Pericles

Antiochus
Young Prince of Tyre, you have at large received
The danger of the task you undertake.
Pericles
I have, Antiochus, and with a soul
Emboldened with the glory of her praise
Think death no hazard in this enterprise.

Her face the book of praises, where is read
Nothing but curious pleasures,
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Antiochus
Before thee stands this fair Hesperides,
With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touched;
For deathlike dragons here affright thee hard.
Her face, like heaven, enticeth thee to view
Her countless glory, which desert must gain;
And which without desert, because thine eye
Presumes to reach, all the whole heap must die.
 He points to the heads.
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Pericles
Great King,
Few love to hear the sins they love to act.
’Twould braid 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.

Kings are Earth’s gods; in vice their law’s their will;
And if Jove stray,
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Pericles
Why should this change of thoughts,
The sad companion dull-eyed Melancholy,
Be my so used a guest as not an hour
In the day’s glorious walk or peaceful night,
The tomb where grief should sleep, can breed me quiet?

And what was first but fear what might be done
Grows elder now, and cares it be not done.
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First Lord
Joy and all comfort in your sacred breast.
Second Lord
And keep your mind till you return to us
Peaceful and comfortable.

’Tis time to fear when tyrants seems to kiss;

Helicanus
Peace, peace, and give experience tongue.
They do abuse the King that flatter him,
For flattery is the bellows blows up sin;
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Marina
I am a maid,
My lord, that ne’er before invited eyes,
But have been gaz’d on like a comet. She speaks,
My lord, that, may be, hath endur’d a grief
Might equal yours, if both were justly weigh’d.
Though wayward fortune did malign my state,
My derivation was from ancestors
Who stood equivalent with mighty kings,
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Marina
If I should tell my history, it would seem
Like lies disdain’d in the reporting.
Pericles
Prithee speak.
Falseness cannot come from thee, for thou lookest
Modest as Justice, and thou seemest a palace
For the crown’d Truth to dwell in. I will believe thee,
And make my senses credit thy relation
To points that seem impossible,
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O Helicanus, strike me, honored sir,
Give me a gash, put me to present pain,
Lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me
O’erbear the shores of my mortality,
And drown me with their sweetness. O, come hither,
Thou that beget’st him that did thee beget;
Thou that wast born at sea, buried at Tharsus,
And found at sea again!
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