| Pericles, prince of
Tyre, became a voluntary exile from his dominions, to avert the
dreadful calamities which Antiochus, the wicked emperor of Greece,
threatened to bring upon his subjects and city of Tyre, in revenge
for a discovery which the prince had made of a shocking deed which
the emperor had done in secret; as commonly it proves dangerous to
pry into the hidden crimes of great ones. Leaving the government
of his people in the hands of his able and honest minister,
Helicanus, Pericles set sail from Tyre, thinking to absent himself
till the wrath of Antiochus, who was mighty, should be appeased.
The first place which the prince
directed his course to was Tarsus, and hearing that the city of
Tarsus was at that time suffering under a severe famine, he took
with him a store of provisions for its relief. On his arrival he
found the city reduced to the utmost distress; and, he coming like
a messenger from heaven with his unhoped-for succour, Cleon, the
governor of Tarsus, welcomed him with boundless thanks. Pericles
had not been here many days, before letters came from his faithful
minister, warning him that it was not safe for him to stay at
Tarsus, for Antiochus knew of his abode, and by secret emissaries
despatched for that purpose sought his life. Upon receipt of these
letters Pericles put out to sea again, amidst the blessings and
prayers of a whole people who had been fed by his bounty.
He had not sailed far, when his
ship was overtaken by a dreadful storm, and every man on board
perished except Pericles, who was cast by the sea-waves naked on
an unknown shore, where he had not wandered long before he met
with some poor fishermen, who invited him to their homes, giving
him clothes and provisions. The fishermen told Pericles the name
of their country was Pentapolis, and that their king was Simonides,
commonly called the good Simonides, because of his peaceable reign
and good government. From them he also learned that king Simonides
had a fair young daughter, and that the following day was her
birthday, when a grand tournament was to be held at court, many
princes and knights being come from all parts to try their skill
in arms for the love of Thaisa, this fair princess. While the
prince was listening to this account, and secretly lamenting the
loss of his good armour, which disabled him from making one among
these valiant knights, another fisherman brought in a complete
suit of armour that he had taken out of the sea with his
fishing-net, which proved to be the very armour he had lost. When
Pericles beheld his own armour, he said: 'Thanks, Fortune; after
all my crosses you give me somewhat to repair myself. This armour
was bequeathed to me by my dead father, for whose dear sake I have
so loved it that whithersoever I went, I still have kept it by me,
and the rough sea that parted it from me, having now become calm,
hath given it back again, for which I thank it for, since I have
my father's gift again, I think my shipwreck no misfortune.'
The next day Pericles clad in his
brave father's armour, repaired to the royal court of Simonides,
where he performed wonders at the tournament, vanquishing with
ease all the brave knights and valiant princes who contended with
him in arms for the honour of Thaisa's love. When brave warriors
contended at court tournaments for the love of kings' daughters,
if one proved sole victor over all the rest, it was usual for the
great lady for whose sake these deeds of valour were undertaken,
to bestow all her respect upon the conqueror, and Thaisa did not
depart from this custom, for she presently dismissed all the
princes and knights whom Pericles had vanquished, and
distinguished him by her especial favour and regard, crowning him
with the wreath of victory, as king of that day's happiness; and
Pericles became a most passionate lover of this beauteous princess
from the first moment he beheld her.
The good Simonides so well approved
of the valour and noble qualities of Pericles, who was indeed a
most accomplished gentleman, and well learned in all excellent
arts, that though he knew not the rank of this royal stranger (for
Pericles for fear of Antiochus gave out that he was a private
gentleman of Tyre), yet did not Simonides disdain to accept of the
valiant unknown for a son-in-law, when he perceived his daughter's
affections were firmly fixed upon him.
Pericles had not been many months
married to Thaisa, before he received intelligence that his enemy
Antiochus was dead; and that his subjects of Tyre, impatient of
his long absence, threatened to revolt, and talked of placing
Helicanus upon his vacant throne. This news came from Helicanus
himself, who, being a loyal subject to his royal master, would not
accept of the high dignity offered him, but sent to let Pericles
know their intentions, that he might return home and resume his
lawful right. It was matter of great surprise and joy to Simonides,
to find that his son-in-law (the obscure knight) was the renowned
prince of Tyre; yet again he regretted that he was not the private
gentleman he supposed him to be, seeing that he must now part both
with his admired son-in-law and his beloved daughter, whom he
feared to trust to the perils of the sea, because Thaisa was with
child; and Pericles himself wished her to remain with her father
till after her confinement, but the poor lady so earnestly desired
to go with her husband, that at last they consented, hoping she
would reach Tyre before she was brought to bed.
The sea was no friendly element to
unhappy Pericles, for long before they reached Tyre another
dreadful tempest arose, which so terrified Thaisa that she was
taken ill, and in a short space of time her nurse Lychorida came
to Pericles with a little child in her arms, to tell the prince
the sad tidings that his wife died the moment her little babe was
born. She held the babe towards its father, saying: 'Here is a
thing too young for such a place. This is the child of your dead
queen.' No tongue can tell the dreadful sufferings of Pericles
when he heard his wife was dead. As soon as he could speak, he
said: 'O you gods, why do you make us love your goodly gifts, and
then snatch those gifts away?' 'Patience, good sir,' said
Lychorida, 'here is all that is left alive of our dead queen, a
little daughter, and for your child's sake be more manly.
Patience, good sir, even for the sake of this precious charge.'
Pericles took the new-born infant in his arms, and he said to the
little babe: 'Now may your life be mild, for a more blusterous
birth had never babe! May your condition be mild and gentle, for
you have had the rudest welcome that ever prince's child did meet
with! May that which follows be happy, for you have had as chiding
a nativity as fire, air, water, earth, and heaven could make to
herald you from the womb! Even at the first, your loss,' meaning
in the death of her mother, 'is more than all the joys, which you
shall find upon this earth to which you are come a new visitor,
shall be able to recompense.'
The storm still continuing to rage
furiously, and the sailors having a superstition that while a dead
body remained in the ship the storm would never cease, they came
to Pericles to demand that his queen should be thrown overboard;
and they said: 'What courage,sir? God save you!' 'Courage enough,'
said the sorrowing prince: 'I do not fear the storm; it has done
to me its worst; yet for the love of this poor infant, this fresh
new seafarer, I wish the storm was over.' 'Sir,' said the sailors
'your queen must overboard. The sea works high, the wind is loud,
and the storm will not abate till the ship be cleared of the
dead.' Though Pericles knew how weak and unfounded this
superstition was, yet he patiently submitted, saying: 'As you
think meet. Then she must overboard, most wretched queen!' And now
this unhappy prince went to take a last view of his dear wife, and
as he looked on his Thaisa, he said: 'A terrible childbed hast
thou had, my dear; no light, no fire; the unfriendly elements
forget thee utterly, nor have I time to bring thee hallowed to thy
grave, but must cast thee scarcely coffined into the sea, where
for a monument upon thy bones the humming waters must overwhelm
thy corpse, lying with simple shells. 0 Lychorida, bid Nestor
bring me spices, ink, and paper, my casket and my jewels, and bid
Nicandor bring me the satin coffin. Lay the babe upon the pillow,
and go about this suddenly, Lychorida, while I say a priestly
farewell to my Thaisa.'
They brought Pericles a large
chest, in which (wrapped in a satin shroud) he placed his queen,
and sweet-smelling spices he strewed over her, and beside her he
placed rich jewels, and a written paper, telling who she was, and
praying if haply any one should find the chest which contained the
body of his wife, they would give her burial: and then with his
own hands he cast the chest into the sea. When the storm was over,
Pericles ordered the sailors to make for Tarsus. 'For,' said
Pericles, 'the babe cannot hold out till we come to Tyre. At
Tarsus I will leave it at careful nursing.'
After that tempestuous night when
Thaisa was thrown into the sea, and while it was yet early
morning, as Cerimon, a worthy gentleman of Ephesus, and a most
skilful physician, was standing by the sea-side, his servants
brought to him a chest, which they said the sea-waves had thrown
on the land. 'I never saw,' said one of them, 'so huge a billow as
cast it on our shore.' Cerimon ordered the chest to be conveyed to
his own house, and when it was opened he beheld with wonder the
body of a young and lovely lady; and the sweet-smelling spices and
rich casket of jewels made him conclude it was some great person
who was thus strangely entombed: searching farther, he discovered
a paper, from which he learned that the corpse which lay as dead
before him had been a queen, and wife to Pericles, prince of Tyre;
and much admiring at the strangeness of that accident, and more
pitying the husband who had lost this sweet lady, he said: 'If you
are living, Pericles, you have a heart that even cracks with woe.'
Then observing attentively Thaisa's face, he saw how fresh and
unlike death her looks were, and he said: 'They were too hasty
that threw you into the sea': for he did not believe her to be
dead. He ordered a fire to be made, and proper cordials to be
brought, and soft music to be played, which might help to calm her
amazed spirits if she should revive; and he said to those who
crowded round her, wondering at what they saw: 'I pray you,
gentlemen, give her air; this queen will live; she has not been
entranced above five hours; and see, she begins to blow into life
again; she is alive; behold, her eyelids move; this fair creature
will live to make us weep to hear her fate.' Thaisa had never
died, but after the birth of her little baby had fallen into a
deep swoon, which made all that saw her conclude her to be dead;
and now by the care of this kind gentleman she once more revived
to light and life; and opening her eyes, she said: 'Where am I?
Where is my lord? What world is this?' By gentle degrees Cerimon
let her understand what had befallen her; and when he thought she
was enough recovered to bear the sight, he showed her the paper
written by her husband, and the jewels; and she looked on the
paper, and said: 'It is my lord's writing. That I was shipped at
sea, I well remember, but whether there delivered of my babe, by
the holy gods I cannot rightly say; but since my wedded lord I
never shall see again, I will put on a vestal livery, and never
more have joy.' 'Madam,' said Cerimon, 'if you purpose as you
speak, the temple of Diana is not far distant from hence; there
you may abide as a vestal. Moreover, if you please, a niece of
mine shall there attend you.' This proposal was accepted with
thanks by Thaisa; and when she was perfectly recovered, Cerimon
placed her in the temple of Diana, where she became a vestal or
priestess of that goddess, and passed her days in sorrowing for
her husband's supposed loss, and in the most devout exercises of
those times.
Pericles carried his young daughter
(whom he named Marina, because she was born at sea) to Tarsus,
intending to leave her with Cleon, the governor of that city, and
his wife Dionysia, thinking, for the good he had done to them at
the time of their famine, they would be kind to his little
motherless daughter. When Cleon saw prince Pericles, and heard of
the great loss which had befallen him, he said: 'O your sweet
queen, that it had pleased Heaven you could have brought her
hither to have blessed my eyes with the sight of her!' Pericles
replied: 'We must obey the powers above us. Should I rage and roar
as the sea does in which my Thaisa lies, yet the end must be as it
is. My gentle babe, Marina here, I must charge your charity with
her. I leave her the infant of your care, beseeching you to give
her princely training.' And then turning to Cleon's wife, Dionysia,
he said: 'Good madam, make me blessed in your care in bringing up
my child': and she answered: 'I have a child myself who shall not
be more dear to my respect than yours, my lord'; and Cleon made
the like promise, saying: 'Your noble services, prince Pericles,
in feeding my whole people with your corn (for which in their
prayers they daily remember you) must in your child be thought on.
If I should neglect your child, my whole people that were by you
relieved would force me to my duty; but if to that I need a spur,
the gods revenge it on me and mine to the end of generation.'
Pericles, being thus assured that his child would be carefully
attended to, left her to the protection of Cleon and his wife
Dionysia, and with her he left the nurse Lychorida. When he went
away, the little Marina knew not her loss, but Lychorida wept
sadly at parting with her royal master. 'O, no tears, Lychorida,'
said Pericles: 'no tears; look to your little mistress, on whose
grace you may depend hereafter.'
Pericles arrived in safety at Tyre,
and was once more settled in the quiet possession of his throne,
while his woeful queen, whom he thought dead, remained at Ephesus.
Her little babe Marina, whom this hapless mother had never seen,
was brought up by Cleon in a manner suitable to her high birth. He
gave her the most careful education, so that by the time Marina
attained the age of fourteen years, the most deeply learned men
were not more studied in the learning of those times than was
Marina. She sang like one immortal, and danced as goddesslike, and
with her needle she was so skilful that she seemed to compose
nature's own shapes, in birds, fruits, or flowers, the natural
roses being scarcely more like to each other than they were to
Marina's silken flowers. But when she had gained from education
all these graces, which made her the general wonder, Dionysia, the
wife of Cleon, became her mortal enemy from jealousy, by reason
that her own daughter, from the slowness of her mind, was not able
to attain to that perfection wherein Marina excelled: and finding
that all praise was bestowed on Marina, whilst her daughter, who
was of the same age, and had been educated with the same care as
Marina, though not with the same success, was in comparison
disregarded, she formed a project to remove Marina out of the way,
vainly imagining that her untoward daughter would be more
respected when Marina was no more seen. To encompass this she
employed a man to murder Marina, and she well timed her wicked
design, when Lychorida, the faithful nurse, had just died.
Dionysia was discoursing with the man she had commanded to commit
this murder, when the young Marina was weeping over the dead
Lychorida. Leonine, the man she employed to do this bad deed,
though he was a very wicked man, could hardly be persuaded to
undertake it, so had Marina won all hearts to love her. He said:
'She is a goodly creature!' 'The fitter then the gods should have
her,' replied her merciless enemy: 'here she comes weeping for the
death of her nurse Lychorida: are you resolved to obey me?'
Leonine, fearing to disobey her, replied: 'I am resolved.' And so,
in that one short sentence, was the matchless Marina doomed to an
untimely death. She now approached, with a basket of flowers in
her hand, which she said she would daily strew over the grave of
good Lychorida. The purple violet and the marigold should as a
carpet hang upon her grave, while summer days did last. 'Alas, for
me!' she said, 'poor unhappy maid, born in a tempest, when my
mother died. This world to me is like a lasting storm, hurrying me
from my friends.' 'How now, Marina,' said the dissembling Dionysia,
'do you weep alone? How does it chance my daughter is not with
you? Do not sorrow for Lychorida, you have a nurse in me. Your
beauty is quite changed with this unprofitable woe. Come, give me
your flowers, the sea-air will spoil them; and walk with Leonine:
the air is fine, and will enliven you. Come, Leonine, take her by
the arm, and walk with her. "No, madam,' said Marina, 'I pray you
let me not deprive you of your servant': for Leonine was one of
Dionysia's attendants. 'Come, come,' said this artful woman, who
wished for a pretence to leave her alone with Leonine, 'I love the
prince, your father, and I love you. We every day expect your
father here; and when he comes, and finds you so changed by grief
from the paragon of beauty we reported you, he will think we have
taken no care of you. Go, I pray you, walk, and be cheerful once
again. Be careful of that excellent complexion, which stole the
hearts of old and young.' Marina, being thus importuned, said:
'Well, I will go, but yet I have no desire to it.' As Dionysia
walked away, she said to Leonine: 'Remember what I have said!'
- shocking words, for their meaning was that he should
remember to kill Marina.
Marina looked towards the sea, her
birthplace, and said: 'Is the wind westerly that blows?'
'South-west,' replied Leonine. 'When I was bom the wind was
north,' said she: and then the storm and tempest, and all her
father's sorrows, and her mother's death, came full into her mind;
and she said: 'My father, as Lychorida told me, did never fear,
but cried, Courage, good seamen, to the sailors, galling
his princely hands with the ropes, and, clasping to the masts, he
endured a sea that almost split the deck.' 'When was this?' said
Leonine. 'When I was born,' replied Marina: 'never were wind and
waves more violent'; and then she described the storm, the action
of the sailors, the boatswain's whistle, and the loud call of the
master, 'which,' said she, 'trebled the confusion of the ship.'
Lychorida had so often recounted to Marina the story of her
hapless birth that these things seemed ever present to her
imagination. But here Leonine interrupted her with desiring her to
say her prayers. 'What mean you?' said Marina, who began to fear,
she knew not why. 'If you require a little space for prayer, I
grant it,' said Leonine; 'but be not tedious, the gods are quick
of ear, and I am sworn to do my Work in haste.' 'Will you kill
me?' said Marina: 'alas! why?' 'To satisfy my lady,' replied
Leonine. 'Why would she have me killed?' said Marina: 'now, as I
can remember, I never hurt her in all my life. I never spake bad
word, nor did any ill turn to any living creature. Believe me now,
I never killed a mouse, nor hurt a fly. I trod upon a worm once
against my will, but I wept for it. How have I offended?' The
murderer replied: 'My commission is not to reason on the deed, but
to do it.' And he was just going to kill her, when certain pirates
happened to land at that very moment, who seeing Marina, bore her
off as a prize to their ship.
The pirate who had made Marina his
prize carried her to Mitylene, and sold her for a slave, where,
though in that humble condition, Marina soon became known
throughout the whole city of Mitylene for her beauty and her
virtues; and the person to whom she was sold became rich by the
money she earned for him. She taught music, dancing, and fine
needleworks, and the money she got by her scholars she gave to her
master and mistress; and the fame of her learning and her great
industry came to the knowledge of Lysimachus a young nobleman who
was governor of Mitylene, and Lysimachus went himself to the house
where Marina dwelt, to see this paragon of excellence, whom all
the city praised so highly. Her conversation delighted Lysimachus
beyond measure, for though he had heard much of this admired
maiden, he did not expect to find her so sensible a lady, so
virtuous, and so good, as he perceived Marina to be; and he left
her, saying, he hoped she would persevere in her industrious and
virtuous course, and that if ever she heard from him again it
should be for her good. Lysimachus thought Marina such a miracle
for sense, fine breeding, and excellent qualities, as well as for
beauty and all outward graces, that he wished to marry her, and
notwithstanding her humble situation, he hoped to find that her
birth was noble; but ever when they asked her parentage she would
sit still and weep.
Meantime, at Tarsus, Leonine,
fearing the anger of Dionysia, told her he had killed Marina; and
that wicked woman gave out that she was dead, and made a pretended
funeral for her, and erected a stately monument; and shortly after
Pericles, accompanied by his royal minister Helicanus, made a
voyage from Tyre to Tarsus, on purpose to see his daughter,
intending to take her home with him: and he never having beheld
her since he left her an infant in the care of Cleon and his wife,
how did this good prince rejoice at the thought of seeing this
dear child of his buried queen! but when they told him Marina was
dead, and showed the monument they had erected for her, great was
the misery this most wretched father endured, and not being able
to bear the sight of that country where his last hope and only
memory of his dear Thaisa was entombed, he took ship, and hastily
departed from Tarsus. From the day he entered the ship a dull and
heavy melancholy seized him. He never spoke, and seemed totally
insensible to everything around him.
Sailing from Tarsus to Tyre, the
ship in its course passed by Mitylene, where Marina dwelt; the
governor of which place, Lysimachus, observing this royal vessel
from the shore, and desirous of knowing who was on board, went in
a barge to the side of the ship, to satisfy his curiosity.
Helicanus received him very courteously and told him that the ship
came from Tyre, and that they were conducting thither Pericles,
their prince; 'A man, sir,' said Helicanus, 'who has not spoken to
any one these three months, nor taken any sustenance, but just to
prolong his grief; it would be tedious to repeat the whole ground
of his distemper, but the main springs from the loss of a beloved
daughter and a wife.' Lysimachus begged to see this afflicted
prince, and when he beheld Pericles, he saw he had been once a
goodly person, and he said to him: 'Sir king, all hail, the gods
preserve you, hail, royal sir!' But in vain Lysimachus spoke to
him; Pericles made no answer, nor did he appear to perceive any
stranger approached. And then Lysimachus bethought him of the
peerless maid Marina, that haply with her sweet tongue she might
win some answer from the silent prince: and with the consent of
Helicanus he sent for Marina, and when she entered the ship in
which her own father sat motionless with grief, they welcomed her
on board as if they had known she was their princess; and they
cried: 'She is a gallant lady.' Lysimachus was well pleased to
hear their commendations, and he said: 'She is such a one, that
were I well assured she came of noble birth, I would wish no
better choice, and think me rarely blessed in a wife.' And then he
addressed her in courtly terms, as if the lowly seeming maid had
been the high-born lady he wished to find her, calling her Fair
and beautiful Marina, telling her a great prince on board that
ship had fallen into a sad and mournful silence; and, as if Marina
had the power of conferring health and felicity, he begged she
would undertake to cure the royal stranger of his melancholy.
'Sir,' said Marina, 'I will use my utmost skill in his recovery,
provided none but I and my maid be suffered to come near him.'
She, who at Mitylene had so
carefully concealed her birth, ashamed to tell that one of royal
ancestry was now a slave, first began to speak to Pericles of the
wayward changes in her own fate, telling him from what a high
estate herself had fallen. As if she had known it was her royal
father she stood before, all the words she spoke were of her own
sorrows; but her reason for so doing was, that she knew nothing
more wins the attention of the unfortunate than the recital of
some sad calamity to match their own. The sound of her sweet voice
aroused the drooping prince; he lifted up his eyes, which had been
so long fixed and motionless; and Marina, who was the perfect
image of her mother, presented to his amazed sight the features of
his dead queen. The long-silent prince was once more heard to
speak. 'My dearest wife,' said the awakened Pericles, 'was like
this maid, and such a one might my daughter have been. My queen's
square brows, her stature to an inch, as wand-like straight, as
silver-voiced, her eyes as jewel-like. Where do you live, young
maid? Report your parentage. I think you said you had been tossed
from wrong to injury and that you thought your griefs would equal
mine, if both were opened.' 'Some such thing I said,' replied
Marina, 'and said no more than what my thoughts did warrant me as
likely.' 'Tell me your story,' answered Pericles; 'if I find you
have known the thousandth part of my endurance, you have borne
your sorrows like a man, and I have suffered like a girl; yet you
do look like Patience gazing on kings' graves, and smiling
extremity out of act. How lost you your name, my most kind virgin?
Recount your story I beseech you. Come, sit by me.' How was
Pericles surprised when she said her name was Marina, for
he knew it was no usual name, but had been invented by himself for
his own child to signify seaborn: 'O, I am mocked,' said
he, 'and you are sent hither by some incensed god to make the
world laugh at me.' 'Patience, good sir,' said Marina, 'or I must
cease here.' 'Nay,' said Pericles, 'I will be patient; you little
know how you do startle me, to call yourself Marina.' 'The name,'
she replied, 'was given me by one that had some power, my father,
and a king.' 'How, a king's daughter!' said Pericles, 'and called
Marina! But are you flesh and blood? Are you no fairy? Speak on;
where were you born? and wherefore called Marina?' She replied: 'I
was called Marina, because I was born at sea. My mother was the
daughter of a king; she died the minute I was born, as my good
nurse Lychorida has often told me weeping. The king, my father,
left me at Tarsus, till the cruel wife of Cleon sought to murder
me. A crew of pirates came and rescued me, and brought me here to
Mitylene. But, good sir, why do you weep? It may be, you think me
an impostor. But, indeed, sir, I am the daughter to king Pericles,
if good king Pericles be living.' Then Pericles, terrified as he
seemed at his own sudden joy, and doubtful if this could be real,
loudly called for his attendants, who rejoiced at the sound of
their beloved king's voice; and he said to Helicanus: 'O Helicanus,
strike me, give me a gash, put me to present pain, lest this great
sea of joys rushing upon me, overbear the shores of my mortality.
O, come hither, thou that wast bom at sea, buried at Tarsus, and
found at sea again. O Helicanus, down on your knees, thank the
holy gods! This is Marina. Now blessings on thee, my child! Give
me fresh garments, mine own Helicanus! She is not dead at
Tarsus as she should have been by the savage Dionysia. She shall
tell you all, when you shall kneel to her and call her your very
princess. Who is this?'(observing Lysimachus for the first time).
'Sir,' said Helicanus, 'it is the governor of Mitylene, who,
hearing of your melancholy, came to see you.' 'I embrace you,
sir,' said Pericles. 'Give me my robes! I am wild with beholding -
O heaven bless my girl! But hark, what music is that?' - for now,
either sent by some kind god, or by his own delighted fancy
deceived, he seemed to hear soft music. 'My lord, I hear none,'
replied Helicanus. 'None?' said Pericles; 'why it is the music of
the spheres.' As there was no music to be heard, Lysimachus
concluded that the sudden joy had unsettled the prince's
understanding; and he said: 'It is not good to cross him: let him
have his way': and then they told him they heard the music; and he
now complaining of a drowsy slumber coming over him, Lysimachus
persuaded him to rest on a couch, and placing a pillow under his
head, he, quite overpowered with excess of joy, sank into a sound
sleep, and Marina watched in silence by the couch of her sleeping
parent.
While he slept, Pericles dreamed
a dream which made him resolve to go to Ephesus. His dream
was, that Diana, the goddess of the Ephesians, appeared to hixn,
and commanded him to go to her temple at Ephesus, and there before
her altar to declare the story of his life and misfortunes; and by
her silver bow she swore, that if he performed her injunction, he
should meet with some rare felicity. When he awoke; being
miraculously refreshed, he told his dream, and that his resolution
was to obey the bidding of the goddess.
Then Lysimachus invited Pericles to
come on shore, and refresh himself with such entertainment as he
should find at Mitylene, which courteous offer Pericles accepting,
agreed to tarry with him for the space of a day or two. During
which time we may well suppose what feastings, what rejoicings,
what costly shows and entertainments the governor made in Mitylene,
to greet the royal father of his dear Marina, whom in her obscure
fortunes he had so respected. Nor did Pericles frown upon
Lysimachus's suit, when he understood how he had honoured his
child in the days of her low estate, and that Marina showed
herself not averse to his proposals; only he made it a condition,
before he gave his consent, that they should visit with him the
shrine of the Ephesian Diana: to whose temple they shortly after
all three undertook a voyage; and, the goddess herself filling
their sails with prosperous winds, after a few weeks they arrived
in safety at Ephesus.
There was standing near the altar
of the goddess, when Pericles with his train entered the temple,
the good Cerimon (now grown very aged) who had restored Thaisa,
the wife of Pericles, to life; and Thaisa, now a priestess of the
temple, was standing before the altar; and though the many years
he had passed in sorrow for her loss had much altered Pericles,
Thaisa thought she knew her husband's features, and when he
approached the altar and began to speak, she remembered his voice,
and listened to his words with wonder and a joyful amazement. And
these were the words that Pericles spoke before the altar: 'Hail,
Diana! to perform thy just commands, I here confess myself the
prince of Tyre, who, frighted from my country, at Pentapolis
wedded the fair Thaisa: she died at sea in childbed, but brought
forth a maid child called Marina. She at Tarsus was nursed with
Dionysia, who at fourteen years thought to kill her, but her
better stars brought her to Mitylene, by whose shores as I sailed,
her good fortunes brought this maid on board, where by her most
clear remembrance she made herself known to be my daughter.'
Thaisa, unable to bear the
transports which his words had raised in her, cried out: 'You are,
you are, 0 royal Pericles' - and fainted. 'What means this woman?'
said Pericles: 'she dies! gentlemen, help.' 'Sir,' said Cerimon,
'if you have told Diana's altar true, this is your wife.'
'Reverend gentleman, no,' said Pericles: 'I threw her overboard
with these very arms.' Cerimon then recounted how, early one
tempestuous morning, this lady was thrown upon the Ephesian shore;
how, opening the coffin, he found therein rich jewels, and a
paper; how, happily, he recovered her, and placed her here in
Diana's temple. And now, Thaisa being restored from her swoon
said: 'O my lord, are you not Pericles? Like him you speak, like
him you are. Did you not name a tempest, a birth, and death?' He
astonished said: 'The voice of dead Thaisa!' 'That Thaisa am I,'
she replied, 'supposed dead and drowned.' 'O true Diana!'
exclaimed Pericles, in a passion of devout astonishment. 'And
now,' said Thaisa, 'I know you better. Such a ring as I see on
your finger did the king my father give you, when we with tears
parted from him at Pentapolis.' 'Enough, you gods!' cried Pericles,
'your present kindness makes my past miseries sport. 0 come,
Thaisa, be buried a second time within these arms.'
And Marina said: 'My heart leaps to
be gone into my mother's bosom.'Then did Pericles show his
daughter to her mother, saying: 'Look who kneels here, flesh of
thy flesh, thy burthen at sea, and called Marina, because she was
yielded there.' 'Blessed and my own!' said Thaisa: and while she
hung in rapturous joy over her child, Pericles knelt before the
altar, saying: 'Pure Diana, bless thee for thy vision. For this, I
will offer ablations nightly to thee.' And then and there did
Pericles, with the consent of Thaisa, solemnly affiance their
daughter, the virtuous Marina, to the well-deserving Lysimachus in
marriage.
Thus have we seen in Pericles, his
queen, and daughter, a famous example of virtue assailed by
calamity (through the sufferance of Heaven, to teach patience and
constancy to men), under the same guidance becoming finally
successful, and triumphing over chance and change. In Helicanus we
have beheld a notable pattern of truth, of faith, and loyalty,
who, when he might have succeeded to a throne, chose rather to
recall the rightful owner to his possession, than to become great
by another's wrong. In the worthy Cerimon, who restored Thaisa to
life, we are instructed how goodness directed by knowledge, in
bestowing benefits upon mankind, approaches to the nature of the
gods. It only remains to be told, that Dionysia, the wicked wife
of Cleon, met with an end proportionable to her deserts; the
inhabitants of Tarsus, when her cruel attempt upon Marina was
known, rising in a body to revenge the daughter of their
benefactor, and setting fire to the palace of Cleon, burnt both
him and her, and their whole household: the gods seeming well
pleased, that so foul a murder, though but intentional, and never
carried into act, should be punished in a way befitting its
enormity. |