Miranda and Prospero continue to speak with Ferdinand. The young man informs them that he is now the King of Naples since he saw his father – along with the Duke of Milan and that Duke’s son – drown. The reference to Antonio (the Duke of Milan) having a son appears only in this scene (at line 442). Shakespeare may have originally intended to add this character in a later scene and then decided against it (without revising this line). Yet, more likely, Shakespeare just mentioned it this once to establish the witty aside spoken by Prospero. Ferdinand’s expression “the Duke of Milan and his brave son” becomes “the Duke of Milan and his more braver daughter” in Prospero’s aside (442-43). Of course, Prospero is also declaring that he himself is the rightful Duke of Milan.
Prospero wants to test Ferdinand to make sure that he is worthy of his daughter. So, he speaks roughly to the young man and announces that he has told a lie (“I fear you have done yourself some wrong” at line 447). Prospero takes Ferdinand a short distance away to speak privately to him as Miranda asserts her thoughts in an aside. Miranda wonders why her father is so ungentle towards Ferdinand, and she hopes that her father will pity the young man. Miranda is already very much in love with the young nobleman from Naples.
Ferdinand has also already fallen in love with Miranda, and he asserts that he will marry her and make her “Queen of Naples” (453).
In his asides, Prospero worries that their rash and sudden love will disappear as quickly as it had appeared:
At the first sight
They have changed eyes. (444-45)
They are both in either’s powers. But this swift business I must uneasy make, lest too light winning
Make the prize light. (454-56)
The expression “changed eyes” means that they have fallen in love at first sight. Prospero worries that by winning each other’s love (“the prize”) so quickly, they will later not value that love so highly. Prospero’s fear may remind readers of lines that Shakespeare had written many years earlier:
These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die like fire and powder. (Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 5: 9-10)
Friar Laurence, the confessor and confidant of Romeo, warns the young lover that sudden love vanishes as quickly as gunpowder vanishes when it is lit. The flashing light (like a firecracker) may be delightful, but it lasts less than second. Sudden love
– love at first sight – also will end all too quickly, according to the concerned Friar.
Even Prospero may have limits to his powers, but both Ferdinand and Miranda have no doubts. Nevertheless, Prospero decides to test Ferdinand thoroughly before he allows his daughter to become any closer to him. So, Prospero declares that Ferdinand has falsely asserted that he is King of Naples (“Thou dost here usurp the name thou ow’st not”: line 457). Actually, Prospero is correct on that point because he knows that King Alonso, Ferdinand’s father, is still alive even though Ferdinand does not know it. But Prospero also declares Ferdinand to be a spy who has come to steal the island from him. Prospero knows that this is not true, but he also realizes that he cannot put Ferdinand through any test unless he has a reasonable excuse for doing so.
Miranda also defends Ferdinand: “There’s nothing ill can dwell in such a temple” (461). The word temple in this instance refers to the body. Miranda naively declares that such a handsome man must be good. Even back in the time of the Renaissance, many people would judge a book by its cover; they would judge a person by his appearance.