Princes -- Lebanon -- Tyre -- Drama; Tragicomedy; Tyre (Lebanon) -- Drama
BOULT.
Well, if we had of every nation a traveller, we should lodge them with
this sign.
[_To Marina._] Pray you, come hither awhile. You have fortunes coming
upon you. Mark me: you must seem to do that fearfully which you commit
willingly, despise profit where you have most gain. To weep that you
live as ye do makes pity in your lovers: seldom but that pity begets
you a good opinion, and that opinion a mere profit.
MARINA.
I understand you not.
BOULT.
O, take her home, mistress, take her home: these blushes of hers must
be quenched with some present practice.
BAWD.
Thou sayest true, i’faith so they must; for your bride goes to that
with shame which is her way to go with warrant.
BOULT.
Faith, some do and some do not. But, mistress, if I have bargained for
the joint,—
BAWD.
Thou mayst cut a morsel off the spit.
BOULT.
I may so.
BAWD. Who should deny it? Come young one, I like the manner of your
garments well.
BOULT.
Ay, by my faith, they shall not be changed yet.
BAWD.
Boult, spend thou that in the town: report what a sojourner we have;
you’ll lose nothing by custom. When nature framed this piece, she meant
thee a good turn; therefore say what a paragon she is, and thou hast
the harvest out of thine own report.
BOULT.
I warrant you, mistress, thunder shall not so awake the beds of eels as
my giving out her beauty stirs up the lewdly inclined. I’ll bring home
some tonight.
BAWD.
Come your ways; follow me.
MARINA.
If fires be hot, knives sharp, or waters deep,
Untied I still my virgin knot will keep.
Diana, aid my purpose!
BAWD.
What have we to do with Diana? Pray you, will you go with us?
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE III. Tarsus. A room in Cleon’s house.
Enter Cleon and Dionyza.
DIONYZA.
Why, are you foolish? Can it be undone?
CLEON.
O, Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter
The sun and moon ne’er look’d upon!
DIONYZA.
I think you’ll turn a child again.
CLEON.
Were I chief lord of all this spacious world,
I’d give it to undo the deed. A lady,
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, ’t had been a kindness
Becoming well thy face. What canst thou say
When noble Pericles shall demand his child?
DIONYZA.
That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates,
To foster it, nor ever to preserve.
She died at night; I’ll say so. Who can cross it?
Unless you play the pious innocent,
And for an honest attribute cry out
‘She died by foul play.’
CLEON.
O, go to. Well, well,
Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods
Do like this worst.
DIONYZA.
Be one of those that thinks
The petty wrens of Tarsus will fly hence,
And open this to Pericles. I do shame
To think of what a noble strain you are,
And of how coward a spirit.
CLEON.
To such proceeding
Whoever but his approbation added,
Though not his prime consent, he did not flow
From honourable courses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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