Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories

by Leon Garfield

  “What were these?” marvelled the King; and he spoke in admiring tones of the gentleness of the spirits.

  “Praise in departing,” murmured Prospero, the invisible watcher of the scene. For as the hungry lords approached the feast, there was a roar of thunder and a glare of lighting! The glade darkened, there was a thudding of huge wings, and down flew a hideous bird, with the head of a hag and with talons like grappling irons! It perched on the table, clapped its wings, and the feast vanished! Then it turned its red-pouched eyes accusingly on Alonzo, the King of Naples, Sebastian, his brother, and Antonio, Duke of Milan, and shrieked: “You are three men of sin!”

  In terror, they drew their swords. Prospero raised his staff. They cried out, staggered, their arms nearly breaking, for their swords were suddenly as heavy as churches! A wild wind began to blow; the trees bent, and the glade seemed enclosed in a dark bubble of tempest. Then the Harpy on the table, in tones that rode the uproar, damned the three men of sin for their old crime against Prospero. It was for this that they were now being punished.

  Then lightning blazed again, thunder bellowed, and the Harpy spread its wings and flew away. At once the tempest faded, and the filmy shapes, with the same gentle courtesy as before, returned and bore the table away. Prospero’s enemies stared at one another; their faces were grey with guilt.

  Prospero nodded. His enemies were within his power. Ariel, in the shape of the Harpy, had done well. Then he remembered Ferdinand, that patient log-bearer, whose back was likely to break before his spirit, and Miranda, who loved him. Swiftly Prospero departed, leaving the glade distracted as the guilty men fled in desperation, and the frightened lords followed anxiously after.

  “If I have too austerely punished you,” said Prospero, smiling faintly as Miranda nodded and Ferdinand, bruised and aching, stoutly disclaimed, “Your compensation makes amends . . .” Then he revealed that his harshness had been only to test their love and constancy; upon which they smiled modestly, like children who have done well at school. “Sit then,” said Prospero, gesturing towards Ferdinand’s last log; and, while they sat, side by side, with no eyes but for each other, he summoned Ariel. The great enchanter was not without vanity. Seeing the enchantment in which the lovers held one another, he was stirred to show them that his own power was still greater. Quietly he instructed his servant, who bowed and bowed and sped away. The lovers murmured on. Suddenly there was music in the air, as soft and sweet as any the isle had known. But the lovers murmured on. A strange golden light began to suffuse the grass before them; but the lovers saw only the light in each other’s eyes, and still they murmured on.

  “No tongue!” commanded Prospero, not without irritation; “all eyes! be silent!”

  Guiltily the lovers obeyed; and their eyes grew round with wonderment. Three strange, unearthly women, had stepped out of the air and on to the green stage. They were tall, shining and gracious and robed, it seemed, in softly-coloured vapours. One was Iris, goddess of the rainbow; one was Ceres, goddess of the harvest; and one was Juno, goddess of them all. Ceremoniously they bowed to the lovers and blessed their coming marriage in stately song.

  “This is a most majestic vision!” breathed Ferdinand, amazed; and Prospero, gratified by so respectful a response, raised his staff. At once, it was as if the whole world had been an invisible playhouse that had opened its store and tumbled out its richest treasures! A gorgeous crowd of spirits came swirling, dancing out of nowhere, and filled the green: spirits of stream and woodland, of flocks and pastures, smiling nymphs and weird fantastic reapers . . .

  Suddenly Prospero stood up. His face was dark with anger! The music faltered and broke up into harsh noises, and the spirits, with looks of dismay, vanished back into the air.

  In the midst of his magic, Prospero had remembered Caliban and his murderous plot. The time for it was almost ripe. Then he saw that his sudden anger and the abrupt departure of the vision had distressed the lovers.

  “Be cheerful, sir,” he urged, taking pity on the confused Ferdinand. “Our revels now are ended . . .” He begged the lovers to leave him for a while. He was disturbed, and wished, as he put it, “to still the beating of my mind.”

  When they had retired, with many a backward glance, into the house, he called Ariel to his side and bade him lay out on a line certain bright and showy garments that were in his possession. He had enchanted a King with an imaginary feast; lovers with imaginary goddesses; for drunkards there was no more need than to lay out fine clothes.

  There was a crashing and a stumbling and a blind blundering among the trees as the butler, the jester and the monster drew near the enchanter’s house. They had followed the unseen musician through clinging bush and spiteful briar, through filthy ditch and stinking pool, they had lost their bottles, their tempers and their wits, and were as foul and reeking as their thoughts.

  “Prithee, my King, be quiet!” warned Caliban, for they were almost at Prospero’s dwelling, where murder was to be done. “Give me thy hand,” belched Stephano, swaying horribly. “I do begin to have bloody thoughts!” The conspirators put their fingers to their lips, and tottered on.

  Suddenly Trinculo saw finery hanging, like executed courtiers, on a line: saw robes and gowns, hats like velvet puddings and wondrous cloaks fit for a duke or a bishop, and instantly saw, in his muddy mind’s eye, a Trinculo new-made and marvellous beyond belief.

  “Let it alone, thou fool; it is but trash!” cried Caliban, alarmed; but it was too late. Stephano also had been captivated, and was seeing a new Stephano, a glittering, magnificent and even kingly Stephano . . .

  “Put off that gown, Trinculo!” he shouted, for the lowly jester had seized on the best one. “Let it alone!” howled Caliban, as his companions began to squabble over the treasures. “Do the murder first!” But they were too busy fighting and struggling and thrusting heads into armholes and making gaudy ghosts with their waving arms, to heed the monster’s warning.

  Then came a sudden noise of horns and barking dogs. At once, heads came out of sleeves, like conjuror’s eggs, and glared palely. Where was the hunt, and who was the quarry? In a moment they knew. Out of the trees there came bounding, with savage eyes and hungry jaws, a pack of huge phantom hounds! The conspirators howled with terror and fled!

  Contemptuously, the huntsmen, Prospero and Ariel, urged on the dogs and watched the quarry run.

  His enemies were at his mercy, and the time for vengeance was at hand. Soon all would be over, and Ariel would have to be set free. “How fares the King and ’s followers?” he asked his impatient, yet ever-obedient servant. Ariel told him that they had been divided and held in separate enchantments: the King, his brother and Antonio in one place, and the other lords elsewhere. “Him you termed, sir, ‘the good old lord Gonzalo’; his tears run down his beard like winter’s drops,” said the spirit gently. “If you now beheld them, your affections would become tender.”

  “Dost thou think so, spirit?” asked Prospero, looking strangely at the quick, unearthly creature at his side.

  “Mine would, sir, were I human,” answered Ariel.

  The enchanter bowed his head. The spirit had taught him. Though he had acted like a god, had raised a tempest and brought men to darkest despair, he himself was still human; and vengeance was for the worst, not the best of his kind. “Go release them, Ariel,” he commanded. “My charms I’ll break, their senses I’ll restore.”

  When his servant had gone, Prospero drew a circle on the ground with his staff. This was to be the last of his magic, his last enchantment. Though he had, in the past, performed huge wonders, had commanded the sun, the sea, and even the dead to obey him, though he had made kings of spirits and ghosts of kings, he had now reached the furthest limits of his power.

  He stood aside and concealed himself as Ariel returned, leading the King and all his lords. To the accompaniment of solemn music, the spirit led them into the circle, where at once they were held, like a wooden King and wooden lords, unable to move or to spea
k. One by one Prospero contemplated them and, as the calming music played, his enemies, fixed in look and attitude, some with arms raised, some with mouths open as if about to speak, seemed less real than dreams.

  He sighed and shook his head, and sent Ariel to fetch the sword and hat and robes that he had worn when he was Duke of Milan. Swiftly Ariel returned, and, singing merrily, helped to attire the enchanter until he was exactly that Prospero, Duke of Milan, whom Alonzo, Sebastian and Antonio had treacherously overthrown and believed long dead.

  “Why, that’s my dainty Ariel!” murmured Prospero, when the task was done. “I shall miss thee!” Then he despatched the spirit to the King’s ship, to awaken the sailors from their charmed sleep. As Ariel departed, the solemn music ceased, and the still figures in the circle began to move. They looked about them, rubbed their eyes; then amazement fixed them again. The dead had risen! Before them, in all his familiar dignity, stood Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan!

  Most amiably, even affectionately, the betrayed Duke bade them all welcome. But this was too much for the King, who had long suffered inwardly from the wickedness towards Prospero that he himself had helped to bring about. “Pardon me my wrongs!” he begged, and with all the anguish of true repentance.

  But to Prospero, love and gratitude came before forgiveness, and he warmly embraced old Gonzalo, whose kindness towards himself and his helpless child he had never forgotten. The old man stammered out his astonishment and joy; but before he could continue, doubtless into lengthy philosophy, Prospero turned to Sebastian and Antonio. “That brace of lords”, as he called them, stood with dread in their eyes. They knew full well that Prospero had seen them through and through, that he had seen not only their villainy towards himself, but also their plot to kill the King. Then Prospero said quietly: “At this time I will tell no tales,” and they breathed again. They had been forgiven by silence, which made light of themselves, and left their crimes to weigh upon their hearts.

  Last of all, Prospero turned to the King, who still wept for his lost son. Prospero nodded, and confided that he himself had lost a daughter. “O heavens!” cried the King, and wished that he could have died instead, and that his son and Prospero’s daughter were alive and King and Queen of Naples. “When did you lose your daughter?”

  “In this last tempest,” answered Prospero, turning aside to hide his smile. Then he begged the King to enter his house, which, though humble, held a wonder that might well please the King as much as the return of his dukedom pleased Prospero. Doubtfully the King approached. Prospero opened wide the door; and the King cried out! There within sat Ferdinand and Miranda, at play for kingdoms over a game of chess!

  “O wonder!” cried Miranda, seeing so many lords and all at once, and each far fairer than Caliban. “How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in it!”

  “ ’Tis new to thee,” murmured Prospero, with a suddenly sad smile.

  Then the lost son embraced the lost father, and the King discovered that his son and Prospero’s daughter were indeed to be married, and his own hopeless hope had been fulfilled, without his having to die for it! Then Ariel brought the sleepy sailors, and there was more amazement, as all had believed each other drowned. “This is as strange a maze as e’er men trod,” wondered the King. Prospero begged the King not to trouble his thoughts with the mysteries of the day. Presently he would tell all. He looked about him, as if counting up the number present. He frowned. “There are yet missing of your company,” he said, “some few odd lads that you remember not.”

  The few odd lads, in number, two, and in person, one Stephano, a butler, and one Trinculo, a jester, together with a lumbering, brutish creature that seemed neither fish nor flesh, but stank of both, were driven in by Ariel.

  They still wore their stolen finery, but such was the scratched, cramped misery it hung upon, that each seemed a mockery of the other. “Two of these fellows you must know and own,” said Prospero. Then, pointing to Caliban, confessed: “This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.”

  “How fine my master is!” cried Caliban, seeing Prospero in ducal robes; and straightway transferred his allegiance to the better man. “What a thrice-double ass was I, to take this drunkard for a god, and worship this dull fool!” No hint of contradiction came from his companions; they were too sore to do anything but admit the truth.

  Prospero dismissed them, and with no worse punishment than to put back what they had stolen. Then Prospero renewed his invitation to the King to enter his house, where he would tell him all, and, in the morning, sail with him to Naples, for the wedding of their children; after which, he himself would retire to his dukedom of Milan.

  “I’ll deliver all,” he assured the King; “and promise you calm seas, auspicious gales . . . My Ariel, chick,” he murmured to his hovering, beloved servant, “that is thy charge; then to the elements be free, and fare thou well!” Ariel laughed; and then, with a thousand thousand bows that made a shining circle round the enchanter, the spirit fled.

  That night, when all had retired to bed, Prospero stood by the sea, a tall and lonely figure, silvered by starlight. First his magic mantle, then his magic book, and last of all his staff, broken in two, he cast into the waves. He had no more need of them, nor of the enchanted isle. By his art he had made men see themselves, and, through make-believe, come to truth. Now he, too, like Ariel and Caliban, longed to be free.

  The Merchant of Venice

  In the watery city of Venice, where high-necked boats, like children’s painted horses, nod and curtsey along the flowing streets, and the bright air is full of the winks and chinks of smiling money, there lived a merchant by the name of Antonio. He was as good and upright a man as ever merchant was, and all his wealth was laid out in tall, billowing vessels that ventured for trade far and wide.

  He had everything a merchant might have wished for; but he was melancholy and knew not why. It was as if there was a shadow over the sun, cooling his pleasures and darkening his days. As he strolled along the busy Rialto, where rich men gathered in their velvet caps and brocaded gowns and talked of affairs, two friends tried to discover the cause of his sadness, and so cure it. Was he troubled about the safety of his vessels? Or was he in love, which was a mournful business if ever there was one? He shook his head.

  As they walked, they were joined by three young men, dressed in the height of silken fashion. Their names were Bassanio, Lorenzo and Gratiano, and at first sight there seemed little else to choose between them. They were three young men with nothing better to do than to stroll, and talk, and laugh and enjoy being young.

  “You look not well, Signior Antonio,” observed Gratiano, who was the liveliest of the three, “you have too much respect upon the world . . .”

  The merchant disclaimed; and Gratiano rattled on, nineteen to the dozen, if not twenty, until even he became wearied of his own chatter. Linking arms with Lorenzo, he drifted away after the others, who had already gone. The merchant and Bassanio were left alone.

  “Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing,” said Bassanio, falling into seriousness as if out of respect for his companion’s grave looks.

  Antonio smiled. He was deeply fond of Bassanio and looked upon him almost as a son. It often happens with older men, whose sober lives are lined and straitened in with affairs of business, that they look fondly on the happy carelessness of youth, as they might take pleasure in the spring time’s birds.

  There was a lady that Bassanio had talked of, and had promised to speak of again. Antonio inquired about her but Bassanio shook his head. He carried too heavy a cargo of present troubles to spread his sails for love. He had spent all his rich inheritance and was drowning in a sea of debts.

  “To you, Antonio,” he confessed, “I owe the most in money and in love . . .”

  Antonio bade him not think of it. It grieved the good merchant to see the carefree young man grow grey and pinched for the want of so mean a thing as money.

  “My purse, my perso
n,” he offered impulsively, “my extremest means lie all unlocked to your occasions.”

  Bassanio needed no more invitation. If but Antonio would lend him what he needed for a certain enterprise, then Bassanio was confident all would be repaid. The merchant smiled at the young man’s enthusiasm, and asked what the certain enterprise might be? Bassanio hesitated; and sighed.

  “In Belmont,” said he, with an ardent look, “is a lady richly left . . .” Not only was this lady as lovely as she was rich, but she was jewelled with every virtue; and suitors came from far and wide to gain her heart and hand. “Her name is Portia,” said Bassanio, as if in that name was enshrined all the beauty of the world. He had seen her once and had received such encouragement from her eyes that he was sure he would succeed in winning her. That is, if only he had the money to present himself before her as a suitor of equal worth among his rivals.

  Antonio nodded. Maybe it was not an enterprise that a sober merchant would have embarked upon, but it seemed proper for a youth like Bassanio, who was made, not for trade, but for love.

  “Thou know’st,” he began, “that all my fortunes are at sea; neither have I money nor commodity to raise a present sum.” Here, Bassanio began to look dismayed. Antonio continued: “Therefore go forth, try what my credit can in Venice do. Go presently inquire (and so will I) where money is . . .”