"Ariel's song" is a verse passage in Scene ii of Act I of William Shakespeare's The Tempest. It consists of two stanzas to be delivered by the spirit Ariel, in the hearing of Ferdinand. In performance it is sometimes sung and sometimes spoken. There is an extant musical setting of the second stanza by Shakespeare's contemporary Robert Johnson, which may have been used in the original production around 1611.[1]
It is the origin of the phrase "full fathom five", after which there are many cultural references, and is an early written record of the phrase sea change.
Through its use of rhyme, rhythm, assonance, and alliteration, the poem sounds like a spell.[2]