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Dumb Show. - William Shakespeare, Pericles Prince of Tyre [1609]

Edition used:

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (The Oxford Shakespeare), ed. with a glossary by W.J. Craig M.A. (Oxford University Press, 1916).

Part of: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (The Oxford Shakespeare)

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Dumb Show.

Enter, from one side,PericlesandSimonides,with Attendants; a Messenger meets them, kneels, and givesPericlesa letter:Periclesshows it toSimonides;the Lords kneel toPericles.Then enterThaisawith child, andLychorida: Simonidesshows his daughter the letter; she rejoices: she andPericlestake leave of her father, and all depart.

  • By many a dern and painful perch,
  • Of Pericles the careful search
  • By the four opposing coigns,
  • Which the world together joins,
  • Is made with all due diligence
  • That horse and sail and high expense,
  • Can stead the quest. At last from Tyre,
  • Fame answering the most strange inquire
  • To the court of King Simonides
  • Are letters brought, the tenour these:
  • Antiochus and his daughter dead;
  • The men of Tyrus on the head
  • Of Helicanus would set on
  • The crown of Tyre, but he will none:
  • The mutiny he there hastes t’ oppress;
  • Says to ’em, if King Pericles
  • Come not home in twice six moons,
  • He, obedient to their dooms,
  • Will take the crown. The sum of this,
  • Brought hither to Pentapolis,
  • Yravished the regions round,
  • And every one with claps can sound,
  • ‘Our heir-apparent is a king!
  • Who dream’d, who thought of such a thing?’
  • Brief, he must hence depart to Tyre:
  • His queen, with child, makes her desire,
  • Which who shall cross?—along to go;
  • Omit we all their dole and woe:
  • Lychorida, her nurse, she takes,
  • And so to sea. Their vessel shakes
  • On Neptune’s billow; half the flood
  • Hath their keel cut: but Fortune’s mood
  • Varies again; the grisled north
  • Disgorges such a tempest forth,
  • That, as a duck for life that dives,
  • So up and down the poor ship drives.
  • The lady shrieks, and well-a-near
  • Does fall in travail with her fear;
  • And what ensues in this fell storm
  • Shall for itself itself perform.
  • I nill relate, action may
  • Conveniently the rest convey,
  • Which might not what by me is told.
  • In your imagination hold
  • This stage the ship, upon whose deck
  • The sea-tost Pericles appears to speak.
  • [Exit.