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Cer. Noble sir,

If you have told Diana's altar true,

This is
Per.

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Reverend appearer, no:

I threw her overboard with these

very arms.

Cer. Upon this coast, I warrant you.
Per.

'Tis most certain.

Cer. Look to the lady.-Oh! she's but o'erjoy'd.Early in blust'ring morn this lady was

Thrown on this shore. I op'd the coffin,

Found there rich jewels; recover'd her, and plac'd her
Here, in Diana's temple.

Per.

May we see them?

Cer. Great sir, they shall be brought you to my house,
Whither I invite you.-Look! Thaisa is recover'd.
Thai. Oh, let me look!

If he be none of mine, my sanctity

Will to my sense bend no licentious ear,
But curb it, spite of seeing.-Oh, my lord! ·
Are you not Pericles? Like him you speak,
Like him you are. Did you not name a tempest,
A birth, and death?

Per.

The voice of dead Thaisa!

Thai. That Thaisa am I, supposed dead, and drown'd.
Per. Immortal Dian!

Thai.

Now I know you better.

When we with tears parted Pentapolis,

The king, my father, gave you such a ring. [Showing a ring. Per. This, this: no more, you gods! your present kind

ness

Makes my past miseries sports': you shall do well,

That on the touching of her lips I may

Melt, and no more be seen. Oh! come, be buried

1619. The Rev. Mr. Dyce would make mum an interjection; but he is so little confident as to the change that, before he arrives at the end of his own note ("Remarks," p. 271), he alters his mind in favour of hum. We are pretty sure that our conjecture restores the text, without the desperate resort (as the reader must think it) to either mum or hum.

1 Makes my past miseries sports:] The old novel by Wilkins here probably gives the manner of the old actor in the part of Pericles, that actor, as we know from his epitaph, having been Burbadge:-" For Pericles, though at the first astonished, joy had now so revived his spirites, that he knew her [Thaisa] to be herselfe but, throwing his head into her bosome, having nothing but this to utter, he cried aloude, Oh you heavens! my misfortunes were now againe blessings." Sign. K b.

A second time within these arms.

Mar.

My heart

Leaps to be gone into my mother's bosom.

[Kneeling to THAISA. Per. Look, who kneels here. Flesh of thy flesh, Thaisa;

Thy burden at the sea, and call'd Marina,

For she was yielded there.

Thai.

Hel. Hail, madam, and my queen!

Thai.

Bless'd, and mine own!

[MARINA rises.

I know you not.

Per. You have heard me say, when I did fly from Tyre,

I left behind an ancient substitute:

Can you remember what I call'd the man?

I have nam'd him oft.

Thai.

'Twas Helicanus, then.

Per. Still confirmation!

Embrace him, dear Thaisa; this is he.

Now do I long to hear how you were found,
How possibly preserv'd, and whom to thank,
Besides the gods, for this great miracle.

Thai. Lord Cerimon, my lord; this man

Through whom the gods have shown their power; that can From first to last resolve you.

Per.

Reverend sir,

The gods can have no mortal officer

More like a god than you. Will you deliver
How this dead queen re-lives?

Cer.

I will, my lord:

Beseech you, first go with me to my house,
Where shall be shown you all was found with her;
How she came placed here in the temple,

No needful thing omitted.

Per. Pure Dian! bless thee for thy vision,
I will offer night oblations to thee. Thaisa,
This prince, the fair-betrothed of your daughter,
Shall marry her at Pentapolis. And now,
This ornament,

Makes me look dismal, will I clip to form';

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This ornament,

Makes me look dismal, will I clip to form;] i. e. "My beard, that makes me look dismal, will I clip to form." Modern editors, under pretence of correcting the irregular verse, insert, among other words, "my lov'd Marina," in

And what this fourteen years no razor touch'd,
To grace thy marriage-day, I'll beautify.

Thai. Lord Cerimon hath letters of good credit;
Sir, my father's dead.

Per. Heavens, make a star of him! Yet there, my queen, We'll celebrate their nuptials, and ourselves

Will in that kingdom spend our following days:
Our son and daughter shall in Tyrus reign.
Lord Cerimon, we do our longing stay,

To hear the rest untold.-Sir, lead's the way.

Enter GOWER..

[Exeunt.

Gow. In Antiochus, and his daughter, you have heard
Of monstrous lust the due and just reward:

In Pericles, his queen, and daughter, seen,
Although assail'd with fortune fierce and keen,
Virtue preserv'd' from fell destruction's blast,
Led on by heaven, and crown'd with joy at last.
In Helicanus may you well descry

A figure of truth, of faith, and loyalty:
In reverend Cerimon there well appears
The worth that learned charity aye wears.
For wicked Cleon and his wife, when fame

Had spread their cursed deed, the honour'd name
Of Pericles, to rage the city turn;

this passage, without the slightest authority. How do we know that Shakespeare completed the metre in this way, or that he did not purposely leave the line irregular and abrupt? The use here of the words "Makes me look dismal "-has induced us to believe that in a previous passage (435) the old text, "Though I show will in't," ought to be, "Though I show ill in't."

3 Sir, lead's the way.] i. e. "Lead us the way;" a very common contraction, and found in all the old copies. Modern editors have chosen to print, "Sir, lead the way."

♦ Virtue PRESERV'D] Old copies, “Virtue preferr'd." In "Henry VI., Part I.," A. iii. sc. 1, the old corrector of the fo. 1632 tells us, in two instances, that preferre, as it is there spelt in the folio, 1623, is a misprint for "preserve," although, under the circumstances, we have not thought it right to alter the usual text. Seeing this additional proof of the very same blunder, which we did not then bear in mind, we almost regret that we did not formerly accept the emendation of the old annotator. See Vol. iii. pp. 686. 689.

5 Had spread their cursed deed, the honour'd name

Of Pericles,] So the old copies; but is there not some room to suspect that the construction ought to be,

"when fame

Had spread their cursed deed to th' honour'd name

Of Pericles," &c.?

The expression may however be elliptical, and may mean, that the city turned to

That him and his they in his palace burn.
The gods for murder seemed so content"
To punish them, although not done, but meant.
So on your patience evermore attending,

New joy wait on you! Here our play has ending'.

rage when the people heard of the cursed deed of Cleon and Dionyza, and called to mind the honoured name of Pericles.

The gods for murder seemed so CONTENT] So all the editions after the first of 1609, which reads to contend for "so content." In the next line, "them," which is wanting in the old copies, 4to. and folio, was supplied by Malone: it is required by the sense as well as by the metre.

7 Here our play has ending.] Nothing being said about the Pander, his wife, and Boult. Wilkins' novel informs us that the two first were burned, and the last, "who had been so faithful" to Marina, was rewarded, as well as "the poor fishermen." Cleon and Dionyza, according to the same authority, were stoned to death. Wilkins and Twine both agree in representing that the hero had a son borne to him by Thaisa after the marriage of Lysimachus and Marina; and Twine adds, with a familiar proverb (we do not remember to have seen elsewhere), that though the ladies asserted that the child was like its father or its grandfather, it by no means followed that it was so, inasmuch as women often insisted upon the resemblance of a father to his child, when, in truth, there was no more likeness than "between Jack Fletcher and his bolt," i. e. between an arrow, and the man who made it. In the end, according to Wilkins, this son of Pericles and Thaisa inherited the kingdoms of Antioch and Pentapolis, while Lysimachus and Marina, with their progeny, continued to reign in Tyre. This is quite consistent with what Pericles says in his last speech in the play.

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