The Tempest: Act IV

Lesson Plan - Get It!

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You probably noticed Shakespeare does not give many explicit stage directions in this play. He focuses on dialogue. The stage was often bare, allowing the audience to imagine most of the setting while listening to the actor's words.

Act IV of The Tempest is concise and involves a masque, a prevalent form of entertainment during this time. These were festivals in which disguised participants joined for a ceremonial dance, sometimes starting with a staged drama that was usually mythological, allegorical, or symbolic.

Masques were designed as gifts for — and often symbolically complimentary toward — the party's host.

The masque in this scene of the play, designed to celebrate the marriage of Ferdinand and Miranda, is purely mythological, as seen in elements of the masque.

William Shakespeare frequently used a combination of Roman and Greek mythology in his plays, and in The Tempest, he references Roman goddesses. To understand the dialogue and the subject of the masque, you need to know the nature of the Roman goddesses in the performance.

Ceres: goddess of agriculture, fertility, and motherly relationships; sort of a Mother Earth figure

Iris: personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods; she links the gods to humanity

Juno: goddess of love and marriage; protected the nation of Rome, specifically the lives of its women

Venus and her son: goddess of love and beauty; her son is Cupid, god of love

Ceres, Iris, and Juno bless the young couple. Because they represent elements of domestic life, these characters in the masque ground Ferdinand and Miranda's relationship in the more practical elements of marriage.

The fact that they mention the absence of Venus and her son, known for their more traditional representation of romantic love, indicates Prospero's desire to remind Ferdinand and Miranda of the fundamental aspects of their marriage.

Shakespeare includes some direct descriptions of the masque, but much of this scene is open to the reader's interpretation.

Continue to the Got It? section to interpret a portion of the play.