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Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Tom Bishop
Not Peer Reviewed

Pericles, Prince of Tyre (Modern)

1716.1[4.4]
[Enter Gower.]
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
1720From bourn to bourn, region to region.
By you being pardoned, we commit no crime
To use one language in each several clime
Where our scenes seems to live. I do beseech you
1725To learn of me who stand i'th'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,
1730To 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.
1735Well-sailing ships and bounteous winds have brought
This king to Tharsus -- think his pilot thought;
So with his steerage shall your thoughts grow on
To fetch his daughter home, who first is gone.
1740Like motes and shadows see them move a while;
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 Pe1745ricles makes lamentation, puts on sackcloth, and in a mighty passion departs [with his train. Exeunt Cleon and Dionyza at the other door.]
Gower
See how belief may suffer by fowl show:
This borrowed passion stands for true-owed woe.
And Pericles in sorrow all devoured,
1750With sighs shot through and biggest tears o'er-showered,
Leaves Tharsus, 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
1755And yet he rides it out. Now please you wit
The epitaph is for Marina writ
By wicked Dionyza:
[He reads the inscription on Marina's monument.]
The fairest, sweet'st and best lies here,
Who withered in her spring of year.
She was of Tyrus the King's daughter,
1760On whom foul death hath made this slaughter.
Marina was she called, and at her birth
Thetis, being proud, swallowed some part o'th'earth.
Therefore the earth, fearing to be o'er-flowed,
Hath Thetis' birth-child on the heavens bestowed,
1765Wherefore she does -- and swears she'll never stint --
Make raging battery upon shores of flint.
No visor does become black villainy
So well as soft and tender flattery.
Let Pericles believe his daughter's dead,
1770And bear his courses to be orderèd
By Lady Fortune, while our scene must play
His daughter's woe and heavy welladay
In her unholy service. Patience then,
And think you now are all in Metalin.1775
Exit.
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