Editing Prospero (section)

== Character ==
Twelve years before the play begins, Prospero is usurped from his position as the rightful [[List of dukes of Milan|Duke of Milan]] by his brother Antonio, who puts Prospero and his three-year-old daughter [[Miranda (The Tempest)|Miranda]] to sea on a "rotten carcass" of a boat to die. Prospero and Miranda survived and found exile on a small island inhabited mostly by spirits. Prospero learned [[magic (paranormal)|sorcery]] from books, and uses it to protect Miranda.

Before the play begins, Prospero freed the magical spirit [[Ariel (The Tempest)|Ariel]] from entrapment within "a cloven pine". Ariel is beholden to Prospero after he is freed from his imprisonment inside the pine tree. Prospero then takes Ariel as a slave. Prospero's sorcery is sufficiently powerful to control Ariel and other spirits, as well as to alter weather and even raise the dead: "Graves at my command have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth, by my so potent Art." - Act V, scene 1.

On the island, Prospero becomes master of the monster [[Caliban (character)|Caliban]], the son of a malevolent witch named [[Sycorax]], and forces Caliban into submission by punishing him with magic if he does not obey.

=== Prospero's speech ===
''The Tempest'' is believed to be the last play Shakespeare wrote alone.<ref name="yale"/><ref name="huffPo"/><ref name="heritage">{{cite book|last1=Shakespeare|first1=William|author2=Guthrie,Tyrone|editor1-last=Alexander|editor1-first=Peter|title=The Comedies|url=https://archive.org/details/comedies00shak|url-access=registration|date=1958|publisher=The Heritage Press|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/comedies00shak/page/4 4]|language=en|chapter=The Tempest|quote=Shakespeare himself was at the end of his career, and it is hardly possible not to see,...in Prospero's resignation of his magic a reflection of Shakespeare's own farewell to his art.}}</ref> In this play there are two candidate soliloquies by Prospero which critics have taken to be Shakespeare's own "retirement speech".

One speech is the "Our revels now are ended" or "Cloud-capp'd towers..." speech:<ref name="yale"/><ref name="huffPo"/>

<poem>
           Our revels now are ended: These our actors—,
           As I foretold you—, were all spirits and
           Are melted into air, into thin air;
           And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
           The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
           The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
           Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
           And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
           Leave not a rack behind: we are such stuff
           As dreams are made on, and our little life
           Is rounded with a sleep. — ''The Tempest'', Act 4, Scene 1
</poem><ref name="yale">{{cite book|last1=Shakespeare|first1=William|editor1-last=Horne|editor1-first=David|title=The Tempest|date=1913|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven|page=72|edition=Revised hardcover|language=en|chapter=Act 4, Scene 1|quote=...it was probably Shakespeare's last effort.}}</ref><ref name="huffPo">{{cite web|last1=Jacobs|first1=M W|title=Shakespeare's Parting Words|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/mw-jacobs/shakespeares-parting-word_b_6969080.html|website=HuffPost|date=30 March 2015|access-date=16 June 2017}}</ref>

The final [[soliloquy]] and [[epilogue]] is the other candidate.<ref name="heritage"/>

<poem>
           Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
           And what strength I have's mine own,
           Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,
           I must be here confined by you,
           Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
           Since I have my dukedom got
           And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell
           In this bare island by your spell;
           But release me from my bands
           With the help of your good hands:
           Gentle breath of yours my sails
           Must fill, or else my project fails,
           Which was to please. Now I want
           Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
           And my ending is despair,
           Unless I be relieved by prayer,
           Which pierces so that it assaults
           Mercy itself and frees all faults.
           As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
           Let your indulgence set me free.
</poem>