| |
Enter GOWER. | |
| Imagine Pericles arriv’d at Tyre, | |
| Welcom’d and settled to his own desire. | |
| His woeful queen we leave at Ephesus, | |
| Unto Diana there a votaress. | 5 |
| Now to Marina bend your mind, | |
| Whom our fast-growing scene must find | |
| At Tarsus, and by Cleon train’d | |
| In music, letters; who hath gain’d | |
| Of education all the grace, | 10 |
| 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. | 15 |
| And in this kind hath our Cleon | |
| One daughter, and a wench full grown, | |
| Even ripe for marriage-rite; this maid | |
| Hight Philoten, and it is said | |
| For certain in our story, she | 20 |
| Would ever with Marina be: | |
| Be ’t when she weav’d the sleided silk | |
| With fingers, long, small, white as milk, | |
| Or when she would with sharp neeld wound | |
| The cambric, which she made more sound | 25 |
| By hurting it; 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 | 30 |
| This Philoten contends in skill | |
| With absolute Marina: so | |
| With the dove of Paphos might the crow | |
| Vie feathers white. Marina gets | |
| All praises, which are paid as debts, | 35 |
| 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 | 40 |
| 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 | 45 |
| 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 rime; | |
| Which never could I so convey, | 50 |
| Unless your thoughts went on my way. | |
| Dionyza doth appear, | |
| With Leonine, a murderer. [Exit. | |
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