PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE. ACT I. Enter GoWER1. Before the Palace of Antioch. To sing a song that old2 was sung, To glad your ear, and please your eyes. On ember-eves, and holy ales1; And lords and ladies in their lives Have read it for restoratives : The purchase5 is to make men glorious; Chorus, in the character of Gower, an ancient English poet, who has related the story of this play in his Confessio Amantis. 2 i. e. that of old. 3 The defect of metre (sung and come being no rhymes) points out that we should read From ancient ashes Gower sprung;' alluding to the restoration of the Phoenix. 4 That is, says Dr. Farmer, by whom this emendation was made, church-ales. The old copy has holy days. Gower's speeches were certainly intended to rhyme throughout. 5 The purchase' is the reading of the old copy; which Steevens, among other capricious alterations, changed to purpose. That Steevens and Malone were ignorant of the true meaning of the word purchase I have shown in vol. v. p. 148, note 21. It was anciently used to signify gain, profit; any good or advantage obtained; as in the following instances:-James the First, when he made the extravagant gift of 30,000l. to Rich, said, 'You think now that you have a great purchase; but I am far happier in giving you that sum than you can be in receiving it.' 248 If you, born in these latter times, (I tell you what mine authors say): Bad child, worse father! to entice his own No purchase passes a good wife, no losse Chapman's Georgics of Hesiod, b. ii. 44, p. 32. Hall, satire ii. b. 2. Some fall in love with accesse to princes, others with popular fame and applause, supposinge they are things of greate purchase, when in many cases they are but matters of envy, perill, and impediment.-Bacon Adv. of Learning. 6 Wife: the word signifies a mate or companion. i. e. completely exuberantly beautiful. A full fortune, in Othello, means a complete one. 8 Account for accounted. 9 i. e. shape or direct their course thither. 10 To keep her still to himself, and do deter others from demanding her in marriage.' His riddle told not, lost his life: So for her many a wight did die, What now ensues, to the judgment of your eye SCENE I. Antioch. A Room in the Palace. [Exit. Enter ANTIOCHUS, PERICLES, and Attendants. Ant. Young prince of Tyre1, you have at large receiv'd The danger of the task you undertake. Per. I have, Antiochus, and with a soul Think death no hazard, in this enterprise. [Music. 11 Gower must be supposed to point to the scene of the palace gate at Antioch, on which the heads of those unfortunate wights were fixed. 12 Which (the judgment of your eye) best can justify, i. e. prove its resemblance to the ordinary course of nature. Thus afterward: When thou shall kneel and justify in knowledge.' 1 It does not appear in the present drama that the father of Pericles is living. By prince, therefore, throughout this play, we are to understand prince regnant. In the Gesta Romanorum Appolonius is king of Tyre; and Appolyn in Copland's translation from the French. In Twine's translation he is repeatedly called prince of Tyrus, as he is in Gower. 2 In the old copy this line stands : Music, bring in our daughter, clothed like a bride." Malone thinks it a marginal direction, inserted in the text by mistake. Mr. Boswell thinks it only an Alexandrine, and adds, It does not seem probable that music would commence at the close of Pericles' speech, without an order from the king.* 3 The words whose and her refer to the daughter of Antiochus. The construction is, at whose conception the senate-house of planets all did sit,' &e; and the words, till Lucina reign'd, Nature,' &c are parenthetical. The leading thought may have been taken from Sidney's Arcadia, book ii.:- The senate-house of the planets was The senate-house of planets all did sit, Enter the Daughter of ANTIOCHUS. Per. See, where she comes, appareli'd like the spring, Graces her subjects, and her thoughts the king Her face, the book of praises5, where is read Ye gods that made me man, and sway in love, Per. That would be son to great Antiochus. Ant. Before thee stands this fair Hesperides, With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touch'd; For death-like dragons here affright thee hard : Her face, like heaven, enticeth thee to view Her countless glory, which desert must gain : at no time to set for the decreeing of perfection in a man,' &c. Thus also Milton, Paradise Lost, viii. 511: And happy constellations, on that bour The Graces are her subjects, and her thoughts the sovereign of every virtue that gives renown to men.' The ellipsis in the second line is what obscured this passage, which Steevens would have altered, because he did not comprehend it. 5 Her face is a book where may be read all that is praiseworthy, every thing that is the cause of admiration and praise.` Shakspeare has often this image. By her mild companion the companion of her mildness' is meant. Hesperides is here taken for the name of the garden in which the golden apples were kept; as we find it in Love's Labour's Lost, Act iv. See vol. ii. p. 346, note 26. And which, without desert, because thine eye Tell thee with speechless tongues, and semblance pale, And by those fearful objects to prepare Gripe not at earthly joys, as erst they did; So I bequeath a happy peace to you, And all good men, as every prince should do; My riches to the earth from whence they came; But my unspotted fire of love to you. [To the Daughter of ANTIOCHUS. Thus ready for the way of life or death, I wait the sharpest blow, Antiochus. Ant. Scorning advice. Read the conclusion then; Which read and not expounded, 'tis decreed, As these before thee thou thyself shalt bleed. 8 Thus Lucan, lib. vii: 6 cœlo tegitur qui non habet urnam.' 9 i. e. for fear of going, or lest they should go. See vol i. p. 104, note 12; and vol. iii. p. 266, note 4. Dr. Percy proposed to read, in death's net; but on and in were anciently used the one for the other. 6 10 That is, to prepare this body for that state to which I must come." 11 I will act as sick men do; who having had experience of the pleasures of the world, and only a visionary and distant prospect of heaven, have neglected the latter for the former; but at length, feeling themselves decaying, grasp no longer at temporal pleasures, but prepare calmly for futurity.' |