Hel. Behold him, sir: [PERICLES discovered.] this was a goodly person,

Till the disaster, that, one mortal night3,
Drove him to this.

Lys. Sir king, all hail! the gods preserve you! Hail, Hail, royal sir!

Hel. It is in vain; he will not speak to you.

1 Lord. Sir, we have a maid in Mitylene, I durst

wager,

Would win some words of him1.

Lys.

"Tis well bethought. She, questionless, with her sweet harmony

And other choice attractions, would allure,

And make a battery through his deafen'd parts5, Which now are midway stopp'd:

She is all happy as the fairest of all,

And, with her fellow maids, is now upon
The leafy shelter that abuts against
The island's side.

[He whispers one of the attendant Lords.-
[Exit Lord, in the Barge of LYSIMACHUS.

2 Few of the stage-directions, that have been given in this and the preceding acts, are found in the old copy. In the original representation Pericles was probably placed in the back part of the stage, concealed by a curtain, which was here drawn open. The ancient narratives represented him as remaining in the cabin of his ship; but as in such a situation Pericles would not be visible to the audience, a different stage-direction is now given.

3 The old copies read, one mortal wight. The emendation is Malone's. Mortal is here used for deadly, destructive.

4 This circumstance resembles another in All's Well that Ends Well, where Lafeu gives an account of Helena's attractions to the king before she is introduced to attempt his cure.

5 The old copy reads, defend parts. Malone made the alteration, which he explains thus: i. e. his ears, which are to be assailed by Marina's melodious voice."', Steevens would read, deafen'd ports,' meaning the oppilated doors of hearing.'

6 Steevens prints this passage in the following manner; corrected and amended so as to run smooth no doubt, but with sufficient licence :

She all as happy as of all the fairest, Is with her fellow maidens now within. Difficulties have been raised about this passage as it stands; but surely it is as intelligible as many others in this play. Upon a leafy shelter, which is the great stumbling-block, appears to mean Upon a spot which is sheltered.'

Hel. Sure all's effectless; yet nothing we'll omit That bears recovery's name. But, since your kindness, We have stretch'd thus far, let us beseech you further,

That for our gold we may provision have,
Wherein we are not destitute for want,
But weary for the staleness.

O, sir, a courtesy,

Lys.
Which if we should deny, the most just God
For every graff would send a caterpillar,
And so inflict our province.-Yet once more
Let me entreat to know at large the cause
Of your king's sorrow.

Hel.

Sit, sir, I will recount it;

But see, I am prevented.

Enter, from the Barges, Lord, MARINA, and a

Lys.

Young Lady.

O, here is

The lady that I sent for. Welcome, fair one!
Is't not a goodly presence?

Hel.

A gallant lady.
Lys. She's such, that were I well assur'd she came
Of gentle kind, and noble stock, I'd wish

No better choice, and think me rarely wed.
Fair one, all goodness that consists in bounty9

There can be little doubt that the poet wrote:-
And so afflict our province.'-

We have no example of to inflict used by itself for to punish.
8 It appears that when Pericles was originally performed the
theatres were furnished with no such apparatus as, by any stretch
of imagination, could be supposed to present either a sea or a
ship; and that the audience were contented to behold vessels
sailing in and out of port in their mind's eye only. This licence
being once granted to the poet, the lord in the instance now before
us, walked off the stage, and returned again in a few minutes, lead-
ing in Marina without any sensible impropriety; and the present
drama exhibited before such indulgent spectators was not more in-
commodious in the representation than any other would have been.
See Malone's Historical Account of the English Stage.
9 The quarto of 1609 reads:-

'Fair on all goodness that consists in beauty, &c. The present circumstance puts us in mind of what passes between Helena and the King, in All's Well that Ends Well.

Expect even here, where is a kingly patient:
If that thy prosperous and artificial feat10
Can draw him but to answer thee in aught,
Thy sacred physic shall receive such pay
As thy desires can wish.

Mar.

Sir, I will use
My utmost skill in his recovery,
Provided none but I and my companion
Be suffer'd to come near him.

See, she will speak to him.

Mar. Hail, sir! my lord, lend ear:
Per. Hum! ha!

My lord, that ne'er before invited eyes,

But have been gaz'd on, like a comet: she speaks.
My lord, that, may be, hath endur'd a grief
Might equal yours, if both were justly weigh'd.
Though wayward fortune did malign my state,
My derivation was from ancestors

Who stood equivalent with mighty kings12:
But time hath rooted out my parentage,
And to the world and awkward13 casualties
Bound me in servitude.-I will desist;

10 The old copy has artificial fate.' The emendation is by Dr. Percy.

11 This song (like most of those that were sung in the old plays) has not been preserved. It may have been formed on the lines in Gesta the Romanorum. The reader desirous of consulting the Latin hexameters, or Twine's translation of them, may consult the Variorum Shakspeare. There was not merit enough in them to warrant their production in this abridged commentary.

12 So in Othello :

I fetch my birth

From men of royal siege.'

13 Awkward is adverse. So in King Henry VI. Part 11.:And twice by awkward wind from England's bank Drove back again.'

But there is something glows upon my cheek,
And whispers in mine ear, Go not till he speak.
[Aside.
Per. My fortunes-parentage-good parentage-
To equal mine!-was it not thus? what say you?
Mar. I said, my lord, if you did know my parentage,
You would not do me violence14.
I do think so.

Per.

I pray you, turn your eyes again upon me.—
You are like something that-What country woman?
Here of these shores15?

Mar.

No, nor of any shores: Yet I was mortally brought forth, and am No other than 1 appear.

Per. I am great with woe, and shall deliver weeping.

My dearest wife was like this maid, and such a one My daughter might have been16: my queen's square brows;

14 This seems to refer to a part of the story that is made no use of in the present scene. Thus in Twine's translation:- Then Appolonius fell in rage, and forgetting all courtesie, &c. rose up sodainly and stroke the maiden,' &c. Pericles however afterwards say8

Did'st thou not say, when I did push thee back
(Which was when I perceiv'd thee), that thou cam'st
From good descending?

15 This passage is strangely corrupt in the old copies :'Per. I do think so, pray you turne your eyes upon me, your like something that, what country women heare of these shewes, &c.

Mar. Nor of any shewes,' &c.

For the ingenious emendation, shores instead of showes, as well as the regulation of the whole passage, Malone confesses his obligation to the earl of Charlemont.

16 So Dæmones, in the Rudens of Plautus, exclaims, on beholding his long lost child:

O filia

Mea! cum ego hanc video, mearum me absens miseriarum

commones.

Trima quæ periit mihi: jam tanta esset, si vivit, scio.'

It is observable that some of the leading incidents in this play strongly remind us of the Rudens. There Arcturus, like Gower, лooloуisei. In the Latin comedy, fishermen, as in Pericles, are brought on the stage, one of whom drags on shore in his net the wallet which principally produces the catastrophe; and the heroine of Plautus, and Marina fall alike into the hands of a procurer: a circumstance on which much of the plot in both these dramatic pieces depends.-Holt White,

Her stature to an inch; as wand-like straight;
As silver-voic'd; her eyes as jewel-like,

And cas'd as richly: in pace another Juno;

Who starves the ears she feeds, and makes them hungry,

The more she gives them speech.- Where do

you live?

Mar. Where I am but a stranger: from the deck You may discern the place.

Per. And how achiev'd you these endowments, which You make more rich to owel??

Where were you bred?

Should I tell my history,

Mar. "Twould seem like lies disdain'd in the reporting. Per. Pr'ythee speak;

Falseness cannot come from thee, for thou look'st Modest as justice, and thou seem'st a palace

For the crown'd18 truth to dwell in: I'll believe thee,
And make my senses credit thy relation,

To points that seem impossible; for thou look'st
Like one I lov'd indeed. What were thy friends?
Didst thou not say, when I did push thee back
(Which was when I perceiv'd thee), that thou camʼşt
From good descending?
So indeed I did.

Mar.

Per. Report thy parentage. I think thou said'st Thou hadst been toss'd from wrong to injury, And that thou thought'st thy griefs might equal mine, If both were open'd.

Mar.

Some such thing indeed

17 i. e. possess. The meaning of the compliment is :-These endowments, however valuable in themselves, are heightened by being in your possession: they acquire additional grace from their owner. One of Timon's flatterers says,

You mend the jewel by wearing of it.'

18 Shakspeare when he means to represent any quality of the mind, &c. as eminently perfect, furnishes the personification with a crown. See the 37th and 144th Sonnets. So in Romeo and Juliet:

Upon his brow shame is asham'd to sit;

For 'tis a throne, where honour may be crown'd
Sole monarch of the universal earth.'