Ariel

Ariel appears in the Walpurgis Night revel as a spirit whose song gives the scene a contrasting, lyrical register: after Puck’s comic call to join the dance, Ariel offers a more delicate invitation to follow an airy path toward a mount of roses. The text gives Ariel no personal history or further plot, making the songs’ movement and tone the basis of the character’s dramatic presence.

Appearance in the Revel

Ariel’s first appearance is identified through a song praising the spirit’s voice as heavenly pure and unusually sweet. Its couplet turns on an attraction that crosses appearances: the song says Ariel draws ugly faces, yet also allures the fair. Rather than describing Ariel’s own body or motives, the lines establish a power of attraction and place the spirit among the performers of the revel.

That praise follows Puck’s lively entrance, in which he whisks and whirls and calls a hundred others to share his pleasure. Ariel’s song changes the texture of the sequence: the emphasis shifts from Puck’s physical exuberance to the sweetness and reach of music.

The Invitation to Follow

Ariel’s later song addresses those who have either loving Nature behind them or a Mind that unfolds its wings. It invites them to follow an airy track to a mount of roses, offering a poetic route defined by nature, imagination, and ascent. The invitation is conditional in its phrasing, directed toward those equipped by affection for nature or an opening of the mind, rather than presented as a command to every reveler.

The orchestra then falls to pianissimo, and the stage direction describes cloud and trailing mist illuminated before air in leaves and wind in reed dissipate. This movement from Ariel’s invitation into a quiet, vanishing landscape gives the song a transitionary role: the revel’s bustle yields to a scene of fading light and sound.

Dramatic Function

Ariel’s presence is brief but distinct from Puck’s comic, bodily energy. The two songs move from an account of Ariel’s alluring voice to an invitation that joins inner disposition with a path through the natural world. Their placement makes Ariel a lyrical guide within the revel, while the dissolving mist and fading music leave the invitation suspended rather than showing where it leads.