Princes -- Lebanon -- Tyre -- Drama; Tragicomedy; Tyre (Lebanon) -- Drama
DIONYZA.
Be it so, then:
Yet none does know, but you, how she came dead,
Nor none can know, Leonine being gone.
She did distain my child, and stood between
Her and her fortunes: none 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 pierced me through;
And though you call my course unnatural,
You not your child well loving, yet I find
It greets me as an enterprise of kindness
Perform’d to your sole daughter.
CLEON.
Heavens forgive it!
DIONYZA.
And as for Pericles, what should he say?
We wept after her hearse, and 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 expense ’tis done.
CLEON.
Thou art like the harpy,
Which, to betray, dost, with thine angel’s face,
Seize with thine eagle’s talons.
DIONYZA.
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._]
SCENE IV.
Enter Gower, before the monument of Marina at Tarsus.
GOWER.
Thus time we waste, and long 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 Helicanus goes along. Behind
Is left to govern, if you bear in mind,
Old Escanes, whom Helicanus late
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.
Like motes and shadows see them move awhile;
Your ears unto your eyes I’ll reconcile.
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.
Then 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’ershower’d,
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
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.
[_Reads the inscription on Marina’s monument._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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