The Tempest Ariel Quotes

[A noise of hunters heard. Enter divers spirits, in shape of dogs and hounds, hunting them about, Prospero and Ariel setting them on.]
PROSPERO: Go charge my goblins that they grind their joints
With dry convulsions, shorten up their sinews
With aged cramps…
Let them be hunted soundly.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1. It’s punishment time for Stephano, Trinculo and Caliban as Prospero lets slip the dogs of vengeance. Spirits, disguised as dogs and hounds, are conjured up by Prospero and Ariel to chase the three about. The hounds are urged on by Prospero and Ariel. As the trio are driven off, Prospero orders Ariel to make sure that the dogs inflict pain and suffering on them.

Thou, which art but air.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1. Prospero is speaking to the spirit Ariel. The full quote is: "Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling Of their afflictions, and shall not myself, One of their kind, that relish all as sharply Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?" Ariel has told his master that the imprisoned Alonso and his men are in a bad state, and that if he were human, Ariel would feel sorry for them. Prospero says that he is moved to compassion and sympathy for his enemies by Ariel’s words.

Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip’s bell I lie;
There I cough where owls do cry.
On the bat’s back I do fly
After summer merrily:
Merrily, merrily shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

– William Shakespeare

The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1. Ariel’s last song, which he sings while helping to attire Prospero, as the sorcerer removes his wizard’s robes and dresses in his city clothes, in preparation for leaving his magic powers behind. Ariel sings of himself as a fairy drinking nector from flowers and creeping into the bell-shaped flowers of the cowslip. He also flies on the back of a bat chasing summer and fleeing winter, to live in perpetual sunshine and warmth. The song evokes a beautiful picture of nature, reflecting Ariel’s dream of freedom from service to Prospero.
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