Per.

Nor never did my actions yet commence
A deed might gain her love, or your displeasure.
Sim. Traitor, thou liest.

Traitor!
Sim.

Ay, traitor, sir. Per. Even in his throat (unless it be the king), That calls me traitor, I return the lie. Sim. Now, by the gods, I do applaud his courage.

[Aside.
Per. My actions are as noble as my thoughts,
That never relish'd2 of a base descent.
I came unto your court, for honour's cause,
And not to be a rebel to her state;
And he that otherwise accounts of me,
This sword shall prove he's honour's enemy.

Sim. No!
Here comes my daughter, she can witness it.

Enter THAISA.
Per. Then, as you are as virtuous as fair,
Resolve your angry father, if my tongue
Did e'er solicit, or my hand subscribe
To any syllable that made love to you?

Thai. Why, sir, say if you had,
Who takes offence at that would make me glad ?

Sim. Yea, mistress, are you so peremptory?I am glad of it with all my heart. (Aside.] I'll

tame you; I'll bring you in subjection.Will you, not having my consent, bestow Your love and your affections on a stranger? (Who, for aught I know to the contrary, Or think, may be as great in blood as i). [Aside. Hear therefore, mistress; frame your will to mine. —

And you, sir, hear you.—Either be ruld by me,
Or I will make you-man and wife.-
Nay, come; your hands and lips must seal it too.-
And being join'd, I'll thus your hopes destroy;-
And for a further grief,—God give you joy!
What, are you both pleas'd ?
Thai.

Yes, if you love me, sir.
Per. Even as my life, my blood that fosters it3.
Sim. What, are you both agreed ?
Both.

Yes, please your majesty. Sim. It pleaseth me so well, I'll see you wed; Then, with what haste you can, get you to bed.

Exeunt.

ACT III.

Enter GOWER.
Gow. Now sleep yslaked hath the rout;
No din but snores, the house about,
Made louder by the o'er-fed breast1
Of this most pompous marriage-feast.
The cat, with eyne of burning coal,
Now couches 'fore the mouse's hole;
And crickets sing at th' oven's mouth,
As the blither for their drouth.
Hymen hath brought the bride to bed,
Where, by the loss of maidenhead,

3 The quarto of 1619 reads :-

‘Even as my life or blood that fosters it.' We have the same thought most exquisitely expressed in Julius Cæsar:

• As dear to me, as are the ruddy drops

That visit my sad heart.' 1 So Virgil, speaking of Rhamnes, who was killed in the midnight expedition of Nisus and Euryalus :

"Rhamneten aggreditur, qui forte tapetibus altis
Extructus, toto proflabat pectore somnum.'

A babe is moulded ;-Be attent,
And time that is so briefly spent,
With your fine fancies quaintly eche;
What's dumb in show, I'll plain with speech.

Dumb Show.
Enter PERICLES and SIMONIDES at one door, with

Attendants: a Messenger meets them, kneels, and gives PERICLES a Letter. PERICLES shows it to SIMONIDES; the Lords kneel to the former3. Then enter THAISA with child, and LYCHORIDA. SIMONIDES shows his Daughter the Letter; she rejoices: she and PERICLES take leave of her

Father, and depart. Then SIMONIDES, &c. retire. Gow. By many a dearn and painful perch4 Of Pericles the careful search By the four opposing coignes, Which the world together joins, Is made, with all due diligence, That horse, and sail, and high expense, Can stead the quest). At last from Tyre (Fame answering the most strong inquire), To the court of King Simonides Are letters brought; the tenour these: Antiochus and his daughter's dead: The men of Tyrus, on the head

Eke ont. 3 The Lords kneel to Pericles, because they are now, for the first time, informed by this letter, that he is king of Tyré. No man,' says Gower, in his Confessio Amantis :

knew the soth cas, But he hym selfe; what man he was.' By the death of Antiochus and his daughter, Pericles has also succeeded to the throne of Antioch, in consequence of having rightly interpreted the riddle proposed to him.

4 Dearn signifies lonely, solitary. A perch is a measure of five yards and a half. “The careful search of Pericles is made by many a dearn and painful perch,- by the four opposing coignes which join the world together; with all due diligence.'

- i. e. help, befriend, or assist the search. So in Measure for Measure:

--- can you so stead me

To bring me to the sight of Isabella ?' Vol. IX.

13

Of Helicanus would set on
The crown of Tyre, but he will none:
The mutiny there he hastes t' oppres86;
Says to them, if King Pericles
Come not home, in twice six moons,
He, obedient to their dooms,
Will take the crown. The sum of this,
Brought hither to Pentapolis,
Y-ravished the regions round,
And every one with claps 'gan sound,
Our heir apparent is a king:
Who dream'd, who thought of such a thing?
Brief, he must hence depart to Tyre:
His queen, with child, makes her desire
(Which who shall cross?) along to go ;
(Omit we all their dole and woe);
Lychorida, her nurse, she takes,
And so to sea. Their vessel shakes
On Neptune's billow; half the flood
Hath their keel cut; but fortune's mood
Varies again; the grizzled north
Disgorges such a tempest forth,
That, as a duck for life that dives,
So up and down the poor ship drives.
The lady shrieks, and, well-a-near?!
Doth fall in travail with her fear:
And what ensues in this fell storm,
Shall, for itself, itself perform.
I nill relate; action may
Conveniently the rest convey:
Which might not what by me is told8.
In your imagination hold
This stage, the ship', upon whose deck
The sea-tost Pericles appears to speak.

[Erit.

SCENE I.

Enter PERICLES, on a Ship at Sea. Per. Thou God of this great vast?, rebuke these

surges, Which wash both heaven and hell; and thou, that

hast Upon the winds command, bind them in brass, Having call’d them from the deep! 0 still thy

deaf'ning, Thy dreadful thunders; gently quench thy nimble Sulphureous flashes!—0 how, Lychorida, How does my queen! - Thou storm, thou! venom

ously?