Pericles by William Shakespeare
Act 4 - Scene 3
Tarsus. A room in CLEON’s house.
Dionyza : Why, are you foolish? Can it be undone?
Cleon : O Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter
[p]The sun and moon ne'er look'd
upon!
Dionyza : I think
[p]You'll turn a child again.
Cleon : Were I chief lord of all this spacious world,
[p]I'ld give it to undo
the deed. O lady,
[p]Much less in blood than virtue, yet a
princess
[p]To equal any single crown o' the earth
[p]I' the justice
of compare! O villain Leonine!
[p]Whom thou hast poison'd too:
[p]If
thou hadst drunk to him, 't had been a kindness
[p]Becoming well thy
fact: what canst thou say
[p]When noble Pericles shall demand his
child?
Dionyza : That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates,
[p]To foster it, nor ever
to preserve.
[p]She died at night; I'll say so. Who can cross
it?
[p]Unless you play the pious innocent,
[p]And for an honest
attribute cry out
[p]'She died by foul play.'
Cleon : O, go to. Well, well,
[p]Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the
gods
[p]Do like this worst.
Dionyza : Be one of those that think
[p]The petty wrens of Tarsus will fly
hence,
[p]And open this to Pericles. I do shame
[p]To think of what a
noble strain you are,
[p]And of how coward a spirit.
Cleon : To such proceeding
[p]Who ever but his approbation added,
[p]Though
not his prime consent, he did not flow
[p]From honourable sources.
Dionyza : Be it so, then:
[p]Yet none does know, but you, how she came
dead,
[p]Nor none can know, Leonine being gone.
[p]She did disdain my
child, and stood between
[p]Her and her fortunes: none would look on
her,
[p]But cast their gazes on Marina's face;
[p]Whilst ours was
blurted at and held a malkin
[p]Not worth the time of day. It pierced
me through;
[p]And though you call my course unnatural,
[p]You not
your child well loving, yet I find
[p]It greets me as an enterprise of
kindness
[p]Perform'd to your sole daughter.
Cleon : Heavens forgive it!
Dionyza : And as for Pericles,
[p]What should he say? We wept after her
hearse,
[p]And yet we mourn: her monument
[p]Is almost finish'd, and
her epitaphs
[p]In glittering golden characters express
[p]A general
praise to her, and care in us
[p]At whose expense 'tis done.
Cleon : Thou art like the harpy,
[p]Which, to betray, dost, with thine angel's
face,
[p]Seize with thine eagle's talons.
Dionyza : You are like one that superstitiously
[p]Doth swear to the gods that
winter kills the flies:
[p]But yet I know you'll do as I advise.
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Next: Act 4 - Scene 4
