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Pericles - Act 3, 3 Chorus
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Last updated: Fri, Jul 31, 2015
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Pericles - Act 3, 3 ChorusAct 3, 3 Chorus
⌜3 Chorus⌝
Synopsis:
Gower picks up the story on the night after Pericles and Thaisa’s wedding and carries it forward through Thaisa’s becoming pregnant, the arrival of news that Pericles is needed in Tyre, the embarking of Pericles and his pregnant wife, and the beginning of a terrible storm at sea.
Enter Gower.⌜GOWER⌝
1057 Now sleep yslackèd hath the rout;
1058 No din but snores about the house,
1059 Made louder by the o’erfed breast
1060 Of this most pompous marriage feast.
1061 5 The cat with eyne of burning coal
1062 Now couches from the mouse’s hole,
1063 And ⌜crickets⌝ sing at the oven’s mouth
1064 Are the blither for their drouth.
1065 Hymen hath brought the bride to bed,
1066 10 Where, by the loss of maidenhead,
1067 A babe is molded. Be attent,
1068 And time that is so briefly spent
1069 With your fine fancies quaintly eche.
1070 What’s dumb in show I’ll plain with speech.
⌜Dumb Show.⌝
Enter Pericles and Simonides at one door with
Attendants. A Messenger meets them, kneels, and gives
Pericles a letter. Pericles shows it Simonides. The Lords
kneel to him; then enter Thaisa with child, with
Lychorida, a nurse. The King shows her the letter. She
rejoices. She and Pericles take leave of her father, and
depart ⌜with Lychorida and their Attendants. Then
Simonides and the others exit.⌝
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89
1071
15 By many a dern and painful perch1072 Of Pericles the careful search,
1073 By the four opposing coigns
1074 Which the world together joins,
1075 Is made with all due diligence
1076 20 That horse and sail and high expense
1077 Can stead the quest. At last from Tyre,
1078 Fame answering the most strange enquire,
1079 To th’ court of King Simonides
1080 Are letters brought, the tenor these:
1081 25 Antiochus and his daughter dead,
1082 The men of Tyrus on the head
1083 Of Helicanus would set on
1084 The crown of Tyre, but he will none.
1085 The mutiny he there hastes t’ oppress,
1086 30 Says to ’em, if King Pericles
1087 Come not home in twice six moons,
1088 He, obedient to their dooms,
1089 Will take the crown. The sum of this,
1090 Brought hither to Pentapolis,
1091 35 Y-ravishèd the regions round,
1092 And everyone with claps can sound,
1093 “Our heir apparent is a king!
1094 Who dreamt, who thought of such a thing?”
1095 Brief, he must hence depart to Tyre.
1096 40 His queen, with child, makes her desire—
1097 Which who shall cross?—along to go.
1098 Omit we all their dole and woe.
1099 Lychorida, her nurse, she takes,
1100 And so to sea. Their vessel shakes
1101 45 On Neptune’s billow. Half the flood
1102 Hath their keel cut. But Fortune, moved,
1103 Varies again. The grizzled North
1104 Disgorges such a tempest forth
1105 That, as a duck for life that dives,
1106 50 So up and down the poor ship drives.
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1107
The lady shrieks and, well-anear,1108 Does fall in travail with her fear.
1109 And what ensues in this fell storm
1110 Shall for itself itself perform.
1111 55 I nill relate; action may
1112 Conveniently the rest convey,
1113 Which might not what by me is told.
1114 In your imagination hold
1115 This stage the ship upon whose deck
1116 60 The ⌜sea-tossed⌝ Pericles appears to speak.
⌜He exits.⌝