Pericles, Prince of Tyre

I am no viper, yet I feed On mother’s flesh which did me breed. I sought a husband, in which labour I found that kindness in a father: He’s father, son, and husband mild; I mother, wife, and yet his child. How they may be, and yet in two, As you will live resolve it you.

Sharp physic is the last: but, O you powers That give heaven countless eyes to view men’s acts, Why cloud they not their sights perpetually, If this be true, which makes me pale to read it? Fair glass of light, I loved you, and could still,

[_Takes hold of the hand of the Princess._]

Were not this glorious casket stored with ill: But I must tell you, now my thoughts revolt; For he’s no man on whom perfections wait That, knowing sin within, will touch the gate, You are a fair viol, and your sense the strings; Who, finger’d to make man his lawful music, Would draw heaven down, and all the gods to hearken; But being play’d upon before your time, Hell only danceth at so harsh a chime. Good sooth, I care not for you.

ANTIOCHUS. Prince Pericles, touch not, upon thy life, For that’s an article within our law, As dangerous as the rest. Your time’s expired: Either expound now, or receive your sentence.

PERICLES. Great king, Few love to hear the sins they love to act; ’Twould braid yourself too near for me to tell it. Who has a book of all that monarchs do, He’s more secure to keep it shut than shown: For vice repeated is like the wandering wind, Blows dust in others’ eyes, to spread itself; And yet the end of all is bought thus dear, The breath is gone, and the sore eyes see clear. To stop the air would hurt them. The blind mole casts Copp’d hills towards heaven, to tell the earth is throng’d By man’s oppression; and the poor worm doth die for’t. Kind are earth’s gods; in vice their law’s their will; And if Jove stray, who dares say Jove doth ill? It is enough you know; and it is fit, What being more known grows worse, to smother it. All love the womb that their first bred, Then give my tongue like leave to love my head.

ANTIOCHUS. [_Aside_] Heaven, that I had thy head! He has found the meaning: But I will gloze with him.—Young prince of Tyre. Though by the tenour of our strict edict, Your exposition misinterpreting, We might proceed to cancel of your days; Yet hope, succeeding from so fair a tree As your fair self, doth tune us otherwise: Forty days longer we do respite you; If by which time our secret be undone, This mercy shows we’ll joy in such a son: And until then your entertain shall be As doth befit our honour and your worth.

PERICLES. How courtesy would seem to cover sin, When what is done is like an hypocrite, The which is good in nothing but in sight! If it be true that I interpret false, Then were it certain you were not so bad As with foul incest to abuse your soul; Where now you’re both a father and a son, By your untimely claspings with your child, Which pleasures fits a husband, not a father; And she an eater of her mother’s flesh, By the defiling of her parent’s bed; And both like serpents are, who though they feed On sweetest flowers, yet they poison breed. Antioch, farewell! for wisdom sees, those men Blush not in actions blacker than the night, Will ’schew no course to keep them from the light. One sin, I know, another doth provoke; Murder’s as near to lust as flame to smoke: Poison and treason are the hands of sin, Ay, and the targets, to put off the shame: Then, lest my life be cropp’d to keep you clear, By flight I’ll shun the danger which I fear.

ANTIOCHUS. He hath found the meaning, For which we mean to have his head. He must not live to trumpet forth my infamy, Nor tell the world Antiochus doth sin In such a loathed manner; And therefore instantly this prince must die; For by his fall my honour must keep high. Who attends us there?

Enter Thaliard.

THALIARD. Doth your highness call?

ANTIOCHUS. Thaliard, you are of our chamber, And our mind partakes her private actions To your secrecy; and for your faithfulness We will advance you. Thaliard, Behold, here’s poison, and here’s gold; We hate the prince of Tyre, and thou must kill him: It fits thee not to ask the reason why, Because we bid it. Say, is it done?

THALIARD. My lord, ’tis done.

ANTIOCHUS. Enough.

Enter a Messenger.

Let your breath cool yourself, telling your haste.

MESSENGER. My lord, Prince Pericles is fled.

ANTIOCHUS. As thou wilt live, fly after: and like an arrow shot From a well-experienced archer hits the mark His eye doth level at, so thou ne’er return Unless thou say ‘Prince Pericles is dead.’

THALIARD. My lord, if I can get him within my pistol’s length, I’ll make him sure enough: so, farewell to your highness.

ANTIOCHUS. Thaliard! adieu!

PERICLES. [_To Lords without._] Let none disturb us.—Why should this change of thoughts, The sad companion, dull-eyed melancholy, Be my so used a guest as not an hour In the day’s glorious walk or peaceful night, The tomb where grief should sleep, can breed me quiet? Here pleasures court mine eyes, and mine eyes shun them, And danger, which I fear’d, is at Antioch, Whose arm seems far too short to hit me here: Yet neither pleasure’s art can joy my spirits, Nor yet the other’s distance comfort me. Then it is thus: the passions of the mind, That have their first conception by misdread, Have after-nourishment and life by care; And what was first but fear what might be done, Grows elder now and cares it be not done. And so with me: the great Antiochus, ’Gainst whom I am too little to contend, Since he’s so great can make his will his act, Will think me speaking, though I swear to silence; Nor boots it me to say I honour him. If he suspect I may dishonour him: And what may make him blush in being known, He’ll stop the course by which it might be known; With hostile forces he’ll o’erspread the land, And with the ostent of war will look so huge, Amazement shall drive courage from the state; Our men be vanquish’d ere they do resist, And subjects punish’d that ne’er thought offence: Which care of them, not pity of myself, Who am no more but as the tops of trees, Which fence the roots they grow by and defend them, Makes both my body pine and soul to languish, And punish that before that he would punish.

Enter Helicanus with other Lords.

FIRST LORD. Joy and all comfort in your sacred breast!

SECOND LORD. And keep your mind, till you return to us, Peaceful and comfortable!

HELICANUS. Peace, peace, and give experience tongue. They do abuse the king that flatter him: For flattery is the bellows blows up sin; The thing the which is flatter’d, but a spark, To which that spark gives heat and stronger glowing: Whereas reproof, obedient and in order, Fits kings, as they are men, for they may err. When Signior Sooth here does proclaim peace, He flatters you, makes war upon your life. Prince, pardon me, or strike me, if you please; I cannot be much lower than my knees.

PERICLES. All leave us else, but let your cares o’erlook What shipping and what lading’s in our haven, And then return to us.