Grotesque Hospitality in 'The Tempest'

Act III, Scene 3, 17- SD. Solemn and strange music
ALONSO	What harmony is this? My good friends, hark!
GONZALO	Marvellous sweet music!
SD. Enter PROSPERO above, invisible. Enter several strange Shapes, bringing in a banquet; they dance about it with gentle actions of salutation; and, inviting the King, &c. to eat, they depart.
ALONSO	Give us kind keepers, heavens! What were these?
SEBASTIAN	A living drollery. Now I will believe
	That there are unicorns, that in Arabia
	There is one tree, the phoenix' throne, one phoenix
	At this hour reigning there.
ANTONIO	I'll believe both;
	And what does else want credit, come to me,
	And I'll be sworn 'tis true: travellers ne'er did
	lie,
	Though fools at home condemn 'em.
GONZALO	If in Naples
	I should report this now, would they believe me?
	If I should say, I saw such islanders--
	For, certes, these are people of the island--
	Who, though they are of monstrous shape, yet, note,
	Their manners are more gentle-kind than of
	Our human generation you shall find
	Many, nay, almost any.
PROSPERO	[Aside] Honest lord,
	Thou hast said well; for some of you there present
	Are worse than devils.
ALONSO	I cannot too much muse
	Such shapes, such gesture and such sound, expressing,
	Although they want the use of tongue, a kind
	Of excellent dumb discourse.
PROSPERO	[Aside] Praise in departing.
FRANCISCO	They vanish'd strangely.
SEBASTIAN	No matter, since
	They have left their viands behind; for we have stomachs.
	Will't please you taste of what is here?
ALONSO	Not I.
GONZALO	Faith, sir, you need not fear. When we were boys,
	Who would believe that there were mountaineers
	Dew-lapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at 'em
	Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men
	Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find
	Each putter-out of five for one will bring us
	Good warrant of.
ALONSO	I will stand to and feed,
	Although my last: no matter, since I feel
	The best is past. Brother, my lord the duke,
	Stand to and do as we.
Thunder and lightning. Enter ARIEL, like a harpy; claps his wings upon the table; and, with a quaint device, the banquet vanishes.
ARIEL	You are three men of sin, whom Destiny,
	That hath to instrument this lower world
	And what is in't, the never-surfeited sea
	Hath caused to belch up you; and on this island
	Where man doth not inhabit; you 'mongst men
	Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad;
	And even with such-like valour men hang and drown
	Their proper selves.

Further Reading 

Jacqueline E. M. Latham, 'The Magic Banquet in The Tempest', Shakespeare Studies 12 (1979), 215-27.