Pericles

gone through for this piece, you see: if you like her, so; if not, I have lost my earnest. Bawd Boult, has she any qualities? Boult She has a good face, speaks well, and has excellent good clothes: there’s no further necessity of qualities can make her be refused. Bawd What’s her price, Boult? Boult I cannot be bated one doit of a thousand pieces. Pandar Well, follow me, my masters, you shall have your money presently. Wife, take her in; instruct her what she has to do, that she may not be raw in her entertainment. Exeunt Pandar and Pirates. Bawd Boult, take you the marks of her, the colour of her hair, complexion, height, age, with warrant of her virginity; and cry “He that will give most shall have her first.” Such a maidenhead were no cheap thing, if men were as they have been. Get this done as I command you. Boult Performance shall follow. Exit. Marina

Alack that Leonine was so slack, so slow!
He should have struck, not spoke; or that these pirates,
Not enough barbarous, had not o’erboard thrown me
For to seek my mother!

Bawd Why lament you, pretty one? Marina That I am pretty. Bawd Come, the gods have done their part in you. Marina I accuse them not. Bawd You are light into my hands, where you are like to live. Marina

The more my fault
To scape his hands where I was like to die.

Bawd Ay, and you shall live in pleasure. Marina No. Bawd Yes, indeed shall you, and taste gentlemen of all fashions: you shall fare well; you shall have the difference of all complexions. What! do you stop your ears? Marina Are you a woman? Bawd What would you have me be, an I be not a woman? Marina An honest woman, or not a woman. Bawd Marry, whip thee, gosling: I think I shall have something to do with you. Come, you’re a young foolish sapling, and must be bowed as I would have you. Marina The gods defend me! Bawd If it please the gods to defend you by men, then men must comfort you, men must feed you, men must stir you up. Boult’s returned. Re-enter Boult. Now, sir, hast thou cried her through the market? Boult I have cried her almost to the number of her hairs; I have drawn her picture with my voice. Bawd And I prithee tell me, how dost thou find the inclination of the people, especially of the younger sort? Boult ’Faith, they listened to me as they would have hearkened to their father’s testament. There was a Spaniard’s mouth so watered, that he went to bed to her very description. Bawd We shall have him here to-morrow with his best ruff on. Boult To-night, to-night. But, mistress, do you know the French knight that cowers i’ the hams? Bawd Who, Monsieur Veroles? Boult Ay, he: he offered to cut a caper at the proclamation; but he made a groan at it, and swore he would see her to-morrow. Bawd Well, well; as for him, he brought his disease hither: here he does but repair it. I know he will come in our shadow, to scatter his crowns in the sun. Boult Well, if we had of every nation a traveller, we should lodge them with this sign. Bawd To Marina. Pray you, come hither awhile. You have fortunes coming upon you. Mark me: you must seem to do that fearfully which you commit willingly, despise profit where you have most gain. To weep that you live as ye do makes pity in your lovers: seldom but that pity begets you a good opinion, and that opinion a mere profit. Marina I understand you not. Boult O, take her home, mistress, take her home: these blushes of hers must be quenched with some present practise. Bawd Thou sayest true, i’ faith, so they must; for your bride goes to that with shame which is her way to go with warrant. Boult ’Faith, some do, and some do not. But, mistress, if I have bargained for the joint⁠— Bawd Thou mayst cut a morsel off the spit. Boult I may so. Bawd Who should deny it? Come, young one, I like the manner of your garments well. Boult Ay, by my faith, they shall not be changed yet. Bawd Boult, spend thou that in the town: report what a sojourner we have; you’ll lose nothing by custom. When nature flamed this piece, she meant thee a good turn; therefore say what a paragon she is, and thou hast the harvest out of thine own report. Boult I warrant you, mistress, thunder shall not so awake the beds of eels as my giving out her beauty stir up the lewdly-inclined. I’ll bring home some to-night. Bawd Come your ways; follow me. Marina

If fires be hot, knives sharp, or waters deep,
Untied I still my virgin knot will keep.
Diana, aid my purpose!

Bawd What have we to do with Diana? Pray you, will you go with us? Exeunt.

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