Pericles, Prince of Tyre

Enter Gower, before the monument of Marina at Tarsus.

Gower. Thus time we waste, and long leagues make short; Sail seas in cockles, have and wish but for’t; Making, to take your imagination, From bourn to bourn, 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 gaps 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 Helicanus goes along. Behind Is left to govern, if you bear in mind, Old Escanes, whom Helicanus late Advanced in time to great and high estate. Well-sailing ships and bounteous winds have brought This king to Tarsus,—think his pilot thought; So with his steerage shall your thoughts go on,— To fetch his daughter home, who first is gone. 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 and Dionyza.

See how belief may suffer by foul show; This borrow’d passion stands for true old woe; And Pericles, in sorrow all devour’d, With sighs shot through; and biggest tears o’ershower’d, Leaves Tarsus 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, 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. 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, 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 scene must play His daughter’s woe and heavy well-a-day In her unholy service. Patience, then, And think you now are all in Mytilene.

[_Exit._]

SCENE V. Mytilene. A street before the brothel.

Enter, from the brothel, two Gentlemen.

First Gentleman. Did you ever hear the like?

Second Gentleman. No, nor never shall do in such a place as this, she being once gone.

First Gentleman. But to have divinity preached there! did you ever dream of such a thing?

Second Gentleman. No, no. Come, I am for no more bawdy houses: shall’s go hear the vestals sing?

First Gentleman. I’ll do anything 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 Pandar, Bawd and Boult.

Pandar. Well, I had rather than twice the worth of her she had ne’er come here.

Bawd. Fie, fie upon her! She’s 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 our swearers priests.

Pandar. 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 customers.

Enter Lysimachus.

Lysimachus. How now! How a dozen of virginities?

Bawd. Now, the gods to bless your honour!

Boult. I am glad to see your honour in good health.

Lysimachus. You may so; ’tis the better for you that your resorters stand upon sound legs. How now? Wholesome iniquity have you that a man may deal withal, and defy the surgeon?

Bawd. We have here one, sir, if she would—but there never came her like in Mytilene.

Lysimachus. If she’d do the deed of darkness, thou wouldst say.

Bawd. Your honour knows what ’tis to say well enough.

Lysimachus. Well, call forth, call forth.

Boult. For flesh and blood, sir, white and red, you shall see a rose; and she were a rose indeed, if she had but—

Lysimachus. What, prithee?

Boult. O, sir, I can be modest.

Lysimachus. That dignifies the renown of a bawd no less than it gives a good report to a number to be chaste.

[_Exit Boult._]

Bawd. Here comes that which grows to the stalk; never plucked yet, I can assure you.

Re-enter Boult with Marina.

Is she not a fair creature?

Lysimachus. Faith, she would serve after a long voyage at sea. Well, there’s for you: leave us.

Bawd. I beseech your honour, give me leave: a word, and I’ll have done presently.

Lysimachus. I beseech you, do.

Bawd. [_To Marina._] First, I would have you note, this is an honourable man.

Marina. I desire to find him so, that I may worthily note him.

Bawd. Next, he’s the governor of this country, and a man whom I am bound to.

Marina. If he govern the country, you are bound to him indeed; but how honourable he is in that, I know not.

Bawd. Pray you, without any more virginal fencing, will you use him kindly? He will line your apron with gold.

Marina. What he will do graciously, I will thankfully receive.

Lysimachus. Ha’ you done?

Bawd. My lord, she’s not paced yet: you must take some pains to work her to your manage. Come, we will leave his honour and her together. Go thy ways.

[_Exeunt Bawd, Pandar and Boult._]

Lysimachus. Now, pretty one, how long have you been at this trade?

Marina. What trade, sir?

Lysimachus. Why, I cannot name’t but I shall offend.

Marina. I cannot be offended with my trade. Please you to name it.

Lysimachus. How long have you been of this profession?

Marina. E’er since I can remember.

Lysimachus. Did you go to’t so young? Were you a gamester at five or at seven?

Marina. Earlier, too, sir, if now I be one.

Lysimachus. Why, the house you dwell in proclaims you to be a creature of sale.

Marina. Do you know this house to be a place of such resort, and will come into’t? I hear say you are of honourable parts, and are the governor of this place.

Lysimachus. Why, hath your principal made known unto you who I am?

Marina. Who is my principal?

Lysimachus. Why, your herb-woman; she that sets seeds and roots of shame and iniquity. O, you have heard something of my power, and so stand aloof for more serious wooing. But I protest to thee, pretty one, my authority shall not see thee, or else look friendly upon thee. Come, bring me to some private place: come, come.

Marina. If you were born to honour, show it now; If put upon you, make the judgement good That thought you worthy of it.

Lysimachus. How’s this? how’s this? Some more; be sage.

Marina. For me, That am a maid, though most ungentle Fortune Have placed me in this sty, where, since I came, Diseases have been sold dearer than physic, O, that the gods Would set me free from this unhallow’d place, Though they did change me to the meanest bird That flies i’ the purer air!

Lysimachus. I did not think Thou couldst have spoke so well; ne’er dream’d thou couldst. Had I brought hither a corrupted mind, Thy speech had alter’d it. Hold, here’s gold for thee: Persever in that clear way thou goest, And the gods strengthen thee!

Marina. The good gods preserve you!

Lysimachus. For me, be you thoughten That I came with no ill intent; for to me The very doors and windows savour vilely. Fare thee well. Thou art a piece of virtue, and I doubt not but thy training hath been noble. Hold, here’s more gold for thee. A curse upon him, die he like a thief, That robs thee of thy goodness! If thou dost Hear from me, it shall be for thy good.

Re-enter Boult.

Boult. I beseech your honour, one piece for me.

Lysimachus. Avaunt, thou damned door-keeper! Your house but for this virgin that doth prop it, Would sink and overwhelm you. Away!

[_Exit._]

Boult. How’s this? We must take another course with you. If your peevish chastity, which is not worth a breakfast in the cheapest country under the cope, shall undo a whole household, let me be gelded like a spaniel. Come your ways.

Marina. Whither would you have me?

Boult. I must have your maidenhead taken off, or the common hangman shall execute it. Come your ways. We’ll have no more gentlemen driven away. Come your ways, I say.

Re-enter Bawd.

Bawd. How now! what’s the matter?

Boult. Worse and worse, mistress; she has here spoken holy words to the Lord Lysimachus.

Bawd. O, abominable!

Boult. She makes our profession as it were to stink afore the face of the gods.

Bawd. Marry, hang her up for ever!

Boult. The nobleman would have dealt with her like a nobleman, and she sent him away as cold as a snowball; saying his prayers too.

Bawd. Boult, take her away; use her at thy pleasure: crack the glass of her virginity, and make the rest malleable.

Boult. An if she were a thornier piece of ground than she is, she shall be ploughed.

Marina. Hark, hark, you gods!

Bawd. She conjures: away with her! Would she had never come within my doors! Marry, hang you! She’s born to undo us. Will you not go the way of womankind? Marry, come up, my dish of chastity with rosemary and bays!

[_Exit._]

Boult. Come, mistress; come your way with me.

Marina. Whither wilt thou have me?

Boult. To take from you the jewel you hold so dear.

Marina. Prithee, tell me one thing first.

Boult. Come now, your one thing?

Marina. What canst thou wish thine enemy to be?

Boult. Why, I could wish him to be my master, or rather, my mistress.

Marina. Neither of these are so bad as thou art, Since they do better thee in their command. Thou hold’st a place, for which the pained’st fiend Of hell would not in reputation change: Thou art the damned doorkeeper to every Coistrel that comes inquiring for his Tib. To the choleric fisting of every rogue Thy ear is liable, thy food is such As hath been belch’d on by infected lungs.

Boult. What would you have me do? Go to the wars, would you? where a man may serve seven years for the loss of a leg, and have not money enough in the end to buy him a wooden one?

Marina. Do anything but this thou doest. Empty Old receptacles, or common shores, of filth; Serve by indenture to the common hangman: Any of these ways are yet better than this; For what thou professest, a baboon, could he speak, Would own a name too dear. O, that the gods Would safely deliver me from this place! Here, here’s gold for thee. If that thy master would gain by me, Proclaim that I can sing, weave, sew, and dance, With other virtues, which I’ll keep from boast; And I will undertake all these to teach. I doubt not but this populous city will Yield many scholars.

Boult. But can you teach all this you speak of?

Marina. Prove that I cannot, take me home again, And prostitute me to the basest groom That doth frequent your house.

Boult. Well, I will see what I can do for thee: if I can place thee, I will.

Marina. But amongst honest women.

Boult. Faith, my acquaintance lies little amongst them. But since my master and mistress have bought you, there’s no going but by their consent: therefore I will make them acquainted with your purpose, and I doubt not but I shall find them tractable enough. Come, I’ll do for thee what I can; come your ways.

[_Exeunt._]