Tarsus. A room in CLEON's house.
Enter CLEON and DIONYZA
DIONYZA
Why are you foolish? Can it be undone?
CLEON
2 O Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter
3 The sun and moon ne'er look'd upon!
DIONYZA
4 I think
5 You'll turn a child again.
CLEON
6 Were I chief lord of all this spacious world,
7 I'ld give it to undo the deed. O lady,
8 Much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess
9 To equal any single crown o' the earth
I' the justice of compare! O villain Leonine!
11 Whom thou hast poison'd too:
12 If thou hadst drunk to him, 't had been a kindness
13 Becoming well thy fact: what canst thou say
14 When noble Pericles shall demand his child?
DIONYZA
15 That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates,
16 To foster it, nor ever to preserve.
17 She died at night; I'll say so. Who can cross it?
18 Unless you play the pious innocent,
19 And for an honest attribute cry out
'She died by foul play.'
CLEON
O, go to. Well, well,
22 Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods
23 Do like this worst.
DIONYZA
24 Be one of those that think
25 The petty wrens of Tarsus will fly hence,
26 And open this to Pericles. I do shame
27 To think of what a noble strain you are,
28 And of how coward a spirit.
CLEON
29 To such proceeding
30 Who ever but his approbation added,
31 Though not his prime consent, he did not flow
32 From honourable sources.
DIONYZA
33 Be it so, then:
34 Yet none does know, but you, how she came dead,
35 Nor none can know, Leonine being gone.
36 She did disdain my child, and stood between
37 Her and her fortunes: none would look on her,
38 But cast their gazes on Marina's face;
39 Whilst ours was blurted at and held a malkin
40 Not worth the time of day. It pierced me through;
41 And though you call my course unnatural,
42 You not your child well loving, yet I find
43 It greets me as an enterprise of kindness
44 Perform'd to your sole daughter.
CLEON
45 Heavens forgive it!
DIONYZA
46 And as for Pericles,
47 What should he say? We wept after her hearse,
48 And yet we mourn: her monument
49 Is almost finish'd, and her epitaphs
50 In glittering golden characters express
51 A general praise to her, and care in us
52 At whose expense 'tis done.
CLEON
53 Thou art like the harpy,
54 Which, to betray, dost, with thine angel's face,
55 Seize with thine eagle's talons.
DIONYZA
56 You are like one that superstitiously
57 Doth swear to the gods that winter kills the flies:
58 But yet I know you'll do as I advise.
Exeunt
Enter GOWER, before the monument of MARINA at Tarsus
GOWER
59 Thus time we waste, and longest leagues make short;
60 Sail seas in cockles, have an wish but for't;
61 Making, to take your imagination,
62 From bourn to bourn, region to region.
63 By you being pardon'd, we commit no crime
64 To use one language in each several clime
65 Where our scenes seem to live. I do beseech you
66 To learn of me, who stand i' the gaps to teach you,
67 The stages of our story. Pericles
68 Is now again thwarting the wayward seas,
69 Attended on by many a lord and knight.
70 To see his daughter, all his life's delight.
71 Old Escanes, whom Helicanus late
72 Advanced in time to great and high estate,
73 Is left to govern. Bear you it in mind,
74 Old Helicanus goes along behind.
75 Well-sailing ships and bounteous winds have brought
76 This king to Tarsus,--think his pilot thought;
77 So with his steerage shall your thoughts grow on,--
78 To fetch his daughter home, who first is gone.
79 Like motes and shadows see them move awhile;
80 Your ears unto your eyes I'll reconcile.
81 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
82 See how belief may suffer by foul show!
83 This borrow'd passion stands for true old woe;
84 And Pericles, in sorrow all devour'd,
85 With sighs shot through, and biggest tears
o'ershower'd,
87 Leaves Tarsus and again embarks. He swears
88 Never to wash his face, nor cut his hairs:
89 He puts on sackcloth, and to sea. He bears
90 A tempest, which his mortal vessel tears,
91 And yet he rides it out. Now please you wit.
92 The epitaph is for Marina writ
93 By wicked Dionyza.
Reads the inscription on MARINA's monument
'The fairest, sweet'st, and best lies here,
95 Who wither'd in her spring of year.
96 She was of Tyrus the king's daughter,
97 On whom foul death hath made this slaughter;
98 Marina was she call'd; and at her birth,
Thetis, being proud, swallow'd some part o' the earth:
100 Therefore the earth, fearing to be o'erflow'd,
101 Hath Thetis' birth-child on the heavens bestow'd:
102 Wherefore she does, and swears she'll never stint,
103 Make raging battery upon shores of flint.'
104 No visor does become black villany
105 So well as soft and tender flattery.
106 Let Pericles believe his daughter's dead,
107 And bear his courses to be ordered
108 By Lady Fortune; while our scene must play
109 His daughter's woe and heavy well-a-day
110 In her unholy service. Patience, then,
111 And think you now are all in Mytilene.
Exit
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