:ACT IV.

Enter GoWER.

Gow. Imagine Pericles at Tyre,
Welcom'd, to his own desire.
His woful queen leave at Ephess,
To Dian there a votaress.

Now to Marina bend your mind,

Whom our fast-growing scene must find
At Tharsus, and by Cleon train'd
In musick, letters; who hath gain'd
Of education all the grace,

Which makes her both the heart and place
Of general wonder. But alack!
That monster envy, oft the wrack
Of earned praise, Marina's life
Seeks to take off by treason's knife,
And in this kind hath our Cleon
One daughter, and a wench full grown,
Even ripe for marriage fight; this maid
Hight Philoten: and it is said
For certain in our story, she
Would ever with Marina be:

Be't when she weav'd the sleided silk 28
With fingers, long, small, white as milk;
Or when she would with sharp neeld wound
The cambrick, which she made more sound

By hurting it; or when to the lute
She sung, and made the night-bird mute,
That still records with moan; or when
She would with rich and constant pen
Vail to her mistress Dian; still

This Philoten contends in skill
With absolute Marina 30: so

With the dove of Paphos might the crow
Vie feathers white. Marina gets
All praises, which are paid as debts,
And not as given. This so darks
In Philoten all graceful marks,
That Cleon's wife, with envy rare,
A present murderer does prepare
For good Marina, that her daughter
Might stand peerless by this slaughter.
The sooner her vile thoughts to stead,
Lychorida, our nurse, is dead;
And cursed Dionyza hath

The pregnant instrument of wrath

Prest for this blow. The unborn event

I do commend to your content:

Only I carry winged time

Post on the lame feet of my rhyme;

Which never could I so convey,

Unless your thoughts went on my way.—

Dionyza does appear,

With Leonine, a murderer.

[Exit.

...

SCENE I.

Tharsus. An open place near the sea-shore.

Enter DIONYZA and LEONINE.

Dion. Thy oath remember; thou hast sworn to do it:

'Tis but a blow, which never shall be known.
Thou canst not do a thing i'the world so soon,
To yield thee so much profit. Let not conscience,
Which is but cold, inflame love in thy bosom,
Inflame too nicely; nor let pity, which

Even women have cast off, melt thee, but be
A soldier to thy purpose.

Leon. I'll do't; but yet she is a goodly creature.

Dion. The fitter then the gods should have her.

Here

Weeping she comes for her old nurse's death.

Thou art resolv'd?

Leon.

I am resolv'd.

Enter MARINA, with a basket of flowers.

Mar. No, no, I will rob Tellus of her weed, To strew thy green with flowers31: the yellows, blues,

The purple violets, and marigolds,

Shall, as a chaplet, hang upon thy grave,

While summer days do last. Ah me! poor maid,

Born in a tempest, when my mother died,