William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Here’s all that is left living of your queen,

A little daughter: for the sake of it,

Be manly, and take comfort.

PERICLES.

O you gods!

Why do you make us love your goodly gifts,

And snatch them straight away? We here below

Recall not what we give, and therein may

Use honour with you.

LYCHORIDA.

Patience, good sir.

Even for this charge.

PERICLES.

Now, mild may be thy life!

For a more blustrous birth had never babe:

Quiet and gentle thy conditions! for

Thou art the rudliest welcome to this world

That ever was prince’s child. Happy what follows!

Thiou hast as chiding a nativity

As fire, air, water, earth, and heaven can make,

To herald thee from the womb: even at the first

Thy loss is more than can thy portage quit,

With all thou canst find here, Now, the good gods

Throw their best eyes upon’t!

{Enter two Sailors.]

FIRST SAILOR.

What courage, sir? God save you!

PERICLES.

Courage enough: I do not fear the flaw;

It hath done to me the worst. Yet, for the love

Of ths poor infant, this fresh-new seafarer,

I would it would be quiet.

FIRST SAILOR. Slack the bolins there! Thou wilt not, wilt thou? Blow, and split thyself.

SECOND SAILOR. But sea-room, an the brine and cloudy billow kiss the moon, I care not.

FIRST SAILOR. Sir, your queen must overboard: the sea works high, the wind is loud and will not lie till the ship be cleared of the dead.

PERICLES.

That’s your superstition.

FIRST SAILOR. Pardon us, sir; with us at sea it has been still observed; and we are strong in custom. Therefore briefly yield her; for she must overboard straight.

PERICLES.

As you think meet. Most wretched queen!

LYCHORIDA.

Here she lies, sir.

PERICLES.

A terrible childben hast thou had, my dear;

No light, no fire: the unfriendly elements

Forgot thee utterly; nor have I time

To give thee hallow’d to thy grave, but straight

Must cast thee, scarcely coffin’d, in the ooze;

Where, for a monument upon thy bones,

And e’er-remaining lamps, the belching whale

And humming water must o’erwhelm thy corpse,

Lying with simple shells. O Lychorida.

Bid Nestor bring me spices, ink and paper,

My casket and my jewels; and bid Nicander

Bring me the satin coffer: lay the babe

Upon the pillow: hie thee, whiles I say

A priestly farewell to her: suddenly, woman.

[Exit Lychorida.]

SECOND SAILOR. Sir, we have a chest beneath the hatches, caulked and bitumed ready.

PERICLES.

I thank thee. Mariner, say what coast is this?

SECOND SAILOR.

We are near Tarsus.

PERICLES.

Thither, gentle mariner,

Alter thy course for Tyre. When, canst thou reach it?

SECOND SAILOR.

By break of day, if the wind cease.

PERICLES.

O, make for Tarsus!

There will I visit Cleon, for the babe

Cannot hold out to Tyrus there I’ll leave it

At careful nursing. Go thy ways, good mariner:

I’ll bring the body presently.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. Ephesus. A room in Cerimon’s house.

[Enter Cerimon, with a Servant, and some Persons who have been shipwrecked.]

CERIMON.

Philemon, ho!

[Enter Philemon.]

PHILEMON.

Doth my lord call?

CERIMON.

Get fire and meat for these poor men:

‘T has been a turbulent and stormy night.

SERVANT.

I have been in many; but such a night as this,

Till now, I ne’er endured.

CERIMON.

Your master will be dead ere you return;

There’s nothing can be minister’d to nature

That can recover him.

[To Philemon.]

Give this to the ‘pothecary,

And tell me how it works.

[Exeunt all but Cerimon.]

[Enter two Gentlemen.]

FIRST GENTLEMAN.

Good morrow.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.

Good morrow to your lordship.

CERIMON.

Gentlemen,

Why do you stir so early?

FIRST GENTLEMAN.

Sir,

Our lodgings, standing bleak upon the sea,

Shook as the earth did quake;

The very principals did seem to rend,

And all-to topple: pure surprise and fear

Made me to quit the house.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.

That is the cause we trouble you so early;

‘Tis not our husbandry.

CERIMON.

O, you say well.

FIRST GENTLEMAN.

But I much marvel that your lordship, having

Rich tire about you, should at these early hours

Shake off the golden slumber of repose.

‘Tis most strange,

Nature should be so conversant with pain.

Being thereto not compell’d.

CERIMON.

I hold it ever,

Virtue and cunning were endowments greater

Than nobleness and riches: careless heirs

May the two latter darken and expend;

But immortality attends the former,

Making a man a god. ‘Tis known, I ever

Have studied physic, through which secret art,

By turning o’er authorities, I have,

Together with my practice, made familiar

To me and to my aid the blest infusions

That dwell in vegetives, in metals, stones;

And I can speak of the disturbances

That nature works, and of her cures; which doth give me

A more content in course of true delight

Than to be thirsty after tottering honour,

Or tie my treasure up in silken bags,

To please the fool and death.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.

Your honour has through Ephesus pour’d forth

Your charity, and hundreds call themselves

Your creatures, who by you have been restored:

And not your knowledge, your personal pain, but even

Your purse, still open, hath built Lord Cerimon

Such strong renown as time shall ne’er decay.

[Enter two or three Servants with a chest.]

FIRST SERVANT.

So; lift there.

CERIMON.

What is that?

FIRST SERVANT.

Sir, even now

Did the sea toss upon our shore this chest:

‘Tis of some wreck.

CERIMON.

Set ‘t down, let’s look upon ‘t.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.

‘Tis like a coffin, sir.

CERIMON.

Whate’er it be,

‘Tis wondrous heavy. Wrench it open straight:

If the sea’s stomach be o’ercharged with gold,

‘Tis a good constraint of fortune it belches upon us.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.

‘Tis so, my lord.

CERIMON.

How close ‘tis caulk’d and bitumed!

Did the sea cast it up?

FIRST SERVANT.

I never saw so huge a billow, sir,

As toss’d it upon shore.

CERIMON.

Wrench it open;

Soft! it smells most sweetly in my sense.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.

A delicate odour.

CERIMON.

As ever hit my nostril. So up with it.

O you most potent gods! what’s here? a corse!

FIRST GENTLEMAN.

Most strange!

CERIMON.

Shrouded in cloth of state; balm’d and entreasured

With full bags of spices! A passport too!

Apollo, perfect me in the characters!

[Reads from a scroll.]

‘Here I give to understand,

If e’er this coffin drive a-land,

I, King Pericles, have lost

This queen, worth all our mundane cost.

Who her, give her burying;

She was the daughter of a king:

Besides this treasure for a fee,

The gods requite his charity!’

If thou livest, Pericles, thou hast a heart

That even cracks for woe! This chanced tonight.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.

Most likely, sir.

CERIMON.

Nay, certainly tonight;

For look how fresh she looks! They were too rough

That threw her in the sea. Make a fire within

Fetch hither all my boxes in my closet.

[Exit a Servant.]

Death may usurp on nature many hours,

And yet the fire of life kindle again