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Before the Monument of MARINA at Tarsus. | |
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Enter 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— | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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 Helicanus goes along. Behind | 15 |
| Is left to govern it, you bear in mind, | |
| Old Escanes, whom Helicanus late | |
| Advanc’d in time to great and high estate. | |
| Well-sailing ships and bounteous winds have brought | |
| This king to Tarsus, think his pilot thought, | 20 |
| 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. | |
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DUMB SHOW. | 25 |
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. 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’er-shower’d, | 30 |
| Leaveo 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 | 35 |
| The epitaph is for Marina writ | |
| By wicked Dionyza. [Reads 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, | 40 |
| 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: | 45 |
| 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, | 50 |
| 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 Mitylen. [Exit. | 55 |
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