We are such stuffĪs dreams are made on, and our little life Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,Īnd like this insubstantial pageant faded,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself, The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, These our actors,Īnd like the baseless fabric of this vision,
It’s equally hard not to see Prospero’s speech after he’s interrupted the masque as expressing the dramatist’s sense of mortality, when ‘every third thought shall be my grave.’ It is imbued with a sense of life’s frailty and transience as well as its magic and beauty, When Prospero abjures his ‘rough magic’, breaks his staff and buries his book fathoms deep, most interpret this as Shakespeare’s renunciation of his art before retiring to Stratford. It’s almost impossible not to see it as a valediction. It is arguably his most perfect play and certainly the last he wrote unassisted. Shakespeare’s drunkards are always great comic value and The Tempest contains some of his funniest comedy.
There are many lines from The Tempest that might seem appropriate to the situation, not least Trinculo’s observation, ‘there’s but five upon this isle we are three of them if th’other two be brained like us, the state totters.’ Some of us make fuller use of this opportunity than others. It’s also a chance to drink too much, talk nonsense and dance in strange ways. It’s the most important social gathering of the year and an affirmation of our sense of community. There are only 150 people in the whole village, yet almost thirty helped prepare for the party in one way or another. The Bronygarth Summer Party is over for another year, the yurts back in the garage and the lawn at Brookside cleared. Our revels now are ended: thoughts on a summer's party
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