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If I should tell my history

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, for thou lookest
Like one I lov'd indeed. What were thy friends?
Didst thou not say, when I did push thee back—
Which was when I perceiv'd thee—that thou cam'st
From good descending?
Marina
So indeed I did.
Pericles
Report thy parentage. I think thou saidst
Thou hadst been toss'd from wrong to injury,
And that thou thoughts' thy griefs might equal mine,
If both were opened.
Marina
Some such thing
I said, and said no more but what my thoughts
Did warrant me was likely.
Pericles
Tell thy story;
If thine, considered, prove the thousand part
Of my endurance, thou art a man, and I
Have suffered like a girl. Yet thou dost look
Like Patience gazing on kings' graves, and smiling
Extremity out of act. What were thy friends?
How lost thou them? Thy name, my most kind virgin?
Recount, I do beseech thee. Come sit by me.
Marina
My name is Marina.
Pericles
O, I am mock'd,
And thou by some incensed god sent hither
To make the world to laugh at me.

Source:
Act 5
Scene 1
Line 116

Source Type:

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