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Pericles - Act 4, scene 4
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Pericles - Act 4, scene 4Act 4, scene 4
⌜Scene 4⌝
Synopsis:
Gower tells of Pericles’ arrival in Tarsus, his learning of Marina’s death, and his vow of perpetual mourning.
⌜Enter Gower.⌝GOWER
1774 Thus time we waste, and long leagues make short,
1775 Sail seas in cockles, have and wish but for ’t,
1776 Making to take our imagination
1777 From bourn to bourn, region to region.
1778 5 By you being pardoned, we commit no crime
1779 To use one language in each several clime
1780 Where our scenes seems to live. I do beseech you
1781 To learn of me, who stand ⌜in the⌝ gaps to teach you
1782 The stages of our story. Pericles
1783 10 Is now again thwarting ⌜the⌝ wayward seas,
1784 Attended on by many a lord and knight,
1785 To see his daughter, all his life’s delight.
1786 Old Helicanus goes along. Behind
1787 Is left to govern it, you bear in mind,
1788 15 Old Escanes, whom Helicanus late
1789 Advanced in time to great and high estate.
1790 Well-sailing ships and bounteous winds have brought
1791 This king to Tarsus—think ⌜his⌝ pilot thought;
1792 So with his steerage shall your thoughts ⌜go on⌝—
1793 20 To fetch his daughter home, who first is gone.
1794 Like motes and shadows see them move awhile;
1795 Your ears unto your eyes I’ll reconcile.
⌜Dumb Show.⌝
Enter Pericles at one door, with all his train, Cleon and
Dionyza at the other. Cleon shows Pericles the tomb,
p.
141
whereat Pericles makes lamentation, puts on sackcloth,and in a mighty passion departs. ⌜Cleon and Dionyza exit.⌝
1796 See how belief may suffer by foul show!
1797 This borrowed passion stands for true old woe.
1798 25 And Pericles, in sorrow all devoured,
1799 With sighs shot through and biggest tears
1800 o’ershowered,
1801 Leaves Tarsus and again embarks. He swears
1802 Never to wash his face nor cut his hairs.
1803 30 He ⌜puts⌝ on sackcloth, and to sea. He bears
1804 A tempest which his mortal vessel tears,
1805 And yet he rides it out. Now please you wit
1806 The epitaph is for Marina writ
1807 By wicked Dionyza:
1808 35 The fairest, sweetest, and best lies here,
1809 Who withered in her spring of year.
1810 She was of Tyrus, the King’s daughter,
1811 On whom foul death hath made this slaughter.
1812 Marina was she called, and at her birth,
1813 40 Thetis, being proud, swallowed some part o’ th’ earth.
1814 Therefore the Earth, fearing to be o’erflowed,
1815 Hath Thetis’ birth-child on the heavens bestowed.
1816 Wherefore she does—and swears she’ll never stint—
1817 Make raging battery upon shores of flint.
1818 45 No visor does become black villainy
1819 So well as soft and tender flattery.
1820 Let Pericles believe his daughter’s dead,
1821 And bear his courses to be orderèd
1822 By Lady Fortune, while our ⌜scene⌝ must play
1823 50 His daughter’s woe and heavy welladay
1824 In her unholy service. Patience, then,
1825 And think you now are all in Mytilene.He exits.