<h2><SPAN name="chap20"></SPAN>PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE</h2>
<p>Pericles, Prince of Tyre, became a voluntary exile from his dominions, to
avert the dreadful calamities which Antiochus, the wicked emperor of
Greece, threatened to bring upon his subjects and city of Tyre, in revenge
for a discovery which the prince had made of a shocking deed which the
emperor had done in secret; as commonly it proves dangerous to pry into
the hidden crimes of great ones. Leaving the government of his people in
the hands of his able and honest minister, Helicanus, Pericles set sail
from Tyre, thinking to absent himself till the wrath of Antiochus, who was
mighty, should be appeased.</p>
<p>The first place which the prince directed his course to was Tarsus, and
hearing that the city of Tarsus was at that time suffering under a severe
famine, he took with him a store of provisions for its relief. On his
arrival he found the city reduced to the utmost distress; and, he coming
like a messenger from heaven with his unhoped-for succor, Cleon, the
governor of Tarsus, welcomed him with boundless thanks. Pericles had not
been here many days before letters came from his faithful minister,
warning him that it was not safe for him to stay at Tarsus, for Antiochus
knew of his abode, and by secret emissaries despatched for that purpose
sought his life. Upon receipt of these letters Pericles put out to sea
again, amid the blessings and prayers of a whole people who had been fed
by his bounty.</p>
<p>He had not sailed far when his ship was overtaken by a dreadful storm, and
every man on board perished except Pericles, who was cast by the sea waves
naked on an unknown shore, where he had not wandered long before he met
with some poor fishermen, who invited him to their homes, giving him
clothes and provisions. The fishermen told Pericles the name of their
country was Pentapolis, and that their king was Simonides, commonly called
the good Simonides, because of his peaceable reign and good government.
From them he also learned that King Simonides had a fair young daughter,
and that the following day was her birthday, when a grand tournament was
to be held at court, many princes and knights being come from all parts to
try their skill in arms for the love of Thaisa, this fair princess. While
the prince was listening to this account, and secretly lamenting the loss
of his good armor, which disabled him from making one among these valiant
knights, another fisherman brought in a complete suit of armor that he had
taken out of the sea with his fishing-net, which proved to be the very
armor he had lost. When Pericles beheld his own armor he said: “Thanks,
Fortune; after all my crosses you give me somewhat to repair myself This
armor was bequeathed to me by my dead father, for whose dear sake I have
so loved it that whithersoever I went I still have kept it by me, and the
rough sea that parted it from me, having now become calm, hath given it
back again, for which I thank it, for, since I have my father’s gift
again, I think my shipwreck no misfortune.”</p>
<p>The next day Pericles, clad in his brave father’s armor, repaired to
the royal court of Simonides, where he performed wonders at the
tournament, vanquishing with ease all the brave knights and valiant
princes who contended with him in arms for the honor of Thaisa’s
love. When brave warriors contended at court tournaments for the love of
kings’ daughters, if one proved sole victor over all the rest, it
was usual for the great lady for whose sake these deeds of valor were
undertaken to bestow all her respect upon the conqueror, and Thaisa did
not depart from this custom, for she presently dismissed all the princes
and knights whom Pericles had vanquished, and distinguished him by her
especial favor and regard, crowning him with the wreath of victory, as
king of that day’s happiness; and Pericles became a most passionate
lover of this beauteous princess from the first moment he beheld her.</p>
<p>The good Simonides so well approved of the valor and noble qualities of
Pericles, who was indeed a most accomplished gentleman and well learned in
all excellent arts, that though he knew not the rank of this royal
stranger (for Pericles for fear of Antiochus gave out that he was a
private gentleman of Tyre), yet did not Simonides disdain to accept of the
valiant unknown for a son-in-law, when he perceived his daughter’s
affections were firmly fixed upon him.</p>
<p>Pericles had not been many months married to Thaisa before he received
intelligence that his enemy Antiochus was dead, and that his subjects of
Tyre, impatient of his long absence, threatened to revolt and talked of
placing Helicanus upon his vacant throne. This news came from Helicanus
himself, who, being a loyal subject to his royal master, would not accept
of the high dignity offered him, but sent to let Pericles know their
intentions, that he might return home and resume his lawful right. It was
matter of great surprise and joy to Simonides to find that his son-in-law
(the obscure knight) was the renowned Prince of Tyre; yet again he
regretted that he was not the private gentleman he supposed him to be,
seeing that he must now part both with his admired son-in-law and his
beloved daughter, whom he feared to trust to the perils of the sea,
because Thaisa was with child; and Pericles himself wished her to remain
with her father till after her confinement; but the poor lady so earnestly
desired to go with her husband that at last they consented, hoping she
would reach Tyre before she was brought to bed.</p>
<p>The sea was no friendly element to unhappy Pericles, for long before they
reached Tyre another dreadful tempest arose, which so terrified Thaisa
that she was taken ill, and in a short space of time her nurse, Lychorida,
came to Pericles with a little child in her arms, to tell the prince the
sad tidings that his wife died the moment her little babe was born. She
held the babe toward its father, saying:</p>
<p>“Here is a thing too young for such a place. This is the child of
your dead queen.”</p>
<p>No tongue can tell the dreadful sufferings of Pericles when he heard his
wife was dead. As soon as he could speak he said:</p>
<p>“O you gods, why do you make us love your goodly gifts and then
snatch those gifts away?”</p>
<p>“Patience, good sir,” said Lychorida, “here is all that
is left alive of our dead queen, a little daughter, and for your child’s
sake be more manly. Patience, good sir, even for the sake of this precious
charge.”</p>
<p>Pericles took the newborn infant in his arms, and he said to the little
babe: “Now may your life be mild, for a more blusterous birth had
never babe! May your condition be mild and gentle, for you have had the
rudest welcome that ever prince’s child did meet with! May that
which follows be happy, for you have had as chiding a nativity as fire,
air, water, earth, and heaven could make to herald you from the womb! Even
at the first, your loss,” meaning in the death of her mother,
“is more than all the joys, which you shall find upon this earth to
which you are come a new visitor, shall be able to recompense.”</p>
<p>The storm still continuing to rage furiously, and the sailors having a
superstition that while a dead body remained in the ship the storm would
never cease, they came to Pericles to demand that his queen should be
thrown overboard; and they said:</p>
<p>“What courage, sir? God save you!”</p>
<p>“Courage enough,” said the sorrowing prince. “I do not
fear the storm; it has done to me its worst; yet for the love of this poor
infant, this fresh new seafarer, I wish the storm was over.”</p>
<p>“Sir,” said the sailors, “your queen must overboard. The
sea works high, the wind is loud, and the storm will not abate till the
ship be cleared of the dead.”</p>
<p>Though Pericles knew how weak and unfounded this superstition was, yet he
patiently submitted, saying: “As you think meet. Then she must
overboard, most wretched queen!”</p>
<p>And now this unhappy prince went to take a last view of his dear wife, and
as he looked on his Thaisa he said: “A terrible childbed hast thou
had, my dear; no light, no fire; the unfriendly elements forget thee
utterly, nor have I time to bring thee hallowed to thy grave, but must
cast thee scarcely coffined into the sea, where for a monument upon thy
bones the humming waters must overwhelm thy corpse, lying with simple
shells. O Lychorida, bid Nestor bring me spices, ink, and paper, my casket
and my jewels, and bid Nicandor bring me the satin coffin. Lay the babe
upon the pillow, and go about this suddenly, Lychorida, while I say a
priestly farewell to my Thaisa.”</p>
<p>They brought Pericles a large chest, in which (wrapped in a satin shroud)
he placed his queen, and sweet-smelling spices he strewed over her, and
beside her he placed rich jewels, and a written paper telling who she was
and praying if haply any one should find the chest which contained the
body of his wife they would give her burial; and then with his own hands
he cast the chest into the sea. When the storm was over, Pericles ordered
the sailors to make for Tarsus. “For,” said Pericles, “the
babe cannot hold out till we come to Tyre. At Tarsus I will leave it at
careful nursing.”</p>
<p>After that tempestuous night when Thaisa was thrown into the sea, and
while it was yet early morning, as Cerimon, a worthy gentleman of Ephesus
and a most skilful physician, was standing by the seaside, his servants
brought to him a chest, which they said the sea waves had thrown on the
land.</p>
<p>“I never saw,” said one of them, “so huge a billow as
cast it on our shore.”</p>
<p>Cerimon ordered the chest to be conveyed to his own house, and when it was
opened he beheld with wonder the body of a young and lovely lady; and the
sweet-smelling spices and rich casket of jewels made him conclude it was
some great person who was thus strangely entombed. Searching farther, he
discovered a paper, from which he learned that the corpse which lay as
dead before him had been a queen, and wife to Pericles, Prince of Tyre;
and much admiring at the strangeness of that accident, and more pitying
the husband who had lost this sweet lady, he said: “If you are
living, Pericles, you have a heart that even cracks with woe.” Then,
observing attentively Thaisa’s face, he saw how fresh and unlike
death her looks were, and he said, “They were too hasty that threw
you into the sea”; for he did not believe her to be dead. He ordered
a fire to be made, and proper cordials to be brought, and soft music to be
played, which might help to calm her amazed spirits if she should revive;
and he said to those who crowded round her, wondering at what they saw,
“O, I pray you, gentlemen, give her air; this queen will live; she
has not been entranced above five hours; and see, she begins to blow into
life again; she is alive; behold, her eyelids move; this fair creature
will live to make us weep to hear her fate.”</p>
<p>Thaisa had never died, but after the birth of her little baby had fallen
into a deep swoon which made all that saw her conclude her to be dead; and
now by the care of this kind gentleman she once more revived to light and
life; and, opening her eyes, she said:</p>
<p>“Where am I? Where is my lord? What world is this?”</p>
<p>By gentle degrees Cerimon let her understand what had befallen her; and
when he thought she was enough recovered to bear the sight he showed her
the paper written by her husband, and the jewels; and she looked on the
paper and said:</p>
<p>“It is my lord’s writing. That I was shipped at sea I well
remember, but whether there delivered of my babe, by the holy gods I
cannot rightly say; but since my wedded lord I never shall see again, I
will put on a vestal livery and never more have joy.”</p>
<p>“Madam,” said Cerimon, “if you purpose as you speak, the
temple of Diana is not far distant from hence; there you may abide as a
vestal. Moreover, if you please, a niece of mine shall there attend you.”
This proposal was accepted with thanks by Thaisa; and when she was
perfectly recovered, Cerimon placed her in the temple of Diana, where she
became a vestal or priestess of that goddess, and passed her days in
sorrowing for her husband’s supposed loss, and in the most devout
exercises of those times.</p>
<p>Pericles carried his young daughter (whom he named Marina, because she was
born at sea) to Tarsus, intending to leave her with Cleon, the governor of
that city, and his wife Dionysia, thinking, for the good he had done to
them at the time of their famine, they would be kind to his little
motherless daughter. When Cleon saw Prince Pericles and heard of the great
loss which had befallen him he said, “Oh, your sweet queen, that it
had pleased Heaven you could have brought her hither to have blessed my
eyes with the sight of her!”</p>
<p>Pericles replied: “We must obey the powers above us. Should I rage
and roar as the sea does in which my Thaisa has, yet the end must be as it
is. My gentle babe, Marina here, I must charge your charity with her. I
leave her the infant of your care, beseeching you to give her princely
training.” And then turning to Cleon’s wife, Dionysia, he
said, “Good madam, make me blessed in your tare in bringing up my
child.”</p>
<p>And she answered, “I have a child myself who shall not be more dear
to my respect than yours, my lord.”</p>
<p>And Cleon made the like promise, saying: “Your noble services,
Prince Pericles, in feeding my whole people with your corn (for which in
their prayers they daily remember you) must in your child be thought on.
If I should neglect your child, my whole people that were by you relieved
would force me to my duty; but if to that I need a spur, the gods revenge
it on me and mine to the end of generation.”</p>
<p>Pericles, being thus assured that his child would be carefully attended
to, left her to the protection of Cleon and his wife Dionysia, and with
her he left the nurse, Lychorida. When he went away the little Marina knew
not her loss, but Lychorida wept sadly at parting with her royal master.</p>
<p>“Oh, no tears, Lychorida,” said Pericles; “no tears;
look to your little mistress, on whose grace you may depend hereafter.”</p>
<p>Pericles arrived in safety at Tyre, and was once more settled in the quiet
possession of his throne, while his woeful queen, whom he thought dead,
remained at Ephesus. Her little babe Marina, whom this hapless mother had
never seen, was brought up by Cleon in a manner suitable to her high
birth. He gave her the most careful education, so that by the time Marina
attained the age of fourteen years the most deeply learned men were not
more studied in the learning of those times than was Marina. She sang like
one immortal, and danced as goddess-like, and with her needle she was so
skilful that she seemed to compose nature’s own shapes in birds,
fruits, or flowers, the natural roses being scarcely more like to each
other than they were to Marina’s silken flowers. But when she had
gained from education all these graces which made her the general wonder,
Dionysia, the wife of Cleon, became her mortal enemy from jealousy, by
reason that her own daughter, from the slowness of her mind, was not able
to attain to that perfection wherein Marina excelled; and finding that all
praise was bestowed on Marina, while her daughter, who was of the same age
and had been educated with the same care as Marina, though not with the
same success, was in comparison disregarded, she formed a project to
remove Marina out of the way, vainly imagining that her untoward daughter
would be more respected when Marina was no more seen. To encompass this
she employed a man to murder Marina, and she well timed her wicked design,
when Lychorida, the faithful nurse, had just died. Dionysia was
discoursing with the man she had commanded to commit this murder when the
young Marina was weeping over the dead Lychorida. Leonine, the man she
employed to do this bad deed, though he was a very wicked man, could
hardly be persuaded to undertake it, so had Marina won all hearts to love
her. He said:</p>
<p>“She is a goodly creature!”</p>
<p>“The fitter then the gods should have her,” replied her
merciless enemy. “Here she comes weeping for the death of her nurse
Lychorida. Are you resolved to obey me?”</p>
<p>Leonine, fearing to disobey her, replied, “I am resolved.” And
so, in that one short sentence, was the matchless Marina doomed to an
untimely death. She now approached, with a basket of flowers in her hand,
which she said she would daily strew over the grave of good Lychorida. The
purple violet and the marigold should as a carpet hang upon her grave,
while summer days did last.</p>
<p>“Alas for met” she said, “poor unhappy maid, born in a
tempest, when my mother died. This world to me is like a lasting storm,
hurrying me from my friends.”</p>
<p>“How now, Marina,” said the dissembling Dionysia, “do
you weep alone? How does it chance my daughter is not with you? Do not
sorrow for Lychorida; you have a nurse in me. Your beauty is quite changed
with this unprofitable woe. Come, give me your flowers—the sea air
will spoil them—and walk with Leonine; the air is fine, and will
enliven you. Come, Leonine, take her by the arm and walk with her.”</p>
<p>“No, madam,” said Marina, “I pray you let me not deprive
you of your servant”; for Leonine was one of Dionysia’s
attendants.</p>
<p>“Come, come,” said this artful woman, who wished for a
pretense to leave her alone with Leonine, “I love the prince, your
father, and I love you. We every day expect your father here; and when he
comes and finds you so changed by grief from the paragon of beauty we
reported you, he will think we have taken no care of you. Go, I pray you,
walk, and be cheerful once again. Be careful of that excellent complexion
which stole the hearts of old and young.”</p>
<p>Marina, being thus importuned, said, “Well, I will go, but yet I
have no desire to it.”</p>
<p>As Dionysia walked away she said to Leonine, “Remember what I have
said!” shocking words, for their meaning was that he should remember
to kill Marina.</p>
<p>Marina looked toward the sea, her birthplace, and said, “Is the wind
westerly that blows?”</p>
<p>“Southwest,” replied Leonine.</p>
<p>“When I was born the wind was north,” said she; and then the
storm and tempest and all her father’s sorrows, and her mother’s
death, came full into her mind, and she said, “My father, as
Lychorida told me, did never fear, but cried, COURAGE, GOOD SEAMEN, to the
sailors, galling his princely hands with the ropes, and, clasping to the
masts, he endured a sea that almost split the deck.”</p>
<p>“When was this?” said Leonine.</p>
<p>“When I was born,” replied Marina. “Never were wind and
waves more violent.” And then she described the storm, the action of
the sailors, the boatswain’s whistle, and the loud call of the
master, which,” said she, “trebled the confusion of the ship.”</p>
<p>Lychorida had so often recounted to Marina the story of her hapless birth
that these things seemed ever present to her imagination. But here Leonine
interrupted her with desiring her to say her prayers. “What mean
you?” said Marina, who began to fear, she knew not why.</p>
<p>“If you require a little space for prayer, I grant it,” said
Leonine; “but be not tedious; the gods are quick of ear and I am
sworn to do my work in haste.”</p>
<p>“Will you kill me?” said Marina. “Alas! why?”</p>
<p>“To satisfy my lady,” replied Leonine.</p>
<p>“Why would she have me killed?” said Marina. “Now, as I
can remember, I never hurt her in all my life. I never spake bad word nor
did any ill turn to any living creature. Believe me now, I never killed a
mouse nor hurt a fly. I trod upon a worm once against my will, but I wept
for it. How have I offended?”</p>
<p>The murderer replied, “My commission is not to reason on the deed,
but to do it.” And he was just going to kill her when certain
pirates happened to land at that very moment, who, seeing Marina, bore her
off as a prize to their ship.</p>
<p>The pirate who had made Marina his prize carried her to Mitylene and sold
her for a slave, where, though in that humble condition, Marina soon
became known throughout the whole city of Mitylene for her beauty and her
virtues, and the person to whom she was sold became rich by the money she
earned for him. She taught music, dancing, and fine needleworks, and the
money she got by her scholars she gave to her master and mistress; and the
fame of her learning and her great industry came to the knowledge of
Lysimachus, a young nobleman who was governor of Mitylene, and Lysimachus
went himself to the house where Marina dwelt, to see this paragon of
excellence whom all the city praised so highly. Her conversation delighted
Lysimachus beyond measure, for, though he had heard much of this admired
maiden, he did not expect to find her so sensible a lady, so virtuous, and
so good, as he perceived Marina to be; and he left her, saying he hoped
she would persevere in her industrious and virtuous course, and that if
ever she heard from him again it should be for her good. Lysimachus
thought Marina such a miracle for sense, fine breeding, and excellent
qualities, as well as for beauty and all outward graces, that he wished to
marry her, and, notwithstanding her humble situation, he hoped to find
that her birth was noble; but whenever when they asked her parentage she
would sit still and weep.</p>
<p>Meantime, at Tarsus, Leonine, fearing the anger of Dionysia, told her he
had killed Marina; and that wicked woman gave out that she was dead, and
made a pretended funeral for her, and erected a stately monument; and
shortly after Pericles, accompanied by his loyal minister Helicanus, made
a voyage from Tyre to Tarsus, on purpose to see his daughter, intending to
take her home with him. And he never having beheld her since he left her
an infant in the care of Cleon and his wife, how did this good prince
rejoice at the thought of seeing this dear child of his buried queen! But
when they told him Marina was dead, and showed the monument they had
erected for her, great was the misery this most wretched father endured,
and, not being able to bear the sight of that country where his last hope
and only memory of his dear Thaisa was entombed, he took ship and hastily
departed from Tarsus. From the day he entered the ship a dull and heavy
melancholy seized him. He never spoke, and seemed totally insensible to
everything around him.</p>
<p>Sailing from Tarsus to Tyre, the ship in its course passed by Mitylene,
where Marina dwelt; the governor of which place, Lysimachus, observing
this royal vessel from the shore, and desirous of knowing who was on
board, went in a barge to the side of the ship, to satisfy his curiosity.
Helicanus received him very courteously and told him that the ship came
from Tyre, and that they were conducting thither Pericles, their prince.
“A man sir,” said Helicanus, “who has not spoken to any
one these three months, nor taken any sustenance, but just to prolong his
grief; it would be tedious to repeat the whole ground of his distemper,
but the main springs from the loss of a beloved daughter and a wife.”</p>
<p>Lysimachus begged to see this afflicted prince, and when he beheld
Pericles he saw he had been once a goodly person, and he said to him:
“Sir king, all hail! The gods preserve you! Hail, royal sir!”</p>
<p>But in vain Lysimachus spoke to him. Pericles made no answer, nor did he
appear to perceive any stranger approached. And then Lysimachus bethought
him of the peerless maid Marina, that haply with her sweet tongue she
might win some answer from the silent prince; and with the consent of
Helicanus he sent for Marina, and when she entered the ship in which her
own father sat motionless with grief, they welcomed her on board as if
they had known she was their princess; and they cried:</p>
<p>“She is a gallant lady.”</p>
<p>Lysimachus was well pleased to hear their commendations, and he said:</p>
<p>“She is such a one that, were I well assured she came of noble
birth, I would wish no better choice and think me rarely blessed in a
wife.” And then he addressed her in courtly terms, as if the lowly
seeming maid had been the high-born lady he wished to find her, calling
her FAIR AND BEAUTIFUL MARINA, telling her a great prince on board that
ship had fallen into a sad and mournful silence; and, as if Marina had the
power of conferring health and felicity, he begged she would undertake to
cure the royal stranger of his melancholy.</p>
<p>“Sir,” said Marina, “I will use my utmost skill in his
recovery, provided none but I and my maid be suffered to come near him.”</p>
<p>She, who at Mitylene had so carefully concealed her birth, ashamed to tell
that one of royal ancestry was now a slave, first began to speak to
Pericles of the wayward changes in her own fate, telling him from what a
high estate herself had fallen. As if she had known it was her royal
father she stood before, all the words she spoke were of her own sorrows;
but her reason for so doing was that she knew nothing more wins the
attention of the unfortunate than the recital of some sad calamity to
match their own. The sound of her sweet voice aroused the drooping prince;
he lifted up his eyes, which had been so long fixed and motionless; and
Marina, who was the perfect image of her mother, presented to his amazed
sight the features of his dead queen. The long silent prince was once more
heard to speak.</p>
<p>“My dearest wife,” said the awakened Pericles, “was like
this maid, and such a one might my daughter have been. My queen’s
square brows, her stature to an inch, as wand-like straight, as
silver-voiced, her eyes as jewel-like. Where do you live, young maid?
Report your parentage. I think you said you had been tossed from wrong to
injury, and that you thought your griefs would equal mine, if both were
opened.”</p>
<p>“Some such thing I said,” replied Marina, “and said no
more than what my thoughts did warrant me as likely.”</p>
<p>“Tell me your story,” answered Pericles. “If I find you
have known the thousandth part of my endurance you have borne your sorrows
like a man and I have suffered like a girl; yet you do look like Patience
gazing on kings’ graves and smiling extremely out of act. How lost
you your name, my most kind virgin? Recount your story, I beseech you.
Come, sit by me.”</p>
<p>How was Pericles surprised when she said her name was MARINA, for he knew
it was no usual name, but had been invented by himself for his own child
to signify SEA-BORN.</p>
<p>“Oh, I am mocked,” said he, “and you are sent hither by
some incensed god to make the world laugh at me.”</p>
<p>“Patience, good sir,” said Marina, “or I must cease
here.”</p>
<p>“Na@,” said Pericles, “I will be patient. You little
know how you do startle me, to call yourself Marina.”</p>
<p>“The name,” she replied, “was given me by one that had
some power, my father and a king.”</p>
<p>“How, a king’s daughter!” said Pericles, “and
called Marina! But are you flesh and blood? Are you no fairy? Speak on.
Where were you born, and wherefore called Marina?”</p>
<p>She replied: “I was called Marina because I was born at sea. My
mother was the daughter of a king; she died the minute I was born, as my
good nurse Lychorida has often told me, weeping. The king, my father, left
me at Tarsus till the cruel wife of Cleon sought to murder me. A crew of
pirates came and rescued me and brought me here to Mitylene. But, good
sir, why do you weep? It may be you think me an impostor. But indeed, sir,
I am the daughter to King Pericles, if good King Pericles be living.”</p>
<p>Then Pericles, terrified as he seemed at his own sudden joy, and doubtful
if this could be real, loudly called for his attendants, who rejoiced at
the sound of their beloved king’s voice; and he said to Helicanus:</p>
<p>“O Helicanus, strike me, give me a gash, put me to present pain,
lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me overbear the shores of my
mortality. Oh, come hither, thou that wast born at sea, buried at Tarsus,
and found at sea again. O Helicanus, down on your knees, thank the holy
gods! This is Marina. Now blessings on thee, my child! Give me fresh
garments, mine own Helicanus! She is not dead at Tarsus as she should have
been by the savage Dionysia. She shall tell you all, when you shall kneel
to her and call her your very Princess. Who is this?” (observing
Lysimachus for the first time).</p>
<p>“Sir,” said Helicanus, “it is the governor of Mitylene,
who, hearing of your melancholy, came to see you.”</p>
<p>“I embrace you, sir,” said Pericles. “Give me my robes!
I am well with beholding. O Heaven bless my girl! But hark, what music is
that?”—for now, either sent by some kind god or by his own
delighted fancy deceived, he seemed to hear soft music.</p>
<p>“My lord, I hear none,” replied Helicanus.</p>
<p>“None?” said Pericles. “Why, it is the music of the
spheres.”</p>
<p>As there was no music to be heard, Lysimachus concluded that the sudden
joy had unsettled the prince’s understanding, and he said, “It
is not good to cross him; let him have his way.” And then they told
him they heard the music; and he now complaining of a drowsy slumber
coming over him, Lysimachus persuaded him to rest on a couch, and, placing
a pillow under his head, he, quite overpowered with excess of joy, sank
into a sound sleep, and Marina watched in silence by the couch of her
sleeping parent.</p>
<p>While he slept, Pericles dreamed a dream which made him resolve to go to
Ephesus. His dream was that Diana, the goddess of the Ephesians, appeared
to him and commanded him to go to her temple at Ephesus, and there before
her altar to declare the story of his life and misfortunes; and by her
silver bow she swore that if he performed her injunction he should meet
with some rare felicity. When he awoke, being miraculously refreshed, he
told his dream, and that his resolution was to obey the bidding of the
goddess.</p>
<p>Then Lysimachus invited Pericles to come on shore and refresh himself with
such entertainment as he should find at Mitylene, which courteous offer
Pericles accepting, agreed to tarry with him for the space of a day or
two. During which time we may well suppose what feastings, what
rejoicings, what costly shows and entertainments the governor made in
Mitylene to greet the royal father of his dear Marina, whom in her obscure
fortunes he had so respected. Nor did Pericles frown upon Lysimachus’s
suit, when he understood how he had honored his child in the days of her
low estate, and that Marina showed herself not averse to his proposals;
only he made it a condition, before he gave his consent, that they should
visit with him the shrine of the Ephesian Diana; to whose temple they
shortly after all three undertook a voyage; and, the goddess herself
filling their sails with prosperous winds, after a few weeks they arrived
in safety at Ephesus.</p>
<p>There was standing near the altar of the goddess, when Pericles with his
train entered the temple, the good Cerimon (now grown very aged), who had
restored Thaisa, the wife of Pericles, to life; and Thaisa, now a
priestess of the temple, was standing before the altar; and though the
many years he had passed in sorrow for her loss had much altered Pericles,
Thaisa thought she knew her husband’s features, and when he
approached the altar and began to speak, she remembered his voice, and
listened to his words with wonder and a joyful amazement. And these were
the words that Pericles spoke before the altar:</p>
<p>“Hail, Diana! to perform thy just commands I here confess myself the
Prince of Tyre, who, frighted from my country, at Pentapolis wedded the
fair Thaisa. She died at sea in childbed, but brought forth a maid-child
called Marina. She at Tarsus was nursed with Dionysia, who at fourteen
years thought to kill her, but her better stars brought her to Mitylene,
by whose shores as I sailed her good fortunes brought this maid on board,
where by her most clear remembrance she made herself known to be my
daughter.”</p>
<p>Thaisa, unable to bear the transports which his words had raised in her,
cried out, “You are, you are, O royal Pericles” and fainted.</p>
<p>“What means this woman?” said Pericles. “She dies!
Gentlemen, help.”</p>
<p>“Sir,” said Cerimon, “if you have told Diana’s
altar true, this is your wife.”</p>
<p>“Reverend gentleman, no,” said Pericles. “I threw her
overboard with these very arms.”</p>
<p>Cerimon then recounted how, early one tempestuous morning, this lady was
thrown upon the Ephesian shore; how, opening the coffin, he found therein
rich jewels and a paper; how, happily, he recovered her and placed her
here in Diana’s temple.</p>
<p>And now Thaisa, being restored from her swoon, said: “O my lord, are
you not Pericles? Like him you speak, like him you are. Did you not name a
tempest, a birth, and death?”</p>
<p>He, astonished, said, “The voice of dead Thaisa!”</p>
<p>“That Thaisa am I,” she replied, “supposed dead and
drowned.”</p>
<p>“O true Diana!” exclaimed Pericles, in a passion of devout
astonishment.</p>
<p>“And now,” said Thaisa, “I know you better. Such a ring
as I see on your finger did the king my father give you when we with tears
parted from him at Pentapolis.”</p>
<p>“Enough, you gods!” cried Pericles. “Your present
kindness makes my past miseries sport. Oh, come, Thaisa, be buried a
second time within these arms.”</p>
<p>And Marina said, “My heart leaps to be gone into my mother’s
bosom.”</p>
<p>Then did Pericles show his daughter to her mother, saying, “Look who
kneels here, flesh of thy flesh, thy burthen at sea, and called Marina
because she was yielded there.”</p>
<p>“Blessed and my own!” said Thaisa. And while she hung in
rapturous joy over her child Pericles knelt before the altar, saying:</p>
<p>“Pure Diana, bless thee for thy vision. For this I will offer
oblations nightly to thee.”</p>
<p>And then and there did Pericles, with the consent of Thaisa, solemnly
affiance their daughter, the virtuous Marina, to the well-deserving
Lysimachus in marriage.</p>
<p>Thus have we seen in Pericles, his queen, and daughter, a famous example
of virtue assailed by calamity (through the sufferance of Heaven, to teach
patience and constancy to men), under the same guidance becoming finally
successful and triumphing over chance and change. In Helicanus we have
beheld a notable pattern of truth, of faith, and loyalty, who, when he
might have succeeded to a throne, chose rather to recall the rightful
owner to his possession than to become great by another’s wrong. In
the worthy Cerimon, who restored Thaisa to life, we are instructed how
goodness, directed by knowledge, in bestowing benefits upon mankind
approaches to the nature of the gods. It only remains to be told that
Dionysia, the wicked wife of Cleon, met with an end proportionable to her
deserts. The inhabitants of Tarsus, when her cruel attempt upon Marina was
known, rising in a body to revenge the daughter of their benefactor, and
setting fire to the palace of Cleon, burned both him and her and their
whole household, the gods seeming well pleased that so foul a murder,
though but intentional and never carried into act, should be punished in a
way befitting its enormity.</p>
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