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 confined 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 relieved 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 .
This is the final soliloquy from Prospero in The Tempest, and it reveals how conflicted and restricted Prospero felt. He laments the loss of magic and the feeling of bondage he is experiencing. I couldn't help but feeling some sympathy for the man; his emotions seem so real and true to even our day here in the 21st Century.
Prospero has one thing on me, since I can't quite control the elements, but he does feel a lot of things that I've felt: anger, self-pity, blaming others, desire to be in charge of others, etc. "The Necessary Shakespeare" described Prospero's plight in a nice way: "He must overcome the vengeful impulse he experiences toward those how have wronged him...he seems even sexist and racist in his arrogating to himself the right and responsibility to control others in the name of values they may not share." I thought that was a nice analysis of the protagonist Prospero from the Tempest.
As a side note, some say that this epilogue is a representation of Shakespeare's own feelings, as it may have been the last play he wrote by himself. Any comments from my fellow Shakespeare bloggers?
