Syforax had imprisoned him. In return Ariel promised to work in the service of Prospero for a year to repay him. In this passage Ariel holds Prospero to his end of the deal, reminding him that the time for his liberty has come. He is only doing Prospero’s bidding in order to gain his freedom.

ARIEL: I prithee,
Remember I have done thee worthy service,
Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served
Without or grudge or grumblings. Thou didst promise
To bate me a full year.
PROSPERO: Dost thou forget
From what a torment I did free thee?

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2. Ariel wants his freedom from servitude to Prospero after serving him well for a year. But his reluctant master grumbles that he had freed him from a life of torment. This suggests that Prospero treats Ariel more like a slave than simple servant.

This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child
And here was left by the sailors. Thou, my slave,
As thou report’st thyself, was then her servant,
And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate
To act her earthy and abhorred commands,
Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2. An iritated Prospero spells out to Ariel his indebtedness to his master. He tells him that when he was in the service of the witch Sycorax, she abused and enslaved him after he refused to carry out her commands. She imprisoned him in a cloven pine tree.

Thou best know’st
What torment I did find thee in; thy groans
Did make wolves howl and penetrate the breasts
Of ever angry bears: it was a torment
To lay upon the damned, which Sycorax
Could not again undo. It was mine art,
When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape
The pine and let thee out.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2. Unhappy with what he sees as Ariel’s ingratitude to him, Prospero reminds him that it was his powerful magic that undid the witch Sycorax’s spell and freed Ariel from his pine prison. Ariel’s groans of torment there made the wolves howl and penetrated the hearts of angry bears, he tells him. Prospero likes reminding his servant of how powerful he is.

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.

CALIBAN: As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island.
ARIEL [invisible]: Thou liest.
CALIBAN [to Trinculo]: Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou! I would my valiant master would destroy thee! I do not lie.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 3, Scene 2. As Caliban recounts the situation on the island to Stephano and Trunculo and tells them how he is subject to the tyrant Prospero, Ariel has a little bit of fun at their expense. The spirit enters, invisible to the other characters, and starts to make trouble for them by impersonating Trinculo with his voice.

Flout ’em and scout ’em
And scout ’em and flout ’em
Thought is free.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 3, Scene 2. The farsical scene between the drunken trio continues, as Stephano sings this song for Caliban about treating others with contempt and insults because speaking your mind is freedom. Caliban had asked him to perform the song he taught him and protests that this isn’t it. Just then an invisible Ariel begins a tune on his flute and Trinculo recognizes it as Stephano’s song. So the comic confusion carries on.

You are three men of sin, whom Destiny,
That hath to instrument this lower world
And what is in ‘t, the never-surfeited sea
Hath caused to belch up you; and on this island
Where man doth not inhabit; you ‘mongst men
Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest , Act 3, Scene 3. Ariel terrifies the "three men of sin", Alonso, Antonio and Sebastian, by appearing to them in the form of a harpy. This is a mythological creature with a woman’s head and torso and bird’s claws and wings. As they are unfit to live because of the sin of their betrayal, Ariel drives them mad.

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.

I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking;
So fun of valour that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces; beat the ground
For kissing of their feet; yet always bending
Towards their project. Then I beat my tabour;
At which, like unbacked colts, they pricked their ears,
Advanced their eyelids, lifted up their noses
As they smelt music: so I charm’d their ears
That calf-like they my lowing followed through
Toothed briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss and thorns,
Which entered their frail shins.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1. Ariel reports to Prospero that Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo were "red-hot with drinking" – intoxicated – when he left them. So much so that they beat the wind for blowing in their faces and the ground for touching their feet. Ariel said he beat his tabor, cast a spell on their ears and they followed the music through briers and thorns, which entered their frail shins.

A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains,
Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost;
And as with age his body uglier grows,
So his mind cankers. I will plague them all,
Even to roaring.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1. Prospero calls Caliban a born devil and no amount of education or nurture can change his basic nature. And as he grows older, his body as well as his mind grows uglier. This speaks to the colonizer mentality Prospero holds in that he sees creatures like Caliban as inferior beings who need to be civilized. Prospero vows to put Caliban and his fellow plotters Stephano and Trinculo in agony until they roar in pain.
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