60

PERICLES.

ACT IV.

Boult. I what you, mistress, thunder shall not so awake the bat. eels, as my giving out her beauty stir up the, tak-inclined. I'll bring home some tonight. `mple

Bawd. Comer ways; follow me.

Mar. if fires be hot, knives sharp, or waters deep; Untied I still ny virgin knot will keep.

Diana, aid my purpose!

Bawd. What have we to do with Diana? Pray you,

will you go with us?

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt.

Tharsus. A Room in CLEON's House. Enter CLEON and

DIONYZA.

Dion. Why, are you foolish? Can it be undone ?
Cle. O Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter

The sun and moon ne'er look'd upon!

Dion. I think

You'll turn a child again.

Cle. Were I chief lord of all the spacious world, I'd give it to undo the deed.1 Olady,

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, it had been a kindness
Becoming well thy feat: what canst thou say,
When noble Pericles shall demand his child?

Dion. That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates, To foster it, nor ever to preserve.2

She died by night; I'll say so.

Who can cross it?

Unless you play the impious innocent, 3

[9] Thunder is not supposed to have an effect on fish in general, but on eels only, which are roused by it from the mud, and are therefore more easily taken. WHALLEY.

[1] So. in Macbeth:

"Wake Duncan with this knocking-Ay, would thou could'st!" In Pericles as in Macbeth, the wife is more criminal than the husband, whose repentance follows immediately on the murder. STEEVENS.

[2] So King John, on receiving the acconnt of Arthur's death:
"We cannot hold mortality's strong hand :-
"Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?
"Think you I bear the shears of destiny?
"Have I commandment on the pulse of life ?"

MALONE.

[3] She calls him an impious simpleton, because such a discovery would touch the life of one of his own family, his wife.

An innocent was formerly a common appellation for an idiot. MALONE.

And for an honest attribute, cry out,
She died by foul play.

Cle. O, go to. Well, well,

Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods
Do like this worst.

Dion. Be one of those, that think

The petty wrens of Tharsus will fly hence,
And open this to Pericles. I do shame
To think of what a noble strain you are,
And of how cow'd a spirit.4

Cle. To such proceeding

Who ever but his approbation added,
Though not his pre-consent, he did not flow
From honourable courses.5

Dion. Be it so then :

Yet none does know, but you, how she came dead,
Nor none can know, Leonine being gone.

She did disdain my child, and stood between

Her and her fortunes: No man 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 pierc'd me thorough;
And though you call my course unnatural,
You not your child well loving, yet I find,
It greets me, as an enterprize of kindness,
Perform'd to your sole daughter.

[4] So, in Macbeth:

"For it hath cow'd my better part of man."

STEEVENS.

Lady Macbeth urges the same argument to persuade her husband to commit the murder of Duncan, that Dionyza here uses to induce Cleon to conceal that of Marina:

-art thou afraid

"To be the same in thine own act and valour,

"As thou art in desire? Would'st thou have that

"Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,

"And live a coward in thine own esteem?

"Letting I dare not wait upon I would,

"Like the poor cat i'the adage?"

Again, after the murder she exclaims:

"My hands are of your colour, but I shame
"To wear a heart so white."

MALONE.

[5] A passage in King John bears no very distant resemblance to the pres

ent:

"If thou didst but consent

"To this most cruel act, do but despair,

"And, if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread
"That ever spider twisted from her womb

"Will serve to strangle thee."

MALONE

[6] A malkin is a coarse wench. A kitchen-malkin is mentioned in Corioanus. Not worth the time of day, is, not worth a good day, or good-morrow; undeserving the most common and usual salutation.

STEEVENS.

Cle. Heavens forgive it!

Dion. And as for Pericles,

What should he say? We wept after her hearse,
And even 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 expence 'tis done.

Cle. Thou art like the harpy,

Which, to betray, doth wear an angel's face,

Seize with an eagle's talons.7

Dion. 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,

Enter GowER, before the Monument of MARINA at

Tharsus.

Gow. Thus time we waste, and longest leagues
make short;

Sail seas in cockles, have, and 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 delight.
Old Escanes, whom Helicanus late
Advanc'd in time to great and high estate,

[7] In King Henry VIII. we meet with a similar allusion: "Ye have angels' faces, but Heaven knows your hearts." Again, in Romeo and Juliet:

"O serpent heart, hid with a flow'ring face!"

Again, in King John:

"Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries,
"With ladies' faces, and fierce dragons' spleens !"

MALONE.

[8] Perhaps the meaning may be- You are one of those who superstiiously appeal to the gods on every trifling and natural event. But whatev. er may be the meaning, swear to the gods, is a very aukward expression. M. MASON.

[9] So, in the Chorus to The Winter's Tale :

-I slide

O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth untry'd
Of that wide gap."

MALONE.

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 Tharsus, (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, at one door, PERICLES with his Train; CLEON and DIONYZA at the other. CLEON shows PERICLES the Tomb of MARINA; whereat PERICLES makes lamentation, puts on Sackcloth, and in a mighty passion departs. Then CLEON and DIONYZA retire.

Gow. 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 over-
show'r'd,

Leaves Tharsus, 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 wit2
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,)3

Make raging battery upon shores of flint.

[1] Think that his pilot had the celerity of thought, so shall your thought keep pace with his operations. STEEVENS.

[2] Now be pleased to know. STEEV. [3] She'll never cease. MALONE.

No visor does become black villainy,
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 scenes display
His daughter's woe and heavy well-a-day,
In her unholy service. Patience then,
And think you now are all in Mitylen.

SCENE V.

[Exit.

Mitylene. A Street before the Brothel. Enter, from the Brothel, Two Gentlemen.

1 Gent. Did you ever hear the like?

2 Gent. No, nor never shall do in such a place as this, she being once gone.

1 Gent. But to have divinity preached there! did you ever dream of such a thing.

2 Gent. No, no. Come, I am for no more bawdyhouses: Shall we go hear the vestals sing?

1 Gent. I'll do any thing now that is virtuous; but I am out of the road of rutting, for ever.

The same.

SCENE VI.

[Exeunt.

A Room in the Brothel. Enter PANDER, Bawd, and BOULT.

Pand. Well, I had rather than twice the worth of her, she had ne'er come here.

Bawd. Fye, fye upon her; she is 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 all our swearers priests. Pand. 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.