Pericles by William Shakespeare
Act 4 - Scene 4
Chorus.
Gower : Thus time we waste, and longest leagues make short;
[p]Sail seas in
cockles, have an wish but for't;
[p]Making, to take your
imagination,
[p]From bourn to bourn, region to region.
[p]By you being
pardon'd, we commit no crime
[p]To use one language in each several
clime
[p]Where our scenes seem to live. I do beseech you
[p]To learn
of me, who stand i' the gaps to teach you,
[p]The stages of our story.
Pericles
[p]Is now again thwarting the wayward seas,
[p]Attended on by
many a lord and knight.
[p]To see his daughter, all his life's
delight.
[p]Old Escanes, whom Helicanus late
[p]Advanced in time to
great and high estate,
[p]Is left to govern. Bear you it in
mind,
[p]Old Helicanus goes along behind.
[p]Well-sailing ships and
bounteous winds have brought
[p]This king to Tarsus,--think his pilot
thought;
[p]So with his steerage shall your thoughts grow on,--
[p]To
fetch his daughter home, who first is gone.
[p]Like motes and shadows
see them move awhile;
[p]Your ears unto your eyes I'll
reconcile.
[p]DUMB SHOW.
[p][Enter PERICLES, at one door, with all his
train;]
[p]CLEON and DIONYZA, at the other. CLEON shows
[p]PERICLES
the tomb; whereat PERICLES makes
[p]lamentation, puts on sackcloth,
and in a mighty
[p]passion departs. Then exeunt CLEON and
DIONYZA]
[p]See how belief may suffer by foul show!
[p]This borrow'd
passion stands for true old woe;
[p]And Pericles, in sorrow all
devour'd,
[p]With sighs shot through, and biggest
tears
[p]o'ershower'd,
[p]Leaves Tarsus and again embarks. He
swears
[p]Never to wash his face, nor cut his hairs:
[p]He puts on
sackcloth, and to sea. He bears
[p]A tempest, which his mortal vessel
tears,
[p]And yet he rides it out. Now please you wit.
[p]The epitaph
is for Marina writ
[p]By wicked Dionyza.
[p][Reads the inscription on
MARINA's monument]
[p]'The fairest, sweet'st, and best lies
here,
[p]Who wither'd in her spring of year.
[p]She was of Tyrus the
king's daughter,
[p]On whom foul death hath made this
slaughter;
[p]Marina was she call'd; and at her birth,
[p]Thetis,
being proud, swallow'd some part o' the earth:
[p]Therefore the earth,
fearing to be o'erflow'd,
[p]Hath Thetis' birth-child on the heavens
bestow'd:
[p]Wherefore she does, and swears she'll never
stint,
[p]Make raging battery upon shores of flint.'
[p]No visor does
become black villany
[p]So well as soft and tender flattery.
[p]Let
Pericles believe his daughter's dead,
[p]And bear his courses to be
ordered
[p]By Lady Fortune; while our scene must play
[p]His
daughter's woe and heavy well-a-day
[p]In her unholy service.
Patience, then,
[p]And think you now are all in Mytilene.
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Next: Act 4 - Scene 5
