The Tempest

Alonso

King of Naples, father of Ferdinand and Claribel. He grieves over Ferdinand’s presumed death, then reunites with him and restores Prospero’s dukedom while asking forgiveness for his role in Prospero’s exile.

Sebastian

Alonso’s brother. Antonio urges him to seize the crown of Naples, and he agrees to the plot; he also joins Antonio in an earlier attempt to kill Alonso.

Prospero

The rightful Duke of Milan, Miranda’s father, and a sorcerer exiled to an island with her. He uses magic to bring his enemies there, forgives them, regains his dukedom, and renounces his magic.

Antonio

Prospero’s brother, who usurped the dukedom of Milan and later conspires with Sebastian to take the crown of Naples. Prospero forgives him and demands the return of his dukedom.

Ferdinand

Alonso’s son and heir to Naples and Milan. He survives the shipwreck, falls in love with Miranda, and is reunited with his father, who blesses their marriage.

Gonzalo

An honest old Neapolitan counsellor who helped Prospero and the infant Miranda survive exile by supplying them with provisions and Prospero’s books. He remains loyal to Alonso and is warmly praised and thanked by Prospero.

Adrian

A lord in Alonso’s party who survives the shipwreck and travels with the king on the island.

Francisco

A lord in Alonso’s party who survives the shipwreck; he saw Ferdinand struggle through the waves toward shore.

Caliban

Also known as Cacaliban

Sycorax’s son and the island’s former inhabitant, whom Prospero enslaves. He plots with Stephano to overthrow Prospero, then regrets taking Stephano for a god and promises to seek grace.

Trinculo

A jester and one of Alonso’s party. Shipwrecked on the island, he encounters Stephano and Caliban and joins their failed plot against Prospero.

Stephano

A drunken butler from Alonso’s party. He befriends Caliban and joins his plot against Prospero, briefly imagining himself king of the island.

Ship-Master

Also known as Master of a Ship

The ship’s master, who directs the crew during the tempest. Ariel later brings him to Prospero’s company, and he reports that the ship is safe and ready to sail.

Boatswain

A sailor responsible for handling the ship during the tempest; Gonzalo jokes that he seems destined to be hanged rather than drowned. He later reports that the ship and crew are safe.

Mariners

The ship’s crew, who work through the tempest and are later left asleep aboard the vessel. Ariel wakes them and brings them to the others.

Miranda

Prospero’s daughter and heir to Milan. Raised on the island, she falls in love with Ferdinand and marries him.

Ariel

An airy spirit in Prospero’s service, whom Prospero freed from imprisonment in a pine tree. Ariel carries out the tempest and other magical tasks; Prospero finally grants the promised freedom.

Sycorax

A witch from Argier and Caliban’s mother, brought to the island while pregnant and left there by sailors. Before her death, she imprisoned Ariel in a pine tree.

Setebos

The god Caliban says his mother Sycorax worshipped; Caliban believes Prospero’s art could control him.

Iris

A spirit appearing as Juno’s messenger in Prospero’s masque, summoning Ceres and the other spirits.

Ceres

A spirit appearing in Prospero’s masque as a goddess of harvest and abundance; she blesses Ferdinand and Miranda.

Juno

A spirit appearing in Prospero’s masque as queen of the gods; she blesses Ferdinand and Miranda’s union.

Naiads

Water nymphs summoned by Iris to join the masque celebrating Ferdinand and Miranda.

Reapers

Harvest workers summoned by Iris to join the masque celebrating Ferdinand and Miranda.

Venus

A goddess mentioned by Iris and Ceres as having once plotted the abduction of Ceres’s daughter.

Cupid

Also known as her son · blind boy · Her waspish-headed son

Venus’s son, mentioned as having accompanied her in the plot to abduct Ceres’s daughter; Iris says he has broken his arrows.

Proserpina

Also known as Ceres’s daughter

Ceres’s daughter, mentioned as having been taken by Dis through Venus and Cupid’s plotting.

Dis

The underworld god who took Proserpina, according to Ceres.

Dido

Also known as widow Dido

A legendary queen of Carthage, mentioned in Gonzalo’s comparison of Claribel’s marriage to that of Dido.

Æneas

Also known as Aeneas

A legendary figure mentioned jokingly by Sebastian as Dido’s supposed widower.

Jupiter

The husband of Juno, named by Ceres when greeting Iris.

Neptune

The sea god, mentioned in Ariel’s account of the tempest.

Jove

A name for Jupiter, whose lightning Ariel invokes in describing the tempest.

Phœbus

A name for the sun god, mentioned by Ferdinand when swearing to keep his vows until his wedding.

Mars

The god named by Iris as Venus’s lover.

Claribel

Alonso’s daughter, now queen of Tunis after marrying its king. She is the next heir to Naples after Ferdinand.

King of Tunis

Claribel’s husband, to whom Alonso married her; his name is not given.

Ferdinand’s mother

Alonso’s wife and the mother of Ferdinand and Claribel; she is mentioned but does not appear.

Miranda’s mother

Prospero’s wife and Miranda’s mother, described by Prospero as virtuous; she is mentioned but does not appear.

Four or five women who tended Miranda

Unnamed women who cared for Miranda before she and Prospero came to the island; Miranda remembers them from early childhood.

The king’s daughter in Ariel’s song

An unnamed woman in the song about the sailor’s companions and their loves.

Mall

A woman named in Stephano’s song as one of the women loved by the sailors.

Meg

A woman named in Stephano’s song as one of the women loved by the sailors.

Marian

A woman named in Stephano’s song as one of the women loved by the sailors.

Margery

A woman named in Stephano’s song as one of the women loved by the sailors.

Kate

A woman named in Stephano’s song; the sailors say she disliked the smell of tar and pitch.

The sailors who left Sycorax on the island

Unnamed sailors who brought the pregnant Sycorax to the island and abandoned her there.

The King of Naples’s daughter

Claribel, Alonso’s daughter; mentioned in connection with her marriage to the King of Tunis.

Mountain

A spirit in the shape of a hunting dog, called by Prospero to drive Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo away.

Silver

A spirit in the shape of a hunting dog, called by Ariel to pursue Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo.

Fury

A spirit in the shape of a hunting dog, called by Prospero to pursue Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo.

Tyrant

A spirit in the shape of a hunting dog, called by Prospero to pursue Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo.