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Pericles: Act IV, Scene 3

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Pericles
Act IV, Scene 3

Tarsus. A room in Cleon’s house.

The Henry Irving Shakespeare

O Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter
The sun and moon ne’er look’d upon!

From: The Henry Irving Shakespeare

Henry, Sir Irving; Gordon Browne; 1888

  1. Enter Cleon and Dionyza.

Dionyza

1
  1. Why are you foolish? Can it be undone?

Cleon

2 - 3
  1. O Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter
  2. The sun and moon ne’er look’d upon!

Dionyza

4
  1. I think you’ll turn a child again.

Cleon

5 - 13
  1. Were I chief lord of all this spacious world,
  2. I’d give it to undo the deed. O lady,
  3. Much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess
  4. To equal any single crown a’ th’ earth
  5. I’ th’ justice of compare! O villain Leonine!
  6. Whom thou hast pois’ned too.
  7. If thou hadst drunk to him, ’t ’ad been a kindness
  8. Becoming well thy fact. What canst thou say
  9. When noble Pericles shall demand his child?

Dionyza

14 - 19
  1. That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates,
  2. To foster it, not ever to preserve.
  3. She died at night; I’ll say so. Who can cross it?
  4. Unless you play the pious innocent,
  5. And for an honest attribute cry out,
  6. “She died by foul play.”

Cleon

20 - 22
  1.                          O, go to. Well, well,
  2. Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods
  3. Do like this worst.

Dionyza

23 - 27
  1.                     Be one of those that thinks
  2. The petty wrens of Tharsus will fly hence
  3. And open this to Pericles. I do shame
  4. To think of what a noble strain you are,
  5. And of how coward a spirit.

Cleon

28 - 31
  1.                             To such proceeding
  2. Who ever but his approbation added,
  3. Though not his prime consent, he did not flow
  4. From honorable courses.

Dionyza

32 - 43
  1.                         Be it so then,
  2. Yet none does know but you how she came dead,
  3. Nor none can know, Leonine being gone.
  4. She did distain my child, and stood between
  5. Her and her fortunes. None would look on her,
  6. But cast their gazes on Marina’s face;
  7. Whilest ours was blurted at and held a mawkin
  8. Not worth the time of day. It pierc’d me thorough,
  9. And though you call my course unnatural,
  10. You not your child well loving, yet I find
  11. It greets me as an enterprise of kindness
  12. Perform’d to your sole daughter.

Cleon

44
  1.                                  Heavens forgive it!

Dionyza

45 - 51
  1. And as for Pericles,
  2. What should he say? We wept after her hearse,
  3. And yet we mourn. Her monument
  4. Is almost finished, and her epitaphs
  5. In glitt’ring golden characters express
  6. A general praise to her, and care in us
  7. At whose expense ’tis done.

Cleon

52 - 54
  1.                             Thou art like the harpy,
  2. Which to betray, dost with thine angel’s face
  3. Seize with thine eagle’s talents.

Dionyza

55 - 57
  1. Y’ are like one that superstitiously
  2. Do swear to th’ gods that winter kills the flies,
  3. But yet I know you’ll do as I advise.
  1. Exeunt.
Cassell's Illustrated Shakespeare

Cleon: What canst thou say when noble Pericles shall demand his child?
Dionyza: That she is dead.

From: Cassell's Illustrated Shakespeare

Charles Cowden Clarke, Mary Cowden Clarke, 1866

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