The masque; "our revels now are ended"

Before Prospero's cell. Prospero gives Ferdinand a stern lecture on chastity until the wedding and, satisfied with his promise, presents the engaged couple with a betrothal masque. Three goddesses descend on machinery: Iris, the rainbow messenger; Ceres, goddess of the harvest; Juno, queen of the gods. They sing blessings on the marriage. Nymphs in green enter and dance with sunburnt reapers in a stately country dance. Ferdinand, watching, says he could live in this place forever. The spectacle is the high point of Prospero's stage-management.

Then, mid-dance, Prospero starts. He has remembered, with a sudden cold, that Caliban and his two companions are at this moment moving through the woods toward the cell to murder him. The spirits "to a strange, hollow, and confused noise, heavily vanish." Ferdinand and Miranda are bewildered. Prospero turns to them and gives the speech that has become one of the most-quoted in Shakespeare. "Our revels now are ended... the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve... we are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep." It is the play's deepest meditation on the unreality of the made world, delivered by the magician whose business has been making.

He apologizes for his "infirmity," sends Ferdinand and Miranda to his cell to recover, and turns to Ariel. The drunkards are nearly here. He has Ariel hang a line of glittering, expensive-looking robes outside the cell as bait. Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo arrive wet from a stinking pool Ariel has led them through. Caliban begs them to ignore the clothes and finish the murder first — "let it alone, thou fool, it is but trash" — but Stephano and Trinculo cannot resist the silks. They strip the line. Spirit-hounds are loosed at Prospero's command; the three are chased off-stage, yelping. All Prospero's enemies are now at his mercy, and within an hour the labors of the day will end.