PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE. PERICLES, Prince of Tyre, was entered on the Stationers' books May 2, 1608, by Edward Blount, and was printed in the following year, by Henry Gosson. The text of this play, so printed, is corruption itself; and despite the infinite pains that have since been bestowed upon it, that text still remains, in all probability, far from accurate. As to the authorship of the play, though its position in this edition of Shakspeare indicates that the parentage has been doubted, yet the balance of criticism appears favourable to its claim upon the great poet: to what extent, is another question. Aulus Gellius tells us that several plays are ascribed absolutely to Plautus, which he merely repolished and retouched; and this, no doubt, was the case with Shakspeare. This, at all events, is certain, that the play was extremely successful on the stage. Before the Palace of Antioch. To sing a song of old was sung, To glad your ear, and please your eyes. On Ember-eves, and Holy ale;t And lords and ladies of their lives *That the reader may know through how many regions the scene of this drama is dispersed, it is necessary to observe, that Antioch was the metropolis of Syria; Tyre, a city of Phoenicia in Asia; Tarsus, the metropolis of Cilicia, a country of Asia Minor; Mitylene, the capital of Lesbos, an island in the Egean Sea; and Ephesus, the capital of Ionia a country of the Lesser Asia. † Whitsuntide, &c. |