Pericles

Pericles

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	5
	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	10
	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?	15
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	20
	'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	25
	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	30
	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,	35
	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	40
	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.	45
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	50
	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,	55
	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