We are reading The Tempest right now and we have reached the Act 1, scene 2. The sentences in this play vary. Some are extremely long and difficult to understand while others are short and easy to understand. Below are some sentences that are either easy or hard.

These are two examples of sentences I don’t understand.

Example 1: “The wrack of all my friends, nor this man’s threats to whom I am subdued, are but light to me, might I but through my prison once a day behold this maid. All corners else o’ th’ earth let liberty make use of. Space enough have I in such a prison.”

Example 2: “Vouchsafe my prayer may know if you remain upon this island, and that you will some good instruction give how I may bear me here. My prime request, which I do last pronounce, is -O you wonder!-If you be maid or no.”

These are two examples of sentences I do understand and here are the translations.

Example 1: “Go make thyself like a nymph o’ th’ sea. Be subject to no sight but thine and mine, invisible to every eyeball else. Go, take this shape, and hither come in ‘t. Go, hence with diligence!”

Translation: “Go disguise yourself like a nymph of the sea. Be unseen to everybody except you and me, invisible to everyone else. Go and take this form and come back to this place. For this reason, go with caution!”

Example 2: “In few, they hurried us aboard a bark, bore us some leagues to sea, where they prepared a rotten carcass of a butt, not rigged nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats instinctively have quit it. There they hoist us to cry to th’ sea that roared to us, to sigh to th’ winds, whose pity, sighing back again, did us but loving wrong.”

Translation: “Briefly, they hurried us aboard a small sailboat, took us for a few leagues (miles) out to sea, where they prepared a old, rotten cask, not fixed, it had neither any equipment, nor sail or mast; even the rats automatically left it. There they put us out to the sea so we can cry to the sea and roared back at us, to sigh to the winds, whose pity, sighing back again, did us by loving the wrong people.”

These are two questions about the plot.

1) Why did Prospero distribute the voyagers in different groups around the island? Why didn’t he leave them all together?

2) Why does Ariel have to be a nymph of the sea to follow Ferdinand and how does this disguise help him?