For he’s no man on whom perfections wait
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That, knowing sin within, will touch the gate.
You are a fair viol, and your sense the strings,
Who, finger’d to make man his lawful music,
Would draw heaven down and all the gods to hearken;
But being play’d upon before your time,
85
Hell only danceth at so harsh a chime.
[turning towards the Princess]
Good sooth, I care not for you.
ANTIOCHUS Prince Pericles, touch not, upon thy life,
For that’s an article within our law
As dangerous as the rest. Your time’s expir’d:
90
Either expound now or receive your sentence.
PERICLES Great king,
Few love to hear the sins they love to act;
’Twould braid yourself too near for me to tell it.
Who has a book of all that monarchs do,
95
He’s more secure to keep it shut than shown;
For vice repeated is like the wand’ring wind,
Blows dust in others’ eyes, to spread itself;
And yet the end of all is bought thus dear,
The breath is gone, and the sore eyes see clear
100
To stop the air would hurt them. The blind mole casts
Copp’d hills towards heaven, to tell the earth is throng’d
By man’s oppression; and the poor worm doth die for’t.
Kings are earth’s gods; in vice their law’s their will;
And if Jove stray, who dares say Jove doth ill?
105
It is enough you know; and it is fit,
What being more known grows worse, to smother it.
All love the womb that their first being bred,
Then give my tongue like leave to love my head.
ANTIOCHUS [aside]
Heaven, that I had thy head! he has found the meaning;
110
But I will gloze with him.
[aloud] Young prince of Tyre,
Though by the tenour of our strict edict,
Your exposition misinterpreting,
We might proceed to cancel of your days,
Yet hope, succeeding from so fair a tree
115
As your fair self, doth tune us otherwise:
Forty days longer we do respite you;
If by which time our secret be undone,
This mercy shows we’ll joy in such a son;
And until then your entertain shall be
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As doth befit our honour and your worth.
Exeunt all but Pericles.
PERICLES How courtesy would seem to cover sin,
When what is done is like an hypocrite,
The which is good in nothing but in sight!
If it be true that I interpret false,
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Then were it certain you were not so bad
As with foul incest to abuse your soul;
Where now you’re both a father and a son,
By your uncomely claspings with your child, –
Which pleasures fits a husband, not a father;
130
And she an eater of her mother’s flesh,
By the defiling of her parent’s bed;
And both like serpents are, who though they feed
On sweetest flowers, yet they poison breed.
Antioch, farewell! for wisdom sees, those men
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Blush not in actions blacker than the night,
Will shew no course to keep them from the light.
One sin, I know, another doth provoke;
Murder’s as near to lust as flame to smoke.
Poison and treason are the hands of sin,
140
Ay, and the targets, to put off the shame:
Then, lest my life be cropp’d to keep you clear,
By flight I’ll shun the danger which I fear. Exit.
Enter ANTIOCHUS.
ANTIOCHUS He hath found the meaning,
For which we mean to have his head. He must
145
Not live to trumpet forth my infamy,
Nor tell the world Antiochus doth sin
In such a loathed manner;
And therefore instantly this prince must die;
For by his fall my honour must keep high.
150
Who attends us there?
Enter THALIARD.
THALIARD Doth your highness call?
ANTIOCHUS Thaliard,
You are of our chamber, Thaliard, and our mind
partakes
Her private actions to your secrecy;
And for your faithfulness we will advance you.
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Thaliard, behold here’s poison, and here’s gold;
We hate the prince of Tyre, and thou must kill him:
It fits thee not to ask the reason why:
Because we bid it. Say, is it done?
THALIARD My lord, ’tis done.
ANTIOCHUS Enough.
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Enter a Messenger.
Let your breath cool yourself, telling your haste.
MESSENGER My lord, prince Pericles is fled. Exit.
ANTIOCHUS As thou wilt live, fly after; and like an
arrow shot from a well-experienc’d archer hits the
mark his eye doth level at, so thou never return unless
165
thou say ‘Prince Pericles is dead’.
THALIARD My lord, if I can get him within my pistol’s
length, I’ll make him sure enough: so, farewell to your
highness.
ANTIOCHUS Thaliard, adieu! Exit Thaliard.
Till Pericles be dead
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My heart can lend no succour to my head. Exit.
1.2 Enter PERICLES with his Lords.
PERICLES Let none disturb us. The Lords withdraw.
Why should this change of thoughts,
The sad companion, dull-ey’d melancholy,
Be my so us’d a guest, as not an hour
In the day’s glorious walk or peaceful night,
5
The tomb where grief should sleep, can breed me
quiet?
Here pleasures court mine eyes, and mine eyes shun
them,
And danger, which I fear’d, is at Antioch,
Whose arm seems far too short to hit me here;
Yet neither pleasure’s art can joy my spirits,
10
Nor yet the other’s distance comfort me.
Then it is thus: the passions of the mind,
That have their first conception by mis-dread,
Have after-nourishment and life by care;
And what was first but fear what might be done,
15
Grows elder now and cares it be not done.
And so with me: the great Antiochus,
’Gainst whom I am too little to contend,
Since he’s so great can make his will his act,
Will think me speaking, though I swear to silence;
20
Nor boots it me to say I honour him,
If he suspect I may dishonour him;
And what may make him blush in being known,
He’ll stop the course by which it might be known.
With hostile forces he’ll o’erspread the land,
25
And with th’ostent of war will look so huge,
Amazement shall drive courage from the state,
Our men be vanquish’d ere they do resist,
And subjects punish’d that ne’er thought offence:
Which care of them, not pity of myself, –
30
Who am no more but as the tops of trees
Which fence the roots they grow by and defend
them –
Makes both my b
ody pine and soul to languish,
And punish that before that he would punish.
Enter HELICANUS and all the Lords to Pericles.
1 LORD Joy and all comfort in your sacred breast!
35
2 LORD And keep your mind, till you return to us,
Peaceful and comfortable!
HELICANUS Peace, peace, and give experience tongue.
They do abuse the king that flatter him,
For flattery is the bellows blows up sin;
40
The thing the which is flatter’d but a spark,
To which that blast gives heat and stronger glowing;
Whereas reproof, obedient and in order,
Fits kings, as they are men, for they may err.
When Signior Sooth here does proclaim a peace,
45
He flatters you, makes war upon your life.
Prince, pardon me, or strike me, if you please;
I cannot be much lower than my knees. [He kneels.]
PERICLES All leave us else; but let your cares o’erlook
What shipping and what lading’s in our haven,
50
And then return to us. Exeunt Lords.
Helicanus,
Thou hast mov’d us; what seest thou in our looks?
HELICANUS An angry brow, dread lord.
PERICLES If there be such a dart in princes’ frowns,
How durst thy tongue move anger to our face?
55
HELICANUS
How dares the plants look up to heaven, from
whence
They have their nourishment?
PERICLES Thou know’st I have power
To take thy life from thee.
HELICANUS I have ground the axe myself;
Do but you strike the blow.
PERICLES Rise, prithee, rise;
Sit down; thou art no flatterer;
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I thank thee for’t; and heaven forbid
That kings should let their ears hear their faults hid!
Fit counsellor and servant for a prince,
Who by thy wisdom makes a prince thy servant,
What would’st thou have me do?
HELICANUS To bear with patience
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Such griefs as you do lay upon yourself.
PERICLES Thou speak’st like a physician, Helicanus,
That ministers a potion unto me
That thou wouldst tremble to receive thyself.
Attend me then: I went to Antioch,
70
Whereas thou know’st, against the face of death
I sought the purchase of a glorious beauty,
From whence an issue I might propagate,
Are arms to princes and bring joys to subjects.
Her face was to mine eye beyond all wonder;
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The rest, hark in thine ear, as black as incest;
Which by my knowledge found, the sinful father
Seem’d not to strike, but smooth; but thou know’st this:
’Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.
Which fear so grew in me, I hither fled,
80
Under the covering of a careful night,
Who seem’d my good protector; and, being here,
Bethought me what was past, what might succeed.
I knew him tyrannous; and tyrants’ fears
Decrease not, but grow faster than the years.
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And should he doubt, as no doubt he doth,
That I should open to the list’ning air
How many worthy princes’ bloods were shed,
To keep his bed of blackness unlaid ope,
To lop that doubt he’ll fill his land with arms,
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And make pretence of wrong that I have done him;
When all, for mine if I may call offence,
Must feel war’s blow, who spares not innocence:
Which love to all, of which thyself art one,
Who now reprov’dst me for’t, –
HELICANUS Alas, sir!
95
PERICLES
Drew sleep out of mine eyes, blood from my cheeks,
Musings into my mind, with thousand doubts
How I might stop this tempest ere it came;
And finding little comfort to relieve them,
I thought it princely charity to grieve them.
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HELICANUS
Well, my lord, since you have given me leave to speak,
Freely will I speak. Antiochus you fear,
And justly too, I think, you fear the tyrant,
Who either by public war or private treason
Will take away your life.
105
Therefore, my lord, go travel for a while,
Till that his rage and anger be forgot,
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 430