Complete Plays, The (442 page)

Now, the pox upon her green-sickness for me!

Bawd

’Faith, there’s no way to be rid on’t but by the way to the pox. Here comes the Lord Lysimachus disguised.

Boult

We should have both lord and lown, if the peevish baggage would but give way to customers.

Enter Lysimachus

Lysimachus

How now! How a dozen of virginities?

Bawd

Now, the gods to-bless your honour!

Boult

I am glad to see your honour in good health.

Lysimachus

You may so; ’tis the better for you that your resorters stand upon sound legs. How now! wholesome iniquity have you that a man may deal withal, and defy the surgeon?

Bawd

We have here one, sir, if she would — but there never came her like in Mytilene.

Lysimachus

If she’ld do the deed of darkness, thou wouldst say.

Bawd

Your honour knows what ’tis to say well enough.

Lysimachus

Well, call forth, call forth.

Boult

For flesh and blood, sir, white and red, you shall see a rose; and she were a rose indeed, if she had but —

Lysimachus

What, prithee?

Boult

O, sir, I can be modest.

Lysimachus

That dignifies the renown of a bawd, no less than it gives a good report to a number to be chaste.

Exit Boult

Bawd

Here comes that which grows to the stalk; never plucked yet, I can assure you.

Re-enter Boult with Marina

Is she not a fair creature?

Lysimachus

’Faith, she would serve after a long voyage at sea.
Well, there’s for you: leave us.

Bawd

I beseech your honour, give me leave: a word, and
I’ll have done presently.

Lysimachus

I beseech you, do.

Bawd

[To Marina]
 
First, I would have you note, this is an honourable man.

Marina

I desire to find him so, that I may worthily note him.

Bawd

Next, he’s the governor of this country, and a man whom I am bound to.

Marina

If he govern the country, you are bound to him indeed; but how honourable he is in that, I know not.

Bawd

Pray you, without any more virginal fencing, will you use him kindly? He will line your apron with gold.

Marina

What he will do graciously, I will thankfully receive.

Lysimachus

Ha’ you done?

Bawd

My lord, she’s not paced yet: you must take some pains to work her to your manage. Come, we will leave his honour and her together. Go thy ways.

Exeunt Bawd, Pandar, and Boult

Lysimachus

Now, pretty one, how long have you been at this trade?

Marina

What trade, sir?

Lysimachus

Why, I cannot name’t but I shall offend.

Marina

I cannot be offended with my trade. Please you to name it.

Lysimachus

How long have you been of this profession?

Marina

E’er since I can remember.

Lysimachus

Did you go to ’t so young? Were you a gamester at five or at seven?

Marina

Earlier too, sir, if now I be one.

Lysimachus

Why, the house you dwell in proclaims you to be a creature of sale.

Marina

Do you know this house to be a place of such resort, and will come into ’t? I hear say you are of honourable parts, and are the governor of this place.

Lysimachus

Why, hath your principal made known unto you who I am?

Marina

Who is my principal?

Lysimachus

Why, your herb-woman; she that sets seeds and roots of shame and iniquity. O, you have heard something of my power, and so stand aloof for more serious wooing. But I protest to thee, pretty one, my authority shall not see thee, or else look friendly upon thee. Come, bring me to some private place: come, come.

Marina

If you were born to honour, show it now;
If put upon you, make the judgment good
That thought you worthy of it.

Lysimachus

How’s this? how’s this? Some more; be sage.

Marina

For me,
That am a maid, though most ungentle fortune
Have placed me in this sty, where, since I came,
Diseases have been sold dearer than physic,
O, that the gods
Would set me free from this unhallow’d place,
Though they did change me to the meanest bird
That flies i’ the purer air!

Lysimachus

I did not think
Thou couldst have spoke so well; ne’er dream’d thou couldst.
Had I brought hither a corrupted mind,
Thy speech had alter’d it. Hold, here’s gold for thee:
Persever in that clear way thou goest,
And the gods strengthen thee!

Marina

The good gods preserve you!

Lysimachus

For me, be you thoughten
That I came with no ill intent; for to me
The very doors and windows savour vilely.
Fare thee well. Thou art a piece of virtue, and
I doubt not but thy training hath been noble.
Hold, here’s more gold for thee.
A curse upon him, die he like a thief,
That robs thee of thy goodness! If thou dost
Hear from me, it shall be for thy good.

Re-enter Boult

Boult

I beseech your honour, one piece for me.

Lysimachus

Avaunt, thou damned door-keeper!
Your house, but for this virgin that doth prop it,
Would sink and overwhelm you. Away!

Exit

Boult

How’s this? We must take another course with you. If your peevish chastity, which is not worth a breakfast in the cheapest country under the cope, shall undo a whole household, let me be gelded like a spaniel. Come your ways.

Marina

 
Whither would you have me?

Boult

I must have your maidenhead taken off, or the common hangman shall execute it. Come your ways. We’ll have no more gentlemen driven away. Come your ways, I say.

Re-enter Bawd

Bawd

How now! what’s the matter?

Boult

Worse and worse, mistress; she has here spoken holy words to the Lord Lysimachus.

Bawd

O abominable!

Boult

She makes our profession as it were to stink afore the face of the gods.

Bawd

Marry, hang her up for ever!

Boult

The nobleman would have dealt with her like a nobleman, and she sent him away as cold as a snowball; saying his prayers too.

Bawd

Boult, take her away; use her at thy pleasure: crack the glass of her virginity, and make the rest malleable.

Boult

An if she were a thornier piece of ground than she is, she shall be ploughed.

Marina

Hark, hark, you gods!

Bawd

She conjures: away with her! Would she had never come within my doors! Marry, hang you! She’s born to undo us. Will you not go the way of women-kind? Marry, come up, my dish of chastity with rosemary and bays!

Exit

Boult

Come, mistress; come your ways with me.

Marina

Whither wilt thou have me?

Boult

To take from you the jewel you hold so dear.

Marina

Prithee, tell me one thing first.

Boult

Come now, your one thing.

Marina

What canst thou wish thine enemy to be?

Boult

Why, I could wish him to be my master, or rather, my mistress.

Marina

Neither of these are so bad as thou art,
Since they do better thee in their command.
Thou hold’st a place, for which the pained’st fiend
Of hell would not in reputation change:
Thou art the damned doorkeeper to every
Coistrel that comes inquiring for his Tib;
To the choleric fisting of every rogue
Thy ear is liable; thy food is such
As hath been belch’d on by infected lungs.

Boult

What would you have me do? go to the wars, would you? where a man may serve seven years for the loss of a leg, and have not money enough in the end to buy him a wooden one?

Marina

Do any thing but this thou doest. Empty
Old receptacles, or common shores, of filth;
Serve by indenture to the common hangman:
Any of these ways are yet better than this;
For what thou professest, a baboon, could he speak,
Would own a name too dear. O, that the gods
Would safely deliver me from this place!
Here, here’s gold for thee.
If that thy master would gain by thee,
Proclaim that I can sing, weave, sew, and dance,
With other virtues, which I’ll keep from boast:
And I will undertake all these to teach.
I doubt not but this populous city will
Yield many scholars.

Boult

But can you teach all this you speak of?

Marina

Prove that I cannot, take me home again,
And prostitute me to the basest groom
That doth frequent your house.

Boult

Well, I will see what I can do for thee: if I can place thee, I will.

Marina

But amongst honest women.

Boult

’Faith, my acquaintance lies little amongst them. But since my master and mistress have bought you, there’s no going but by their consent: therefore I will make them acquainted with your purpose, and I doubt not but I shall find them tractable enough. Come, I’ll do for thee what I can; come your ways.

Exeunt

A
CT
V

P
ROLOGUE

Enter Gower

Gower

Marina thus the brothel ’scapes, and chances
Into an honest house, our story says.
She sings like one immortal, and she dances
As goddess-like to her admired lays;
Deep clerks she dumbs; and with her needle composes
Nature’s own shape, of bud, bird, branch, or berry,
That even her art sisters the natural roses;
Her inkle, silk, twin with the rubied cherry:
That pupils lacks she none of noble race,
Who pour their bounty on her; and her gain
She gives the cursed bawd. Here we her place;
And to her father turn our thoughts again,
Where we left him, on the sea. We there him lost;
Whence, driven before the winds, he is arrived
Here where his daughter dwells; and on this coast
Suppose him now at anchor. The city strived
God Neptune’s annual feast to keep: from whence
Lysimachus our Tyrian ship espies,
His banners sable, trimm’d with rich expense;
And to him in his barge with fervor hies.
In your supposing once more put your sight
Of heavy Pericles; think this his bark:
Where what is done in action, more, if might,
Shall be discover’d; please you, sit and hark.

Exit

S
CENE
I. O
N
BOARD
P
ERICLES
’
SHIP
,
OFF
M
YTILENE
. A
CLOSE

pavilion on deck, with a curtain before it; Pericles within it, reclined on a couch. A barge lying beside the Tyrian vessel.

Enter two Sailors, one belonging to the Tyrian vessel, the other to the barge; to them Helicanus

Tyrian Sailor

[To the Sailor of Mytilene]
 
Where is lord Helicanus? he can resolve you.
O, here he is.
Sir, there’s a barge put off from Mytilene,
And in it is Lysimachus the governor,
Who craves to come aboard. What is your will?

Helicanus

That he have his. Call up some gentlemen.

Tyrian Sailor

Ho, gentlemen! my lord calls.

Enter two or three Gentlemen

First Gentleman

Doth your lordship call?

Helicanus

Gentlemen, there’s some of worth would come aboard;
I pray ye, greet them fairly.

The Gentlemen and the two Sailors descend, and go on board the barge

Enter, from thence, Lysimachus and Lords; with the Gentlemen and the two Sailors

Tyrian Sailor

Sir,
This is the man that can, in aught you would,
Resolve you.

Lysimachus

Hail, reverend sir! the gods preserve you!

Helicanus

And you, sir, to outlive the age I am,
And die as I would do.

Lysimachus

You wish me well.
Being on shore, honouring of Neptune’s triumphs,
Seeing this goodly vessel ride before us,
I made to it, to know of whence you are.

Helicanus

First, what is your place?

Lysimachus

I am the governor of this place you lie before.

Helicanus

Sir,
Our vessel is of Tyre, in it the king;
A man who for this three months hath not spoken
To any one, nor taken sustenance
But to prorogue his grief.

Lysimachus

Upon what ground is his distemperature?

Helicanus

’Twould be too tedious to repeat;
But the main grief springs from the loss
Of a beloved daughter and a wife.

Lysimachus

May we not see him?

Helicanus

You may;
But bootless is your sight: he will not speak To any.

Lysimachus

Yet let me obtain my wish.

Helicanus

Behold him.

Pericles discovered

This was a goodly person,
Till the disaster that, one mortal night,
Drove him to this.

Lysimachus