uote Prospero, he was "got by the devil himself upon thy wicked dam", from a union between Sycorax and an incubus (an extremely attractive male apparition with intention to tempt). Caliban was therefore a creature born from passion, the offspring of an unholy pleasure. Prospero was not only of noble birth; he was also born to be the ruler of the city-state of Milan. Nobility, in Elizabethan times, carried with it heavy implications: it was expected that Prospero would be intellectually superior, and that he would exercise as great discipline over himself as he was expected to exercise over others, in his role of leadership. From their ancestry, Prospero is likely to be more ruled by his intellect, and Caliban by his love of pleasure. In the history of each character before the opening of The Tempest, there is a further contrast. Caliban's original love for Prospero and Miranda, and his later misdemeanour and subsequent hatred for them, illustrate his fundamental reliance on his senses. Caliban loved Prospero and Miranda because they "made much of me"; and his response to this was purely sensual in his recollections: "Thou strok'st me, ... wouldst give me / Water with berries in't". What Caliban responded to, more than anything else, was the sensation of pleasure that being loved and petted gave him. The action that caused Caliban to be removed from this position and punished was his attempt to rape Miranda, another example of how Caliban seeks pleasure. (Prospero's position on sexual relations is quite opposite -- he tells Ferdinand repeatedly not to take advantage of his daughter, and hammers the message home with the masque.) [True but why? Make the full contrast clear.] Prospero, on the other hand, enjoyed his original position as duke of Milan largely because he was able to study to his heart's content. This seems to indicate a particular reliance on the powers of the mind -- quite opposite to Caliban's fault -- but in actual fact, ...
