EPILOGODetto da PROSPERO.Ora i miei incantesimi si sono tutti spenti,la forza che possiedo è solo mia, ed è poca.Ora sta a voi tenermi qui confinato o mandarmi a Napoli.Poiché ho riavuto il Ducato e perdonato il traditore,Non fatemi rimanere col vostro potere in quest'isola nuda,ma scioglietemi da ogni legame con mani generose.Il vostro fiato gentile colmi le mie velealtrimenti fallisce Il mio progetto che era di dar piacere.Ora mi mancano spiriti da comandare,arte per incantare,e la mia fine è la disperazione,a meno che non sia salvato dalla preghieraChe va tanto a fondo da vincere la pietà e liberare dal peccato.Come voi per ogni colpa implorate il perdono,Così la vostra indulgenza metta me in libertà.
Together we understood what terror was: you’re not human anymore. You’re a shadow. You slip out of your own skin, like molting, shedding your own history and your own future, leaving behind everything you ever were or wanted or believed in. You know you’re about to die. And it’s not a movie and you aren’t a hero and all you can do is whimper and wait.
I walk to the corner and wait. I used to be bad at waiting. They also serve who only stand and wait, said Aunt Lydia. She made us memorize it. She also said, Not all of you will make it through. Some of you will fall on dry ground or thorns. Some of you are shallow-rooted. She had a mole on her chin that went up and down while she talked. She said, Think of yourselves as seeds, and right then her voice was wheedling, conspiratorial, like the voices of those women who used to teach ballet classes to children, and who would say, Arms up in the air now; let’s pretend we’re trees.
The noise of children at play annoyed him and their silly voices made him feel, even more keenly than he had felt at Clongowes, that he was different from others. He did not want to play. He wanted to meet in the real world the unsubstantial image which his soul so constantly beheld. He did not know where to seek it or how, but a premonition which led him on told him that this image would, without any overt act of his, encounter him. They would meet quietly as if they had known each other and had made their tryst, perhaps at one of the gates or in some more secret place. They would be alone, surrounded by darkness and silence: and in that moment of supreme tenderness he would be transfigured. He would fade into something impalpable under her eyes and then in a moment he would be transfigured. Weakness and timidity and inexperience would fall from him in that magic moment.
Thou, my slave,As thou report'st thyself, was then her servant,And for thou wast a spirit too delicateTo act her earthy and abhorred commands,Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,By help of her more potent ministersAnd in her most unmitigable rage,Into a cloven pine, within which riftImprisoned thou didst painfully remainA dozen years; within which space she diedAnd left thee there, where thou didst vent thy groansAs fast as mill wheels strike.