(churchill, 1980: 118) the Epilogue, Then, Can Be Seen As A Paean To

(Churchill, 1980: 118)
The Epilogue, then, can be seen as a paean to Catholic-Protestant peace through art and prayer:
.Now I want
Spirits to enfore, Art to enchant;
And me ending is despair,
Unless I be reliev'd by prayer.
(Epilogue)
In some ways it can thought of as appealing directly to James I, entreating the recently crowned King to with wisdom and gentleness, as does Prospero, in uniting the two factions, symbolized in the relationship between Miranda and Ferdinand. The seminal scene, of course, featuring Ferdinand and Miranda comes part way through Act V, Scene I and is heralded with the stage directions:
Here Prospero discovers Ferdinand and Miranda playing chess
(Act V, Scene I)
As Kermode points out (1990, 122) this is one of the relatively rare references to chess in Shakespeare so we could infer, perhaps, that it is important to the socio-political tenets of the play. There are literary echoes of Shakespeare's use of chess in Thomas Middleton's 1625 play A Game of Chess (Middleton, 1999), where the Jacobean evocation of socio-politics with game playing is evident from the Prologue:
"What of the game called chess-play can be made
To make a stage-play, shall this day be played.
First you shall see the men in order set,
States and their pawns, when both the sides are met,
The houses well distinguished, in their game
Some men entrapped and taken, to their shame
(Middleton, Prologue)
In a time of political polarity, with Protestant levies to the crown and Catholic plots on parliament, the symbolism of two opposing warring factions was apt. Chess, as a cultural symbol also features in Thomas More's Utopia (1965) and has been seen, by many commentators as an important influence on Shakespeare's use in The Tempest (Neilson, 1956; Friedman, 1957).
Ferdinand and Miranda are not so much symbols of a crown and a country reunited but of the promise of such. Prospero's island, wracked with storms and turbulence, peopled by artists (in the form of Ariel), monsters, fools, clowns, wise men, kings and drunkards is a clear symbol for England in the early part of the Seventeenth Century. In many ways, The Tempest is a fitting play for a new century; it exists as not so much socio-political allegory but psychosocial exegesis. The psychological aspirations and wishes of Shakespeare are instilled in two of the play's most overlooked characters, Miranda and Ferdinand who have, over the many years of critical thinking on the play been ignored largely in favour of Ariel, Prospero and Caliban.
However, as we have seen, they provide us with not only the romantic soul of the piece but the political heart. If Prospero is symbolic of Jacobean wisdom, the two lovers are symbols of a united country where truth and security is found through mutual trust and understanding:
Miranda: Sweet Lord, you play me false.
Ferdinand: No, my dearest love, I would not for the world.