Bawd. And I prithee tell me, how dost thou find the inclination of the people, especially of the younger sort?

Boult. Faith, they listened to me as they would have hearkened to their father's testament. There was a Spaniard's mouth so watered, that he went to bed to her very description.

Bawd. We shall have him here to-morrow with his best ruff on.

Boult. To-night, to-night. But, mistress, do the French knight that cowers i' the hams?

Bawd. Who, Monsieur Veroles?

you know

Boult. Ay: he offered to cut a caper at the proclamation; but he made a groan at it, and swore he would see her to

morrow.

Bawd. Well, well; as for him, he brought his disease hither: here he does but repair it. I know he will come in our shadow, to scatter his crowns in the sun.

Boult. Well, if we had of every nation a traveller, we should lodge them with this sign. Bawd. [to Mar.] Pray you, come hither awhile. You have fortunes coming upon you. Mark me: you must seem to do that fearfully which you commit willingly; to despise profit where you have most gain. To weep that you live as you do makes pity in your lovers: seldom but that pity begets you a good opinion, and that opinion a mere profit.

Mar. I understand you not.

Boult. 0, 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? the manner of your garments well.

Come, young one, I like

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 stir up the lewdly-inclined. I'll bring home some to-night.

Bawd. Come your ways; follow me.

Mar. 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. Tharsus. A room in the Governor's house.

Enter CLEON and DIONYZA.

Dion. Why, are you foolish? Can it be undone ?
Cle. O Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter

The sun and moon ne'er look'd upon!

Dion.

You'll turn a child again.

I think

Cle. Were I chief lord of all this spacious world,

I'd give it to undo the deed.

O lady,

Much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess

To equal any single crown o' th' earth

I' the justice of compare!

Whom thou hast poison'd too:

If thou hadst drunk to him, 't had been a kindness

Becoming well thy fact: what canst thou say

When noble Pericles shall demand his child?

Dion. That she is dead. Nurses are not the Fates, To foster it, nor ever to preserve.

Who can cross it?

She died at night; I'll say so.
Unless you play the pious innocent,
And for an honest attribute cry out

"She died by foul play."

Cle.

O, go to. Well, well,

Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods
Do like this worst.

Dion.
Be one of those that think
The petty wrens of Tharsus 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.

Cle.

To such proceeding
Who ever but his approbation added,
Though not his prime consent, he did not flow
From honourable sources.

Dion.

Be 't so,

then:

Yet none does know, but you, how she came dead,
Nor none can know now, 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 pierc'd me thorough;
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 our sole daughter.

Cle.

Dion. And as for Pericles,

Heavens forgive it!

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.

Cle.

Thou'rt like the harpy,

Which, to betray, dost, with thine angel's face,
Seize with thine eagle's talons.

Dion. 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.

Enter GowER, before the monument of MARINA at Tharsus.

Gow. Thus time we waste, and longest leagues make

short;

Sail seas in cockles, have an 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 Escanes, whom Helicanus late
Advanc'd in time to great and high estate,
Is left to govern. Bear you it in mind,
Old Helicanus goes along behind.

--

Well-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.
Like motes and shadows see them move awhile;
Your ears unto your eyes I'll reconcile.

DUMB-SHOW.

Enter, from one side, PERICLES with his Train; from the other, CLEON and DIONYZA. CLEON shows PERICLES the tomb of MARINA; 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 Tharsus, and again embarks. He swears

Never to wash his face, nor cut his hairs:

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

He puts on sackcloth, and to sea.

By wicked Dionyza.

[Reads the inscription on Marina's monument.

"The fairest, sweet'st, and best lies here,

Who wither'd in her spring of year.

She was of Tyrus the king's daughter,

On whom foul death hath made this slaughter;

Marina was she call'd; and at her birth,

Thetis, being proud, swallow'd some part o' th' earth:
Therefore the earth, fearing to be o'erflow'd,

Hath Thetis' birth-child on the heavens bestow'd:

Wherefore she does

and swears she'll never stint

Make raging battery upon shores of flint.”

No visor doth become black villany
So well as soft and tender flattery.
Let Pericles believe his daughter's dead,
And bear his courses to be ordered

By Lady Fortune; while our scene must play
His daughter's woe and heavy well-a-day
In her unholy service. Patience, then,
And think you now are all in Mytilen.

SCENE IV.

-

Mytilene. A street before the brothel.

Enter, from the brothel, two Gentlemen.

First Gent. Did you ever hear the like?

[Exit.

Sec. Gent. No, nor never shall do in such a place as this,

she being once gone.

First Gent. But to have divinity preached there! did you ever dream of such a thing?