Bawd. Thou may'st 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 `ustom. 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 to-night.

Bawd. Come your ways; follow me.

Mar. 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?

SCENE IV.-Tharsus.

[Exeunt.

A room in Cleon's

house. Enter Cleon and Dionyza.

Dion. Why, are you foolish? Can it be undone? Cle. O Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter

The sun and moon ne'er look'd upon !

Dion.

You'll turn a child again.

I think

Cle. Were I chief lord of all the 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 had'st drunk to him, it had been a kindness
Becoming well thy feat: what canst thou say,

(1) i. e. Of a piece with the rest of thy exploit.

When noble Pericles shall demand his child?

Dion. That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates,
To foster it, nor ever to preserve.

She died by night; I'll say so. Who can cross it?
Unless you play the impious 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 petty 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 cow'd 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 disdain 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,2
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 sole3 daughter.

Cle.

Dion. And as for Pericles,

Heavens forgive it'

What should he say? We wept after her hearse, And even yet we mourn: her monument

(1) An innocent was formerly a common appellation for an idiot.

(2) A coarse wench, not worth a good-morrow (3) Only.

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 wear an angel's face, Seize with an 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,2 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 gap 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 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 a while.
Your ears unto your eyes I'll reconcile.

(1) Travelling.

(2) From one boundary to another.

Dumb show. Enter at one door, Pericles, with his train; Cleon and Dionyza at the other. Cleon shows Pericles the tomb of Marina; whereat Pericles makes lamentation, puts on sackclob and in a mighty passion departs. Then Cleo and Dionyza retire.

Gow. See how belief may suffer by foul show! This borrow'd passion stands for true old wo; And Pericles, in sorrow all devour'd,

With sighs shot through, and biggest tears o'er shower'd,

Leaves Tharsus, and again embarks. He swears
Never to wash his face, nor cut his hairs;
He puts on sackcloth, and to ser.

He bears

A tempest, which his mortal vessell tears,
And yet he rides it out. Now please you wit2
The epitaph is for Marina writ

By wicked Dionyza.

[Reads the inscription on Marina's monument. The fairest, sweet'st, and best, lies here, Who wither'd in her spring of year.

She was of Tyrus, the king's daughter,
On whom foul death hath made this slaughter;
Marina was she call'd; and at her birth,

Thetis, being proud, swallow'd some part o'the earth:

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,4)
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 scenes display

His daughter's wo and heavy well-a-day,

(1) His body.
(3) The sea.

(2) To know.

(4) Never cease.

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 Gen

tlemen.

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 bawdyhouses shall we go hear the vestals sing?

1 Gent. I'll do any thing 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 cus

tomers.