Pericles, Prince of Tyre: ACT IV
Introduction ACT I ACT II ACT III ACT IV [Prologue] SCENE I. Tarsus. An open place near the sea-shore. SCENE II. Mytilene. A room in a brothel. SCENE III. Tarsus. A room in CLEON's house. SCENE IV SCENE V. Mytilene. A street before the brothel. SCENE VI. The same. A room in the brothel. ACT V About the Play Feedback			Search: All the plays Hamlet Coriolanus Julius Caesar King Lear Macbeth Othello Romeo and Juliet Richard II Richard III Titus Andronicus Antony and Cleopatra Timon of Athens Henry IV Part 1 Henry IV Part 2 Henry the Fifth Henry VI Part 1 Henry VI Part 2 Henry VI Part 3 Henry VIII King John Pericles Troilus and Cressida All's Well... As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Cymbeline A Midsummer... Love's Labour's Lost Measure for Measure The Merry Wives... Much Ado about Nothing The Merchant of Venice Twelfth Night The Taming of... The Tempest The Two Gentlemen... The Winter's Tale    for: [Prologue] Enter GOWER GOWER       Imagine Pericles arrived at Tyre,       Welcomed and settled to his own desire.       His woeful queen we leave at Ephesus,       Unto Diana there a votaress. 5     Now to Marina bend your mind,       Whom our fast-growing scene must find       At Tarsus, and by Cleon train'd       In music, letters; who hath gain'd       Of education all the grace, 10    Which makes her both the heart and place       Of general wonder. But, alack,       That monster envy, oft the wrack       Of earned praise, Marina's life       Seeks to take off by treason's knife. 15    And in this kind hath our Cleon       One daughter, and a wench full grown,       Even ripe for marriage-rite; this maid       Hight Philoten: and it is said       For certain in our story, she 20    Would ever with Marina be:       Be't when she weaved the sleided silk       With fingers long, small, white as milk;       Or when she would with sharp needle wound       The cambric, which she made more sound 25    By hurting it; or when to the lute       She sung, and made the night-bird mute,       That still records with moan; or when       She would with rich and constant pen       Vail to her mistress Dian; still 30    This Philoten contends in skill       With absolute Marina: so       With the dove of Paphos might the crow       Vie feathers white. Marina gets       All praises, which are paid as debts, 35    And not as given. This so darks       In Philoten all graceful marks,       That Cleon's wife, with envy rare,       A present murderer does prepare       For good Marina, that her daughter 40    Might stand peerless by this slaughter.       The sooner her vile thoughts to stead,       Lychorida, our nurse, is dead:       And cursed Dionyza hath       The pregnant instrument of wrath 45    Prest for this blow. The unborn event       I do commend to your content:       Only I carry winged time       Post on the lame feet of my rhyme;       Which never could I so convey, 50    Unless your thoughts went on my way.       Dionyza does appear,       With Leonine, a murderer. Exit Return to top of page ... or ... Go to next scene