ACT IV
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
 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
 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 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
 '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
 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
 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,
 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
 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 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
 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,
 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]




 PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE


ACT IV