Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Adaptations; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stories, plots, etc. -- Juvenile literature
She, who at Mitylene had so carefully concealed her birth, ashamed to
tell that one of royal ancestry was now a slave, first began to speak
to Pericles of the wayward changes in her own fate, telling him from
what a high estate herself had fallen. As if she had known it was her
royal father she stood before, all the words she spoke were of her own
sorrows; but her reason for so doing was, that she knew nothing more
wins the attention of the unfortunate than the recital of some sad
calamity to match their own. The sound of her sweet voice aroused the
drooping prince; he lifted up his eyes, which had been so long fixed
and motionless; and Marina, who was the perfect image of her mother,
presented to his amazed sight the features of his dead queen. The
long-silent prince was once more heard to speak. 'My dearest wife,'
said the awakened Pericles, 'was like this maid, and such a one might
my daughter have been. My queen's square brows, her stature to an inch,
as wand-like straight, as silver-voiced, her eyes as jewel-like. Where
do you live, young maid? Report your parentage. I think you said you
had been tossed from wrong to injury, and that you thought your griefs
would equal mine, if both were opened.' 'Some such thing I said,'
replied Marina, 'and said no more than what my thoughts did warrant me
as likely.' 'Tell me your story,' answered Pericles; 'if I find you
have known the thousandth part of my endurance, you have borne your
sorrows like a man, and I have suffered like a girl; yet you do look
like Patience gazing on kings' graves, and smiling extremity out of
act. How lost you your name, my most kind virgin? Recount your story I
beseech you. Come, sit by me.' How was Pericles surprised when she said
her name was Marina, for he knew it was no usual name, but had been
invented by himself for his own child to signify seaborn: 'O, I am
mocked,' said he, 'and you are sent hither by some incensed god to make
the world laugh at me.' 'Patience, good sir,' said Marina, 'or I must
cease here.' 'Nay,' said Pericles, 'I will be patient; you little know
how you do startle me, to call yourself Marina.' 'The name,' she
replied, 'was given me by one that had some power, my father, and a
king.' 'How, a king's daughter!' said Pericles, 'and called Marina! But
are you flesh and blood? Are you no fairy? Speak on; where were you
born? and wherefore called Marina?' She replied: 'I was called Marina,
because I was born at sea. My mother was the daughter of a king; she
died the minute I was born, as my good nurse Lychorida has often told
me weeping. The king, my father, left me at Tarsus, till the cruel wife
of Cleon sought to murder me. A crew of pirates came and rescued me,
and brought me here to Mitylene. But, good sir, why do you weep? It may
be, you think me an impostor. But, indeed, sir, I am the daughter to
king Pericles, if good king Pericles be living.' Then Pericles,
terrified as he seemed at his own sudden joy, and doubtful if this
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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