GOWER
Thus time we waste, and long leagues make short,
Sail seas in cockles, have and wish but for ’t,
Making to take our imagination
From bourn to bourn, region to region.
By you being pardoned, we commit no crime 5
To use one language in each several clime
Where our scenes seems to live. I do beseech you
To learn of me, who stand in the gaps to teach you
The stages of our story. Pericles
Is now again thwarting the wayward seas, 10
Attended on by many a lord and knight,
To see his daughter, all his life’s delight.
Old Helicanus goes along. Behind
Is left to govern it, you bear in mind,
Old Escanes, whom Helicanus late 15
Advanced in time to great and high estate.
Well-sailing ships and bounteous winds have brought
This king to Tarsus—think his pilot thought;
So with his steerage shall your thoughts go on—
To fetch his daughter home, who first is gone. 20
Like motes and shadows see them move awhile;
Your ears unto your eyes I’ll reconcile. | Gower shows up on stage and tells us that Pericles and his entourage are on their way to Tharsus to see Marina. |
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. Cleon and Dionyza exit. See how belief may suffer by foul show!
This borrowed passion stands for true old woe.
And Pericles, in sorrow all devoured, 25
With sighs shot through and biggest tears
o’ershowered,
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 30
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: The fairest, sweetest, and best lies here, 35
Who withered in her spring of year.
She was of Tyrus, the King’s daughter,
On whom foul death hath made this slaughter.
Marina was she called, and at her birth,
Thetis, being proud, swallowed some part o’ th’ earth. 40
Therefore the Earth, fearing to be o’erflowed,
Hath Thetis’ birth-child on the heavens bestowed.
Wherefore she does—and swears she’ll never stint—
Make raging battery upon shores of flint. No visor does become black villainy 45
So well as soft and tender flattery.
Let Pericles believe his daughter’s dead,
And bear his courses to be orderèd
By Lady Fortune, while our scene must play
His daughter’s woe and heavy welladay 50
In her unholy service. Patience, then,
And think you now are all in Mytilene. He exits. |
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