William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

For to seek my mother!

BARD.

Why lament you, pretty one?

MARINA.

That I am pretty.

BAWD.

Come, the gods have done their part in you.

MARINA.

I accuse them not.

BAWD.

You are light into my hands, where you are like to live.

MARINA.

The more my fault

To scape his hands where I was like to die.

BAWD.

Ay, and you shall live in pleasure.

MARINA.

No.

BAWD.

Yes, indeed shall you, and taste gentlemen of all fashions: you

shall fare well; you shall have the difference of all complexions.

What! do you stop your ears?

MARINA.

Are you a woman?

BAWD.

What would you have me be, an I be not a woman?

MARINA.

An honest woman, or not a woman.

BAWD. Marry, whip the, gosling: I think I shall have something to do with you. Come, you’re a young foolish sapling, and must be bowed as I would have you.

MARINA.

The gods defend me!

BAWD. If it please the gods to defend you by men, then men must comfort you, men must feed you, men must stir you up. Boult’s returned.

[Re-enter Boult.]

Now, sir, hast thou cried her through the market?

BOULT. I have cried her almost to the number of her hairs; I have drawn her picture with my voice.

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 tomorrow: with his best ruff on.

BOULT. Tonight, tonight. But, mistress, do you know the French knight that cowers i’ the hams?

BAWD.

Who, Monsieur Veroles?

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

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.

[To Marina.] Pray you, come hither awhile. You have fortunes coming upon you. Mark me: you must seem to do that fearfully which you commit willingly, despise profit where you have most gain. To weep that you live as ye do makes pity in your lovers: seldom but that pity begets you a good opinion, and that opinion a mere profit.

MARINA.

I understand you not.

BOULT. O, 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? Come young one, I like the manner of your garments well.

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 tonight.

BAWD.

Come your ways; follow me.

MARINA.

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. Tarsus. A room in Cleon’s house.

[Enter Cleon and Dionyza.]

DIONYZA.

Why, are you foolish? Can it be undone?

CLEON.

O, Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter

The sun and moon ne’er look’d upon!

DIONYZA.

I think

You’ll turn a child agan.

CLEON.

Were I chief lord of all this spacious world,

I’ld give it to undo the deed. 0 lady,

Much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess

To equal any single crown o’ the earth

I’ the justice of compare! O villain Leonine!

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?

DIONYZA.

That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates,

To foster it, nor ever to preserve.

She died at night; I‘11 say so. Who can cross it?

Unless you play the pious innocent,

And for an honest attribute cry out

‘She died by foul play.’

CLEON.

O, go to. Well, well,

Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods

Do like this worst.

DIONYZA.

Be one of those that think.

The petty wrens of Tarsus 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.

CLEON.

To such proceeding

Whoever but his approbation added,

Though not his prime consent, he did not flow

From honourable sources,

DIONYZA.

Be it so, then:

Yet none does know, but you, how she came dead,

Nor none can know, 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 pierced me through;

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 your sole daughter.

CLEON.

Heavens forgive it!

DIONYZA.

And as for Pericles,

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.

CLEON.

Thou art like the harpy,

Which, to betray, dost, with thine angel’s face,

Seize with thine eagle’s talons.

DIONYZA.

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.]

SCENE IV.

[Enter Gower, before the monument of Marina at Tarsus.]

GOWER.

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 deight.

Old Escanes, whom Helicanus late

Advanced 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 Tarsus, — 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 Pericles, at one door, with all his train; Cleon and