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Tarsus. A room in CLEON's house.
[Enter CLEON and DIONYZA]
DIONYZA
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Why are | you fool|ish? Can | it be | undone?
CLEON
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O Di|onyz|a, such a | piece of | slaughter,
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The sun | and moon | nere looked upon.
DIONYZA
I think you'll turn a child again.
CLEON
Were I chief lord of all this spacious world, I'd give it to undo the deed.
O lady, much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess to equal any single
crown of the earth, in the justice of compare, O villain, Leonine, whom thou
hast poisoned too, if thou hadst drunk to him, it had been a kindness
becoming well thy face, 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 thinks the pretty wrens of Tarsus will fly hence,
and open this to Pericles; I do shame to think of what a noble strain you
are, and of how coward a spirit.
CLEON
To such proceeding, who ever but his approbation added, though not his prime
consent, he did not flow from honorable sources.
DIONYZA
Be it so then, yet none doth know but you how she came dead, nor none can
know, Leonine being gone. She did disdain my child, and stood between her
and her fortunes: none would look on her, but cast their gazes on Marina's
face, whilst ours was blurred at, and held a malkin, not worth the time of
day. It pierced me through, and though you call my course unnatural, you not
your child well loving, yet I find it greets me as an enterprise of kindness
performed to your sole daughter.
CLEON
Heavens forgive it.
DIONYZA
And as for Pericles, what should he say? We wept after her hearse, and yet
we mourn: her monument is almost finished, and her epitaph in glittering
golden characters, express a general praise to her, and care in us, at whose
expense 'tis done.
CLEON
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Thou art | like the | harpy, \\
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Which to | betray,| dost with | thine ang|el's
face,
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Seize with | thine eag|le's tal|ons. \\
DIONYZA
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You are like one,| that sup|erstit|iously
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Doth swear | to the gods,| that wint|er kills |
the flies,
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But yet | I know,| you'll do | as I | advise.
[Exeunt]