PERICLES

Lords, Knights, Gentlemen, Sailors, Pirates, Fishermen, and Messengers.

DIANA.

GOWER, as Chorus.

SCENE: Dispersedly in various countries.

1 This play, which was published in Quarto in 1609, when it went through two editions, was reprinted in 1611, 1619, 1630, and 1635. It was excluded from the Folios of 1623 and 1632, but was appended to the Third Folio, 1664, and to the Fourth Folio, 1685. The Third Folio was the first of the early editions to supply (somewhat incorrectly) a list of the "dramatis personæ," or to divide the whole play into acts. A fuller list of "the names of the personages" precede the novel of Pericles by George Wilkins, which paraphrased the play (1608).

ACT I

Enter GoWER

Before the palace of Antioch

SING A SONG THAT old was sung,

From ashes ancient Gower is come,

Assuming man's infirmities,

To glad your ear and please
your eyes.

It hath been sung at festivals,
On ember-eves and holy-ales;
And lords and ladies in their lives
Have read it for restoratives:

The purchase is to make men
glorious;

Et bonum quo antiquius, eo melius.
If you, born in these latter times

2 ancient Gower] The medieval poet, Gower, told, about 1390, the story of this play in his Confessio Amantis, and on Gower's version the drama is largely based. The story, which has been traced to a Greek novel, had an universal vogue in medieval Europe.

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When wit's more ripe, accept my rhymes,
And that to hear an old man sing
May to your wishes pleasure bring,
I life would wish, and that I might
Waste it for you like taper-light.
This Antioch then Antiochus the Great
Built up, this city, for his chiefest seat,
The fairest in all Syria:

I tell you what mine authors say:
This king unto him took a fere,
Who died and left a female heir,
So buxom, blithe and full of face
As heaven had lent her all his grace;
With whom the father liking took,
And her to incest did provoke:

Bad child, worse father! to entice his own
To evil should be done by none:

But custom what they did begin
Was with long use account no sin.
The beauty of this sinful dame

6 ember-eves] eves preceding Ember days, which were seasons of fasting at four periods of the year.

holy ales] church festivals on saints' days. This reading is Farmer's emendation, for the sake of rhyme, of the original reading holy days.

9 purchase] profit or gain, as at I, ii, 72, infra: “I sought the purchase [i. e., acquisition, gain] of a glorious beauty.'

21 fere] The Quartos read Peere, for which Malone substituted pheere, an accepted variant of "fere," an old word for "mate" or companion."

23 full of face] plump of face.

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Made many princes thither frame,
To seek her as a bed-fellow,

In marriage-pleasures play-fellow:
Which to prevent he made a law,
To keep her still and men in awe,
That whoso ask'd her for his wife,
His riddle told not, lost his life:
So for her many a wight did die,
As yon grim looks do testify.

What now ensues, to the judgement of your eye
I give, my cause who best can justify.

[Exit.

SCENE I-ANTIOCH

A ROOM IN THE PALACE

Enter ANTIOCHUS, PRINCE PERICLES and Followers ANT. Young prince of Tyre, you have at large received

The danger of the task you undertake.

PER. I have, Antiochus, and, with a soul Embolden'd with the glory of her praise, Think death no hazard in this enterprise.

ANT. Bring in our daughter, clothed like a bride,

40 yon grim looks] the ghastly faces of heads cut off by the executioner, some of which in Shakespeare's time usually adorned London Bridge. Gower in his Confessio writes of the heads of the unsuccessful suitors 'standing on the gate."

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41-42 What... justify] What follows I offer to the judgment of those among you who can best realise the veracity of my story.

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