Pericles, Prince of Tyre/Source

DRAMATIS PERSONAE (Persons Represented):


 * ANTIOCHUS, king of Antioch.
 * PERICLES, prince of Tyre.
 * HELICANUS, ESCANES, two lords of Tyre.
 * SIMONIDES, kIng of Pentapolis.
 * CLEON, governor of Tarsus.
 * LYSIMACHUS, governor of Mytilene.
 * CERIMON, a lord of Ephesus.
 * THALIARD, a lord of Antioch.
 * PFIILEMON, servant to Cerimon.
 * LEONINE, servant to Dionyza.
 * Marshal.
 * A Pandar.
 * BOULT, his servant.
 * The Daughter of Antiochus.
 * DIONYZA, wife to Cleon.
 * THAISA, daughter to Simonides.
 * MARINA, daughter to Pericles and Thaisa.
 * LYCHORIDA, nurse to Marina.
 * A Bawd.
 * Lords, Knights, Gentlemen, Sailors, Pirates, Fishermen, and
 * Messengers.
 * DIANA.
 * GOWER, as Chorus.

SCENE: Dispersedly in various countries.

ACT I.
[Enter GOWER.]

[Before the palace of Antioch.]


 * To sing a song that old was sung,
 * From ashes ancient Gower is come;
 * Assuming man’s infirmities,
 * To glad your ear, and please your eyes.
 * It hath been sung at festivals,
 * On ember-eves and holy-ales;
 * And lords and ladies in their lives
 * Have read it for restoratives:
 * The purchase is to make men glorious;
 * Et bonum quo antiquius, eo melius.
 * If you, born in these latter times,
 * When wit’s more ripe, accept my rhymes,
 * And that to hear an old man sing
 * May to your wishes pleasure bring,
 * I life would wish, and that I might
 * Waste it for you, like taper-light.
 * This Antioch, then, Antiochus the Great
 * Built up, this city, for his chiefest seat;
 * The fairest in all Syria,
 * I tell you what mine authors say:
 * This king unto him took a fere,
 * Who died and left a female heir,
 * So buxom, so blithe, and full of face,
 * As heaven had lent her all his grace;
 * With whom the father liking took,
 * And her to incest did provoke:
 * Bad child; worse father! to entice his own
 * To evil should be done by none:
 * But custom what they did begin
 * Was with long use account no sin.
 * The beauty of this sinful dame
 * Made many princes thither frame,
 * To seek her as a bed-fellow,
 * In marriage-pleasures play-fellow:
 * Which to prevent he made a law,
 * To keep her still, and men in awe,
 * That whoso ask’d her for his wife,
 * His riddle told not, lost his life:
 * So for her many a wight did die,
 * As yon grim looks do testify.
 * What now ensues, to the judgement your eye
 * I give, my cause who lest can justify.

[Exit.]

SCENE I. Antioch. A room in the palace.
[Enter ANTIOCHUS, PRINCE PERICLES, and followers.]

ANTIOCHUS.
 * Young prince of Tyre, you have at large received
 * The danger of the task you undertake.

PERICLES.
 * I have, Antiochus, and, with a soul
 * Embolden’d with the glory of her praise,
 * Think death no hazard in this enterprise.

ANTIOCHUS.
 * Bring in our daughter, clothed like a bride,
 * For the embracements even of Jove himself;
 * At whose conception, till Lucina reign’d,
 * Nature this dowry gave, to glad her presence,
 * The senate-house of planets all did sit,
 * To knit in her their best perfections.

[Music. Enter the Daughter of Antiochus.]

PERICLES
 * See where she comes, apparell’d like the spring,
 * Graces her subjects, and her thoughts the king
 * Of every virtue gives renown to men!
 * Her face the book of praises, where is read
 * Nothing but curious pleasures, as from thence
 * Sorrow were ever razed, and testy wrath
 * Could never be her mild companion.
 * You gods that made me man, and sway in love,
 * That have inflamed desire in my breast
 * To taste the fruit of yon celestal tree,
 * Or die in the adventure, be my helps,
 * As I am son and servant to your will,
 * To compass such a boundless happiness!

ANTIOCHUS.
 * Prince Pericles, —

PERICLES.
 * That would be son to great Antiochus.

ANTIOCHUS.
 * Before thee stands this fair Hesperides,
 * With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touch’d;
 * For death-like dragons here affright thee hard:
 * Her face, like heaven, enticeth thee to view
 * Her countless glory, which desert must gain;
 * And which, without desert, because thine eye
 * Presumes to reach, all thy whole heap must die.
 * Yon sometimes famous princes, like thyself,
 * Drawn by report, adventurous by desire,
 * Tell thee, with speechless tongues and semblance pale,
 * That without covering, save yon field of stars,
 * Here they stand Martyrs, slain in Cupid’s wars;
 * And with dead cheeks advise thee to desist
 * For going on death’s net, whom none resist.

PERICLES.
 * Antiochus, I thank thee, who hath taught
 * My frail mortality to know itself,
 * And by those fearful objects to prepare
 * This body, like to them, to what I must;
 * For death remember’d should be like a mirror,
 * Who tells us life ’s but breath, to trust it error.
 * I’ll make my will then, and, as sick men do
 * Who know the world, see heaven, but, feeling woe,
 * Gripe not at earthly joys as erst they did;
 * So I bequeath a happy peace to you
 * And all good men, as every prince should do;
 * My riches to the earth from whence they came;
 * But my unspotted fire of love to you.

[To the daughter of Antiochus.]

Thus ready for the way of life or death,
 * I wait the sharpest blow, Antiochus.

ANTIOCHUS.
 * Scorning advice, read the conclusion, then:
 * Which read and not expounded, ’tis decreed,
 * As these before thee thou thyself shalt bleed.

DAUGHTER.
 * Of all say’d yet, mayst thou prove prosperous!
 * Of all say’d yet, I wish thee happiness!

PERICLES
 * Like a bold champion, I assume THe lists,
 * Nor ask advice of any other thought
 * But faithfulness and courage.

[He reads the riddle.]

I am no viper, yet I feed
 * On mother’s flesh which did me breed.
 * I sought a husband, in which labour
 * I found that kindness in a father:
 * He’s father, son, and husband mild;
 * I mother, wife, and yet his child.
 * How they may be, and yet in two,
 * As you will live, resolve it you.
 * Sharp physic is the last: but, O you powers
 * That give heaven countless eyes to view men’s acts,
 * Why cloud they not their sights perpetually,
 * If this be true, which makes me pale to read it?
 * Fair glass of light, I loved you, and could still,

[Takes hold of the hand of the Princess.]

Were not this glorious casket stored with ill:
 * But I must tell you, now my thoughts revolt;
 * For he’s no man on whom perfections wait
 * That, knowing sin within, will touch the gate,
 * You are a fair viol, and your sense the strings;
 * Who, finger’d to make man his lawful music,
 * Would draw heaven down, and all the gods to hearken;
 * But being play’d upon before your time,
 * Hell only danceth at so harsh a chime.
 * Good sooth, I care not for you.

ANTIOCHUS.
 * Prince Pericles, touch not, upon thy life,
 * For that’s an article within our law,
 * As dangerous as the rest. Tour time’s expired:
 * Either expound now, or receive your sentence.

PERICLES.
 * Great king,
 * Few love to hear the sins they love to act;
 * ’Twould braid yourself too near for me to tell it.
 * Who has a book of all that monarchs do,
 * He’s more secure to keep it shut than shown:
 * For vice repeated is like the wandering wind,
 * Blows dust in others’ eyes, to spread itself;
 * And yet the end of all is bought thus dear,
 * The breath is gone, and the sore eyes see clear
 * To stop the air would hurt them. The blind mole casts
 * Copp’d hills towards heaven, to tell the earth is throng’d
 * By man’s oppression; and the poor worm doth die for’t.
 * Kind are earth’s gods; in vice their law’s their will;
 * And if Jove stray, who dares say Jove doth ill?
 * It is enough you know; and it is fit,
 * What being more known grows worse, to smother it.
 * All love the womb that their first bred,
 * Then give my tongue like leave to love my head.

ANTIOCHUS.[Aside]
 * Heaven, that I had thy head! he has found the meaning:
 * But I will gloze with him. — Young prince of Tyre.
 * Though by the tenour of our strict edict,
 * Your exposition misinterpreting,
 * We might proceed to cancel of your days;
 * Yet hope, succeeding from so fair a tree
 * As your fair self, doth tune us otherwise:
 * Forty days longer we do respite you;
 * If by which time our secret be undone,
 * This mercy shows we’ll joy in such a son:
 * And until then your entertain shall be
 * As doth befit our honour and your worth.

[Exeunt all but Pericles.]

PERACLES.
 * How courtesy would seem to cover sin,
 * When what is done is like an hypocrite,
 * The which is good in nothing but in sight!
 * If it be true that I interpret false,
 * Then were it certain you were not so bad
 * As with foul incest to abuse your soul;
 * Where now you’re both a father and a son,
 * By your untimely claspings with your child,
 * Which pleasure fits an husband, not a father;
 * And she an eater of her mother’s flesh,
 * By the defiling of her parent’s bed;
 * And both like serpents are, who though they feed
 * On sweetest flowers, yet they poison breed.
 * Antioch, farewell! for wisdom sees, those men
 * Blush not in actions blacker than the night,
 * Will shun no course to keep them from the light.
 * One sin, I know, another doth provoke;
 * Murder’s as near to lust as flame to smoke:
 * Poison and treason are the hands of sin,
 * Ay, and the targets, to put off the shame:
 * Then, lest my life be cropp’d to keep you clear,
 * By flight I’II shun the danger which I fear.

[Exit.]

[Re-enter Antiochus.]

ANTIOCHUS.
 * He gath found the meaning, for which we mean
 * To have his head.
 * He must not live to trumpet forth my infamy,
 * Nor tell the world Antiochus doth sin
 * In such a loathed manner;
 * And therefore instantly this prince must die;
 * For by his fall my honour must keep high.
 * Who attends us there?

[Enter Thaliard.]

THALIARD.
 * Doth your highness call?

ANTIOCHUS.
 * Thaliard,
 * You are of our chamber, and our mind partakes
 * Her private actions to your secrecy;
 * And for your faithfulness we will advance you.
 * Thaliard, behold, here’s poison, and here’s gold;
 * We hate the prince of Tyre, and thou must kill him:
 * It fits thee not to ask the reason why,
 * Because we Bid it. Say, is it done?

THALIARD.
 * My lord,
 * Tis done.

ANTIOCHUS.
 * Enough.

[Enter a Messenger.]

Let your breath cool yourself, telling your haste.

MESSENGER.
 * My lord, prlnce Pericles is fled.

[Exit.]

ANTIOCHUS.
 * As thou
 * Wilt live, fly after: and like an arrow shot
 * From a well-experienced archer hits the mark
 * His eye doth level at, so thou ne’er return
 * Unless thou say ‘Prince Pericles is dead.’

THALIARD.
 * My lord,
 * If I can get him within my pistol’s length,
 * I’ll make him sure enough: so, farewell to your highness.

ANTIOCHUS.
 * Thaliard! adieu!

[Exit Thaliard.]

Till
 * Pericles be dead,
 * My heart can lend no succour to my head.

[Exit.]

SCENE II. Tyre. A room in the palace.
[Enter Pericles.]

PERICLES. [To Lords without.]
 * Let none disturb us. — Why should this change of thoughts,
 * The sad companion, dull-eyed melancholy,
 * Be my so used a guest as not an hour,
 * In the day’s glorious walk, or peaceful night,
 * The tomb where grief should sleep, can breed me quiet?
 * Here pleasures court mine eyes, and mine eyes shun them,
 * And danger, which I fear’d, is at Antioch,
 * Whose arm seems far too short to hit me here:
 * Yet neither pleasure’s art can joy my spirits,
 * Nor yet the other’s distance comfort me.
 * Then it is thus: the passions of the mind,
 * That have their first conception by mis-dread
 * Have after-nourishment and life by care;
 * And what was first but fear what might he done,
 * Grows elder now and cares it be not done.
 * And so with me: the great Antiochus,
 * ’Gainst whom I am too little to contend,
 * Since he ’s so great can make his will his act,
 * Will think me speaking, though I swear to silence;
 * Nor boots it me to say I honour him.
 * If he suspect I may dishonour him:
 * And what may make him blush in being known,
 * He’ll stop the course by which it might be known;
 * With hostile forces he’11 o’erspread the land,
 * And with the ostent of war will look so huge,
 * Amazement shall drive courage from the state;
 * Our men be vanquish’d ere they do resist,
 * And subjects punish’d that ne’er thought offence:
 * Which care of them, not pity of myself,
 * Who am no more but as the tops of trees,
 * Which fence the roots they grow by and defend them,
 * Makes both my body pine and soul to languish,
 * And punish that before that he would punish.

[Enter Helicanus, with other Lords.]

FIRST LORD.
 * Joy and all comfort in your sacred breast!

SECOND LORD.
 * And keep your mind, till you return to us,
 * Peaceful and comfortable!

HELICANUS.
 * Peace, peace, and give experience tongue.
 * They do abuse the king that flatter him:
 * For flattery is the bellows blows up sin;
 * The thing the which is flatter’d, but a spark,
 * To which that blast gives heat and stronger glowing:
 * Whereas reproof, obedient and in order,
 * Fits kings, as they are men, for they may err.
 * When Signior Sooth here does proclaim a peace,
 * He flatters you, makes war upon your life.
 * Prince, pardon me, or strike me, if you please;
 * I cannot be much lower than my knees.

PERICLES.
 * All leave us else; but let your cares o’erlook
 * What shipping and what lading is in our haven,
 * And then return to us.

[Exeunt Lords.]

Helicanus, thou
 * Hast moved us: what seest thou in our looks?

HELICANUS.
 * An angry brow, dread lord.

PERICLES.
 * If there be such a dart in princes’ frowns,
 * How durst thy tongue move anger to our face?

HELICANUS.
 * How dare the plants look up to heaven, from whence
 * They have their nourishment?

PERICLES.
 * Thou know’st I have power
 * To take thy life from thee.

HELICANUS. [Kneeling.]
 * I have ground the axe myself;
 * Do you but strike the blow.

PERICLES.
 * Rise, prithee, rise.
 * Sit down: thou art no flatterer:
 * I thank thee for it; and heaven forbid
 * That kings should let their ears hear their faults hid!
 * Fit counsellor and servant for a prince,
 * Who by thy wisdom makest a prince thy servant,
 * What wouldst thou have me do?

HELICANUS.
 * To bear with patience
 * Such griefs as you yourself do lay upon yourself.

PERICLES.
 * Thou speak’st like a physician, Helicanus,
 * That minister’st a potion unto me
 * That thou wouldst tremble to receive thyself.
 * Attend me, then: I went to Antioch,
 * And there as thou know’st, against the face of death,
 * I sought the purchase of a glorious beauty,
 * From whence an issue I might propagate,
 * Are arms to princes, and bring joys to subjects.
 * Her face was to mine eye beyond all wonder;
 * The rest — hark in thine ear — as black as incest:
 * Which by my knowledge found, the sinful father
 * Seem’d not to strike, but smooth: but thou know’st this,
 * ’Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.
 * Which fear so grew in me, I hither fled,
 * Under the covering of a careful night,
 * Who seem’d my good protector; and, being here,
 * Bethought me what was past, what might succeed.
 * I knew him tyrannous; and tyrants’ fears
 * Decrease not, but grow faster than the years:
 * And should he doubt it, as no doubt he doth,
 * That I should open to the listening air
 * How many worthy princes’ bloods were shed,
 * To keep his bed of blackness unlaid ope,
 * To lop that doubt, he’ll fill this land with arms,
 * And make pretence of wrong that I have done him;
 * When all, for mine, if I may call offence,
 * Must feel war0s blow, who spares not innocence:
 * Which love to all, of which thyself art one,
 * Who now reprovest me for it, —

HELICANUS.
 * Alas, sir!

PERICLES.
 * Drew sleep out of mine eyes, blood from my cheeks,
 * Musings into my mind, with thousand doubts
 * How I might stop this tempest ere it came;
 * And finding little comfort to relieve them,
 * I thought it princely charity to grieve them.

HELICANUS.
 * Well, my lord, since you have given me leave to speak,
 * Freely will I speak. Antiochus you fear,
 * And justly too, I think, you fear the tyrant,
 * Who either by public war or private treason
 * Will take away your life.
 * Therefore, my lord, go travel for a while,
 * Till that his rage and anger be forgot,
 * Or till the Destinies do cut his thread of life.
 * Your rule direct to any; if to me,
 * Day serves not light more faithful than I’ll be.

PERICLES.
 * I do not doubt thy faith;
 * But should he wrong my liberties in my absence?

HELCANUS.
 * We’ll mingle our bloods together in the earth,
 * From whence we had our being and our birth.

PERICLES.
 * Tyre, I now look from thee then, and to Tarsus
 * Intend my travel, where I’ll hear from thee;
 * And by whose letters I’ll dispose myself.
 * The care I had and have of subjects’ good
 * On thee I lay, whose wisdom’s strength can bear it.
 * I’ll take thy word for faith, not ask thine oath:
 * Who shuns not to break one will sure crack both:
 * But in our orbs we’ll live so round and safe,
 * That time of both this truth shall ne’er convince,
 * Thou show’dst a subject’s shine, I a true prince.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. Tyre. An ante-chamber in the Palace.
[Enter Thaliard.]

THALIARD.
 * So, this is Tyre, and this the court. Here must I Kill King
 * Pericles; and if I do it not, I am sure to be hanged at home:
 * ’tis dangerous. Well, I perceive he was a wise fellow, and
 * had good discretion, that, being bid to ask what he would of
 * the king, desired he might know none of his secrets: now do I
 * see he had some reason for ’t; for if a king bid a man be a
 * villain, he’s bound by the indenture of his oath to be one.
 * Hush! here come the lords of Tyre.

[Enter Helicanus and Escanes, with other Lords of Tyre.]

HELICANUS.
 * You shall not need, my fellow peers of Tyre,
 * Further to question me of your king’s departure:
 * His seal’d commission, left in trust with me,
 * Doth speak sufficiently he ’s gone to travel.

THALIARD. [Aside.]
 * How! the king gone!

HELICANUS.
 * If further yet you will be satisfied,
 * Why, as it were unlicensed of your loves,
 * He would depart, I’ll give some light unto you.
 * Being at Antioch —

THALIARD. [Aside.]
 * What from Antioch?

HELICANUS.
 * Royal Antiochus — on what cause I know not
 * Took some displeasure at him; at least he judged so:
 * And doubting lest that he had err’d or sinn’d,
 * To show his sorrow, he ’ld correct himself;
 * So puts himself unto the shipman’s toil,
 * With whom each minute threatens life or death.

THALIARD. [Aside.]
 * Well, I perceive
 * I shall not be hang’d now, although I would;
 * But since he ’s gone, the king’s seas must please
 * He ’scaped the land, to perish at the sea.
 * I ’ll present myself. Peace to the lords of Tyre!

HELICANUS.
 * Lord Thaliard from Antiochus is welcome.

THALIARD.
 * From him I come
 * With message unto princely Pericles;
 * But since my landing I have understood
 * Your lord has betook himself to unknown travels,
 * My message must return from whence it came.

HELICANUS.
 * We have no reason to desire it,
 * Commended to our master, not to us:
 * Yet, ere you shall depart, this we desire,
 * As friends to Antioch, we may feast in Tyre.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE IV. Tarsus. A room in the Governor’s house.
[Enter Cleon, the governor of Tarsus, with Dionyza, and others.]

CLEON.
 * My Dionyza, shall we rest us here,
 * And by relating tales of others’ griefs,
 * See if ’twill teach us to forqet our own?

DIONYZA.
 * That were to blow at fire in hope to quench it;
 * For who digs hills because they do aspire
 * Throws down one mountain to cast up a higher.
 * O my distressed lord, even such our griefs are;
 * Here they’re but felt, and seen with mischief’s eyes,
 * But like to groves, being topp’d, they higher rise.

CLEON.
 * O Dionyza,
 * Who wanteth food, and will not say he wants it,
 * Or can conceal his hunger till he famish?
 * Our tongues and sorrows do sound deep
 * Our woes into the air; our eyes do weep,
 * Till tongues fetch breath that may proclaim them louder;
 * That, if heaven slumber while their creatures want,
 * They may awake their helps to comfort them.
 * I’ll then discourse our woes, felt several years,
 * And wanting breath to speak help me with tears.

DIONYZA.
 * I’ll do my best, sir.

CLEON.
 * This Tarsus, o’er which I have the government,
 * A city on whom plenty held full hand,
 * For riches strew’d herself even in the streets;
 * Whose towers bore heads so high they kiss’d the clouds,
 * And strangers ne’er beheld but wonder’d at;
 * Whose men and dames so jetted and adorn’d,
 * Like one another’s glass to trim them by:
 * Their tables were stored full, to glad the sight,
 * And not so much to feed on as delight;
 * All poverty was scorn’d, and pride so great,
 * The name of help grew odious to repeat.

DIONYZA.
 * O, ’tis too true.

CLEON.
 * But see what heaven can do! By this our change,
 * These mouths, who but of late, earth, sea, and air,
 * Were all too little to content and please,
 * Although they gave their creatures in abundance,
 * As houses are defiled for want of use,
 * They are now starved for want of exercise:
 * Those palates who, not yet two sumMers younger,
 * Must have inventions to delight the taste,
 * Would now be glad of bread, and beg for it:
 * Those mothers who, to nousle up their babes,
 * Thought nought too curious, are ready now
 * To eat those little darlings whom they loved.
 * So sharp are hunger’s teeth, that man and wife
 * Draw lots who first shall die to lengthen life:
 * Here stands a lord, and there a lady weeping;
 * Here many sink, yet those which see them fall
 * Have scarce strength left to give them burial.
 * Is not this true?

DIONYZA.
 * Our cheeks and hollow eyes do witness it.

CLEON.
 * O, let those cities that of plenty’s cup
 * And her prosperities so largely taste,
 * With their superflous riots, hear these tears!
 * The misery of Tarsus may be theirs.

[Enter a Lord.]

LORD.
 * Where’s the lord governor?

CLEON.
 * Here.
 * Speak out thy sorrows which thou bring’st in haste,
 * For comfort is too far for us to expect.

LORD.
 * We have descried, upon our neighbouring shore,
 * A portly sail of ships make hitherward.

CLEON.
 * I thought as much.
 * One sorrow never comes but brings an heir,
 * That may succeed as his inheritor;
 * And so in ours: some neighbouring nation,
 * Taking advantage of our misery,
 * Math stuff’d these hollow vessels with their power,
 * To beat us down, the which are down already;
 * And make a conquest of unhappy me,
 * Whereas no glory’s got to overcome.

LORD.
 * That’s the least fear; for, by the semblance
 * Of their white flags display’d, they bring us peace,
 * And come to us as favourers, not as foes.

CLEON.
 * Thou speak’st like him’s untutor’d to repeat:
 * Who makes the fairest show means most deceit.
 * But bring they what they will and what they can,
 * What need we fear?
 * The ground’s the lowest, and we are half way there.
 * Go tell their general we attend him here,
 * To know for what he comes, and whence he comes,
 * And what he craves.

LORD.
 * I go, my lord.

[Exit.]

CLEON.
 * Welcome is peace, if he on peace consist;
 * If wars, we are unable to resist.

[Enter Pericles with Attendants.]

PERICLES.
 * Lord governor, for so we hear you are,
 * Let not our ships and number of our men
 * Be like a beacon fired to amaze your eyes.
 * We have heard your miseries as far as Tyre,
 * And seen the desolation of your streets:
 * Nor come we to add sorrow to your tears,
 * But to relieve them of their heavy load;
 * And these our ships, you happily may think
 * Are like the Trojan horse was stuff’d within
 * With bloody veins, expecting overthrow,
 * Are stored with corn to make your needy bread,
 * And give them life whom hunger starved half dead.

ALL.
 * The gods of Greece protect you!
 * And we’ll pray for you.

PERICLES.
 * Arise, I pray you, rise:
 * We do not look for reverence, but for love,
 * And harbourage for ourself, our ships, and men.

CLEON.
 * The which when any shall not gratify,
 * Or pay you with unthankfulness in thought,
 * Be it our wives, our children, or ourselves,
 * The curse of heaven and men succeed their evils!
 * Till when, — the which I hope shall ne’er be seen, —
 * Your grace is welcome to our town and us.

PERICLES.
 * Which welcome we’ll accept; feast here awhile,
 * Until our stars that frown lend us a smile.

[Exeunt.]

ACT II.
[Enter Gower.]

GOWER.
 * Mere have you seen a mighty king
 * His child, I wis, to incest bring;
 * A better prince and benign lord,
 * That will prove awful both in deed word.
 * Be quiet then as men should be,
 * Till he hath pass’d necessity.
 * I’ll show you those in troubles reign,
 * Losing a mite, a mountain gain.
 * The good in conversation,
 * To whom I give my benison,
 * Is still at Tarsus, where each man
 * Thinks all is writ he speken can;
 * And, to remember what he does,
 * Build his statue to make him glorious:
 * But tidings to the contrary
 * Are brought your eyes; what need speak I?

DUMB SHOW.

[Enter at one door Pericles talking with Cleon talking with
 * CLEON; all the train with them. Enter at another door a
 * Gentleman, with a letter to Pericles; Pericles shows the
 * letter to Cleon; gives the Messenger a reward, and knights
 * him. Exit Pericles at one door, and Cleon at another.]

Good Helicane, that stay’d at home.
 * Not to eat honey like a drone
 * From others’ labours; for though he strive
 * To killen bad, keep good alive;
 * And to fulfil his prince’ desire,
 * Sends word of all that haps in Tyre:
 * How Thaliard came full bent with sin
 * And had intent to murder him;
 * And that in Tarsus was not best
 * Longer for him to make his rest.
 * He, doing so, put forth to seas,
 * Where when men been, there’s seldom ease;
 * For now the wind begins to blow;
 * Thunder above and deeps below
 * Make such unquiet, that the ship
 * Should house him safe is wreck’d and split;
 * And he, good prince, having all lost,
 * By waves from coast to coast is tost:
 * All perishen of man, of pelf,
 * Ne aught escapen but himself;
 * Till fortune, tired with doing bad,
 * Threw him ashore, to give him glad:
 * And here he comes. What shall be next,
 * Pardon old Gower, — this longs the text.

[Exit.]

SCENE I. Pentapolis. An open place by the sea-side.
[Enter Pericles, wet.]

PERICLES.
 * Yet cease your ire, you angry stars of heaven!
 * Wind, rain, and thunder, remember, earthly man
 * Is but a substance that must yield to you;
 * And I, as fits my nature, do obey you:
 * Alas, the sea hath cast me on the rocks,
 * Wash’d me from shore to shore, and left me breath
 * Nothing to think on but ensuing death:
 * Let it suffice the greatness of your powers
 * To have bereft a prince of all his fortunes;
 * And having thrown him from your watery grave,
 * Here to have death in peace is all he’ll crave.

[Enter three Fishermen.]

FIRST FISHERMAN.
 * What, ho, Pilch!

SECOND FISHERMAN.
 * Ha, come and bring away the nets!

FIRST FISHERMAN.
 * What, Patch-breech, I say!

THIRD FISHERMAN.
 * What say you, master?

FIRST FISHERMAN.
 * Look how thou stirrest now! come away, or I’ll fetch thee with a
 * wanion.

THIRD FISHERMAN.
 * 'Faith, master, I am thinking of the poor men that were cast away
 * before us even now.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
 * Alas, poor souls, it grieved my heart to hear what pitiful cries
 * they made to us to help them, when, well-a-day, we could scarce
 * help ourselves.

THIRD FISHERMAN.
 * Nay, master, said not I as much when I saw the porpus how he
 * bounced and tumbled? they say they’re half fish, half flesh:
 * a plague on them, they ne’er come but I look to be washed.
 * Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
 * Why, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones: I
 * can compare our rich misers to nothing so fitly as to a whale;
 * a’ plays and tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at
 * last devours them all at a mouthful. such whales have I heard
 * on o’ the land, who never leave gaping till they they’ve
 * swallowed the whole parish, church, steeple, bells, and all.

PERICLES. [Aside.]
 * A pretty moral.

THIRD FISHERMAN.
 * But, master, if I had been the sexton, I would have been that day
 * in the belfry.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
 * Why, man?

THIRD FISHERMAN.
 * Because he should have swallowed me too; and when I had been in
 * his belly, I would have kept such a jangling of the bells, that
 * he should never have left, till he cast bells, steeple, church,
 * and parish, up again. But if the good King Simonides were of
 * my mind, —

PERICLES. [Aside.]
 * Simonides!

THIRD FISHERMAN.
 * We would purge the land of these drones, that rob the bee of her
 * honey.

PERICLES. [Aside.]
 * How from the finny subjec of the sea
 * These fishers tell the infirmities of men;
 * And from their watery empire recollect
 * All that may men approve or men detect!
 * Peace be at your labour, honest fishermen.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
 * Honest! good fellow, what’s that; If it be a day fits you, search
 * out of the calendar, and nobody look after it.

PERICLES.
 * May see the sea hath cast upon your coast.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
 * What a drunken knave was the sea to cast thee in our way!

PERICLES.
 * A man whom both the waters and the wind,
 * In that vast tennis-court, have made the ball
 * For them to play upon, entreats you pity him;
 * He asks of you, that never used to beg.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
 * No, friend, cannot you beg? Here’s them in our country of Greece
 * gets more with begging than we can do with working.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
 * Canst thou catch any fishes, then?

PERICLES.
 * I never practised it.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
 * Nay, then thou wilt starve, sure; for here’s nothing to be got
 * now-a-days, unless thou canst fish for ’t.

PERICLES.
 * What I have been I have forgot to know;
 * But what I am, want teaches me to think on:
 * A man throng’d up with cold: my veins are chill,
 * And have no more of life than may suffice
 * To give my tongue that heat to ask your help;
 * Which if you shall refuse, when I am dead,
 * For that I am a man, pray see me buried.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
 * Die quoth-a? Now gods forbid!  I have a gown here; come, put it
 * on; keep thee warm. Now, afore me, a handsome fellow! Come,
 * thou shalt go home, and we’ll have flesh for holidays, fish for
 * fasting-days, and moreo’er puddings and flap-jacks, and thou
 * shalt be welcome.

PERICLES.
 * I thank you, sir.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
 * Hark you, my friend; you said you could not beg.

PERICLES.
 * I did but crave.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
 * But crave! Then I’ll turn craver too, and so I shall ’scape
 * whipping.

PERICLES.
 * Why, are your beggars whipped, then?

SECOND FISHERMAN.
 * O, not all, my friend, not all; for if all your beggars were
 * whipped, I would wish no better office than to be beadle.
 * But, master, I’ll go draw up the net.

[Exit with Third Fisherman.]

PERICLES. [Aside.]
 * How well this honest mirth becomes their 1abour!

FIRST FISHERMAN.
 * Hark you, sir, do you know where ye are?

PERICLES.
 * Not well.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
 * Why, I’ll tell you: this is called Pentapolis, and our king the
 * good Simonides.

PERICLES.
 * The good King Simonides, do you call him?

FIRST FISHERMAN.
 * Ay, sir; and he deserves so to be called for his peaceable reign
 * and good government.

PERICLES.
 * He is a happy king, since he gains from his subjects the name of
 * good government. How far is his court distant from this shore?

FIRST FISHERMAN.
 * Marry sir, half a day’s journey: and I’ll tell you, he hath a
 * fair daughter, and to-morrow is her birth-day; and there are
 * princes and knights come from all parts of the world to just and
 * tourney for her love.

PERICLES.
 * Were my fortunes equal to my desires, I could wish to make one
 * there.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
 * O, sir, things must be as they may; and what a man cannot get, he
 * may lawfully deal for — his wife’ soul.

[Re-enter Second and Third Fishermen, drawing up a net.]

SECOND FISHERMAN.
 * Help, master, help! here’s a fish hangs in the net, like a poor
 * man’s right in the law; ’twill hardly come out. Ha! bots on’t,
 * ’tis come at last, and ’tis turned to a rusty armour.

PERICLES.
 * An armour, friends! I pray you, let me see it.
 * Thanks, fortune, yet, that, after all my crosses,
 * Thou givest me somewhat to repair myself,
 * And though it was mine own, part of my heritage,
 * Which my dead father did bequeath to me,
 * With this strict charge, even as he left his life.
 * ‘Keep it, my Pericles; it hath been a shield
 * ’Twixt me and death;’ — and pointed to this brace; —
 * For that it saved me, keep it; in like necessity —
 * The which the gods protect thee from! — may defend thee.’
 * It kept where I kept, I so dearly loved it;
 * Till the rough seas, that spare not any man,
 * Took it in rage, though calm’d have given’t again:
 * I thank thee for ’t: my shipwreck now’s no ill,
 * Since I have here my father’s gift in’s will.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
 * What mean you’ sir?

PERICLES.
 * To beg of you, kind friends, this coat of worth,
 * For it was sometime target to a king;
 * I know it by this mark. He loved me dearly,
 * And for his sake I wish the having of it;
 * And that you’ld guide me to your sovereign court,
 * Where with it I may appear a gentleman;
 * And if that ever my fortune’s better,
 * I’ll pay your bounties; till then rest your debtor.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
 * Why, wilt thou tourney for the lady?

PERICLES.
 * I’ll show the virtue I have borne in arms.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
 * Why, do’e take it, and the gods give thee good on ’t!

SECOND FISHERMAN.
 * Ay, but hark you, my friend; ’twas we that made up this garment
 * through the rough seams of the waters: there are certain
 * condolements, certain vails. I hope, sir, if you thrive, you’ll
 * remember from whence you had it.

PERICLES.
 * Believe’t I will.
 * By your furtherance I am clothed in steel;
 * And, spite of all the rapture of the sea,
 * This jewel holds his building on my arm:
 * Unto thy value I will mount myself
 * Upon a courser, whose delightful steps
 * Shall make the gazer joy to see him tread.
 * Only, my friend, I yet am unprovided
 * Of a pair of bases.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
 * We’ll sure provide: thou shalt have my best gown to make thee a
 * pair; and I’ll bring thee to the court myself.

PERICLES.
 * Then honour be but a goal to my will,
 * This day I’ll rise, or else add ill to ill.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. The same.
[ A public way, or platform leading to the lists. A pavilion by the side of it for the reception of the King, Princess, Lords, etc.]

[Enter Simonides, Lords and Attendants.]

SIMONIDES.
 * Are the knights ready to begin the triumph?

FIRST LORD.
 * They are, my liege;
 * And stay your coming to present themselves.

SIMONIDES.
 * Return them, we are ready; and our daughter,
 * In honour of whose birth these triumphs are,
 * Sits here, like beauty’s child, whom nature gat
 * For men to see, and seeing wonder at.

[Exit a Lord.]

THALIARD.
 * It pleaseth you1 my royal father, to express
 * My commendations great, whose merit’s less.

SIMONIDES.
 * It’s fit it should be so; for princes are
 * A model, which heaven makes like to itself:
 * As jewels lose their glory if neglected,
 * So princes their renowns if not respected.
 * ’Tis now your honour, daughter, to explain
 * The labour of each knight in his device.

THALIARD.
 * Which, to preserve mine honour, I’ll perform.

[Enter a Knight; he passes over, and his Squire presents his
 * shield to the Princess.]

SIMONIDES.
 * Who is the first that doth prefer himself?

THALIARD.
 * A knight of Sparta, my renowned father;
 * And the device he bears upon his shield
 * Is a black Ethiope reaching at the sun:
 * The word, ‘Lux tua vita mihi.’

SIMONIDES.
 * He loves you well that holds his life of you.

[The Second Knight passes over.]

Who is the second that presents himself?

THALIARD.
 * A prince of Macedon, my royal father;
 * And the device he bears upon his shield
 * Is an arm’d knight that’s conquer’d by a lady;
 * The motto thus, in Spanish, ‘Piu por dulzura que por fuerza.’

[The Third Knight passes over.]

SIMONIDES.
 * And what’s the third?

THALIARD.
 * The third of Antioch;
 * And his device, a wreath of chivalry;
 * The word, ‘Me pompae provexit apex.’

[The Fourth Knight passes over.]

SIMONIDES.
 * What is the fourth?

THALIARD.
 * A burning torch that’s turned upside down;
 * The word, ‘Quod me alit, me extinguit.’

SIMONIDES.
 * Which shows that beauty hath his power and will,
 * Which can as well inflame as it can kill.

[The Fifth Knight passes over.]

THALIARD.
 * The fifth, an hand environed with clouds,
 * Holding out gold that’s by the touchstone tried;
 * The motto thus, ‘Sic spectanda fides.’

[The Sixith Knight, Pericles, passes over.]

SIMONIDES.
 * And what’s
 * The sixth and last, the which the knight himself
 * With such a graceful courtesy deliver’d?

THALIARD.
 * He seems to be a stranger; but his present is
 * A wither’d branch, that’s only green at top;
 * The motto, ‘In hac spe vivo.’

SIMONIDES.
 * A pretty moral;
 * From the dejected state wherein he is,
 * He hopes by you his fortunes yet may flourish.

FIRST LORD.
 * He had need mean better than his outward show
 * Can any way speak in his just commend;
 * For by his rusty outside he appears
 * To have practised more the whipstock than the lance.

SECOND LORD.
 * He well may be a stranger, for he comes
 * To an honour’d triumph strangely furnished.

THIRD LORD.
 * And on set purpose let his armour rust
 * Until this day, to scour it in the dust.

SIMONIDES.
 * Opinion’s but a fool, that makes us scan
 * The outward habit by the inward man.
 * But stay, the knights are coming: we will withdraw
 * Into the gallery.

[Exeunt.]

[Great shouts within, and all cry ‘The mean knight!’]

SCENE III. The same. A hall of state: a banquet prepared.
[Enter Simonides, Thaisa, Lords, Attendants, and Knights, from tilting.]

SIMONIDES.
 * Knights,
 * To say you’re welcome were superfluous.
 * To place upon the volume of your deeds,
 * As in a title-page, your worth in arms,
 * Were more than you expect, or more than’s fit,
 * Since every worth in show commends itself.
 * Prepare for mirth, for mirth becomes a feast:
 * You are princes and my guests.

THAISA.
 * But you, my knight and guest;
 * To whom this wreath of victory I give,
 * And crown you king of this day’s happiness.

PERICLES.
 * ’Tis more by fortune, lady, than by merit.

SIMONIDES.
 * Call it by what you will, the day is yours;
 * And here, I hope, is none that envies it.
 * In framing an artist, art hath thus decreed,
 * To make some good, but others to exceed;
 * And you are her labour’d scholar. Come queen of the feast, —
 * For, daughter, so you are, — here take your place:
 * Marshal the rest, as they deserve their grace.

KNIGHTS.
 * We are honour’d much by good Simonides.

SIMONIDES.
 * Your presence glads our days; honour we love;
 * For who hates honour hates the gods above.

MARSHALL.
 * Sir, yonder is your place.

PERICLES.
 * Some other is more fit.

FIRST KNIGHT.
 * Contend not, sir; for we are gentlemen
 * That neither in our hearts nor outward eyes
 * Envy the great nor do the low despise.

PERICLES.
 * You are right courteous knights.

SIMONIDES.
 * Sit, sir, sit.

PERICLES.
 * By Jove, I wonder, that is king of thoughts,
 * These cates resist me, she but thought upon.

THAISA.
 * By Juno, that is queen of marriage,
 * All viands that I eat do seem unsavoury,
 * Wishing him my meat. Sure, he’s a gallant gentleman.

SIMONIDES.
 * He’s but a country gentleman;
 * Has done no more than other knights have done;
 * Has broken a staff or so; so let it pass.

THAISA.
 * To me he seems like diamond to glass.

PERICLES.
 * Yon king’s to me like to my father’s picture,
 * Which tells me in that glory once he was;
 * Had princes sit, like stars, about his throne,
 * And he the sun, for them to reverence;
 * None that beheld him, but, like lesser lights,
 * Did vail their crowns to his supremacy:
 * Where now his son’s like a glow-worm in the night,
 * The which hath fire in darkness, none in light:
 * Whereby I see that Time’s the king of men,
 * He’s both their parent, and he is their grave,
 * And gives them what he will, not what they crave.

SIMONIDES.
 * What, are you merry, knights?

KNIGHTS.
 * Who can be other in this royal presence?

SIMONIDES.
 * Here, with a cup that’s stored unto the brim, —
 * As you do love, fill to your mistress’ lips, —
 * We drink this health to you.

KNIGHTS.
 * We thank your grace.

SIMONIDES.
 * Yet pause awhile:
 * Yon knight doth sit too melancholy,
 * As if the entertainment in our court
 * Had not a show might countervail his worth.
 * Note it not you, Thaisa?

THAISA.
 * What is it
 * To me, my father?

SIMONIDES.
 * O attend, my daughter:
 * Princes in this should live like god’s above,
 * Who freely give to every one that comes
 * To honour them:
 * And princes not doing so are like to gnats,
 * Which make a sound, but kill’d are wonder’d at.
 * Therefore to make his entrance more sweet,
 * Here, say we drink this standing-bowl of wine to him.

THAISA.
 * Alas, my father, it befits not me
 * Unto a stranger knight to be so bold:
 * He may my proffer take for an offence,
 * Since men take women’s gifts for impudence.

SIMONIDES.
 * How!
 * Do as I bid you, or you’ll move me else.

THAISA. [Aside]
 * Now, by the gods, he could not please me better.

SIMONIDES.
 * And furthermore tell him, we desire to know of him,
 * Of whence he is, his name and parentage.

THAISA.
 * The king my father, sir, has drunk to you.

PERICLES.
 * I thank him.

THAISA.
 * Wishing it so much blood unto your life.

PERICLES.
 * I thank both him and you, and pledge him freely.

THAISA.
 * And further he desires to know of you,
 * Of whence you are, your name and parentage.

PERICLES.
 * A gentleman of Tyre; my name, Pericles;
 * My education been in arts and arms;
 * Who, looking for adventures in the world,
 * Was by the rough seas reft of ships and men,
 * And after shipwreck driven upon this shore.

THAISA.
 * He thanks your grace; names himself Pericles,
 * A gentleman of Tyre,
 * Who only by misfortune of the seas
 * Bereft of ships and men, cast on this shore.

SIMONIDES.
 * Now, by the gods, I pity his misfortune,
 * And will awake him from his melancholy.
 * Come, gentlemen, we sit too long on trifles,
 * And waste the time, which looks for other revels.
 * Even in your armours, as you are address’d,
 * Will very well become a soldier’s dance.
 * I will not have excuse, with saying this,
 * Loud music is too harsh for ladies’ heads
 * Since they love men in arms as well as beds.

[The Knights dance.]

So, this was well ask’d, ’twas so well perform’d.
 * Come, sir;
 * Here is a lady which wants breathing too:
 * And I have heard you nights of Tyre
 * Are excellent in making ladies trip;
 * And that their measures are as exceltent.

PERICLES.
 * In those that practise them they are, my lord.

SIMONIDES.
 * O, that’s as much as you would be denied
 * Of your fair courtesy.

[The Knights and Ladies dance.]

Unclasp, unclasp:
 * Thanks gentlemen, to all; all have done well.

[To Pericles.]

But you the you the best. Pages and lights to conduct
 * These knights unto their several lodging.

[To Pericles.]

Yours, sir,
 * We have given order to be next our own.

PERICLES.
 * I am at your grace’s pleasure.

SIMONIDES.
 * Princes, it is too late to talk of love;
 * And that’s the mark I know you level at:
 * Therefore each one betake him to his rest;
 * To-morrow all for speeding do their best.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE IV. Tyre. A room in the Govenor’s house.
[Enter Helicanus and Escanes.]

HELICANUS.
 * No, Escanes, know this of me,
 * Antiochus from incest lived not free:
 * For which, the most high gods not minding longer
 * To withhold the vengeance that they had in store
 * Due to this heinous capital offence,
 * Even in the height and pride of all his glory,
 * When he was seated in a chariot
 * Of an inestimable value, and his daughter with him,
 * A fire from heavn came and shrivell’d up
 * Their bodies, even to loathing; for they so stunk,
 * That all those eyes adored them ere their fall
 * Scorn now their hand should give them burial.

ESCANES.
 * ’Twas very strange

HELICANUS.
 * And yet but justice; for though
 * This king were great; his greatness was no guard.
 * To bar heaven’s shaft, but sin had his reward.

ESCANES.
 * ’Tis very true.

[Enter two or three Lords.]

FIRST LORD.
 * See, not a man in private conference
 * Or council has respect with him but he.

SECOND LORD.
 * It shall no longer grieve with out reproof.

THIRD LORD.
 * And cursed be he that will not second it.

FIRST LORD.
 * Follow me, then. Lord Helicane, a word.

HELICANE.
 * With me? and welcome: happy day, my lords.

FIRST LORD.
 * Know that our griefs are risen to the top,
 * And now at length they overflow their banks.

HELICANE.
 * Your griefs! for what? wrong not your prince your love.

FIRST LORD.
 * Wrong not yourself, then, noble Helicane;
 * But if the prince do live, let us salute him.
 * Or know what ground’s made happy by his breath.
 * If in the world he live, we’ll seek him there;
 * And be resolved he lives to govern us,
 * Or dead, give’s cause to mourn his funeral,
 * And leave us to our free election.

SECOND LORD.
 * Whose death indeed ’s the strongest in our censure:
 * And knowing this kingdom is without a head, —
 * Like goodly buildings left without a roof
 * Soon fall to ruin, — your noble self,
 * That best know how to rulle and how to reign,
 * We thus submit unto, — our sovereign.

ALL.
 * Live, noble Helicane!

HELICANUS.
 * For honour’s cause, forbear your suffrages:
 * If that you love Prince Pericles, forbear.
 * Take I your wish, I leap into the seas,
 * Where’s hourly trouble for a minute’s ease.
 * A twelve month longer, let me entreat you to
 * Forbear the absence of your king;
 * If in which time expired, he not return,
 * I shall with aged patience bear your yoke.
 * But if I cannot win you to this love,
 * Go search like nobles, like noble subjects,
 * And in your search spend your adventurous worth;
 * Whom if you find, and win unto return,
 * You shall like diamonds sit about his crown.

FIRST LORD.
 * To wisdom he’s a fool that will not yield;
 * And since Lord Helicane enjoineth us,
 * We with our travels will endeavour us.

HELICANUS.
 * Then you love us, we you, and we’ll clasp hands:
 * When peers thus knit, a kingdom ever stands.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE V. Pentapolis. A room in the palace.
Enter Simonides, reading a letter at one door: the Knights meet him.]

FIRST KNIGHT.]
 * Good morrow to the good Simonides.

SIMONIDES.
 * Knights, from my daughter this I let you know,
 * That for this twelvemonth she’ll not undertake
 * A married life.
 * Her reason to herself is only known,
 * Which yet from her by no means can I get.

SECOND KNIGHT.
 * May we not get access to her, my lord?

SIMONIDES.
 * ’Faith, by no means; she hath so strictly tied
 * Her to her chamber, that ’tis impossible.
 * One twelve moons more she’ll wear Diana’s livery;
 * This by the eye of Cynthia hath she vow’d,
 * And on her virgin honour will not break it.

THIRD KNIGHT.
 * Loath to bid farewell, we take our leaves.

[Exeunt Knights.]

SIMONIDES.
 * So,
 * They are well dispatch’d; now to my daughter’s letter:
 * She tells me here, she’ll wed the stranger knight.
 * Or never more to view nor day nor light.
 * ’Tis well, mistress; your choice agrees with mine;
 * I like that well: nay, how absolute she’s in it,
 * Not minding whether I dislike or no!
 * Well, I do commend her choice;
 * And will no longer have it delay’d.
 * Soft! here he comes: I must dissemble it.

[Enter Pericles.]

PERICLES.
 * All fortune to the good Simonides!

SIMONIDES.
 * To you as much, sir! I am beholding to you
 * For your sweet music this last night: I do
 * Protest my ears were never better fed
 * With such delightful pleasing harmony.

PERICLES.
 * It is your grace’s pleasure to commend;
 * Not my desert.

SIMONIDES.
 * Sir, you are music’s master.

PERICLES.
 * The worst of all her scholars, my good lord.

SIMONIDES.
 * Let me ask you one thing:
 * What do you think of my daughter, sir?

PERICLES.
 * A most virtuous princess.

SIMONIDES.
 * And she is fair too, is she not?

PERICLES.
 * As a fair day in summer, wondrous fair.

SIMONIDES.
 * Sir, my daughter thinks very well of you;
 * Ay, so well, that you must be her master,
 * And she will be your scholar: therefore look to it.

PERICLES.
 * I am unworthy for her schoolmaster.

SIMONIDES.
 * She thinks not so; peruse this writing else.

PERICLES. [Aside.]
 * A letter, that she loves the knight of Tyre!
 * ’Tis the king’s subtilty to have my life.
 * O, seek not to entrap me, gracious lord,
 * A stranger and distressed gentleman,
 * That never aim’d so high to love your daughter,
 * But bent all offices to honour her.

SIMONIDES.
 * Thou hast bewitch’d my daughter, and thou art
 * A villain.

PERICLES.
 * By the gods, I have not:
 * Never did thought of mine levy offence;
 * Nor never did my actions yet commence
 * A deed might gain her love or your displeasure.

SIMONIDES.
 * Traitor, thou liest.

PERICLES.
 * Traitor!

SIMONIDES.
 * Ay, traitor;

PERICLES.
 * Even in his throat — unless it be the king —
 * That calls me traitor, I return the lie.

SIMONIDES. [Aside.]
 * Now, by the gods, I do applaud his courage.

PERICLES.
 * My actions are as noble as my thoughts,
 * That never relish’d of a base descent.
 * I came unto your court for honour’s cause,
 * And not to be a rebel to her state;
 * And he that otherwise accounts of me,
 * This sword shall prove he’s honour’s enemy.

SIMONIDES.
 * No?
 * Here comes my daughter, she can witness it.

[Enter Thaisa.]

PERICLES.
 * Then, as you are as virtuous as fair,
 * Resolve your angry father, if my tongue
 * Did e’er solicit, or my hand subscribe
 * To any syllable that made love to you.

THAISA.
 * Why, sir, say if you had,
 * Who takes offence at that would make me glad?

SIMONIDES.
 * Yea, mistress, are you so peremptory?
 * [Aside.]
 * I am glad on’t with all my heart. —
 * I’ll tame you; I’ll bring you in subjection.
 * Will you, not having my consent,
 * Bestow your love and your affections
 * Upon a stranger?
 * [Aside.]
 * who, for aught I know,
 * May be, nor can I think the contrary,
 * As great in blood as I myself. —
 * Therefore hear you, mistress; either frame
 * Your will to mine, — and you, sir, hear you,
 * Either be ruled by me, or I will make you —
 * Man and wife:
 * Nay, come, your hands and lips must seal it too:
 * And being join’d, I’ll thus your hopes destroy;
 * And for a further grief, — God give you joy! —
 * What, are you both pleased?

THAISA.
 * Yes, if you love me, sir.

PERICLES.
 * Even as my life my blood that fosters it.

SIMONIDES.
 * What, are you both agreed?

BOTH.
 * Yes, if it please your majesty.

SIMONIDES.
 * It pleaseth me so well, that I will see you wed;
 * And then with what haste you can get you to bed.

[Exeunt.]

ACT III.
[Enter Gower.]

GOWER.
 * Now sleep yslaked hath the rout;
 * No din but snores the house about,
 * Made louder by the o’er-fed breast
 * Of this most pompous marriage-feast.
 * The cat, with eyne of burning coal,
 * Now couches fore the mouse’s hole;
 * And crickets sing at the oven’s mouth,
 * E’er the blither for their drouth.
 * Hymen hath brought the bride to bed,
 * Where, by the loss of maidenhead,
 * A babe is moulded. Be attent,
 * And time that is so briefly spent
 * With your fine fancies quaintly eche:
 * What’s dumb in show I’ll plain with speech.

[Dumb Show.]

[Enter, Pericles and Simonides, at one door, with Attendants; a
 * Messenger meets them, kneels, and gives Pericles a letter:
 * Pericles shows it Simonides; the Lords kneel to him. Then enter
 * Thaisa with child, with Lychorida a nurse. The King shows her
 * the letter; she rejoices: she and Pericles take leave of her
 * father, and depart, with Lychorida and their Attendants.
 * Then exeunt Simonides and the rest.]

By many a dern and painful perch
 * Of Pericles the careful search,
 * By the four opposing coigns
 * Which the world together joins,
 * Is made with all due diligence
 * That horse and sail and high expense
 * Can stead the quest. At last from Tyre,
 * Fame answering the most strange inquire,
 * To the court of King Simonides
 * Are letters brought, the tenour these:
 * Antiochus and his daughter dead;
 * The men of Tyrus on the head
 * Of Helicanus would set on
 * The crown of Tyre, but he will none:
 * The mutiny he there hastes t’ oppress;
 * Says to ’em, if King Pericles
 * Come not home in twice six moons,
 * He, obedient to their dooms,
 * Will take the crown. The sum of this,
 * Brought hither to Pentapolis
 * Y-ravished the regions round,
 * And every one with claps can sound,
 * ‘Our heir-apparent is a king!
 * Who dream’d, who thought of such a thing?’
 * Brief, he must hence depart to Tyre:
 * His queen with child makes her desire —
 * Which who shall cross? — along to go:
 * Omit we all their dole and woe:
 * Lychorida, her nurse, she takes,
 * And so to sea. Their vessel shakes
 * On Neptune’s billow; half the flood
 * Hath their keel cut: but fortune’s mood
 * Varies again; the grisled north
 * Disgorges such a tempest forth,
 * That, as a duck for life that dives,
 * So up and down the poor ship drives:
 * The lady shrieks, and well-a-near
 * Does fall in travail with her fear:
 * And what ensues in this fell storm
 * Shall for itself itself perform.
 * I nill relate, action may
 * Conveniently the rest convey;
 * Which might not what by me is told.
 * In your imagination hold
 * This stage the ship, upon whose deck
 * The sea-tost Pericles appears to speak.

[Exit.]

SCENE I. [At Sea]
[Enter Pericles, on shipboard.]

PERICLES.
 * Thou god of this great vast, rebuke these surges,
 * Which wash forth both heaven and hell; and thou that hast
 * Upon the winds command, bind them in brass,
 * Having call’d them from the deep! O, still
 * Thy deafening, dreadful thunders; gently quench
 * Thy nimble, sulphurous flashes! O, how, Lychorida,
 * How does my queen? Thou stormest venomously;
 * Wilt thou spit all thyself? The seaman’s whistle
 * Is as a whisper in the ears of death,
 * Unheard. Lychorida! - Lucina, O
 * Divinest patroness, and midwife gentle
 * To those that cry by night, convey thy deity
 * Aboard our dancing boat; make swift the pangs
 * Of my queen’s travails!

[Enter Lychorida, with an Infant.]

Now, Lychorida!

LYCHORIDA.
 * Here is a thing too young for such a place,
 * Who, if it had conceit, would die, as I
 * Am like to do: take in your aims this piece
 * Of your dead queen.

PERICLES.
 * How, how, Lychorida!

LYCHORIDA.
 * Patience, good sir; do not assist the storm.
 * Here’s all that is left living of your queen,
 * A little daughter: for the sake of it,
 * Be manly, and take comfort.

PERICLES.
 * O you gods!
 * Why do you make us love your goodly gifts,
 * And snatch them straight away? We here below
 * Recall not what we give, and therein may
 * Use honour with you.

LYCHORIDA.
 * Patience, good sir.
 * Even for this charge.

PERICLES.
 * Now, mild may be thy life!
 * For a more blustrous birth had never babe:
 * Quiet and gentle thy conditions! for
 * Thou art the rudliest welcome to this world
 * That ever was prince’s child. Happy what follows!
 * Thou hast as chiding a nativity
 * As fire, air, water, earth, and heaven can make,
 * To herald thee from the womb: even at the first
 * Thy loss is more than can thy portage quit,
 * With all thou canst find here, Now, the good gods
 * Throw their best eyes upon’t!

{Enter two Sailors.]

FIRST SAILOR.
 * What courage, sir? God save you!

PERICLES.
 * Courage enough: I do not fear the flaw;
 * It hath done to me the worst. Yet, for the love
 * Of ths poor infant, this fresh-new sea-farer,
 * I would it would be quiet.

FIRST SAILOR.
 * Slack the bolins there! Thou wilt not, wilt thou?  Blow, and
 * split thyself.

SECOND SAILOR.
 * But sea-room, an the brine and cloudy billow kiss the moon, I
 * care not.

FIRST SAILOR.
 * Sir, your queen must overboard: the sea works high, the wind is
 * loud and will not lie till the ship be cleared of the dead.

PERICLES.
 * That’s your superstition.

FIRST SAILOR.
 * Pardon us, sir; with us at sea it has been still observed; and we
 * are strong in custom. Therefore briefly yield her; for she must
 * overboard straight.

PERICLES.
 * As you think meet. Most wretched queen!

LYCHORIDA.
 * Here she lies, sir.

PERICLES.
 * A terrible childben hast thou had, my dear;
 * No light, no fire: the unfriendly elements
 * Forgot thee utterly; nor have I time
 * To give thee hallow’d to thy grave, but straight
 * Must cast thee, scarcely coffin’d, in the ooze;
 * Where, for a monument upon thy bones,
 * And e’er-remaining lamps, the belching whale
 * And humming water must o’erwhelm thy corpse,
 * Lying with simple shells. O Lychorida.
 * Bid Nestor bring me spices, ink and paper,
 * My casket and my jewels; and bid Nicander
 * Bring me the satin coffer: lay the babe
 * Upon the pillow: hie thee, whiles I say
 * A priestly farewell to her: suddenly, woman.

[Exit Lychorida.]

SECOND SAILOR.
 * Sir, we have a chest beneath the hatches, caulked and bitumed
 * ready.

PERICLES.
 * I thank thee. Mariner, say what coast is this?

SECOND SAILOR.
 * We are near Tarsus.

PERICLES.
 * Thither, gentle mariner,
 * Alter thy course for Tyre. When, canst thou reach it?

SECOND SAILOR.
 * By break of day, if the wind cease.

PERICLES.
 * O, make for Tarsus!
 * There will I visit Cleon, for the babe
 * Cannot hold out to Tyrus there I’ll leave it
 * At careful nursing. Go thy ways, good mariner:
 * I’ll bring the body presently.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. Ephesus. A room in Cerimon’s house.
[Enter Cerimon, with a Servant, and some Persons who have been
 * shipwrecked.]

CERIMON.
 * Philemon, ho!

[Enter Philemon.]

PHILEMON.
 * Doth my lord call?

CERIMON.
 * Get fire and meat for these poor men:
 * ’T has been a turbulent and stormy night.

SERVANT.
 * I have been in many; but such a night as this,
 * Till now, I ne’er endured.

CERIMON.
 * Your master will be dead ere you return;
 * There’s nothing can be minister’d to nature
 * That can recover him.

[To Philemon.]
 * Give this to the ’pothecary,
 * And tell me how it works.

[Exeunt all but Cerimon.]

[Enter two Gentlemen.]

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
 * Good morrow.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
 * Good morrow to your lordship.

CERIMON.
 * Gentlemen,
 * Why do you stir so early?

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
 * Sir,
 * Our lodgings, standing bleak upon the sea,
 * Shook as the earth did quake;
 * The very principals did seem to rend,
 * And all-to topple: pure surprise and fear
 * Made me to quit the house.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
 * That is the cause we trouble you so early;
 * ’Tis not our husbandry.

CERIMON.
 * O, you say well.

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
 * But I much marvel that your lordship, having
 * Rich tire about you, should at these early hours
 * Shake off the golden slumber of repose.
 * ’Tis most strange,
 * Nature should be so conversant with pain.
 * Being thereto not compell’d.

CERIMON.
 * I hold it ever,
 * Virtue and cunning were endowments greater
 * Than nobleness and riches: careless heirs
 * May the two latter darken and expend;
 * But immortality attends the former,
 * Making a man a god. ’Tis known, I ever
 * Have studied physic, through which secret art,
 * By turning o’er authorities, I have,
 * Together with my practice, made familiar
 * To me and to my aid the blest infusions
 * That dwell in vegetives, in metals, stones;
 * And I can speak of the disturbances
 * That nature works, and of her cures; which doth give me
 * A more content in course of true delight
 * Than to be thirsty after tottering honour,
 * Or tie my treasure up in silken bags,
 * To please the fool and death.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
 * Your honour has through Ephesus pour’d forth
 * Your charity, and hundreds call themselves
 * Your creatures, who by you have been restored:
 * And not your knowledge, your personal pain, but even
 * Your purse, still open, hath built Lord Cerimon
 * Such strong renown as time shall ne’er decay.

[Enter two or three Servants with a chest.]

FIRST SERVANT.
 * So; lift there.

CERIMON.
 * What is that?

FIRST SERVANT.
 * Sir, even now
 * Did the sea toss upon our shore this chest:
 * ’Tis of some wreck.

CERIMON.
 * Set ’t down, let’s look upon ’t.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
 * ’Tis like a coffin, sir.

CERIMON.
 * Whate’er it be,
 * ’Tis wondrous  heavy.  Wrench it open straight:
 * If the sea’s stomach be o’ercharged with gold,
 * ’Tis a good constraint of fortune it belches upon us.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
 * ’Tis so, my lord.

CERIMON.
 * How close ’tis caulk’d and bitumed!
 * Did the sea cast it up?

FIRST SERVANT.
 * I never saw so huge a billow, sir,
 * As toss’d it upon shore.

CERIMON.
 * Wrench it open;
 * Soft! it smells most sweetly in my sense.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
 * A delicate odour.

CERIMON.
 * As ever hit my nostril. So up with it.
 * O you most potent gods! what’s here? a corse!

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
 * Most strange!

CERIMON.
 * Shrouded in cloth of state; balm’d and entreasured
 * With full bags of spices! A passport too!
 * Apollo, perfect me in the characters!

[Reads from a scroll.]


 * ‘Here I give to understand,
 * If e’er this coffin drive a-land,
 * I, King Pericles, have lost
 * This queen, worth all our mundane cost.
 * Who her, give her burying;
 * She was the daughter of a king:
 * Besides this treasure for a fee,
 * The gods requite his charity!’
 * If thou livest, Pericles, thou hast a heart
 * That even cracks for woe! This chanced tonight.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
 * Most likely, sir.

CERIMON.
 * Nay, certainly to-night;
 * For look how fresh she looks! They were too rough
 * That threw her in the sea. Make a fire within
 * Fetch hither all my boxes in my closet.

[Exit a Servant.]

Death may usurp on nature many hours,
 * And yet the fire of life kindle again
 * The o’erpress’d spirits. I heard of an Egyptian
 * That had nine hours lien dead,
 * Who was by good appliance recovered.

[Re-enter a Servant, with boxes, napkins, and fire.

Well said, well said; the fire and cloths.
 * The rough and woeful music that we have,
 * Cause it to sound, beseech you
 * The viol once more: how thou stirr’st, thou block!
 * The music there! — I pray you, give her air.
 * Gentlemen,
 * This queen will live: nature awakes; a warmth
 * Breathes out of her: she hath not been entranced
 * Above five hours: see how she gins to blow
 * Into life’s flower again!

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
 * The heavens,
 * Through you, increase our wonder and set up
 * Your fame for ever.

CERIMON.
 * She is alive; behold,
 * Her eyelids, cases to those heavenly jewels
 * Which Pericles hath lost,
 * Begin to part their fringes of bright gold;
 * The diamonds of a most praised water
 * Do appear, to make the world twice rich.
 * Live,
 * And make us weep to hear your fate, fair creature,
 * Rare as you seem to be.

[She moves.]

THAISA.
 * O dear Diana,
 * Where am I? Where’s my lord? What world is this?

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
 * Is not this strange?

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
 * Most rare.

CERIMON.
 * Hush, my gentle neighbours!
 * Lend me your hands; to the next chamber bear her.
 * Get linen: now this matter must be look’d to,
 * For her, relapse is mortal. Come, come;
 * And AEsculapius guide us!

[Exeunt, carrying her away.]

SCENE III. Tarsus. A room in Cleon’s house.
[Enter Pericles, Cleon, Dionyza, and Lychorida with Marina in her
 * arms.]

PERICLES.
 * Most honour’d Cleon, I must needs be gone;
 * My twelve months are expired, and Tyrus stands
 * In a litigious peace. You, and your lady,
 * Take from my heart all thankfulness! The gods
 * Make up the rest upon you!

CLEON.
 * Your shafts of fortune, though they hurt you mortally,
 * Yet glance full wanderingly on us.

DIONYZA.
 * O, your sweet queen!
 * That the strict fates had pleased you had brought her hither,
 * To have bless’d mine eyes with her!

PERICLES.
 * We cannot but obey
 * The powers above us. Could I rage and roar
 * As doth the sea she lies in, yet the end
 * Must be as ’tis. My gentle babe Marina, whom,
 * For she was born at sea, I have named so, here
 * I charge your charity withal, leaving her
 * The infant of your care; beseeching you
 * To give her princely training, that she may be
 * Manner’d as she is born.

CLEON.
 * Fear not, my lord, but think
 * Your grace, that fed my country with your corn,
 * For which the people’s prayers still fall upon you,
 * Must in your child be thought on. If neglection
 * Should therein make me vile, the common body,
 * By you relieved, would force me to my duty:
 * But if to that my nature need a spur,
 * The gods revenge it upon me and mine,
 * To the end of generation!

PERICLES.
 * I believe you;
 * Your honour and your goodness teach me to ’t,
 * Without your vows. Till she be married, madam,
 * By bright Diana, whom we honour, all
 * Unscissar’d shall this hair of mine remain,
 * Though I show ill in ’t. So I take my leave
 * Good madam, make me blessed in your care
 * In bringing up my child.

DIONYZA.
 * I have one myself,
 * Who shall not be mere dear to my respect
 * Than yours, my lord.

PERICLES.
 * Madam, my thanks and prayers.

CLEON.
 * We’ll bring your grace e’en to the edge o’ the shore,
 * Then give you up to the mask’d Neptune and
 * The gentlest winds of heaven.

PERICLES.
 * I will embrace
 * Your offer. Come, dearest madam.  O, no tears,
 * Lychorida, no tears:
 * Look to your little mistress, on whose grace
 * You may depend hereafter. Come, my lord.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE IV. Ephesus. A room in Cerimon’s house.
[Enter Cerimon and Thaisa.]

CERIMON.
 * Madam, this letter, and some certain jewels,
 * Lay with you in your coffer: which are now
 * At your command. Know you the character?

THAISA.
 * It is my lord’s.
 * That I was shipp’d at sea, I well remember,
 * Even on my eaning time; but whether there
 * Deliver’d, by the holy gods,
 * I cannot rightly say. But since King Pericles,
 * My wedded lord, I ne’er shall see again,
 * A vestal livery will I take me to,
 * And never more have joy.

CERIMON.
 * Madam, if this you purpose as ye speak,
 * Diana’s temple is not distant far,
 * Where you may abide till your date expire.
 * Moreover, if you please, a niece of mine
 * Shall there attend you.

THAISA.
 * My recompense is thanks, that’s all;
 * Yet my good will is great, though the gift small.

[Exeunt.]

ACT IV.
[Enter Gower.]

GOWER.
 * Imagine Pericles arrived at Tyre,
 * Welcomed and settled to his own desire.
 * His woeful queen we leave at Ephesus,
 * Unto Diana there a votaress.
 * Now to Marina bend your mind,
 * Whom our fast-growing scene must find
 * At Tarsus, and by Cleon train’d
 * In music, letters; who hath gain’d
 * Of education all the grace,
 * Which makes her both the heart and place
 * Of general wonder. But, alack,
 * That monster envy, oft the wrack
 * Of earned praise, Marina’s life
 * Seeks to take off by treason’s knife.
 * And in this kind hath our Cleon
 * One daughter, and a wench full grown,
 * Even ripe for marriage-rite; this maid
 * Hight Philoten: and it is said
 * For certain in our story, she
 * Would ever with Marina be:
 * Be’t when she weaved the sleided silk
 * With fingers long, small, white as milk;
 * Or when she would with sharp needle wound,
 * The cambric, which she made more sound
 * By hurting it; or when to the lute
 * She sung, and made the night-bird mute
 * That still records with moan; or when
 * She would with rich and constant pen
 * Vail to her mistress Dian; still
 * This Philoten contends in skill
 * With absolute Marina: so
 * With the dove of Paphos might the crow
 * Vie feathers white. Marina gets
 * All praises, which are paid as debts,
 * And not as given. This so darks
 * In Philoten all graceful marks,
 * That Cleon’s wife, with envy rare,
 * A present murderer does prepare
 * For good Marina, that her daughter
 * Might stand peerless by this slaughter.
 * The sooner her vile thoughts to stead,
 * Lychorida, our nurse, is dead:
 * And cursed Dionyza hath
 * The pregnant instrument of wrath
 * Prest for this blow. The unborn event
 * I do commend to your content:
 * Only I carry winged time
 * Post on the lame feet of my rhyme;
 * Which never could I so convey,
 * Unless your thoughts went on my way.
 * Dionyza does appear,
 * With Leonine, a murderer.

[Exit.]

SCENE I. Tarsus. An open place near the sea-shore.
[Enter Dionyza and Leonine.]

DIONYZA.
 * Thy oath  remember;  thou hast sworn to do ’t:
 * ’Tis but a blow, which never shall be known.
 * Thou canst not do a thing in the world so soon,
 * To yield thee so much profit. Let not conscience,
 * Which is but cold, inflaming love i’ thy bosom,
 * Inflame too nicely; nor let pity, which
 * Even women have cast off, melt thee, but be
 * A soldier to thy purpose.

LEONINE.
 * I will do’t; but yet she is a goodly creature.

DIONYZA.
 * The fitter, then, the gods should have her. Here she comes
 * weeping for her only mistress’ death. Thou art resolved?

LEONINE.
 * I am resolved.

[Enter Marina, with a basket of flowers.]

MARINA.
 * No, I will rob Tellus of her weed
 * To strew thy green with flowers: the yellows, blues,
 * The purple violets, and marigolds,
 * Shall as a carpet hang upon thy grave,
 * While summer-days do last. Ay me! poor maid,
 * Born in a tempest, when my mother died,
 * This world to me is like a lasting storm,
 * Whirring me from my friends.

DIONYZA.
 * How now, Marina! why do you keep alone?
 * How chance my daughter is not with you? Do not
 * Consume your blood with sorrowing: you have
 * A nurse of me. Lord, how your favour’s changed
 * With this unprofitable woe!
 * Come, give me your flowers, ere the sea mar it.
 * Walk with Leonine; the air is quick there,
 * And it pierces and sharpens the stomach.
 * Come,
 * Leonine, take her by the arm, walk with her.

MARINA.
 * No, I pray you;
 * I’ll not bereave you of your servant.

DIONYZA.
 * Come, come;
 * I love the king your father, and yourself,
 * With more than foreign heart. We every day
 * Expect him here: when he shall come and find
 * Our paragon to all reports thus blasted,
 * He will repent the breadth of his great voyage;
 * Blame both my lord and me, that we have taken
 * No care to your best courses. Go, I pray you,
 * Walk, and be cheerful once again; reserve
 * That excellent complexion, which did steal
 * The eyes of young and old. Care not for me;
 * I can go home alone.

MARINA.
 * Well, I will go;
 * But yet I have no desire to it.

DIONYZA.
 * Come, come, I know ’tis good for you.
 * Walk half an hour, Leonine, at the least:
 * Remember what I have said.

LEONINE.
 * I warrant you, madam.

DIONYZA.
 * I’ll leave you, my sweet lady, for a while:
 * Pray, walk softly, do not heat your blood:
 * What! I must have a care of you.

MARINA.
 * My thanks, sweet madam.

[Exit Dionyza.]

Is this wind westerly that blows?

LEONINE.
 * South-west.

MARINA.
 * When I was born, the wind was north.

LEONINE.
 * Was ’t so?

MARINA.
 * My father, as nurse said, did never fear,
 * But cried ‘Good seamen!’ to the sailors, galling
 * His kingly hands, haling ropes;
 * And, clasping to the mast, endured a sea
 * That almost burst the deck.

LEONINE.
 * When was this?

MARINA.
 * When I was born:
 * Never was waves nor wind more violent;
 * And from the ladder-tackle washes off
 * A canvas-climber. ‘Ha!’ says one, wilt out?’
 * And with a dropping industry they skip
 * From stem to stern: the boatswain whistles, and
 * The master calls, and trebles their confusion.

LEONINE.
 * Come, say your prayers.

MARINA.
 * What mean you?

LEONINE.
 * If you require a little space for prayer,
 * I grant it: pray; but be not tedious,
 * For the gods are quick of ear, and I am sworn
 * To do my work with haste.

MARINA.
 * Why will you kill rne?

LEONINE.
 * To satisfy my lady.

MARINA.
 * Why would she have me kill’d?
 * Now, as I can remember, by my troth,
 * I never did her hurt in all my life:
 * I never spoke bad word, nor did ill turn
 * To any living creature: believe me, la,
 * I never kill’d a mouse, nor hurt a fly:
 * I trod upon a worm against my will,
 * But I wept for it. How have I offended,
 * Wherein my death might yield her any profit,
 * Or my life imply her any danger?

LEONINE.
 * My commission
 * Is not to reason of the deed, but do it.

MARINA.
 * You will not do ’t for all the world, I hope.
 * You are well favour’d, and your looks foreshow
 * You have a gentle heart. I saw you lately,
 * When you caught hurt in parting two that fought:
 * Good sooth, it show’d well in you: do so now:
 * Your lady seeks my life; come you between,
 * And save poor me, the weaker.

LEONINE.
 * I am sworn,
 * And will dispatch.

[He seizes her.]

[Enter Pirates.]

FIRST PIRATE.
 * Hold, villain!

[Leonine runs away.]

SECOND PIRATE.
 * A prize! a prize!

THIRD PIRATE.
 * Half-part, mates, half-part,
 * Comes, let’s have her aboard suddenly.

[Exeunt Pirates with Marina.]

[Re-enter Leonine.]

LEONINE.
 * These roguing thieves serve the great pirate Valdes;
 * And they hav seized Marina. Let her go:
 * Thre’s no hope she will return. I’ll swear she’s dead
 * And thrown into the sea. But I’ll see further:
 * Perhaps they will but please themselves upon her,
 * Not carry her aboard. If she remain,
 * Whom they have ravish’d must by me be slain.

[Exit.]

Scene II. Mytilene. A room in a brothel.
[Enter Pandar, Bawd, and Boult.]

PANDAR.
 * Boult!

BOULT.
 * Sir?

PANDAR.
 * Search the market narrowly; Mytilene is full of gallants. We lost
 * too much money this mart by being too wenchless.

BAWD.
 * We were never so much out of creatures. We have but poor three,
 * and they can do no more than they can do; and they with continual
 * action are even as good as rotten.

PANDAR.
 * Therefore let’s have fresh ones, whate’r we pay for them. If
 * there be not a conscience to be used in every trade, we shall
 * never prosper.

BAWD.
 * Thou sayest true: ’tis not our bringing up of poor bastards, —
 * as, I think, I have bought up some eleven —

BOULT.
 * Ay, to eleven; and brought them down again. But shall I search
 * the market?

BAWD.
 * What else, man? The stuff we have, a strong wind will blo it to
 * pieces, they are so pitifully sodden.

PANDAR.
 * Thou sayest true; they’re too unwholesome, o’ conscience. The
 * poor Transylvanian is dead, that lay with the little baggage.

BOULT.
 * Ay, she quickly pooped him; she made him roast-meat for worms.
 * But I’ll go search the market.

[Exit.]

PANDAR.
 * Three or four thousand chequins were as pretty a proportion to
 * live quietly, and so give over.

BAWD.
 * Wgy to give over, I pray you? is it a shame to get when we are
 * old?

PANDAR.
 * O, our credit comes not in like the commodity, nor the commodity
 * wages not with the danger: therfore, if in our youths we could
 * pick up some pretty estate, ’twere not amiss to keep our door
 * hatched. Besides, the sore terms we stand upon with the gods will
 * be strong with us for giving over.

BAWD.
 * Come, others sorts offend as well as we.

PANDAR.
 * As well as we! ay, and better too; we offend worse. Neither is
 * our profession any trade; it’s no calling. But here comes Boult.

[Re-enter Boult, with the Pirates and Marina.]

BOULT [To Marina.]
 * Come your ways. My masters, you say she’s a virgin?

FIRST PIRATE.
 * O, sir, we doubt it not.

BOULT.
 * Master, I have gone through for this piece, you see: if you like
 * her, so; if not, I have lost my earnest.

BAWD.
 * Boult, has she any qualities?

BOULT.
 * She has a good face, speaks well, and has excellent clothes:
 * ther’s no further necessity of qualities can make her be refused.

BAWD.
 * What is her price, Boult?

BOULT.
 * I cannot be baited one doit of a thousand pieces.

PANDAR.
 * Well, follow me, my masters, you shall have your money presently.
 * Wife, take her in; instruct her what she has to do, that she may
 * not be raw in her entertainment.

[Exeunt Pandar and Pirates.]

BAWD.
 * Boult, take you the marks of her, the colour of her hair,
 * complexion, height, age, with warrant of her virginity; and cry
 * ‘He that will give most shall have her first.’ Such a maidenhead
 * were no cheap thing, if men were as they have been. Get this
 * done as I command you.

BOULT.
 * Performance shall follow.

[Exit.

MARINA.
 * Alack that Leonine was so slack, so slow!
 * He should have struck, not spoke; or that these pirates,
 * Not enough barbarous, had not o’erboard thrown me
 * For to seek my mother!

BARD.
 * Why lament you, pretty one?

MARINA.
 * That I am pretty.

BAWD.
 * Come, the gods have done their part in you.

MARINA.
 * I accuse them not.

BAWD.
 * You are light into my hands, where you are like to live.

MARINA.
 * The more my fault
 * To scape his hands where I was like to die.

BAWD.
 * Ay, and you shall live in pleasure.

MARINA.
 * No.

BAWD.
 * Yes, indeed shall you, and taste gentlemen of all fashions: you
 * shall fare well; you shall have the difference of all complexions.
 * What! do you stop your ears?

MARINA.
 * Are you a woman?

BAWD.
 * What would you have me be, an I be not a woman?

MARINA.
 * An honest woman, or not a woman.

BAWD.
 * Marry, whip the, gosling: I think I shall have something to do
 * with you. Come, you’re a young foolish sapling, and must be bowed
 * as I would have you.

MARINA.
 * The gods defend me!

BAWD.
 * If it please the gods to defend you by men, then men must comfort
 * you, men must feed you, men must stir you up. Boult’s returned.

[Re-enter Boult.]

Now, sir, hast thou cried her through the market?

BOULT.
 * I have cried her almost to the number of her hairs; I have drawn
 * her picture with my voice.

BAWD.
 * And I prithee tell me, how dost thou find the inclination of the
 * people, especially of the younger sort?

BOULT.
 * ’Faith, they listened to me as they would have hearkened to their
 * father’s testament. There was a Spaniard’s mouth so watered,
 * that he went to bed to her very description.

BAWD.
 * We shall have him here to-morrow: with his best ruff on.

BOULT.
 * To-night, to-night. But, mistress, do you know the French knight
 * that cowers i’ the hams?

BAWD.
 * Who, Monsieur Veroles?

BOULT.
 * Ay, he: he offered to cut a caper at the proclamation; but he
 * made a groan at it, and swore he would see her to-morrow.

BAWD.
 * Well. well; as for him, he brought his disease hither: here he
 * does but repair it. I know he will come in our shadow, to
 * scatter his crowns in the sun.

BOULT.
 * Well, if we had of every nation a traveller, we should lodge them
 * with this sign.

[To Marina.]
 * Pray you, come hither awhile. You have fortunes coming upon you.
 * Mark me: you must seem to do that fearfully which you commit
 * willingly, despise profit where you have most gain. To weep that
 * you live as ye do makes pity in your lovers: seldom but that
 * pity begets you a good opinion, and that opinion a mere profit.

MARINA.
 * I understand you not.

BOULT.
 * O, take her home, mistress, take her home: these blushes of hers
 * must be quenched with some present practice.

BAWD.
 * Thou sayest true, i’ faith so they must; for your bride goes to
 * that with shame which is her way to go with warrant.

BOULT.
 * ’Faith, some do and some do not. But, mistress, if I have
 * bargained for the joint, —

BAWD.
 * Thou mayst cut a morsel off the spit.

BOULT.
 * I may so.

BAWD.
 * Who should deny it? Come young one, I like the manner of your
 * garments well.

BOULT.
 * Ay, by my faith, they shall not be changed yet.

BAWD.
 * Boult, spend thou that in the town: report what a sojourner we
 * have; you’ll lose nothing by custom. When nature framed this
 * piece, she meant thee a good turn; therefore say what a paragon
 * she is, and thou hast the harvest out of thine own report.

BOULT.
 * I warrant you, mistress, thunder shall not so awake the beds of
 * eels as my giving out her Beauty stir up the lewdly-inclined.
 * I’ll bring home some to-night.

BAWD.
 * Come your ways; follow me.

MARINA.
 * If fires be hot, knives sharp, or waters deep,
 * Untied I still my virgin knot will keep.
 * Diana, aid my purpose!

BAWD.
 * What have we to do with Diana? Pray you, will you go with us?

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. Tarsus. A room in Cleon’s house.
[Enter Cleon and Dionyza.]

DIONYZA.
 * Why, are you foolish? Can it be undone?

CLEON.
 * O, Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter
 * The sun and moon ne’er look’d upon!

DIONYZA.
 * I think
 * You’ll turn a child agan.

CLEON.
 * Were I chief lord of all this spacious world,
 * I’ld give it to undo the deed. 0 lady,
 * Much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess
 * To equal any single crown o’ the earth
 * I’ the justice of compare! O villain Leonine!
 * Whom thou hast poison’d too:
 * If thou hadst drunk to him, ’t had been a kindness
 * Becoming well thy fact: what canst thou say
 * When noble Pericles shall demand his child?

DIONYZA.
 * That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates,
 * To foster it, nor ever to preserve.
 * She died at night; I’11 say so. Who can cross it?
 * Unless you play the pious innocent,
 * And for an honest attribute cry out
 * ‘She died by foul play.’

CLEON.
 * O, go to. Well, well,
 * Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods
 * Do like this worst.

DIONYZA.
 * Be one of those that think.
 * The petty wrens of Tarsus will fly hence,
 * And open this to Pericles. I do shame
 * To think of what a noble strain you are,
 * And of how coward a spirit.

CLEON.
 * To such proceeding
 * Whoever but his approbation added,
 * Though not his prime consent, he did not flow
 * From honourable sources,

DIONYZA.
 * Be it so, then:
 * Yet none does know, but you, how she came dead,
 * Nor none can know, Leonine being gone.
 * She did distain my child, and stood between
 * Her and her fortunes: none would look on her,
 * But cast their gazes on Marina’s face;
 * Whilst ours was blurted at and held a malkin
 * Not worth the time of day. It pierced me through;
 * And though you call my course unnatural,
 * You not your child well loving, yet I find
 * It greets me as an enterprise of kindness
 * Perform’d to your sole daughter.

CLEON.
 * Heavens forgive it!

DIONYZA.
 * And as for Pericles,
 * What should he say? We wept after her hearse,
 * And yet we mourn: her monument
 * Is almost finish’d, and her epitaphs
 * In glittering golden characters express
 * A general praise to her, and care in us
 * At whose expense ’tis done.

CLEON.
 * Thou art like the harpy,
 * Which, to betray, dost, with thine angel’s face,
 * Seize with thine eagle’s talons.

DIONYZA.
 * You are like one that superstitiously
 * Doth swear to the gods that winter kills the flies:
 * But yet I know you’ll do as I advise.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE IV. [Before the monument of Marina at Tarsus.]
[Enter Gower, before the monument of Marina at Tarsus.]

GOWER.
 * Thus time we waste, and longest leagues make short;
 * Sail seas in cockles, have an wish but for ’t;
 * Making, to take your imagination,
 * From bourn to bourn, region to region.
 * By you being pardon’d, we commit no crime
 * To use one language in each several clime
 * Where our scenes seem to live. I do beseech you
 * To learn of me, who stand i’ the gaps to teach you,
 * The stages of our story. Pericles
 * Is now again thwarting the wayward seas
 * Attended on by many a lord and knight,
 * To see his daughter, all his life’s deight.
 * Old Escanes, whom Helicanus late
 * Advanced in time to great and high estate.
 * Is left to govern. Bear you it in mind,
 * Old Helicanus goes along behind
 * Well-sailing ships and bounteous winds have brought
 * This king to Tarsus, — think his pilot thought;
 * So with his steerage shall your thoughts grow on, —
 * To fetch his daughter home, who first is gone.
 * Like motes and shadows see them move awhile;
 * Your ears unto your eyes I’ll reconcile.

[Dumb Show.]

[Enter Pericles, at one door, with all his train; Cleon and
 * Dionyza, at the other. Cleon shows Pericles the tomb; whereat
 * Pericles makes lamentation, puts on sackcloth, and in a
 * mighty passion departs. Then exeunt Cleon and Dionyza.]

See how belief may suffer by foul show;
 * This borrow’d passion stands for true old woe;
 * And Pericles, in sorrow all devour’d,
 * With sighs shot through; and biggest tears o’ershower’d,
 * Leaves Tarsus and again embarks. He swears
 * Never to wash his face, nor cut his hairs:
 * He puts on sackcloth, and to sea. He bears
 * A tempest, which his mortal vessel tears,
 * And yet he rides it out. Now please you wit
 * The epitaph is for Marina writ
 * By wicked Dionyza.

[Reads the inscription on Marina’s monument.]
 * ‘The fairest, sweet’st, and best lies here,
 * Who wither’d in her spring of year.
 * She was of Tyrus the king’s daughter,
 * On whom foul death hath made this slaughter;
 * Marina was she call’d; and at her birth,
 * Thetis, being proud, swallow’d some part o’ the earth:
 * Therefore the earth, fearing to be o’erflow’d,
 * Hath Thetis’ birth-child on the heavens bestow’d:
 * Wherefore she does, and swears she’ll never stint,
 * Make raging battery upon shores of flint.’

No visor does become black villany
 * So well as soft and tender flattery.
 * Let Pericles believe his daughter’s dead,
 * And bear his courses to be ordered
 * By Lady Fortune; while our scene must play
 * His daughter’s woe and heavy well-a-day
 * In her unholy service. Patience, then,
 * And think you now are all in Mytilene.

[Exit.]

SCENE V. Mytilene. A street before the brothel.
[Enter, from the brothel, two Gentlemen.]

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
 * Did you ever hear the like?

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
 * No, nor never shall do in such a place as this, she being once
 * gone.

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
 * But to have divinity preached there! did you ever dream of such a
 * thing?

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
 * No, no. Come, I am for no more bawdy-houses: shall’s go hear the
 * vestals sing?

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
 * I’ll do any thing now that is virtuous; but I am out of the road
 * of rutting for ever.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE VI. The same. A room in the brothel.
[Enter Pandar, Bawd, and Boult.]

PANDAR.
 * Well, I had rather than twice the worth of her she had ne’er come
 * here.

BAWD.
 * Fie, fie upon her! she’s able to freeze the god Priapus, and undo
 * a whole generation. We must either get her ravished, or be rid of
 * her. When she should do for clients her fitment, and do me the
 * kindness of our profession, she has me her quirks, her reasons,
 * her master reasons, her prayers, her knees; that she would make
 * a puritan of the devil, if he should cheapen a kiss of her.

BOULT.
 * ’Faith, I must ravish her, or she’ll disfurnish us of all our
 * cavaliers, and make our swearers priests.

PANDAR.
 * Now, the pox upon her green-sickness for me!

BAWD.
 * ’Faith, there’s no way to be rid on’t but by the way to the pox.
 * Here comes the Lord Lysimachus disguised.

BOULT.
 * We should have both lord and lown, if the peevish baggage would
 * but give way to customers.

[Enter Lysimachus.]

LYSIMACHUS.
 * How now! How a dozen of virginities?

BAWD.
 * Now, the gods to bless your honour!

BOULT.
 * I am glad to see your honour in good health.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * You may so; ’tis the better for you that your resorters stand
 * upon sound legs. How now! wholesome iniquity have you that a
 * man may deal withal, and defy the surgeon?

BAWD.
 * We have here one, sir, if she would — but there never came her
 * like in Mytilene.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * If she’ld do the deed of darkness, thou wouldst say.

BAWD.
 * Your honour knows what ’tis to say well enough.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * Well, call forth, call forth.

BOULT.
 * For flesh and blood, sir, white and red, you shall see a rose;
 * and she were a rose indeed, if she had but —

LYSIMACHUS.
 * What, prithee?

BOULT.
 * O, sir, I can be modest.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * That dignifies the renown of a bawd, no less than it gives a good
 * report to a number to be chaste.

[Exit Boult.]

BAWD.
 * Here comes that which grows to the stalk; never plucked yet, I
 * can assure you.

[Re-enter Boult with Marina.]

Is she not a fair creature?

LYSIMACHUS.
 * ’Faith, she would serve after a long voyage at sea. Well, there’s
 * for you: leave us.

BAWD.
 * I beseech your honour, give me leave: a word, and I’ll have done
 * presently.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * I beseech you, do.

BAWD. [To Marina.]
 * First, I would have you note, this is an honourable man.

MARINA.
 * I desire to find him so, that I may worthily note him.

BAWD.
 * Next, he’s the governor of this country, and a man whom I am
 * bound to.

MARINA.
 * If he govern the country, you are bound to him indeed; but how
 * honourable he is in that, I know not.

BAWD.
 * Pray you, without any more virginal fencing, will you use him
 * kindly? He will line your apron with gold.

MARINA.
 * What he will do graciously, I will thankfully receive.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * Ha’ you done?

BAWD.
 * My lord, she’s not paced yet: you must take some pains to work
 * her to your manage. Come, we will leave his honour and her
 * together. Go thy ways.

[Exeunt Bawd, Pandar, and Boult.]

LYSIMACHUS.
 * Now, pretty one, how long have you been at this trade?

MARINA.
 * What trade, sir?

LYSIMACHUS.
 * Why, I cannot name’t but I shall offend.

MARINA.
 * I cannot be offended with my trade. Please you to name it.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * How long have you been of this profession?

MARINA.
 * E’er since I can remember?

LYSIMACHUS.
 * Did you go to’t so young? Were you a gamester at five or at
 * seven?

MARINA.
 * Earlier, too, sir, if now I be one.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * Why, the house you dwell in proclaims you to be a creature of
 * sale.

MARINA.
 * Do you know this house to be a place of such resort, and will
 * come into ’t? I hear say you are of honourable parts, and are
 * the governor of this place.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * Why, hath your principal made known unto you who I am?

MARINA.
 * Who is my principal?

LYSIMACHUS.
 * Why, your herb-woman; she that sets seeds and roots of shame and
 * iniquity. O, you have heard something of my power, and so stand
 * aloof for more serious wooing. But I protest to thee, pretty one,
 * my authority shall not see thee, or else look friendly upon thee.
 * Come, bring me to some private place: come, come.

MARINA.
 * If you were born to honour, show it now;
 * If put upon you, make the judgement good
 * That thought you worthy of it.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * How ’s this?  how ’s this? Some more; be sage.

MARINA.
 * For me,
 * That am a maid, though most ungentle fortune
 * Have placed me in this sty, where, since I came,
 * Diseases have been sold dearer than physic,
 * O, that the gods
 * Would set me free from this unhallow’d place,
 * Though they did change me to the meanest bird
 * That flies i’ the purer air!

LYSIMACHUS.
 * I did not think
 * Thou couldst have spoke so well; ne’er dream’d thou couldst.
 * Had I brought hither a corrupted mind,
 * Thy speech had alter’d it. Hold, here ’s gold for thee:
 * Persever in that clear way thou goest,
 * And the gods strengthen thee!

MARINA.
 * The good gods preserve you!

LYSIMACHUS.
 * For me, be you thoughten
 * That I came with no ill intent; for to me
 * The very doors and windows savour vilely.
 * Fare thee well. Thou art a piece of virtue, and
 * I doubt not but thy training hath been noble.
 * Hold, here’s more gold for thee.
 * A curse upon him, die he like a thief,
 * That robs thee of thy goodness! If thou dost
 * Hear from me, it shall be for thy good.

[Re-enter Boult.]

BOULT.
 * I beseech your honour, one piece for me.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * Avaunt, thou damned door-keeper!
 * Your house but for this virgin that doth prop it,
 * Would sink and overwhelm you. Away!

[Exit.]

BOULT.
 * How’s this? We must take another course with you. If your peevish
 * chastity, which is not worth a breakfast in the cheapest country
 * under the cope, shall undo a whole household, let me be gelded
 * like a spaniel. Come your ways.

MARINA.
 * Whither would you have me?

BOULT.
 * I must have your maidenhead taken off, or the common hangman
 * shall execute it. Come your ways.  We’ll have no more
 * gentlemen driven away. Come your ways, I say.

[Re-enter Bawd.]

BAWD.
 * How now! what’s the matter?

BOULT.
 * Worse and worse, mistress; she has here spoken holy words to the
 * Lord Lysimachus.

BAWD.
 * O Abominable!

BOULT.
 * She makes our profession as it were to stink afore the face of
 * the gods.

BAWD.
 * Marry, hang her up for ever!

BOULT.
 * The nobleman would have dealt with her like a nobleman, and she
 * sent him away as cold as a snowball; saying his prayers too.

BAWD.
 * Boult, take her away; use her at thy pleasure: crack the glass of
 * her virginity, and make the rest malleable.

BOULT.
 * An if she were a thornier piece of ground than she is, she shall
 * be ploughed.

MARINA.
 * Hark, hark, you gods!

BAWD.
 * She conjures: away with her! Would she had never come within my
 * doors! Marry, hang you! She’s born to undo us. Will you not go
 * the way of women-kind? Marry, come up, my dish of chastity with
 * rosemary and bays!

[Exit.]

BOULT.
 * Come, mistress; come your ways with me.

MARINA.
 * Whither wilt thou have me?

BOULT.
 * To take from you the jewel you hold so dear.

MARINA.
 * Prithee, tell me one thing first.

BOULT.
 * Come now, your one thing.

MARINA.
 * What canst thou wish thine enemy to be?

BOULT.
 * Why, I could wish him to he my master, or rather, my mistress.

MARINA.
 * Neither of these are so had as thou art,
 * Since they do better thee in their command.
 * Thou hold’st a place, for which the pained’st fiend
 * Of hell would not in reputation change:
 * Thou art the damned doorkeeper to every
 * Coistrel that comes inquiring for his Tib;
 * To the choleric fisting of every rogue
 * Thy ear is liable, thy food is such
 * As hath been belch’d on by infected lungs.

BOULT.
 * What would you have me do? go to the wars, would you? where a man
 * may serve seven years for the loss of a leg, and have not money
 * enough in the end to buy him a wooden one?

MARINA.
 * Do any thing but this thou doest. Empty
 * Old receptacles, or common shores, of filth;
 * Serve by indenture to the common hangman:
 * Any of these ways are yet better than this;
 * For what thou professest, a baboon, could he speak,
 * Would own a name too dear. O, that the gods
 * Would safely deliver me from this place!
 * Here, here’s gold for thee.
 * If that thy master would gain by me,
 * Proclaim that I can sing, weave, sew, and dance,
 * With other virtues, which I’ll keep from boast;
 * And I will undertake all these to teach.
 * I doubt not but this populous city will
 * Yield many scholars.

BOULT.
 * But can you teach all this you speak of?

MARINA.
 * Prove that I cannot, take me home again,
 * And prostitute me to the basest groom
 * That doth frequent your house.

BOULT.
 * Well, I will see what I can do for thee: if I can place thee, I
 * will.

MARINA.
 * But amongst honest women.

BOULT.
 * ’Faith, my acquaintance lies little amongst them. But since my
 * master and mistress have bought you, there’s no going but by
 * their consent: therefore I will make them acquainted with your
 * purpose, and I doubt not but I shall find them tractable enough.
 * ome, I’ll do for thee what I can; come your ways.

[Exeunt.]

ACT V.
[Enter Gower.]

GOWER.
 * Marina thus the brothel ’scapes, and chances
 * Into an honest house, our story says.
 * She sings like one immortal, and she dances
 * As goddess-like to her admired lays;
 * Deep clerks she dumbs; and with her neeld composes
 * Nature’s own shape, of bud, bird, branch, or berry,
 * That even her art sistrs the natural roses;
 * Her inkle, silk, twin with the rubied cherry:
 * That pupils lacks she none of noble race,
 * Who pour their bounty on her; and her gain
 * She gives the cursed bawd. Here we her place;
 * And to her father turn our thoughts again,
 * Where we left him, on the sea. We there him lost;
 * Whence, driven before the winds, he is arrived
 * Here where his daughter dwells; and on this coast
 * Suppose him now at anchor. The city strived
 * God Neptune’s annual feast to keep: from whence
 * Lysimachus our Tyrian ship espies,
 * His banners sable, trimm’d with rich expense;
 * And to him in his barge with fervour hies.
 * In your supposing once more put your sight
 * Of heavy Pericles; think this his bark:
 * Where what is done in action, more, if might,
 * Shall be discover’d; please you, sit and hark.

[Exit.]

SCENE I. On board Pericles’ ship, off Mytilene.
[A close pavilion on deck, with a curtain before it; Pericles within it, reclined on a couch. A barge lying beside the Tyrian vessel.]

[Enter two Sailors, one belonging to the Tyrian vessel, the other to the barge; to them Helicanus.]

TYRIAN SAILOR. [To the Sailor of Mytilene.]
 * Where is lord Helicanus? he can resolve you.
 * O, here he is.
 * Sir, there’s a barge put off from Mytilene,
 * And in it is Lysimachus the governor,
 * Who craves to come aboard. What is your will?

HELICANUS.
 * That he have his. Call up some gentlemen.

TYRIAN SAILOR.
 * Ho, gentlemen! my lord calls.

[Enter two or three Gentlemen.]

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
 * Doth your lordship call?

HELICANUS.
 * Gentlemen, there s some of worth would come aboard;
 * I pray ye, greet them fairly.

[The Gentlemen and the two Sailors descend, and go on board the
 * barge.

Enter, from thence, Lysimachus and Lords; with the Gentlemen and
 * the two sailors.

TYRIAN SAILOR.
 * Sir,
 * This is the man that can, in aught you would,
 * Resolve you.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * Hail, reverend sir! the gods preserve you!

HELICANUS.
 * And you, sir, to outlive the age I am,
 * And die as I would do.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * You wish me well.
 * Being on shore, honouring of Neptune’s triumphs,
 * Seeing this goodly vessel ride before us,
 * I made to it, to know of whence you are.

HELICANUS.
 * First, what is your place?

LYSIMACHUS.
 * I am the governor of this place you lie before.

HELICANUS.
 * Sir,
 * Our vessel is of Tyre, in it the king;
 * A man who for this three months hath not spoken
 * To any one, nor taken sustenance
 * But to prorogue his grief.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * Upon what ground is his distemperature?

HELICANUS.
 * ’Twould be too tedious to repeat;
 * But the main grief springs from the loss
 * Of a beloved daughter and a wife.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * May we not see him?

HELICANUS.
 * You may;
 * But bootless is your sight: he will not speak
 * To any.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * Yet let me obtain my wish.

HELICANUS.
 * Behold him.

[Pericles discovered.]
 * This was a goodly person.
 * Till the disaster that, one mortal night,
 * Drove him to this.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * Sir king, all hail! the gods preserve you!
 * Hail, royal sir!

HELICANUS.
 * It is in vain; he will not speak to you.

FIRST LORD.
 * Sir,
 * We have a maid in Mytilene, I durst wager,
 * Would win some words of him.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * ’Tis well bethought.
 * She questionless with her sweet harmony
 * And other chosen attractions, would allure,
 * And make a battery through his deafen’d parts,
 * Which now are midway stopp’d:
 * She is all happy as the fairest of all,
 * And, with her fellow maids, is now upon
 * The leafy shelter that abuts against
 * The island’s side.

[Whispers a Lord, who goes off in the barge of Lysimachus.]

HELICANUS.
 * Sure, all’s effectless; yet nothing we’ll omit
 * That bears recovery’s name. But, since your kindness
 * We have stretch’d thus far, let us beseech you
 * That for our gold we may provision have,
 * Wherein we are not destitute for want,
 * But weary for the staleness.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * O, sir, a courtesy
 * Which if we should deny, the most just gods
 * For every graff would send a catepillar,
 * And so afflict our province. Yet once more
 * Let me entreat to know at large the cause
 * Of your king’s sorrow.

HELICANUS.
 * Sit, sir, I will recount it to you:
 * But, see, I am prevented.

[Re-enter, from the barge, Lord, with Marina, and a young Lady.]

LYSIMACHUS.
 * O, here is
 * The lady that I sent for. Welcome, fair one!
 * Is’t not a goodly presence?

HELICANUS.
 * She’s a gallant lady.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * She’s such a one, that, were I well assured
 * Came of a gentle kind and noble stock,
 * I’ld wish no better choice, and think me rarely wed.
 * Fair one, all goodness that consists in bounty
 * Expect even here, where is a kingly patient:
 * If that thy prosperous and artificial feat
 * Can draw him but to answer thee in aught,
 * Thy sacred physic shall receive such pay
 * As thy desires can wish.

MARINA.
 * Sir, I will use
 * My utmost skill in his recovery,
 * Provided
 * That none but I and my companion maid
 * Be suffer’d to come near him.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * Come, let us leave her,
 * And the gods make her prosperous!

[Marina sings.]

LYSIMACHUS.
 * Mark’d he your music?

MARINA.
 * No, nor look’d on us,

LYSIMACHUS.
 * See, she will speak to him.

MARINA.
 * Hail, sir! my lord, lend ear.

PERICLES.
 * Hum, ha!

MARINA.
 * I am a maid,
 * My lord, that ne’er before invited eyes,
 * But have been gazed on like a cornet: she speaks,
 * My lord, that, may be, hath endured a grief
 * Might equal yours, if both were justly weigh’d.
 * Though wayward fortune did malign my state,
 * My derivation was from ancestors
 * Who stood equivalent with mighty kings:
 * But time hath rooted out my parentage,
 * And to the world and awkward casualties
 * Bound me in servitude.

[Aside.]
 * I will desist;
 * But there is something glows upon my cheek,
 * And whispers in mine ear ‘Go not till he speak.’

PERICLES.
 * My fortunes — parentage — good parentage —
 * To equal mine! — was it not thus? what say you?

MARINA.
 * I said, my lord, if you did know my parentage.
 * You would not do me violence.

PERICLES.
 * I do think so. Pray you, turn your eyes upon me.
 * You are like something that — What country-woman?
 * Here of these shores?

MARINA.
 * No, nor of any shores:
 * Yet I was mortally brought forth, and am
 * No other than I appear.

PERICLES.
 * I am great with woe, and shall deliver weeping.
 * My dearest wife was like this maid, and such a one
 * My daughter might have been: my queen’s square brows;
 * Her stature to an inch; as wand-like straight;
 * As silver-voiced; her eyes as jewel-like
 * And cased as richly; in pace another Juno;
 * Who starves the ears she feeds, and makes them hungry,
 * The more she gives them speech. Where do you live?

MARINA.
 * Where I am but a stranger: from the deck
 * You may discern the place.

PERICLES.
 * Where were you bred?
 * And how achieved you these endowments, which
 * You make more rich to owe?

MARINA.
 * If I should tell my history, it would seem
 * Like lies disdain’d in the reporting.

PERICLES.
 * Prithee, speak:
 * Falseness cannot come from thee; for thou look’st
 * Modest as Justice, and thou seem’st a palace
 * For the crown’d Truth to dwell in: I will believe thee,
 * And make my senses credit thy relation
 * To points that seem impossible; for thou look’st
 * Like one I loved indeed. What were thy friends?
 * Didst thou not say, when I did push thee back —
 * Which was when I perceived thee — that thou earnest
 * From good descending?

MARINA.
 * So indeed I did.

PERICLES.
 * Report thy parentage. I think thou said’st
 * Thou hadst been toss’d from wrong to injury,
 * And that thou thought’st thy griefs might equal mine,
 * If both were open’d.

MARINA.
 * Some such thing,
 * I said, and said no more but what my thoughts
 * Did warrant me was likely.

PERICLES.
 * Tell thy story;
 * If thine consider’d prove the thousandth part
 * Of my endurance, thou art a man, and I
 * Have suffer’d like a girl: yet thou dost look
 * Like Patience gazing on kings’ graves, and smiling
 * Extremity out of act. What were thy friends?
 * How lost thou them? Thy name, my most kind virgin?
 * Recount, I do beseech thee: come, sit by me.

MARINA.
 * My name is Marina.

PERICLES.
 * O, I am mock’d,
 * And thou by some incensed god sent hither
 * To make the world to laugh at me.

MARINA.
 * Patience, good sir,
 * Or here I’ll cease.

PERICLES.
 * Nay, I’ll be patient.
 * Thou little know’st how thou dost startle me,
 * To call thyself Marina.

MARINA.
 * The name
 * Was given me by one that had some power,
 * My father, and a king.

PERICLES.
 * How! a king’s daughter?
 * And call’d Marina?

MARINA.
 * You said you would believe me;
 * But, not to be a troubler of your peace,
 * I will end here.

PERICLES.
 * But are you flesh and blood?
 * Have you a working pulse? and are no fairy?
 * Motion! Well; speak on. Where were you born?
 * And wherefore call’d Marina?

MARINA.
 * Call’d Marina
 * For I was born at sea.

PERICLES.
 * At sea! what mother?

MARINA.
 * My mother was the daughter of a king;
 * Who died the minute I was born,
 * As my good nurse Lychorida hath oft
 * Deliver’d weeping.

PERICLES.
 * O, stop there a little!

[Aside.]

This is the rarest dream that e’er dull sleep
 * Did mock sad fools withal: this cannot be:
 * My daughter’s buried. Well: where were: you bred?
 * I’ll hear you more, to the bottom of your story,
 * And never interrupt you.

MARINA.
 * You scorn: believe me, ’twere best I did give o’er.—

PERICLES.
 * I will believe you by the syllable
 * Of what you shall deliver. Yet, give me leave:
 * How came you in these parts? where were you bred?

MARINA.
 * The king my father did in Tarsus leave me;
 * Till cruel Cleon, with his wicked wife,
 * Did seek to murder me: and having woo’d
 * A villain to attempt it, who having drawn to do ’t,
 * A crew of pirates came and rescued me;
 * Brought me to Mytilene. But, good sir.
 * Whither will you have me? Why do you weep? It may be,
 * You think me an impostor: no, good faith;
 * I am the daughter to King Pericles,
 * If good King Pericles be.

PERICLES.
 * Ho, Helicanus!

HELICANUS.
 * Calls my lord?

PERICLES.
 * Thou art a grave and noble counsellor,
 * Most wise in general: tell me, if thou canst,
 * What this maid is, or what is like to be,
 * That thus hath made me weep?

HELICANUS.
 * I know not; but
 * Here is the regent, sir, of Mytilene
 * Speaks nobly of her.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * She would never tell
 * Her parentage; being demanded that,
 * She would sit still and weep.

PERICLES.
 * O Helicanus, strike me, honour’d sir;
 * Give me a gash, put me to present pain;
 * Lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me
 * O’erbear the shores of my mortality,
 * And drown me with their sweetness. O, come hither,
 * Thou that beget’st him that did thee beget;
 * Thou that wast born at sea, buried at Tarsus,
 * And found at sea again! O Helicanus,
 * Down on thy knees, thank the holy gods as loud
 * As thunder threatens us: this is Marina.
 * What was thy mother’s name? tell me but that,
 * For truth can never be confirm’d enough,
 * Though doubts did ever sleep

MARINA.
 * First, sir, I pray,
 * What is your title?

PERICLES.
 * I am Pericles of Tyre: but tell me now
 * My drown’d queen’s name, as in the rest you said
 * Thou hast been godlike perfect,
 * The heir of kingdoms and another like
 * To Pericles thy father.

MARINA.
 * Is it no more to be your daughter than
 * To say my mother’s name was Thaisa?
 * Thaisa was my mother, who did end
 * The minute I began.

PERICLES.
 * Now, blessing on thee! rise; thou art my child.
 * Give me fresh garments. Mine own, Helicanus;
 * She is not dead at Tarsus, as she should have been,
 * By savage Cleon: she shall tell thee all;
 * When thou shalt kneel, and justify in knowledge
 * She is thy very princess. Who is this?

HELICANUS.
 * Sir, ’tis the governor of Mytilene,
 * Who, hearing of your melancholy state,
 * Did come to see you.

PERICLES.
 * I embrace you.
 * Give me my robes. I am wild in my beholding.
 * O heavens bless my girl! But, hark, what music?
 * Tell Helicanus, my Marina, tell him
 * O’er, point by point, for yet he seems to doubt,
 * How sure you are my daughter. But, what music?

HELICANUS.
 * My lord, I hear none.

PERICLES.
 * None!
 * The music of the spheres! List, my Marina.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * It is not good to cross him; give him way

PERICLES.
 * Rarest sounds! Do ye not hear?

LYSIMACHUS.
 * My lord, I hear.

[Music.]

PERICLES.
 * Most heavenly music!
 * It nips me unto listening, and thick slumber
 * Hangs upon mine eyes: let me rest.

[Sleeps.]

LYSIMACHUS.
 * A pillow for his head:
 * So, leave him all. Well, my companion friends,
 * If this but answer to my just belief,
 * I’ll well remember you.

[Exeunt all but Pericles.]

[Diana appears to Pericles as in a vision.]

DIANA.
 * My temple stands in Ephesus: hie thee thither,
 * And do upon mine altar sacrifice.
 * There, when my maiden priests are met together,
 * Before the people all,
 * Reveal how thou at sea didst lose thy wife:
 * To mourn thy crosses, with thy daughter’s, call
 * And give them repetition to the life.
 * Or perform my bidding, or thou livest in woe:
 * Do it, and happy; by my silver bow!
 * Awake, and tell thy dream.

[Disappears.]

PERICLES.
 * Celestial Dian, goddess argentine,
 * I will obey thee. Helicanus!

[Re-enter Helicanus, Lysimachus, and Marina.]

HELICANUS.
 * Sir?

PERICLES.
 * My purpose was for Tarsus, there to strike
 * The inhospitable Cleon; but I am
 * For other service first: toward Ephesus
 * Turn our blown sails; eftsoons I’ll tell thee why

[To Lysimachus.]

Shall we refresh us, sir, upon your shore,
 * And give you gold for such provision
 * As our intents will need?

LYSIMACHUS.
 * Sir,
 * With all my heart; and when you come ashore,
 * I have another suit.

PERICLES.
 * You shall prevail,
 * Were you to woo my daughter; for it seems
 * You have been noble towards her.

LYSIMACHUS.
 * Sir, lend me your arm.

PERICLES.
 * Come, my Marina.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. Enter Gower, before the temple of Diana at Ephesus.
GOWER.
 * Now our sands are almost run;
 * More a little, and then dumb.
 * This, my last boon, give me,
 * For such kindness must relieve me,
 * That you aptly will suppose
 * What pageantry, what feats, what shows,
 * What minstrelsy, and pretty din,
 * The regent made in Mytilene
 * To greet the king. So he thrived,
 * That he is promised to be wived
 * To fair Marina; but in no wise
 * Till he had done his sacrifice,
 * As Dian bade: whereto being bound,
 * The interim, pray you, all confound.
 * In feather’d briefness sails are fill’d,
 * And wishes fall out as they’re will’d.
 * At Ephesus, the temple see,
 * Cur king and all his company.
 * That he can hither come so soon,
 * Is by your fancy’s thankful doom.

[Exit.]

SCENE III. The temple of Diana at Ephesus
[Thaisa standing near the altar, as high priestess; a number of Virgins on each side; Cerimon and other inhabitants of Ephesus attending.]

[Enter Pericles, with his train; Lysimachus, Helicanus, Marina, and a Lady.]

PERICLES.
 * Hail, Dian! to perform thy just command,
 * I here confess myself the king of Tyre;
 * Who, frighted from my country, did wed
 * At Pentapolis the fair Thaisa.
 * At sea in childbed died she, but brought forth
 * A maid-child call’d Marina; who, O goddess,
 * Wears yet thy silver livery. She at Tarsus
 * Was nursed with Cleon; who at fourteen years
 * He sought to murder: but her better stars
 * Brought her to Mytilene; ’gainst whose shore
 * Riding, her fortunes brought the maid aboard us,
 * Where by her own most clear remembrance, she
 * Made known herself my daughter.

THAISA.
 * Voice and favour!
 * You are, you are — O royal Pericles!

[Faints.]

PERICLES.
 * What means the nun? she dies! help, gentlemen!

CERIMON.
 * Noble sir,
 * If you have told Diana’s altar true,
 * This is your wife.

PERICLES.
 * Reverend appearer, no;
 * I threw her overboard with these very arms.

CERIMON.
 * Upon this coast, I warrant you.

PERICLES.
 * ’Tis most certain.

CERIMON.
 * Look to the lady; O, she’s but o’er-joy’d.
 * Early in blustering morn this lady was
 * Thrown upon this shore. I oped the coffin,
 * Found there rich jewels; recover’d her, and placed her
 * Here in Diana’s temple.

PERICLES.
 * May we see them?

CERIMON.
 * Great sir, they shall be brought you to my house,
 * Whither I invite you. Look, Thaisa is
 * Recovered.

THAISA.
 * O, let me look!
 * If he be none of mine, my sanctity
 * Will to my sense bend no licentious ear,
 * But curb it, spite of seeing. O, my lord,
 * Are you not Pericles? Like him you spake,
 * Like him you are: did you not name a tempest,
 * A birth, and death?

PERICLES.
 * The voice of dead Thaisa!

THAISA.
 * That Thaisa am I, supposed dead
 * And drown’d.

PERICLES.
 * Immortal Dian!

THAISA.
 * Now I know you better,
 * When we with tears parted Pentapolis,
 * The king my father gave you such a ring.

[Shows a ring.]

PERICLES.
 * This, this: no more, you gods! your present kindness
 * Makes my past miseries sports: you shall do well,
 * That on the touching of her lips I may
 * Melt and no more be seen. O, come, be buried
 * A second time within these arms.

MARINA.
 * My heart
 * Leaps to be gone into my mother’s bosom.

[Kneels to Thaisa.]

PERICLES.
 * Look, who kneels here! Flesh of thy flesh, Thaisa;
 * Thy burden at the sea, and call’d Marina
 * For she was yielded there.

THAISA.
 * Blest, and mine own!

HELICANUS.
 * Hail, madam, and my queen!

THAISA.
 * I know you not.

PERICLES.
 * You have heard me say, when did fly from Tyre,
 * I left behind an ancient substitute:
 * Can you remember what I call’d the man
 * I have named him oft.

THAISA.
 * ’Twas Helicanus then.

PERICLES.
 * Still confirmation:
 * Embrace him, dear Thaisa; this is he.
 * Now do I long to hear how you were found:
 * How possibly preserved; and who to thank,
 * Besides the gods, for this great miracle.

THAISA.
 * Lord Cerimon, my lord; this man,
 * Through whom the gods have shown their power; that can
 * From first to last resolve you.

PERICLES.
 * Reverend sir,
 * The gods can have no mortal officer
 * More like a god than you. Will you deliver
 * How this dead queen re-lives?

CERIMON.
 * I will, my lord
 * Beseech you, first go with me to my house,
 * Where shall be shown you all was found with her;
 * How she came placed here in the temple;
 * No needful thing omitted.

PERICLES.
 * Pure Dian, bless thee for thy vision! I
 * Will offer night-oblations to thee. Thaisa,
 * This prince, the fair-betrothed of your daughter,
 * Shall marry her at Pentapolis. And now,
 * This ornament
 * Makes me look dismal will I clip to form;
 * And what this fourteen years no razor touch’d
 * To grace thy marriage-day, I’ll beautify.

THAISA.
 * Lord Cerimon hath letters of good credit, sir,
 * My father’s dead.

PERICLES.
 * Heavens make a star of him! Yet there, my queen,
 * We’ll celebrate their nuptials, and ourselves
 * Will in that kingdom spend our following days:
 * Our son and daughter shall in Tyrus reign.
 * Lord Cerimon, we do our longing stay
 * To hear the rest untold: sir, lead’s the way.

[Exeunt.]

[Enter Gower.]

GOWER.
 * In Antiochus and his daughter you have heard
 * Of monstrous lust the due and just reward:
 * In Pericles, his queen and daughter, seen,
 * Although assail’d with fortune fierce and keen,
 * Virtue preserved from fell destruction’s blast,
 * Led on by heaven, and crown’d with joy at last:
 * In Helicanus may you well descry
 * A figure of truth, of faith, of loyalty:
 * In reverend Cerimon there well appears
 * The worth that learned charity aye wears:
 * For wicked Cleon and his wife, when fame
 * Had spread their cursed deed, and honour’d name
 * Of Pericles, to rage the city turn,
 * That him and his they in his palace burn;
 * The gods for murder seemed so content
 * To punish them although not done but meant.
 * So, on your patence evermore attending,
 * New joy wait on you! Here our play has ending.

[Exit.]