His puppets no longer interest him; he is
careless of characterization. Ferdinand says:
"This music crept by me upon the waters
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air."
Music, it will be remembered, had precisely the same peculiar effect
upon Duke Orsino in "Twelfth Night." Ferdinand, too, is extraordinarily
conceited:
"I am the best of them that speak this speech.
.... Myself am Naples."
Shakespeare's natural aristocratic pride as a Prince reinforced by his
understanding of his own real importance. Ferdinand then declares he
will be content with a prison if he can see Miranda in it:
"Space enough
Have I in such a prison."
Which is Hamlet's:
"I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself
a king of infinite space."
The second act, with its foiled conspiracy, is wretchedly bad, and the
meeting of Caliban and Trinculo with Stephanie does not improve it much,
Shakespeare has little interest now in anything outside himself: age and
greatness are as self-centred as youth.
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