Pericles Prince of Tyre | Page 5

tongue like leave to love my head.
ANTIOCHUS.[Aside] Heaven, that I had thy head! he has found the
meaning: But I will gloze with him. -- Young prince of Tyre. Though
by the tenour of our strict edict, Your exposition misinterpreting, We
might proceed to cancel of your days; Yet hope, succeeding from so
fair a tree As your fair self, doth tune us otherwise: Forty days longer
we do respite you; If by which time our secret be undone, This mercy
shows we'll joy in such a son: And until then your entertain shall be As
doth befit our honour and your worth.
[Exeunt all but Pericles.]
PERACLES. How courtesy would seem to cover sin, When what is
done is like an hypocrite, The which is good in nothing but in sight! If
it be true that I interpret false, Then were it certain you were not so bad
As with foul incest to abuse your soul; Where now you're both a father
and a son, By your untimely claspings with your child, Which pleasure
fits an husband, not a father; And she an eater of her mother's flesh, By
the defiling of her parent's bed; And both like serpents are, who though
they feed On sweetest flowers, yet they poison breed. Antioch, farewell!
for wisdom sees, those men Blush not in actions blacker than the night,
Will shun no course to keep them from the light. One sin, I know,
another doth provoke; Murder's as near to lust as flame to smoke:
Poison and treason are the hands of sin, Ay, and the targets, to put off
the shame: Then, lest my life be cropp'd to keep you clear, By flight I
'II shun the danger which I fear.
[Exit.]
[Re-enter Antiochus.]

ANTIOCHUS. He gath found the meaning, for which we mean To
have his head. He must not live to trumpet forth my infamy, Nor tell
the world Antiochus doth sin In such a loathed manner; And therefore
instantly this prince must die; For by his fall my honour must keep high.
Who attends us there?
[Enter Thaliard.]
THALIARD. Doth your highness call?
ANTIOCHUS. Thaliard, You are of our chamber, and our mind
partakes Her private actions to your secrecy; And for your faithfulness
we will advance you. Thaliard, behold, here's poison, and here's gold;
We hate the prince of Tyre, and thou must kill him: It fits thee not to
ask the reason why, Because we Bid it. Say, is it done?
THALIARD. My lord, Tis done.
ANTIOCHUS. Enough.
[Enter a Messenger.]
Let your breath cool yourself, telling your haste.
MESSENGER. My lord, prlnce Pericles is fled.
[Exit.]
ANTIOCHUS. As thou Wilt live, fly after: and like an arrow shot From
a well-experienced archer hits the mark His eye doth level at, so thou
ne'er return Unless thou say 'Prince Pericles is dead.'
THALIARD. My lord, If I can get him within my pistol's length, I'll
make him sure enough: so, farewell to your highness.
ANTIOCHUS. Thaliard! adieu!
[Exit Thaliard.]

Till Pericles be dead, My heart can lend no succour to my head.
[Exit.]
SCENE II. Tyre. A room in the palace.
[Enter Pericles.]
PERICLES. [To Lords without.] Let none disturb us. -- Why should
this change of thoughts, The sad companion, dull-eyed melancholy, Be
my so used a guest as not an hour, In the day's glorious walk, or
peaceful night, The tomb where grief should sleep, can breed me quiet?
Here pleasures court mine eyes, and mine eyes shun them, And danger,
which I fear'd, is at Antioch, Whose arm seems far too short to hit me
here: Yet neither pleasure's art can joy my spirits, Nor yet the other's
distance comfort me. Then it is thus: the passions of the mind, That
have their first conception by mis-dread Have after-nourishment and
life by care; And what was first but fear what might he done, Grows
elder now and cares it be not done. And so with me: the great
Antiochus, 'Gainst whom I am too little to contend, Since he 's so great
can make his will his act, Will think me speaking, though I swear to
silence; Nor boots it me to say I honour him. If he suspect I may
dishonour him: And what may make him blush in being known, He'll
stop the course by which it might be known; With hostile forces he'11
o'erspread the land, And with the ostent of war will look so huge,
Amazement shall drive courage from the state; Our men be vanquish'd
ere they do resist, And subjects punish'd that ne'er thought offence:
Which care of them, not pity of myself, Who am no more but as the
tops of trees, Which fence the roots they grow by and defend them,
Makes both my body pine