The scene takes a lighter note as Ariel comes onstage singing a song (at line 378). He is most likely still dressed as a water nymph, but Prospero is the only one on stage who can see him. In Renaissance theaters a small company of musicians often stood offstage and provided music to accompany the singing. Ariel addresses the listeners of his song to come to the shore and dance skillfully (“foot it featly”). The airy sprite then directly calls to other spirits to join him in the song.
From offstage the spirits shout “Bow-wow” (385), and Ariel responds by saying, “The watch- dogs bark” (386).
Many critics pass over these lines as a simple nonsense song to lure Ferdinand closer to the area where Prospero and Miranda are standing, and the barking-dog lines are then the refrain or chorus of the song. That may be the case.
However, these lines could also be spoken, not sung, with the intent that the offstage spirits are warning Ariel that Ferdinand is approaching. Ariel then changes the wording of his song and apparently sings a different tune: “I hear the strain of strutting Chanticleer cry ‘cock-a-diddle-dow’” (388-90). Chanticleer is a rooster character who appears in several medieval animal fables and most notably in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale” from The Canterbury Tales. In these tales Chanticleer is a proud creature who boasts of his ability to crow better than any other rooster. Although Ferdinand has just been shipwrecked and found himself alone on a strange island, Ariel could be mocking him because he is the Prince of Naples, a strutting member of the proud nobility.
Regardless of the explanation, Ariel’s song does have the effect of bringing Ferdinand to Prospero. When Ferdinand first appears, though, he does not see Prospero or Miranda; and he is wondering if the strange music that he has heard is human or from a supernatural entity (line 391). Ferdinand exclaims that the music did have the ability to relieve his grief and sorrow (using the word passion at line 396). However, when Ferdinand sadly remarks that the music has stopped, Ariel sings a much different tune:
Full fathom five thy father lies, Oh his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes; Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell. (400-06)
Ferdinand immediately imagines that the words are describing his father, whom, he believes, now lies at the bottom of the ocean. A fathom is a unit of measurement equal to six feet (or a little less than two meters). Ariel is musically asserting that the body of King Alonso lies deep in the ocean and that his body’s elements are being absorbed within the ocean depths. The song ends with the spirits singing words to reflect the sound of church bells chiming to announce the death of one of its members. In poetry words that reflect or imitate sounds (such as bow-wow or ding-dong) are called onomatopoeia. The haunting words of the song bring chills to the grief- stricken Ferdinand, and he is convinced that the source of the songs is supernatural.