The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 437
your money presently. Wife, take her in; instruct her
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what she has to do, that she may not be raw in her
entertainment. Exeunt Pandar 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
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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. Exit.
MARINA Alack that Leonine was so slack, so slow!
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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?
MARINA That I am pretty.
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BAWD Come, the gods have done their part in you.
MARINA I accuse them not.
BAWD You are light into my hands, where you are like
to live.
MARINA The more my fault
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To ’scape his hands where I was like to die.
BAWD Ay, and you shall live in pleasure.
MARINA No.
BAWD Yes, indeed shall you, and taste gentlemen of all
fashions. You shall fare well; you shall have the
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difference of all complexions. What do you stop your
ears?
MARINA Are you a woman?
BAWD What would you have me be, and I be not a
woman?
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MARINA An honest woman, or not a woman.
BAWD Marry, whip thee, gosling; I think I shall have
something to do with you. Come, you’re a young
foolish sapling, and must be bow’d as I would have
you.
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MARINA 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 return’d.
Enter BOULT.
Now, sir, hast thou cried her through the market?
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BOULT I have cried her almost to the number of her
hairs; I have drawn her picture with my voice.
BAWD And I prithee tell me, how dost thou find the
inclination of the people, especially of the younger
sort?
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BOULT Faith, they listen’d to me as they would have
hearken’d to their father’s testament. There was a
Spaniard’s mouth water’d and he went to bed to her
very description.
BAWD We shall have him here to-morrow with his best
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ruff on.
BOULT To-night, to-night. But, mistress, do you know
the French knight that cowers i’the hams?
BAWD Who? Monsieur Verolles?
BOULT Ay, he; he offer’d to cut a caper at the
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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.
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BOULT Well, if we had of every nation a traveller, we
should lodge them with this sign.
BAWD [to Marina] Pray you, come hither awhile. You
have fortunes coming upon you. Mark me: you must
seem to do that fearfully which you commit willingly;
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despise profit where you have most gain. To weep that
you live as ye do makes pity in your lovers: seldom but
that pity begets you a good opinion, and that opinion
a mere profit.
MARINA I understand you not.
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BOULT O, take her home, mistress, take her home; these
blushes of hers must be quench’d with some present
practice.
BAWD Thou sayest true, i’faith, so they must; for your
bride goes to that with shame which is her way to go
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with warrant.
BOULT Faith, some do, and some do not. But, mistress,
if I have bargain’d for the joint, –
BAWD Thou mayst cut a morsel off the spit.
BOULT I may so?
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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 chang’d yet.
BAWD Boult, spend thou that in the town; report what a
sojourner we have; you’ll lose nothing by custom.
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When nature fram’d 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 bed of eels as my giving out her beauty
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stirs up the lewdly inclin’d. I’ll bring home some
to-night.
BAWD Come your ways; follow me.
MARINA If fires be hot, knives sharp, or waters deep,
Untied I still my virgin knot will keep.
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Diana, aid my purpose!
BAWD What have we to do with Diana? Pray you, will
you go with us? Exeunt.
4.3 Enter CLEON and DIONYZA.
DIONYZA Why are you foolish? Can it be undone?
CLEON O Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter
The sun and moon ne’er look’d upon!
DIONYZA I think you’ll turn child again.
CLEON Were I chief lord of all this spacious world,
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I’d give it to undo the deed. A lady,
Much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess
To equal any single crown o’th’ earth
I’th’ justice of compare! O villain Leonine!
Whom thou hast poison’d too.
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If thou hadst drunk to him, ’t had been a kindness
Becoming well thy fact. What canst thou say
When noble Pericles shall demand his child?
DIONYZA That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates,
To foster it, not ever to preserve.
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She died at night; I’ll say so. Who can cross it?
Unless you play the pious innocent,
And for an honest attribute cry out
‘She died by foul play.’
CLEON O, go to. Well, well.
Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods
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Do like this worst.
DIONYZA Be one of those that thinks
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 coward a spirit.
CLEON To such proceeding
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Who ever but his approbation added,
Though not his prime consent, he did not flow
From honourable sources.
DIONYZA Be it so, then.
Yet none does know but you how she came dead,
Nor none can know, Leonine being gone.
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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 through;
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And though y
ou 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.
CLEON Heavens forgive it!
DIONYZA And as for Pericles,
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What should he say? we wept after her hearse,
And yet we mourn. Her monument
Is almost finish’d, and her epitaphs
In glitt’ring golden characters express
A general praise to her, and care in us
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At whose expense ’tis done.
CLEON Thou art like the harpy,
Which, to betray, dost with thine angel’s face,
Seize with thine eagle’s talons.
DIONYZA Ye’re like one that superstitiously
Do swear to th’ gods that winter kills the flies;
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But yet I know you’ll do as I advise. Exeunt.
4.4 Enter GOWER.
GOWER
Thus time we waste, and long leagues make short;
Sail seas in cockles, have and wish but for’t;
Making, to take our imagination,
From bourn to bourn, region to region.
By you being pardon’d, we commit no crime
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To use one language in each several clime
Where our scene seems to live. I do beseech you
To learn of me, who stand i’th’ gaps to teach you
The stages of our story. Pericles
Is now again thwarting the wayward seas,
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Attended on by many a lord and knight,
To see his daughter, all his life’s delight.
Old Helicanus goes along. Behind
Is left to govern it, you bear in mind,
Old Escanes, whom Helicanus late
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Advanc’d in time to great and high estate.
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.
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Like motes and shadows see them move awhile;
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; whereat Pericles makes lamentation, puts on sackcloth, and in a mighty passion departs. Then exeunt Cleon, Dionyza and the rest.
See how belief may suffer by foul show!
This borrow’d passion stands for true-ow’d woe;
And Pericles, in sorrow all devour’d,
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With sighs shot through and biggest tears o’ershower’d,
Leaves Tharsus and again embarks. He swears
Never to wash his face, nor cut his hairs.
He puts on sackcloth, and to sea. He bears
A tempest, which his mortal vessel tears,
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And yet he rides it out. Now please you wit
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.
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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’th’ earth.
Therefore the earth, fearing to be o’erflow’d,
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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 villainy
So well as soft and tender flattery.
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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,
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And think you now are all in Mytilen. Exit.
4.5 Enter, from the brothel, two Gentlemen.
1 GENTLEMAN Did you ever hear the like?
2 GENTLEMAN No, nor never shall do in such a place as
this, she being once gone.
1 GENTLEMAN But to have divinity preach’d there! did
you ever dream of such a thing?
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2 GENTLEMAN No, no. Come, I am for no more bawdy-
houses. Shall’s go hear the vestals sing?
1 GENTLEMAN I’ll do anything now that is virtuous; but
I am out of the road of rutting for ever. Exeunt.
4.6 Enter Pandar, Bawd and BOULT.