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Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology.

And I'm Julia, and this is an episode all about a play that Julia, we didn't do or study in high school, for me at least until late college, but one I really love and one that's perhaps the most mythological, may I say, of all of Shakespeare's work.

I would certainly say the most magical. We talked about the Mid-Summer Night's stream episode, and that I think is probably his most mythological in the sense that he's literally drawing from mythology for a lot of those characters, but the tempest is so incredible in terms of the imagery and the use of magic as a way of driving the plot forward that when I was thinking about, hey, what Shakespeare can we do that talks about magic. The tempest was pretty much the first one that came to my mind,

but I was more familiar with Mid-Summer, so we decided to start with Mid-Summer. Yes, I am so stoked. Also, I mean, as a tall and a small best friend duo, I mean, we're requires to talk about Hellen and Hermia, you know what I mean? Of course, naturally. Like, that is just who we are as people. We are Hellen and Hermia core. Exactly. Oh, God, that's good. But yeah, we have to now turn our attention to a play that is all about the ocean, that's all about magic, that's all about language, things that we love, and themes that I'm

so excited to see your take on. Yeah. Now, Amanda, you've studied this play. I was not a Shakespearean scholar or took any Shakespearean classes in college, so I'm going to rely on you to kind of give me some themes that I might be missing or some interesting facts, because it's been a really long time since I've seen this play performed live. So I am relying on you to be my inside source, my Shakespearean expertise always. I mean, the fact is I studied abroad in London and took three

classes that involved seeing live theater. So I simply overdosed on theater for several months, which I highly recommend to all students. But yeah, I'm delighted to talk about this. I was able to see it live a couple of times and read it and have watched some film adaptations. It's something that I just really enjoy. And like, if there was ever a production in the city or near me, I'll just go see it, because I think it's really interesting how different directors and actors take on the parts. Yeah, fantastic. And we're talking about the tempest today because between Prospero, Ariel,

and Caliban, the like supernatural elements are extremely prominent in the play. And while it might not feature like a mid-Summer Night's Dream, the king and queen of the fairies, the tempest does offer a really interesting lore that seems less pulled directly from mythology and more the general view of magic during Shakespeare's time. So let's get right into it because I love talking about Shakespeare and the plot lines. They're wild. Yes, they are. So the show starts on a ship as a storm hit.

It hits it hard. The ship is carrying the Duke of Milan Antonio, the king of Naples, Alonso, and a bunch of their like royal party because they're on their way back to Italy after the marriage of Alonso's daughter. I think somewhere in Africa, if I'm remembering correctly. Yeah, Shakespeare kind of like tossed a dart at a map and was like, man, over there seems far. Yeah, it kind of felt like he was like, what's across from Italy? Oh, the Northern Africa. Great. Fine.

Yeah, whatever. Yeah, from a fine. Yeah. So this storm that these people are facing is real bad. And all of the land lovers and even some of the more experienced sailors kind of fear that they are going to sink as lightning strikes and this storm is real, real bad. Like I cannot stress how bad this storm is right now. So in a very dramatic in media res opening, we then cut to a much quieter scene, which introduces Miranda.

And Prospero standing on the shore of their island, looking out at the shipwreck that is about to happen. Now Miranda, who is a cinnamon roll, too pure for the world, because she is. She is. I don't know why that hit me so hard, but you're exactly right. She is. She's a cinnamon roll. So she asks her father Prospero. If there's anything that he can do to help those on the ship from drowning. And Prospero is like, don't worry, kiddo. It'll turn out all right. By the way, this seems like a great

time for me to tell you about my past, how we ended up on this island, et cetera. Yep. Yep. So you'll see that trip out there. I caused this big storm to happen. And we get this reveal that Prospero is like a magician. He has sort of magical powers and we're not told exactly how he gained these powers. We find out later in the plot, but you just know that like he has some sort of magical ability. And so Prospero tells Miranda how he actually used to be the Duke of Milan until his brother

Antonio, who we just met, conspired with the King of Naples, Alonso, who we also just met to have Prospero kidnapped so that he could take the title from him. Classic. It's a real kind of classic Shakespeare, but also a little bit game of thronesy situation going on here. And also feels kind of inspired by a little bit of Greek mythology in terms of the story of Perseus and how he and his mother were kind of set a drift in a casket and like left to die.

But they did not die because he was a demigod so he didn't die. But it does feel kind of inspired. It always makes me laugh when Shakespeare is kind of like digging out or just sort of using the sort of machinations of other countries political systems, because like England has nothing to brag about in terms of killing siblings and wives and unseeding rains and everything like that. And reading about like the contemporary political context of other nations that Shakespeare was aware of at the time is really

fascinating because I know I say he like throws a dart at the map and it does feel that way a lot of the time, but it's to me the equivalent of an American being like, yeah, Canada, all of their political problems. It's like, okay, bitch, like I I don't think that's exactly you should be throwing stones too hard here. Yes, and I think that part of it too is just like I don't want to talk about the actual political things that are going on in London because I don't want the Queen mad at me maybe like that would be bad. But like what if it was

Italy? I mean, not convenient poor moi. Yes, and I mean like there's also readings of the play where the tempest itself represents the like political turmoil that was happening in England at the time, but like, I'm not a political British scholar. So I can't say whether or not that's true. But I like it. We're here for the myths in the magic, you know, exactly, exactly.

So Prospero gets kidnapped so that his brother can take the title from him and then Prospero and Miranda, who I think at this point was probably like four or three because they say she's 15 now and they've been on the island for 12 years and it's a whole thing, but she was probably about like three when all this was going down and probably because little kid memories are not that good doesn't remember a lot.

So Prospero and Miranda were left to die on a raft at sea, but they managed to survive because one of Prospero's men who is still loyal to him, whose name was Gonzalo had left Prospero some supplies and his books, which we find out were the source of Prospero's magical abilities, like basically he went the Faustus route and he managed to gain magic by doing just a lot of reading just a lot of research, a real wizard situation, if you will. Again, what a dream.

I would love to be able to read enough books that I become magic that would be honestly the dream. Yeah, so we just moved actually as you have heard way too much about and after carrying probably I carried like a third of our books. I really did two thirds of it, but after carrying, you know, several hundred pounds of books up two flights of stairs to our new apartment. I'm like, all right, like where's my reward. Do I get to then like learn magic. Do I get to just know a bunch of languages. Like, can you just like inject Hebrew into my brain?

Can I just like know that now? Yeah, it would be nice if after reading enough books, you gained the power of levitation so that you could then levitate the very heavy books that you've learned levitation from. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying.

So eventually, Prospero Miranda arrived on the island that we find them on now and they have remained there for 12 years. And now, Prospero tells Miranda, fortune has put his enemies back in his path.

And so he has raised the namesake tempest in order to get justice for what has been done to him. And then he basically uses his magic to go, go to sleep, boom, Miranda.

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