Pericles by William Shakespeare
Act 3 - Scene 0
Chorus.
Gower : Now sleep y-slaked hath the rout;
[p]No din but snores the house
about,
[p]Made louder by the o'er-fed breast
[p]Of this most pompous
marriage-feast.
[p]The cat, with eyne of burning coal,
[p]Now crouches
fore the mouse's hole;
[p]And crickets sing at the oven's
mouth,
[p]E'er the blither for their drouth.
[p]Hymen hath brought the
bride to bed.
[p]Where, by the loss of maidenhead,
[p]A babe is
moulded. Be attent,
[p]And time that is so briefly spent
[p]With your
fine fancies quaintly eche:
[p]What's dumb in show I'll plain with
speech.
[p]DUMB SHOW.
[p][Enter, PERICLES and SIMONIDES at one door,
with]
[p]Attendants; a Messenger meets them, kneels, and
[p]gives
PERICLES a letter: PERICLES shows it
[p]SIMONIDES; the Lords kneel to
him. Then enter
[p]THAISA with child, with LYCHORIDA a nurse.
The
[p]KING shows her the letter; she rejoices: she and
[p]PERICLES
takes leave of her father, and depart with
[p]LYCHORIDA and their
Attendants. Then exeunt
[p]SIMONIDES and the rest]
[p]By many a dern
and painful perch
[p]Of Pericles the careful search,
[p]By the four
opposing coigns
[p]Which the world together joins,
[p]Is made with all
due diligence
[p]That horse and sail and high expense
[p]Can stead the
quest. At last from Tyre,
[p]Fame answering the most strange
inquire,
[p]To the court of King Simonides
[p]Are letters brought, the
tenor these:
[p]Antiochus and his daughter dead;
[p]The men of Tyrus
on the head
[p]Of Helicanus would set on
[p]The crown of Tyre, but he
will none:
[p]The mutiny he there hastes t' oppress;
[p]Says to 'em,
if King Pericles
[p]Come not home in twice six moons,
[p]He, obedient
to their dooms,
[p]Will take the crown. The sum of this,
[p]Brought
hither to Pentapolis,
[p]Y-ravished the regions round,
[p]And every
one with claps can sound,
[p]'Our heir-apparent is a king!
[p]Who
dream'd, who thought of such a thing?'
[p]Brief, he must hence depart
to Tyre:
[p]His queen with child makes her desire--
[p]Which who shall
cross?--along to go:
[p]Omit we all their dole and woe:
[p]Lychorida,
her nurse, she takes,
[p]And so to sea. Their vessel shakes
[p]On
Neptune's billow; half the flood
[p]Hath their keel cut: but fortune's
mood
[p]Varies again; the grisly north
[p]Disgorges such a tempest
forth,
[p]That, as a duck for life that dives,
[p]So up and down the
poor ship drives:
[p]The lady shrieks, and well-a-near
[p]Does fall in
travail with her fear:
[p]And what ensues in this fell storm
[p]Shall
for itself itself perform.
[p]I nill relate, action
may
[p]Conveniently the rest convey;
[p]Which might not what by me is
told.
[p]In your imagination hold
[p]This stage the ship, upon whose
deck
[p]The sea-tost Pericles appears to speak.
Previous: Act 2 - Scene 5
Next: Act 3 - Scene 1
