Tarsus. 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 | 4 |
| The sun and moon ne’er look’d upon. | |
| Dion. I think | |
| You’ll turn a child again. | |
| Cle. Were I chief lord of all this spacious world, | 8 |
| 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! | 12 |
| Whom thou hast poison’d too; | |
| 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? | 16 |
| Dion That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates, | |
| To foster it, nor ever to preserve. | |
| She died at night; I’ll say so. Who can cross it? | |
| Unless you play the pious innocent, | 20 |
| 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 | 24 |
| Do like this worst. | |
| Dion. Be one of those that think | |
| The pretty wrens of Tarsus will fly hence, | |
| And open this to Pericles. I do shame | 28 |
| To think of what a noble strain you are, | |
| And of how coward a spirit. | |
| Cle. To such proceeding | |
| Who ever but his approbation added, | 32 |
| Though not his prime consent, he did not flow | |
| From honourable sources. | |
| Dion. Be it so, then; | |
| Yet none does know but you how she came dead, | 36 |
| Nor none can know, Leonine being gone. | |
| 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, | 40 |
| Whilst ours was blurted at and held a malkin | |
| 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 | 44 |
| It greets me as an enterprise of kindness | |
| Perform’d to your sole daughter. | |
| Cle. Heavens forgive it! | |
| Dion. And as for Pericles, | 48 |
| What should he say? We wept after her hearse, | |
| And even yet we mourn; her monument | |
| Is almost finish’d, and her epitaphs | |
| In glittering golden characters express | 52 |
| A general praise to her, and care in us | |
| At whose expense ’tis done. | |
| Cle. Thou art like the harpy, | |
| Which, to betray, dost with thine angel’s face, | 56 |
| Seize with thine 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. | 60 |
