The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

In life's uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do them :

[again.

I'll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades'
wrath
First Sen. I like this well; he will return
Tim. I have a tree, which grows here in
my close,

That mine own use invites me to cut down,
And shortly must I fell it: tell my friends, 210
Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree
From high to low throughout, that whoso
please

To stop affliction, let him take his haste,
Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,
And hang himself. I pray you, do my greet-
ing.

Flav. Trouble him no further; thus you still shall find him.

Tim. Come not to me again but say to
Athens,

Timon hath made his everlasting mansion
Upon the beached verge of the salt flood;
Who once a day with his embossed froth 220
The turbulent surge shall cover: thither come,
And let my grave-stone be your oracle.
Lips, let sour words go by and language end:
What is amiss plague and infection mend!
Graves only be men's works and death their
gain!

Sun, hide thy beams! Timon hath done his
reign.
[Retires to his cave.
First Sen. His discontents are unremove-
ably

Coupled to nature.

Our sufferance vainly now the time is flush,
When crouching marrow in the bearer strong
Cries of itself 'No more : now breathless
wrong
Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease,
And pursy insolence shall break his wind
With fear and horrid flight.
First Sen.
Noble and young,
When thy first griefs were but a mere con-
ceit,

Ere thou hadst power or we had cause of fear,
We sent to thee, to give thy rages balm,
To wipe out our ingratitude with loves
Above their quantity.

Sec. Sen.

So did we woo Transformed Timon to our city's love

By humble message and by promised means:
We were not all unkind, nor all deserve
The common stroke of war.

Sold. My noble general, Timon is dead; Entomb'd upon the very hem o' the sea; And on his grave-stone this insculpture, which With wax I brought away, whose soft impression

Interprets for my poor ignorance.

Alcib. [Reads the epitaph] 'Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft : Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked caitiffs left!

Here lie I, Timon; who, alive, all living men did hate :

Pass by and curse thy fill, but pass and stay not here thy gait.'

These well express in thee thy latter spirits : Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs,

Scorn'dst our brain's flow and those our droplets which

From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for

PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE.

(WRITTEN ABOUT 1608.)

INTRODUCTION.

Shakespeare's portion of this play has something of the slightness of a preliminary sketch. The first two Acts are evidently by another writer than Shakespeare, and probably the scenes in Act IV. (Sc. II., V., and VI.), so revolting to our moral sense, are also to be assigned away from him. What remains (Acts III., IV., V., omitting the scenes just mentioned) is the pure and charming romance of Marina, the sea-born child of Pericles, her loss, and the recovery of both child and mother by the afflicted Prince. Whether Shakespeare worked upon the foundation of an earlier play, or whether the non-Shakespearean parts of Pericles were additions made to what he had written, cannot be determined with certainty. i. is supposed by some critics that three hands can be distinguished: that of a general reviser wh wrote the first two acts and Gower's choruses-possibly the dramatist, George Wilkins; that of a second writer who contributed the offensive scenes of Act IV.; and thirdly the hand of Shakespeare. Pericles was entered in the Stationers' register in 1608 by the book-seller Blount, and was published with a very ill arranged text the next year (1609) by another book-seller who had, it is believed, surreptitiously obtained his copy. It was not inclu ed among the plays given in the first or second folios, but appeared, with six added plays, in the third folio (1663). The story upon which Pericles was founded is that given in Lawrence Twine's Patterne of Painfull Adventures (1607), itself a reprint of an early printed version from the French; given also in Gower's Confessio Amantis, and originally written about the fifth or sixth century of our era, in Greek. Both Twine and Gower appear to have been made use of by the writers of Pericles, and the debt to Gower is acknowledged by his introduction as the "presenter "of the play. The drama as a whole is singularly undramatic. It entirely lacks unity of action, and the prominent figures of the opening scenes quickly drop out of the play. Most of the story is briefly told in rhymed verse by the presenter, Gower, or is set forth in dumb show. But Shakespeare's portion is one and indivisible. It opens on ship board with a tempest, and in Shakespeare's later play of storm and wreck he has not attempted to rival the earlier treatment of the subject. "No poetry of shipwreck and the sea, a living poet writes, "has ever equalled the great scene of Pericles; no such note of music was ever struck out of the clash and contention of tempestuous elements." Cerimon, who is master of the secrets of nature, and who is liberal in his "learned charity," is like a first study of Prospero. In the fifth act Marina, so named from her birth at sea, has grown to the age of fourteen years, and is, as it were, a sister of Miranda and Perdita (note in each case the significant name). She, like Perdita, is a child lost by her parents, and, like Perdita, we see her flower-like with her flowers-only these flowers of Marina are not for a merrymaking, but a grave. The melancholy of Pericles is a clear-obscure of sadness, not a gloom of cloudy remorse like that of Leontes. His meeting with his lost Marina is like an anticipation of the scene in which Cymbeline recovers his sons and daughter; but the scene in Pericles is filled with a rarer, keener passion of joy.

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, 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 judgment of your
eye

I give, my cause who best can justify.

[Exit.

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

Ant. Young prince of Tyre, you have at large received

The danger of the task you undertake.

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

Ant. 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. Per. 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 celestial tree,
Or die in the adventure, be my helps,
As I am son and servant to your will,
To compass such a boundless happiness!
Ant. Prince Pericles,-

Per. That would be son to great Antiochus. Ant. Before thee stands this fair Hesperides,

With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touch'd;

For death-like dragons here affright thee

hard :

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. Ant. Scorning advice, read the conclusion then :

Which read and not expounded, 'tis decreed, As these before thee thou thyself shalt bleed. Daugh. Of all say'd yet, mayst thou prove prosperous!

Of all say'd yet, I wish thee happiness! 60

Per. 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 labor 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 79 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.

Ant. Prince Pericles, touch not, upon thy life,

For that's an article within our law,

As dangerous as the rest. Your time's expired :

Either expound now, or receive your sen

tence.

Per. 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
100

Coop'd hills towards heaven, to tell the earth is throng'd

By man's oppression; and the poor worm doth die for't.

Kings 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 being bred, Then give my tongue like leave to love my

head,

Ant. [Aside] Heaven, that I had thy head! he has found the meaning:

But I will gloze with him. -Young prince of Tyre, 110

Though by the tenor 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 honor and your worth. 120
[Exeunt all but Pericles.

Per. 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, 130
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 : 140
Then, lest my life be cropp'd to keep you
clear,

By flight I'll shun the danger which I fear.

Re-enter ANTIOCHUS.

[Exit.

« 上一頁繼續 »

圖書

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, 第 2 卷