Act IV, Scene iii

[Enter Cleon and Dionyza.]

DIONYZA.:

Why, are you foolish? Can it be undone?

CLEON.:

O, Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter

The sun and moon ne'er look'd upon!

DIONYZA.:

I think

You'll turn a child agan.

CLEON.:

Were I chief lord of all this spacious world,

I'ld give it to undo the deed. 0 lady,

Much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess

To equal any single crown o' the earth

I' the justice of compare! O villain Leonine!

Whom thou hast poison'd too:

If thou hadst drunk to him, 't had been a kindness

Becoming well thy fact: what canst thou say

When noble Pericles shall demand his child?

DIONYZA.:

That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates,

To foster it, nor ever to preserve.

She died at night; I'11 say so. Who can cross it?

Unless you play the pious innocent,

And for an honest attribute cry out

'She died by foul play.'

CLEON.:

O, go to. Well, well,

Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods

Do like this worst.

DIONYZA.:

Be one of those that think.

The petty wrens of Tarsus will fly hence,

And open this to Pericles. I do shame

To think of what a noble strain you are,

And of how coward a spirit.

CLEON.:

To such proceeding

Whoever but his approbation added,

Though not his prime consent, he did not flow

From honourable sources,

DIONYZA.:

Be it so, then:

Yet none does know, but you, how she came dead,

Nor none can know, Leonine being gone.

She did distain my child, and stood between

Her and her fortunes: none would look on her,

But cast their gazes on Marina's face;

Whilst ours was blurted at and held a malkin

Not worth the time of day. It pierced me through;

And though you call my course unnatural,

You not your child well loving, yet I find

It greets me as an enterprise of kindness

Perform'd to your sole daughter.

CLEON.:

Heavens forgive it!

DIONYZA.:

And as for Pericles,

What should he say? We wept after her hearse,

And yet we mourn: her monument

Is almost finish'd, and her epitaphs

In glittering golden characters express

A general praise to her, and care in us

At whose expense 'tis done.

CLEON.:

Thou art like the harpy,

Which, to betray, dost, with thine angel's face,

Seize with thine eagle's talons.

DIONYZA.:

You are like one that superstitiously

Doth swear to the gods that winter kills the flies:

But yet I know you'll do as I advise.

[Exeunt.]