SCENE I. Another part of the island
Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and others
GONZALO
Beseech you, sir, be merry; you have cause,
So have we all, of joy; for our escape
Is much beyond our loss. Our hint of woe
Is common; every day some sailor's wife,
The masters of some merchant and the merchant
Have just our theme of woe; but for the miracle,
I mean our preservation, few in millions
Can speak like us: then wisely, good sir, weigh
Our sorrow with our comfort.
ALONSO
Prithee, peace.
SEBASTIAN
He receives comfort like cold porridge.
ANTONIO
The visitor will not give him o'er so.
SEBASTIAN
Look he's winding up the watch of his wit;
by and by it will strike.
GONZALO
Sir,--
SEBASTIAN
One: tell.
GONZALO
When every grief is entertain'd that's offer'd,
Comes to the entertainer--
SEBASTIAN
A dollar.
GONZALO
Dolour comes to him, indeed: you
have spoken truer than you purposed.
SEBASTIAN
You have taken it wiselier than I meant you should.
GONZALO
Therefore, my lord,--
ANTONIO
Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!
ALONSO
I prithee, spare.
GONZALO
Well, I have done: but yet,--
SEBASTIAN
He will be talking.
ANTONIO
Which, of he or Adrian, for a good
wager, first begins to crow?
SEBASTIAN
The old cock.
ANTONIO
The cockerel.
SEBASTIAN
Done. The wager?
ANTONIO
A laughter.
SEBASTIAN
A match!
ADRIAN
Though this island seem to be desert,--
SEBASTIAN
Ha, ha, ha! So, you're paid.
ADRIAN
Uninhabitable and almost inaccessible,--
SEBASTIAN
Yet,--
ADRIAN
Yet,--
ANTONIO
He could not miss't.
ADRIAN
It must needs be of subtle, tender and delicate
temperance.
ANTONIO
Temperance was a delicate wench.
SEBASTIAN
Ay, and a subtle; as he most learnedly delivered.
ADRIAN
The air breathes upon us here most sweetly.
SEBASTIAN
As if it had lungs and rotten ones.
ANTONIO
Or as 'twere perfumed by a fen.
GONZALO
Here is everything advantageous to life.
ANTONIO
True; save means to live.
SEBASTIAN
Of that there's none, or little.
GONZALO
How lush and lusty the grass looks! how green!
ANTONIO
The ground indeed is tawny.
SEBASTIAN
With an eye of green in't.
ANTONIO
He misses not much.
SEBASTIAN
No; he doth but mistake the truth totally.
GONZALO
But the rarity of it is,--which is indeed almost
beyond credit,--
SEBASTIAN
As many vouched rarities are.
GONZALO
That our garments, being, as they were, drenched in
the sea, hold notwithstanding their freshness and
glosses, being rather new-dyed than stained with
salt water.
ANTONIO
If but one of his pockets could speak, would it not
say he lies?
SEBASTIAN
Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report
GONZALO
Methinks our garments are now as fresh as when we
put them on first in Afric, at the marriage of
the king's fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis.
SEBASTIAN
'Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our return.
ADRIAN
Tunis was never graced before with such a paragon to
their queen.
GONZALO
Not since widow Dido's time.
ANTONIO
Widow! a pox o' that! How came that widow in?
widow Dido!
SEBASTIAN
What if he had said 'widower Aeneas' too? Good Lord,
how you take it!
ADRIAN
'Widow Dido' said you? you make me study of that:
she was of Carthage, not of Tunis.
GONZALO
This Tunis, sir, was Carthage.
ADRIAN
Carthage?
GONZALO
I assure you, Carthage.
SEBASTIAN
His word is more than the miraculous harp; he hath
raised the wall and houses too.
ANTONIO
What impossible matter will he make easy next?
SEBASTIAN
I think he will carry this island home in his pocket
and give it his son for an apple.
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