Enter GoWER.

Gow. Imagine Pericles arrived at Tyre,
Welcom'd and settled to his own desire:
His woful queen we leave at Ephesus,
Unto Diana there a votaress.
Now to Marina bend your mind,
Whom our fast-growing scene must find
At Tharsus, and by Cleon train'd
In music, letters; who hath gain'd
Of education all the grace,

Which makes her both the heart and place
Of general wonder. But alack!
That monster envy, oft the wrack
Of earned praise, Marina's life
Seeks to take off by treason's knife.
And in this kind hath our Cleon

One daughter, and a wench full grown,
Even ripe for marriage rite: this maid
Hight Philoten; and it is said
For certain in our story, she
Would ever with Marina be:

Be't when she weav'd the sleided silk
With fingers, long, small, white as milk;
Or when she would with sharp needle wound
The cambric, which she made more sound
By hurting it; or when to the lute

She sung, and made the night-bird mute,
That still records with moan; or when
She would with rich and constant pen
Vail to her mistress Dian; still
This Philoten contends in skill

With absolute Marina: so
With the dove of Paphos might the crow
Vie feathers white. Marina gets
All praises, which are paid as debts,
And not as given. This so darks
In Philoten all graceful marks,
That Cleon's wife, with envy rare,
A present murderer does prepare
For good Marina, that her daughter
Might stand peerless by this slaughter.
The sooner her vile thoughts to stead,
Lychorida, our nurse, is dead:
And cursed Dionyza hath

The pregnant instrument of wrath
Prest for this blow. The unborn event

I do commend to your content:

Only I carried winged time

Post on the lame feet of my rhyme;
Which never could I so convey,

Unless your thoughts went on my way.-
Dionyza doth appear,

With Leonine, a murderer.

[Erit.

SCENE I.-Tharsus. An open Place near the

Sea-shore.

Enter DIONYZA and LEONINE.

Dion. Thy oath remember; thou hast sworn to do't:

'Tis but a blow, which never shall be known. Thou canst not do a thing i' the world so soon,

Enter MARINA, with a basket of flowers.

Mar. No, I will rob Tellus of her weed,

To strew thy grave with flowers: the yellows, blues,

The purple violets, and marigolds,

Shall, as a carpet, hang upon thy grave,

While summer days do last. Ah me, poor maid!
Born in a tempest, when my mother died,
This world to me is like a lasting storm,
Whirring me from my friends.

Dion. How now, Marina! why do you keep alone?

How chance my daughter is not with you? Do not
Consume your blood with sorrowing: you have
A nurse of me. Lord! how your favour's chang'd
With this unprofitable woe! Come, come;
Give me your flowers, ere the sea mar it.
Walk with Leonine; the air is quick there,
And it pierces and sharpens the stomach. Come,
Leonine, take her by the arm, walk with her.
Mar. No, I pray you;

I'll not bereave you of your servant.

Dion.

Come, come;
I love the king your father, and yourself,
With more than foreign heart. We every day
Expect him here: when he shall come, and find
Our paragon to all reports thus blasted,

He will repent the breadth of his great voyage;
Blame both my lord and me, that we have taken
No care to your best courses. Go, I pray you;
Walk, and be cheerful once again: reserve
That excellent complexion, which did steal
of young and old.
Care not for me;

The eyes

I can go home alone.

Mar.

Well, I will go;

But yet I have no desire to it.

Dion. Come, come, I know 'tis good for you.Walk half an hour, Leonine, at the least. Remember what I have said.

Leon. I warrant you, madam. Dion. I'll leave you, my sweet lady, for a while. Pray you walk softly, do not heat your blood: What! I must have care of you.

Mar.

Leon. If you require a little space for prayer, I grant it. Pray; but be not tedious, For the gods are quick of ear, and I am sworn To do my work with haste.

Mar.

Why will you kill me? Leon. To satisfy my lady.

Mar. Why would she have me kill'd?
Now as I can remember, by my troth,
I never did her hurt in all my life.

I never spake bad word, nor did ill turn
To any living creature: believe me, la,
I never kill'd a mouse, nor hurt a fly:
I trod upon a worm against my will,
But I wept for it. How have I offended,
Wherein my death might yield her profit, or
My life imply her any danger?

Leon.

My commission Is not to reason of the deed, but do it. Mar. You will not do't for all the world, I hope. You are well favour'd, and your looks foreshow You have a gentle heart. I saw you lately, When you caught hurt in parting two that fought: Good sooth, it show'd well in you: do so now : Your lady seeks my life; come you between, And save poor me, the weaker.

Léon.

And will despatch.

I am sworn,

Thanks, sweet madam.[Exit DIONYZA.

South-west.

SCENE III.-Mitylene. A Room in a Brothel. Enter Pander, Bawd, and BOULT.

Is the wind westerly that blows?

Leon.

Mar. When I was born, the wind was north. Leon.

Was't so?

Mar. My father, as nurse said, did never fear, But cry'd "good seamen!" to the sailors, galling

His kingly hands hauling ropes;

And, clasping to the mast, endur'd a sea
That almost burst the deck.

Leon. When was this?

Mar. When I was born :

Never were waves nor wind more violent;
And from the ladder-tackle washes off

A canvass-climber. "Ha!" says one, "wilt out?"

Pand. Boult.

Boult. Sir.

Pand. Search the market narrowly; Mitylene is full of gallants: we lost too much money this mart, by being too wenchless.

Bawd. We were never so much out of creatures. We have but poor three, and they can do no more than they can do; and they with continual action are even as good as rotten.

Pand. Therefore, let's have fresh ones, whate'er we pay for them. If there be not a conscience to be used in every trade we shall never prosper.

Bawd. Thou say'st true: 'tis not the bringing up of poor bastards, as I think, I have brought up some eleven

Boult. Ay, to eleven; and brought them down again. But shall I search the market?

Bawd. What else, man? The stuff we have, a strong wind will blow it to pieces, they are so pitifully sodden.

› Pand. Thou say'st true; they're too unwholesome o' conscience. The poor Transilvanian is dead, that lay with the little baggage.

Boult. Ay, she quickly pooped him; she made him roast-meat for worms. But I'll go search the market. [Exit BOULT.

Pand. Three or four thousand chequins were as pretty a proportion to live quietly, and so give over— Bawd. Why, to give over, I pray you? is it a shame to get when we are old?

Pand. O! our credit comes not in like the commodity; nor the commodity wages not with the danger: therefore, if in our youths we could pick up some pretty estate, 'twere not amiss to keep our door hatched. Besides, the sore terms we stand upon with the gods will be strong with us for giving

over.

Bawd. Come; other sorts offend as well as we. Pand. As well as we? ay, and better too; we offend worse. Neither is our profession any trade; its no calling. But here comes Boult.

Enter BOULT, and the Pirates with MARINA.
My masters, you say

Boult. Come your ways.

she's a virgin?

1 Pirate. O, sir! we doubt it not. Boult. Master, I have gone thorough for this piece, you see: if you like her, so; if not, I have lost my earnest.

Bawd. Boult, has she any qualities?

Boult. She has a good face, speaks well, and has excellent good clothes: there's no further necessity of qualities can make her be refused.

Bawd. What's her price, Boult?

Boult. I cannot be bated one doit of a thousand pieces.

Pand. Well, follow me, my masters, you shall have your money presently. Wife, take her in: instruct her what she has to do, that she may not be raw in her entertainment.

[Exeunt Pander and Pirates. Bawd. Boult, take you the marks of her; the colour of her hair, complexion, height, her age, with warrant of her virginity, and cry, He that will give most, shall have her first." Such a maidenhead were no cheap thing, if men were as they have been. Get this done as I command you.

Boult. Performance shall follow. [Erit BoULT. Mar. Alack, that Leonine was so slack, so slow! He should have struck, not spoke; or that these pirates,

(Not enough barbarous,) had not o'erboard thrown me For to seek my mother!

Bawd. Why lament you, pretty one?
Mar. That I am pretty.

Bawd. Come, the gods have done their part in

you.

Mar. I accuse them not.

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

Mar. The more my fault,

To 'scape his hands where I was like to die.
Bawd. Ay, and you shall live in pleasure.

Mar. 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?

Mar. Are you a woman?

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

Mar. An honest woman, or not a woman. Bawd. Marry, whip thee, gosling: I think I shail have something to do with you. Come, you are a young foolish sapling, and must be bowed as I would have you.

Mar. 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 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 pr'ythee, 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 to-morrow with his best ruff on.

Boult. To-night, to-night. But, mistress, do you know the French knight that cowers i' the hams! Bawd. Who? monsieur Veroles?

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

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.

You

Bawd. Pray you, come hither awhile. have fortunes coming upon you. Mark me: you must seem to do that fearfully, which you commit willingly; to despise profit, where you have most gain. To weep that you live as you do, makes pity in your lovers: seldom, but that pity begets you a good opinion, and that opinion a mere profit. Mar. I understand you not.

Boult. O! take her home, mistress, take her home these blushes of her's must be quenched with some present practice.

Bawd. Thou say'st 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 may'st cut a morsel off the spit. Boult. I may so?

Bawd. Who should deny it?

Come, young I like the manner of your garments well. Boult. Ay, by my faith, they shall not be changed

one,

yet.

Bawd. Boult, spend thou that in the town: re port 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.

You'll turn a child again.

Cle. Were I chief lord of all this spacious world,
I'd give it to undo the deed. O 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, it had been a kindness
Becoming well thy fact: what canst thou say,
When noble Pericles shall demand his child?
Dion. That she is dead. Nurses are not the
fates,

Who can cross it?

To foster it, nor ever to preserve. She died at night; I'll say so. Unless you play the pious innocent, And for an honest attribute, cry out, "She died by foul play."

Cle.

O! go to. Well, well;

Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods Do like this worst.

Dion.

Be one of those, that think

The pretty wrens of Tharsus 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.

Cle.

To such proceeding

Who ever but his approbation added, Though not his pre-consent, he did not flow From honourable courses.

Dion.

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 pierc'd me thorough;
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.

Cle.

Heavens forgive it!

Dion. And as for Pericles.

What should he say?

We wept after her hearse,
And even 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.

Cle.
Thou art like the harpy,
Which, to betray, doth with thine angel's face,
Seize with thine eagle's talons.

Dion. 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. Enter GowER, before the Monument of MARINA at Tharsus.

Gow. Thus time we waste, and longest leagues
make short;

Sail seas in cockles, have, and 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 delight.
Old Escanes, whom Helicanus late
Advanc'd 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 Tharsus, (think this 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.

Therefore the earth, fearing to be o'erflow'd, Hath Thetis' birth-child on the heavens bestow'd: Wherefore she does (and swears she'll never stint) Make raging battery upon shores of flint."

No visor does become black villany,

So well as soft and tender flattery.
Let Pericles believe his daughter's dead,
And bear his courses to be ordered
By lady fortune; while our scene must play
His daughter's woe and heavy well-a-day,
In her unholy service. Patience then,
And think you now are all in Mitylen.

[Exit.

SCENE V.-Mitylene. A Street before the Brothel.

Enter from the Brothel, two Gentlemen. 1 Gent. Did you ever hear the like?

2 Gent. No; nor never shall do in such a place as this, she being once gone.

1 Gent. But to have divinity preached there! did you ever dream of such a thing?

2 Gent. No, no. Come, I am for no more bawdy-houses. Shall we go hear the vestals sing? 1 Gent. I'll do anything now that is virtuous; but I am out of the road of rutting for ever.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI.-The Same. A Room in the Brothel.

Enter Pander, Bawd, and BOULT.

Pand. Well, I had rather than twice the worth of her, she had ne'er come here.

Bawd. Fie, fie upon her! she is able to freeze the god Priapus, and undo a whole generation: we must either get her ravished, or be rid of her. When she should do for clients her fitment, and do me the kindness of our profession, she has me her quirks, her reasons, her master reasons, her prayers, her knees, that she would make a puritan of the devil, if he should cheapen a kiss of her.

Boult. 'Faith, I must ravish her, or she'll disfurnish us of all our cavaliers, and make all our swearers priests.

Pand. Now, the pox upon her green-sickness for me!

Bawd. 'Faith, there's no way to be rid on't, but by the way to the pox. Here comes the lord Lysimachus, disguised.

Boult. We should have both lord and lown, if the peevish baggage would but give way to customers. Enter LYSIMACHUS.

Lys. How now! How a dozen of virginities? Bawd. Now, the gods to-bless your honour! Boult. I am glad to see your honour in good health.

Lys. You may so; 'tis the better for you that your resorters stand upon sound legs. How now, wholesome iniquity! have you that a man may deal withal, and defy the surgeon?

Bawd. We have here one, sir, if she wouldbut there never came her like in Mitylene.

Lys. If she'd do the deeds of darkness, thou would'st say.

Bawd. Your honour knows what 'tis to say, well enough.

Lys. Well call forth, call forth.

Boult. For flesh and blood, sir, white and red, you shall see a rose; and she were a rose indeed, if she had but—

Bawd. First, I would have you note, this is a honourable man. [TO MARINA Mar. I desire to find him so, that I may worthi note him.

Bawd. Next, he's the governor of this country, and a man whom I am bound to.

Mar. If he govern the country, you are bound to him indeed; but how honourable he is in that, I know not.

Bawd. 'Pray you, without any more virgina fencing, will you use him kindly? He will Le your apron with gold.

Mar. What he will do graciously, I will thankfully receive.

Lys. Have you done?

Bawd. My lord, she's not paced yet; you must take some pains to work her to your manage. Come, we will leave his honour and her together. Go thy ways. [Exeunt Bawd, Pander, and BOULT. Lys. Now, pretty one, how long have you beet at this trade?

Mar. What trade, sir?

Lys. Why, I cannot name but I shall offend. Mar. I cannot be offended with my trade. Please you to name it.

Lys. How long have you been of this profession! Mar. Ever since I can remember. Lys. Did you go to it so young? gamester at five, or at seven?

Were you a

Mar. Earlier too, sir, if now I be one. Lys. Why, the house you dwell in proclaims you to be a creature of sale.

Mar. Do you know this house to be a place of such resort, and will come into it? I hear say, you are of honourable parts, and are the governor of this place.

Lys. Why, hath your principal made known unte you who I am?

Mar. Who is my principal?

Lys. Why, your herb-woman; she that sets seed and roots of shame and iniquity. O! you have heard something of my power, and so stand aloof for more serious wooing. But I protest to thee, pretty one, my authority shall not see thee. or else, look friendly upon thee. Come, bring me to some private place: come, come.

Mar. If you were born to honour, show it now: If put upon you, make the judgment good That thought you worthy of it.

Lys. How's this? how's this?-Some more;—

be sage. Mar. For me,

That am a maid, though most ungentle fortune Hath plac'd me in this sty, where, since I came, Diseases have been sold dearer than physic,That the gods

Would set me free from this unhallow'd place, Though they did change me to the meanest bird That flies i' the purer air!