[In the following essay, reconstructed from a 1947 lecture, Auden highlights the principal elements of The Tempest, including its mythopoeic quality, major themes, and representation of music.]

The Tempest is the last play wholly by Shakespeare, written in 1611 at or before the time he retired to Stratford. He was later brought in as a collaborator in the writing of Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen. People have very naturally and in a sense rightly considered the play Shakespeare's farewell piece. Whether or not Shakespeare was conscious of it is irrelevant. I don't believe people die until they've done their work, and when they have, they die. There are surprisingly few incomplete works in art. People, as a rule, die when they wish to. It is not a shame that Mozart, Keats, Shelley died young: they'd finished their work.

The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Merry Wives of Windsor, which was written for a command performance, are the only plays of Shakespeare with an original plot. The Tempest is also his only play observing the unities of time, place, and action—which accounts for Prospero's long, expository narrative at the beginning of the play instead of action. Maybe he made a bet with Ben Jonson about whether he could do it or not.

Lastly, in The Tempest, Shakespeare succeeds in writing myth—he'd been trying to earlier, not altogether successfully. George MacDonald's children's books, such as The Princess and the Goblin, are very good examples of mythopoeic writing. C. S. Lewis remarks, in discussing MacDonald and myth, that

the Myth does not essentially exist in words at all. We all agree that the story of Balder is a great myth, a thing of inexhaustible value. But of whose version—whose words—are we thinking when we say this?

For my own part, the answer is that I am not thinking of anyone's words. … What really delights and nourishes me is a particular pattern of events, which would equally delight and nourish if it had reached me by some medium which involved no words at all—say by a mime, or a film. And I find this to be true of all such stories. … Any means of communication whatever which succeeds in lodging those events in our imagination has, as we say, “done the trick.” After that you can throw the means of communication away. … In poetry the words are the body and the “theme” or “content” is the soul. But in myth the imagined events are the body and something inexpressible is the soul: the words, or mime, or film, or pictorial series are not even clothes—they are not much more than a telephone. Of this I had evidence some years ago when I first heard the story of Kafka's Castle related in conversation and afterwards I read the book for myself. The reading added nothing. I had already received the myth, which was all that mattered.

The great myths in the Christian period are Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, the Wandering Jew. Among the great modern myths are Sherlock Holmes and L'il Abner, neither of which exhibits a talent for literary expression. Rider Haggard's She is another example of a myth in which literary distinction is largely absent. Comic strips are a good place to start in understanding the nature of myths, because their language is unimportant. There are some famous passages of poetry in The Tempest, including “Our revels now are ended” (IV.i.148ff) and “Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves” (V.i.33ff), but they are accidental. Antony and Cleopatra and King Lear only exist in words. In The Tempest only the wedding masque—which is very good, and apposite—and possibly Ariel's songs are dependent on poetry. Otherwise you could put The Tempest in a comic strip.

Like other mythopoeic works, The Tempest inspired people to go on for themselves. You can't read Don Quixote without wanting to make up episodes that Cervantes, as it were, forgot to tell us. The same is true of Sherlock Holmes. Great writers such as Cervantes or Kafka can do this sort of thing. On the other hand, so can Conan Doyle and Rider Haggard. Browning wrote an extension of The Tempest in Caliban on Setebos, Renan did one in Caliban, and I've done something with it myself.

Let's begin with the comic and rather dull passage that is partly based on Montaigne, Gonzalo's imagination of the Utopia he would create if he had “plantation of this isle” and “were king on't”:

I' th' commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things, for no kind of traffic
Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,
And use of service, none; contract, succession,
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;
No occupation; all men idle, all;
And women too, but innocent and pure;
No sovereignty.
SEB.
                                                            Yet he would be king on't.
ANT.
The latter end of his commonweath forgets the beginning.
GON.
All things in common nature should produce
Without sweat or endeavour. Treason, felony,
Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine
Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,
Of it own kind, all foison, all abundance,
To feed my innocent people.
SEB.
No marrying ‘mong his subjects?
ANT.
None, man! All idle—whores and knaves.
GON.
I would with such perfection govern, sir,
T' excel the golden age.

(II.i.143-168)

One of the chief themes of The Winter's Tale is the idea of the Garden of Eden. Here we have an allied theme: the nature of the commonwealth, of the good society, which is presented by a good but stupid character whose fault is the refusal to admit evil in others that he knows to be there. In the commonwealth Gonzalo describes, there would be no money, no books, no work, no authority. This would be possible if all men were angels, which Antonio and Sebastian's reactions alone show they are not, and if nonhuman nature were perfect and obedient. Each character in the play has his daydream. The absence of evil is the daydream of all: of the good like Gonzalo, who shut their eyes to evil in others, and of the bad like Antonio and Caliban, who shut their eyes to evil in themselves.

There are various types of society represented in the play. It opens with the commonwealth of a ship, which is reminiscent of a similar scene in Pericles (III.i)—the parallel between ship and state is conventional. In the storm, authority belongs to those with professional skill: the Master and Boatswain take precedence over the King. The characters of the people are already revealed by their response to the situation: Alonso accepts it, Gonzalo is a little shocked, Antonio and Sebastian are angry. Gonzalo tries to cheer himself up—he tries always to look on the bright side of things. At the end of the opening scene of the play, Antonio says, “Let's all sink with th' King” (I.i.66). Gonzalo should say it—the line is misplaced.

What is society? For St. Augustine, society consists of a group of people associated in respect of things they love. Who has authority in the society of a sinking ship? How is the magic of authority maintained? All the people are threatened by death on the ship. When Gonzalo tells the Boatswain, “yet remember whom thou hast aboard,” he answers, “None that I more love than myself” (I.i.20-22). Everyone is equal in the face of death, as well as of suffering. The magic of authority belongs to the person who has professional skill and courage in a crisis.

After the prologue of the ship in the storm, we listen to Prospero's narrative of the past and look back to two political states, Milan and Naples, which were at enmity with each other. We are not told why. Within Milan itself there was conflict. Prospero, “rapt in secret studies,” entrusted the “manage” of his state to his brother Antonio (I.ii.77, 70). Prospero wished to improve himself, and that takes time, but government has to go on now, which poses a political problem. It is desirable for the best people to govern, but we can't wait—government must go on now.

Does Prospero tempt Antonio? Yes. Since Antonio is actually doing the work of governing, he is tempted to want the position of rightful governor. He abuses his trust and conspires with a foreign state, thereby not only breaking faith with his brother, but also committing treason to his city. Politically, the two states, Milan and Naples, soon become friends. Before, Milan had been independent, now it must pay tribute. Antonio, with the aid of Alonso, turns his brother and Miranda out. Prospero is helped by Gonzalo, who is not strong enough to break with Alonso, since he can't bear unpleasantness, but who won't countenance violence. Prospero loves self-improvement, Antonio loves personal power, Alonso loves political glory somewhat, but mostly he loves his family. He is devoted to his son Ferdinand. There is the curious story that he has been to Tunis for the marriage of his daughter, Claribel. It is suggested—and not denied—that this was an advantageous marriage of convenience, a marriage for family glory. Alonso is a fundamentally decent person who is led by his wishes for his family into deeds of which he has to be ashamed. He regards Prospero as an enemy.

The story of the island's past starts with Sycorax, who was banished from Algiers for sorcery—they would not take her life. It echoes the story of a witch who raised a storm when Charles V besieged the city in 1421. Sycorax gave birth to Caliban, the father being either the Devil or the god Setebos. Sycorax obtains Ariel either in Algiers or on the island, and confines him to a pine tree. When Prospero comes to the island, he releases him and finds Caliban. Sycorax introduces into the play a world of black magic like that of the witches in Macbeth, and her counterfeit city of malice and discord is presented as a parody of the city of concord and love. She saved the city of Algiers by raising a storm, but it was by accident. She can do a malicious deed, but not a good one—she can't release Ariel, for example.

Prospero is like Theseus in A Midsummer Night's Dream, he is like the Duke in Measure for Measure in his severity, and as a puppet master, he is Hamlet transformed. Prospero tried to make Caliban a conscious person, and only made him worse. He has lost his savage freedom:

For I am all the subjects that you have,
Which first was mine own king;

(I.ii.341-42)

and he has lost his savage innocence:

You taught me language, and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse.

(I.ii.362-63)

Caliban could move from simple feeling to consciousness and from appetite to passion, but no further. He nonetheless remains essential to Prospero and Miranda.

There is a significant parallel between The Tempest and The Magic Flute. The problem posed in both works is the nature of education. Sarastro is like Prospero, the Queen of the Night like Sycorax, Monostatos like Caliban, and Tamino and Pamina like Ferdinand and Miranda. How do people react to education? You must go all the way if you start. You can be lowbrow or highbrow, you can't be middlebrow. Caliban might have been his “own king” (I.ii.342) once, but when he becomes a conscious being, he has to govern himself and he can't. Tamino, like Ferdinand, goes through tests in order to win Pamina. Papageno, who is living off the Queen of the Night, also wants things—he wants to be married. The Priest warns Tamino of his trials, and Tamino professes himself willing to undergo them. Papageno says he'll stay single if he has to submit to tests and risk death. An old woman appears and makes love to Papageno, and he eventually gives his hand to her rather than live a tough life. Though he refuses the ordeal, Papageno does get the prize when the old woman turns into Papagena. Why? He's rewarded because he's willing to pay his own kind of price—to stay single or marry an old woman. Like Monostatos, Caliban wants to have his cake and eat it. Why, through education, should he have to be obliged to exercise self-control? He wants a princess, too. Monostatos says, “Lieber guter Mond, vergebe, / Eine Weisse nahm mich ein”: Dear good moon, forgive me, a white woman has taken my fancy. He wants to force himself on the princess and must be prevented by Sarastro. White magic, the city of love, works beneficently with Miranda, but it has to rule some by fear.

Ariel and Caliban both want freedom. Caliban wants freedom to follow his appetites, Ariel wants pure freedom from any experience. In Renan's version of The Tempest, Caliban goes back to Milan. He revolts and conquers, and says he's angry with Prospero for his deception, for instilling superstition in his subjects. Prospero is arrested by the Inquisition, and Caliban defends and later frees him. Prospero says that now that the people are positivists, no magic will work. But that means no government will work, because people believe only what they can touch and feel.

Hal's kingdom in The Tempest includes Alonso, who resembles Henry IV, a good but guilty king, Gonzalo, who is a nice Polonius, and Antonio, who is like Iago, toned down—he can govern himself, but his ego controls his conscience. It also includes the weaker Sebastian, and Adrian and Francisco, who are like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and take suggestion as a cat laps milk. The political reconciliation and equality of Milan and Naples is effected by both good and evil means, by Antonio and Sebastian's plotting as well as by Prospero's. Antonio suggests the death of Alonso to Sebastian, and since no immediate benefit is apparent, one suspects he has a further card up his sleeve. Antonio and Sebastian govern, but also love, their selves. Alonso loves others, especially Ferdinand, and through that love is made to suffer more.

Falstaff's kingdom is made up of Stephano, Trinculo, and Caliban. Trinculo recalls all of Shakespeare's earlier clowns, Stephano resembles Sir Toby Belch, and Caliban recollects both Bottom and Thersites. Together, they resemble the crowds in Henry VI, Julius Caesar, and Coriolanus. If Hal's kingdom becomes smaller, less glorious, Falstaff's becomes much uglier. Compare the filthy, mantled pool in The Tempest and Falstaff's being thrown into the water in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Stephano and Trinculo desire money and girls, Caliban wants freedom from books, work, and authority. Their magic is drink, not music, like Prospero's, and they are ruled by appetite. There are differences among them. Trinculo is good-natured, Stephano is quite brave, and both lack the passion that Caliban has, the passion of resentment. Caliban deifies those like Stephano who gives what he likes, not what he ought to like. Caliban, however, is the one who recognizes that Prospero's books—consciousness—are the danger. “Remember / First to possess his books; for without them / He's but a sot, as I am. … Burn but his books” (III.ii.99-101, 103). Caliban is worse, but less decadent, than the townees, Stephano and Trinculo. When Ariel plays on the tabor and pipe, the three have different reactions. Stephano is defiant. Trinculo cries, “O, forgive me my sins!” (III.ii.139). Caliban, on the other hand, is capable of hearing the music:

Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices
That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that, when I wak'd,
I cried to dream again.

(III.ii.144-52)

Caliban wishes to go back to unconsciousness. Gonzalo, on the contrary, sees Utopia in an ideal future. Both are unrelated to the present. Caliban knows what's to be done when they reach Prospero's cell. Stephano and Trinculo forget it and go for the clothes. On one side, they're not murderous people, on the other, they've no sense of direction.

Then there is the kingdom of Ferdinand and Miranda. Ferdinand is descended from Romeo and Florizel, Miranda from Juliet, Cordelia, and Marina. Both are good but untempted and inexperienced—they think that love can produce Gonzalo's Utopia here and now. In the scene in which they make vows of marriage to each other, Ferdinand says he is willing to serve Miranda and do Caliban's job of carrying logs, and Miranda offers to carry the logs herself. For both of them, love, service, and freedom are the same.

MIR.
                                                                                To be your fellow
You may deny me; but I'll be your servant,
Whether you will or no.
FER.
                                                                                My mistress, dearest!
And I thus humble ever.
MIR.
                                                                                          My husband then?
FER.
Ay, with a heart as willing
As bondage e'er of freedom.

(III.i.84-89)

Ferdinand and Miranda are far off both from the witty characters who fight for freedom in the comedies and from the great poetic tragic lovers like Romeo and Juliet, and Antony and Cleopatra. They are not allowed to say the wonderful poetic things that are so suspicious when they're said.

Before he presents the wedding masque to Ferdinand and Miranda, Prospero warns them against lust:

Look thou be true. Do not give dalliance
Too much the rein. The strongest oaths are straw
To th' fire i' th' blood. Be more abstemious,
Or else good night your vow!

(IV.i.51-54)

In the masque itself, where Ceres represents earth, Iris water, Juno sky, and Venus, sinisterly, fire, there is the curious and interesting remark by Ceres to Iris, that Venus and Cupid had thought

                                                                                                              to have done
Some wanton charm upon this man and maid,
Whose vows are, that no bed-right shall be paid
Till Hymen's torch be lighted; but in vain.

(IV.i.94-97)

Ferdinand and Miranda don't realize these difficulties and so are spared.

The Tempest ends, like the other plays in Shakespeare's last period, in reconciliation and forgiveness. But the ending in The Tempest is grimmer, and the sky is darker than in The Winter's Tale, Pericles, and Cymbeline. Everybody in the earlier plays asks forgiveness and gets it, but Prospero, Miranda, Ferdinand, Gonzalo, and Alonso are the only ones really in the magic circle of The Tempest. Alonso is forgiven because he asks to be. He is the least guilty, and he suffers most. Gonzalo, who is always good, needs to be forgiven his weakness. Neither Antonio nor Sebastian say a word to Prospero—their only words after the reconciliation are mockery at Trinculo, Stephano, and Caliban. They're spared punishment, but they can't be said to be forgiven because they don't want to be, and Prospero's forgiveness of them means only that he does not take revenge upon them. Caliban is pardoned conditionally, and he, Stephano, and Trinculo can't be said to be repentant. They realize only that they're on the wrong side, and admit they are fools, not that they are wrong. All this escapes Miranda, who says:

                                                                                                                                            O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in't!

To which Prospero answers, “'Tis new to thee” (V.i.181-84). And the play hardly ends for Prospero on a note of great joy. He tells everyone:

I'll bring you to your ship, and so to Naples,
Where I have hope to see the nuptial
Of these our dear-belov'd solemnized;
And thence retire me to my Milan, where
Every third thought shall be my grave.

(V.i.307-11)

We come now to the inner and outer music of The Tempest. There are Ariel's songs:

Come unto these yellow sands,
          And then take hands.
Curtsied when you have and kiss'd,
          The wild waves whist,
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.
          Hark, hark!

(I.ii.375-81)

Full fadom 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:

(I.ii.376-402)

Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie;
There I couch when 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.

(V.i.88-94)

There is music to put people to sleep and to waken them, “strange and solemn music” at the banquet (III.iii.18), “Soft music” for the wedding (IV.i.59), and “Solemn music,” after Prospero buries his staff (V.i.57), to charm the court party. The sounds of the play also include the storm, thunder, and dogs. Some music is associated with Caliban's hate and Antonio's ambition, as well as with Ferdinand's grief for his father. There is more music in the scenes with Prospero and Miranda, Ferdinand and Miranda, and Gonzalo and Alonso than anywhere else in the play.

The nature of the magician, which is legitimately allied with that of the artist in the play, has to do with music. What does Shakespeare say about music in his plays? In the Merchant of Venice, Lorenzo says:

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.

(V.i.83-85)

In later plays, music is often used as a medicine. The Doctor in King Lear calls for music as Lear awakens from his madness (IV.vii.25). Cerimon in Pericles awakens Thaisa to the accompaniment of music (III.ii.88-91), and Paulina calls for music as Hermione's statue comes to life in The Winter's Tale (V.iii.98). In Antony and Cleopatra, sad music is played in the air and under the earth as we learn that “the god Hercules, whom Antony lov'd, / Now leaves him” (IV.iii.15-16). Balthazar's song in Much Ado About Nothing, “Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! / Men were deceivers ever” (II.iii.64-76) is a warning against the infidelity of men and the folly of women's taking them seriously. In Measure for Measure, when Mariana says that a song has displeased her mirth, “but pleas'd my woe,” the Duke replies by stating the puritanical case against the heard music of the world:

'Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm
To make bad good, and good provoke to harm.

(IV.i.14-15)

Even the worst of characters, Caliban, is sensitive to music.

Prospero's magic depends upon his books and his robes. By himself he is an ordinary man, not Faustian. He depends also on “bountiful Fortune” and “a most auspicious star” (I.ii.178, 182) to bring his old enemies to the island. What does he do? He says, in his speech to the “elves of hills” and “demi-puppets” that with their help he has

                                                                                                                                                      bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault
Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong bas'd promontory
Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar; graves at my command
Have wak'd their sleepers, op'd, and let 'em forth
By my so potent art.

“But this rough magic,” he says, “I here abjure” (V.i.41-51). The first thing we hear of Prospero doing on the island is releasing Ariel. What magic he does between that action and the storm with which the play begins we don't know and don't care. He raises storms to separate characters so that they may become independent. He allays the water by music, he leads on and disarms Ferdinand, he sends all but Antonio and Sebastian to sleep so that they can reveal their natures, he wakes Gonzalo, he saves Alonso's life, he produces a banquet to force guilt upon the consciousness of the members of the court, he creates a masque just to please the lovers, he engages in fooling Stephano and Trinculo and Caliban, and he produces the solemn music of his charms. With the help of immediate illusions, he leads characters to disillusion and self-knowledge, the opposite of the effects of drink and of Venus.

What can't magic do? It can give people an experience, but it cannot dictate the use they make of that experience. Alonso is reminded of his crime against Prospero, but he repents by himself. Ferdinand and Miranda are tested, but the quality of their love is their own. The bad are exposed and shown that crime doesn't pay, but they can't be made to give up their ambition. That art thus cannot transform men grieves Prospero greatly. His anger at Caliban stems from his consciousness of this failure, which he confesses to, aside and alone—he doesn't explain it to Ferdinand and Miranda:

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.

(IV.i.188-92)

You can hold the mirror up to a person, but you may make him worse.

At the end Prospero himself asks forgiveness in the epilogue. Some say the epilogue is not by Shakespeare, but it is still beautiful:

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint. Now 'tis true
I must be here confin'd by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell;
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands.
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;
And my ending is despair
Unless I be reliev'd by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.

Rilke, at the end of his poem “The Spirit Ariel,” writes of the epilogue to The Tempest:

                                                                                Now he terrifies me,
this man who's once more duke.—The way he draws
the wire into his head, and hangs himself
beside the other puppets, and henceforth
asks mercy of the play! … What epilogue
of achieved mastery! Putting off, standing there
with only one's own strength: “which is most faint.”