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Pericles, Prince of Tyre: Act 4 Scene 3

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

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

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?

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

'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

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

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,

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

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.

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

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,

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]