The Tempest (I) (2010)

Alan Cumming: Sebastian

Photos 

Quotes 

• Gonzalo : Though this island seem to be desert, uninhabitable and almost inaccessible...

  Sebastian : Yet.

  Gonzalo : Yet...

  Antonio : I could not miss it.

  Gonzalo : The air breathes upon us here most sweetly.

  Sebastian : As if it hand lungs, and rotten ones.

  Antonio : Or as 'twere perfumed by a fen.

  Gonzalo : Here is everything advantageous to life.

  Antonio : True, save means to live.

  Sebastian : Of that there's none, or little.

  Gonzalo : How lush and lusty the grass looks! Mm? How green!

  Antonio : The ground indeed is tawny.

  Sebastian : With an eye of green in't.

• Gonzalo : The rarity of it is, which is indeed almost beyond credit, that our garments, being, as they were, drenched in the sea, are now as fresh as when we put them on first in Afric. In-In Tunis. At the marriage of your fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis.

  King Alonso : You cram these words into mine ears against the stomach of my sense. Would I had never married my daughter there. For, coming thence, my son is lost and, in my rate, she too, who is so far from Italy removed I ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir of Naples and Milan, what strange fish hath made his meal on thee?

  Antonio : Sir, he may live. I saw him beat the surges under him and ride upon their backs. I not doubt he came alive to land.

  King Alonso : No, no, he's gone.

  Sebastian : Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss, that would not bless our Europe with your daughter, but rather lose her to an African.

  King Alonso : Prithee, peace.

  Sebastian : We have lost your son, I fear, forever. The fault's your own.

  King Alonso : So is the dearest o' the loss.

  Gonzalo : My lord Sebastian, the truth you speak doth lack some gentleness. You rub the sore when you should bring the plaster.

  Sebastian : Very well.

  Antonio : And most like a surgeon.

• Gonzalo : Beseech you, sir. Be merry. You have cause, so have we all, of joy, for our escape is much beyond our loss. But for the miracle, I-I mean our preservation, few in millions can speak like us. Then wisely, good sir, weigh our sorrow with our comfort.

  King Alonso : Prithee, peace.

  Sebastian : He receives comfort like cold porridge.

  Antonio : Look. He's winding up the watch of his wit. By and by it will strike.

  Gonzalo : Sir...

  Sebastian : One! Tell.

  Gonzalo : When every grief is entertain'd that's offer'd comes to the entertainer...

  Sebastian : A dollar.

  Gonzalo : Dolor comes to him, indeed. You have spoken truer than you purposed.

  Sebastian : You have taken it wiselier than I meant you should.

  Gonzalo : There... thereford, my lord...

  Antonio : Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!

  King Alonso : I prithee, spare.

• Antonio : Although this lord hath here almost persuaded the king his son's alive, 'tis as impossible that he's undrown'd as he that sleeps here swims.

  Sebastian : I have no hope that he's undrown'd.

  Antonio : O, out of that "no hope" what great hope have you! No hope that way is another way so high a hope that even ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond, but doubt discovery there. Will you grant with me that Ferdinand is drowned?

  Sebastian : He's gone.

  Antonio : Then tell me, who's the next heir of Naples?

  Sebastian : Claribel.

  Antonio : She that is queen of Tunis? She that dwells ten leagues beyond man's life? She that from whom we all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again, and by that destiny to perform an act whereof what's past is prologue, what to come in yours and my discharge.

  Sebastian : What stuff is this! How say you?

  Antonio : Say this were death that now hath seized them. Why, they were no worse than now they are. There be that can rule Naples as well as he that sleeps. O, that you bore the mind that I do! What a sleep were this for your advancement. Do you understand me?

  Sebastian : Methinks I do.

  Antonio : Then how does your content tender your own good fortune?

  Sebastian : I remember you did supplant your sister Prospera.

  Antonio : True. And look how well my garments sit upon me. My sister's servants were then my fellows, now they are my men.

  Sebastian : But, for your conscience?

  Antonio : Ay, sir, where lies that? 20 consciences that stand 'twixt me and Milan, candied be they and melt ere they molest! Here lies your brother, no better than the earth he lies upon. If he were that which now he's like, that's dead, whom I, with this obedient steel, three inches of it, can lay to bed forever, whiles you, doing thus, to this ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who should not upbraid our course.

  Sebastian : Thy case, dear friend, shall be my precedent. As thou got'st Milan, I'll come by Naples. Draw thy sword. One stroke shall free thee from the tribute which thou payest, and I, the king, shall love thee.

• Sebastian : [Gonzalo and King Alonzo fall asleep]  What a strange drowsiness possesses them.

  Antonio : 'Tis the quality o' the climate.

  Sebastian : Why doth it not then our eyelids sink? I find not myself disposed to sleep.

  Antonio : Nor I. My spirits are nimble. They fell together as by consent. They dropp'd, as by a thunder-stroke. What might, worthy Sebastian? O, what might? No more. And yet methinks I see it in thy face what thou shouldst be: the occasion speaks thee, and my strong imagination sees a crown dropping upon thy head.

  Sebastian : What? Art thou waking?

  Antonio : Do you not hear me speak?

  Sebastian : I do. And surely 'tis a sleepy language and thou speak'st out of thy sleep. What is it thou didst say? This is a strange repose, to be asleep with eyes wide open. Standing, speaking, moving, and yet so fast asleep.

  Antonio : Noble Sebastian, thou let'st thy fortune sleep. Die, rather. Wink'st whiles thou art waking.

  Sebastian : Thou dost snore, distinctly. There's meaning in thy snores.

  Antonio : I more serious than my custom. You must be too, if heed me, which to do trebles thee o'er.

  Sebastian : Well... I am standing water.

  Antonio : I'll teach you how to flow.

  Sebastian : Do so. To ebb hereditary sloth instructs me.

• Gonzalo : I would with such perfection govern, sir, as to excel the golden age.

  Sebastian : [chuckling]  God save his majesty!

  Antonio : Long live Gonzalo!

  Gonzalo : And, do you... do you mark me, sir?

  King Alonso : Prithee, no more. Thou dost talk nothing to me.

  Gonzalo : I do well believe your majesty, and did it to minister occasion to these gentlemen, who are of such sensible and nimble lungs that they always used to laugh at nothing.

  Antonio : 'Twas you we laughed at.

  Gonzalo : Who in this kind of merry fooling am nothing to you, so you may continue and laugh at nothing still.