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to show them around the island. Believing that the royal party are all drowned, Stephano suggests that he and Trinculo can now inherit the island. Meanwhile, Caliban is delighted to have exchanged masters and leads them off singing drunkenly.
    The attitudes of the two strangers to the island toward its native inhabitants are callous, opportunistic, and self-serving. Caliban, meanwhile, is revealed to be ingenuous and naïve.
ACT 3 SCENE 1
    Ferdinand enters carrying wood but, in contrast to Caliban, is happy to perform this menial task because of his love for Miranda, despite her father’s harshness toward him. She visits him and offers to carrythe logs herself. He refuses and asks her name, which, against her father’s injunction, she tells him. Ferdinand then confesses his deep admiration and love and she innocently acknowledges her own. Unbeknownst to them both, Prospero has been watching the scene.
ACT 3 SCENE 2
    Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo are drunk. Caliban and Trinculo quarrel. Stephano, however, defends Caliban and threatens to hang Trinculo. Caliban then relates his own history and tells them about Prospero and Miranda. He details plans for Prospero’s murder, dwelling on the need to destroy his books (ll. 86–91). The interventions of the invisible Ariel lead to further contention. Again Stephano restores peace and they set off to kill Prospero and make Stephano king of the island and Miranda his queen. The sound of Ariel’s music instills fear in the others, but in a passage of arresting poetry Caliban reassures them about the island and its “noises, / Sounds and sweet airs” (ll. 131–139). They follow the music offstage.
ACT 3 SCENE 3
    The courtiers are tired and weary of wandering around the island seeking Ferdinand. They rest while Antonio and Sebastian in asides reiterate their plan to murder Alonso at the next opportunity.
    Meanwhile Prospero, now invisible, enters accompanied by the sounds of music and by “strange shapes” who set out a banquet. The courtiers are amazed but prepare to eat when they are interrupted by thunder and lightning. Ariel enters as a harpy this time and causes the banquet to vanish. He addresses Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio as “three men of sin” (l. 64). As they draw their swords Prospero tells them that he and his fellows are invulnerable and goes on to relate his real concern, their part in Prospero’s overthrow many years before, for which reason they are now being punished and Alonso is “bereft” of his son (l. 87). Ariel vanishes in another clap of thunder and the shapes reenter to remove the table. Prospero congratulates Ariel on his performance and the fact that his enemiesare now in his power. Alonso is deeply affected by the experience, wishing only to join his son (ll. 107–114). Gonzalo fears that the “great guilt” of the three will make them desperate.
ACT 4 SCENE 1
    The fourth act comprises one long running scene.
    Lines 1–65: Prospero explains to Ferdinand that his harsh treatment was designed as a test of his character and love. Having passed the test he is rewarded by being given Miranda in marriage, with the warning that any premarital sex would curse their union. Ferdinand reassures him that his thoughts are chaste. He tells them to sit and calls for Ariel, who is now to bring “the rabble” to that place. In the meantime Prospero plans a demonstration of his magical arts for the pair.
    Lines 66–177: He stages a nuptial masque of the goddesses Iris, Juno, and Ceres to celebrate “a contract of true love.” Ferdinand is impressed by the spectacle: the goddesses are then joined by a group of pastoral rustics and they dance gracefully together until Prospero suddenly remembers Caliban’s plot to kill him. The masque figures vanish instantly. Prospero attempts to disguise his fury before Ferdinand and Miranda in a speech that has been regarded by some critics as a rehearsal of Shakespeare’s own symbolic farewell to the theater,