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Poetry · Poem

Full fathom five thy father lies

William ShakespeareEnglish RenaissancePoem
SOURCE TEXT · English original
FULL fathom five thy father lies;
Of 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:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them—
Ding-dong, bell!
Cultural reading

Reading the poem

A sea song transforms a drowned father into coral and pearl, turning death into a rich and strange change sounded by a ritual knell.

Language notes

Text and edition

The anthology uses the first line as the entry heading. The text is Ariel’s song from Shakespeare’s The Tempest and is presented here as the complete song passage printed by the witness.