Pericles, Prince of Tyre (Quarto)
Not Peer Reviewed
The Play of Pericles
Prince of Tyre. &c.
1
Enter Gower.
¶TO sing a Song that old was sung,
¶From ashes, auntient Gower is come,
5To glad your eare, and please your eyes:
¶On Ember eues, and Holydayes:
¶And Lords and Ladyes in their liues,
¶Haue red it for restoratiues:
10The purchase is to make men glorious,
¶Et bonum quo Antiquius eo melius:
¶If you, borne in those latter times,
¶When Witts more ripe, accept my rimes;
¶And that to heare an old man sing,
¶I life would wish, and that I might
¶Waste it for you, like Taper light.
¶This Antioch, then Antiochus the great,
¶Buylt vp this Citie, for his chiefest Seat;
20The fayrest in all Syria.
¶I tell you what mine Authors saye:
¶This King vnto him tooke a Peere,
¶Who dyed, and left a female heyre,
¶So bucksome, blith, and full of face,
25As heauen had lent her all his grace:
¶With whom the Father liking tooke,
¶And her to Incest did prouoke:
¶Bad child, worse father, to intice his owne
¶To euill, should be done by none:
30But custome what they did begin,
¶The beautie of this sinfull Dame,
¶Made many Princes thither frame,
¶To seeke her as a bedfellow,
35In maryage pleasures, playfellow:
¶Which to preuent, he made a Law,
¶To keepe her still, and men in awe:
¶That who so askt her for his wife,
¶His Riddle tould, not lost his life:
40So for her many of wight did die,
¶As yon grimme lookes do testifie.
¶What now ensues, to the iudgement of your eye,
Exit.