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: SCENE III. Tarsus. A room in CLEON's house. 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 5     You'll turn a child again. CLEON       Were I chief lord of all this spacious world,       I'ld 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 10    I' the justice of compare! O villain Leonine!       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? DIONYZA 15    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,       And for an honest attribute cry out 20    'She died by foul play.' CLEON       O, go to. Well, well,       Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods       Do like this worst. DIONYZA       Be one of those that think 25    The petty wrens of Tarsus 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 30    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, 35    Nor none can know, Leonine being gone.       She did disdain 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 40    Not worth the time of day. It pierced me through;       And though you 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 45    Heavens forgive it! DIONYZA       And as for Pericles,       What should he say? We wept after her hearse,       And yet we mourn: her monument       Is almost finish'd, and her epitaphs 50    In glittering golden characters express       A general praise to her, and care in us       At whose expense 'tis done. CLEON       Thou art like the harpy,       Which, to betray, dost, with thine angel's face, 55    Seize with thine eagle's talons. DIONYZA       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 Return to top of page ... or ... Go to next scene