Difficult The Tempest Quiz | 20 Questions | Literature

Answer: briskly

He's telling the boatswain to speak to the mariners. The boatswain himself uses the word 'yare' as an adjective in Act 5: 'our ship...is tight and yare and bravely rigg'd.'

Answer: He was born to be hanged, not drowned

Gonzalo, clutching at straws.

Answer: Milan

Due to the demands of iambic pentameter, the word Milan should always be ponounced Millen on stage, rather than Mil-AN.

Answer: Gonzalo

Prospero throughout the play speaks affectionately of {Gonzalo;} it is worth remembering when critics accuse Prospero of being an aloof and autocratic figure.

Answer: I flamed amazement

Difficult thing to do on stage, unless you've got a great big torch.

Answer: There's wood enough within

Caliban is concealed in his den at this point - at The Globe in the early 17th century, the den would have been situated at the back of the stage, enhancing the drama of Caliban's entrance.

Answer: Alonso

Alonso, of course, is not drowned - ironically, he is simultaneously bewailing the loss of his son.

Answer: Francisco

Other than this speech, Francisco has only three other words in the {play;} some critics have inferred that there is therefore a 'lost' version of The Tempest in which Adrian and Francisco had a much more prominent part, their goodness paralleling the wickedness of Antonio and Sebastian.

Answer: No sovereignty on the island and yet he would be king of it

Dear old Gonzalo - he deserves better than to be the butt of Antonio and Sebastian's constant gibes. His 'I'th'commonwealth' speech draws heavily from Montaigne's 'Des Cannibales'

Answer: kibe

A kibe is a blister or sore on the back of the heel. It also appears in 'King Lear', Act 1 Scene 5: the Fool says 'If a man's brains were in his heels, were't not in danger of kibes?'

Answer: fish

It is Caliban's rather dubious scent as he lies beneath his 'gaberdine' that leads Trinculo to make his mistake.

Answer: Kiss the book

Stephano's ample supplies of wine have come from the 'butt of sack' that he used as a lifeboat during the tempest.

Answer: Thou liest

This scene is derivative of the 'echo-scene' which was a staple of the commedia del'arte.

Answer: tabour and pipe

A tabour (also sometimes written tabor) was a small drum, worn at the side.

Answer: That give delight and hurt not

An extraordinary and poignant speech in which Caliban demonstrates an aesthetic sensitivity quite at odds with the stereotypical perception of him as a brutish neanderthal.

Answer: a woman and an eagle

The best description of the harpy I have ever read comes in Book 3 of Virgil's Aeneid: 'No monster is more grim than the Harpies: no stroke of divine wrath was ever more cruel and no wickeder demon ever soared upwards from the waters of Styx. They are birds with girls' countenances and a disgusting outflow from their bellies.

Their hands have talons and their faces are always pallid with hunger.'

Answer: spirits in the shape of dogs and hounds

The critic Thorndike has seen in the hunting scene a kind of 'anti-masque', that should be looked at in conjunction with the wedding masque that immediately precedes it.

Answer: chess

An interesting moment. Might the fact that the young lovers are discovered playing chess hint that the unification of Milan and Naples may not proceed as smoothly as anticipated?

Answer: A most high miracle!

Hitherto, Sebastian has seemed a snide and cynical figure. Can we at this point, though, see the genuine relief of a fond uncle? If so, it places his earlier, extraordinarily harsh apportioning of blame upon Alonso for Sebastian's death - 'the fault's your own!' - in a slightly kinder context.

Answer: Once

His virtual silence suggests that the reconciliation between the two brothers is superficial at best.