Ant. Prince Pericles, touch not,12 upon thy life,
For that's an article within our law,

As dangerous as the rest. Your time's expired:
Either expound now, or receive your sentence.
Per. Great King,

Few love to hear the sins they love to act;

'Twould braid 13 yourself too near for me to tell it.
Who has a book of all that monarchs do,

He's more secure to keep it shut than shown:
For vice repeated is like the wandering wind,
Blows dust in others' eyes, to spread itself;
And yet the end of all is bought thus dear,
The breath is gone, and the sore eyes see clear

To stop the air would hurt them.14 The blind mole casts
Copp'd hills towards heaven, to tell the Earth is throng'd
By man's oppression; and the poor worm doth die for't.15
Kings are earth's gods; in vice their law's their will;
And, if Jove stray, who dares say Jove doth ill?
It is enough you know; and it is fit,

12 This is a stroke of nature. The incestuous king cannot bear to see a rival touch the hand of the woman he loves.

13 To braid was sometimes used with the sense of to upbraid. So in Sir Thomas More's Works: "He bringeth to the mater neither any substaunciall learning, nor yet anye proofe of reason or natural wytte, but onely a rashe, maliciouse, franticke braide."

14 "The man who knows the ill practices of princes is unwise if he reveals what he knows; for the publisher of vicious actions resembles the wind, which, while it passes along, blows dust into men's eyes. When the blast is over, the eyes that have been affected by the dust, though sore, see clear enough to stop for the future the air that would annoy them."

15" Copp'd hills" are hills rising in a conical form, something of the shape of a sugar-loaf. Thus in Horman's Vulgaria, 1519: Sometime men wear copped caps like a sugar loaf." So Baret: "To make copped, or sharpe at top; cacumino." -The mole is called poor worm as a term of commiseration. In The Tempest, Prospero, speaking to Miranda, says, "Poor worm, thou art infected." The mole remains secure till it has thrown up those hillocks which betray his course to the mole-catcher.

What being more known grows worse, to smother it.
All love the womb that their first being bred,

Then give my tongue like leave to love my head.

Ant. [Aside.] Heaven, that I had thy head! he has found the meaning:

But I will gloze 16 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.

Per. 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 17 now you're both a father and a son
By your untimely claspings with your child,
Which pleasure fits a 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

16 To cajole, to wheedle, to flatter are among the old meanings of to gloze. See vol. x. page 161, note 2.

17 Where for whereas. The two were often used indiscriminately.

Blush not in actions blacker than the night,

Will shun no course to keep them from the light.18
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'll shun the danger which I fear.

Re-enter ANTIOCHUS.

[Exit.

Ant. He hath found the meaning, for the 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.

Thal.

Ant. Thaliard,

Doth your Highness call?

You're of our chamber, and our mind partakes
Her private actions to your secrecy ;19

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't done?

Thal.

'Tis done.

My lord,

18 The language is elliptical: "For wisdom sees that those men who do not blush to commit actions blacker than the night, will not shun any course to keep them from being known."

19 To partake in the sense of to impart. See vol. vii. page 267, note 8.

Ant. Enough. —

Enter a Messenger.

Let your breath cool yourself, telling your haste.
Mess. My lord, Prince Pericles is fled.
Ant.

As thou

Wilt live, fly after; and, like 20 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.

Thal. My lord,

If I can get him within my pistol's length,

[Exit.

I'll make him sure enough: so, farewell to your Highness. Ant. Thaliard, adieu! [Exit THAL.] Till Pericles be dead My heart can lend no succour to my head.

[Exit.

SCENE II. Tyre.

A Room in the Palace.

Enter PERICLES.

Per. [To Lords without.] Let none disturb us. - Why should this charge of thoughts,1

The sad companion, dull-eyed melancholy,

Be my so-used a guest, as 2 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,

20 Like is here equivalent to as. See vol. iii. page 72, note 15.

1 Thought or thoughts was often used for grief. See vol. v. page 178, note 12. · Charge, here, is burden or weight.

2 As for that. The two were used indifferently.

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 be 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'll o'erspread the land,
And with th' ostent 3 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 and soul to languish,

And punish that before that he would punish.

Enter HELICANUS and other Lords.

1 Lord. Joy and all comfort in your sacred breast! 2 Lord. And keep your mind, till you return to us, Peaceful and comfortable !

Hel. Peace, peace! and give experience tongue.
They do abuse the King that flatter him :
For flattery is the bellows blows up sin;
The thing the which is flatter'd, but a spark,

8 Ostent is show or display. See vol. iii, page 145, note 34.