Page 182 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

To th’court of King Simonides
Are letters brought, the tenor these:
Antiochus and his daughter dead, [25]
The men of Tyrus on the head

Of Helicanus would set on
The crown of Tyre, but he will none.
The mutiny he there hastes t’oppress;
Says to ’em, if King Pericles [30]

Come not home in twice six moons,
He, obedient to their dooms,
Will take the crown. The sum of this,
Brought hither to Pentapolis,

Y-ravishèd the regions round, [35]
And everyone with claps can sound
‘Our heir-apparent is a king!
Who dreamed, who thought of such a thing?’

Brief, he must hence depart to Tyre.
His queen with child makes her desire − [40]
Which who shall cross? − along to go.
Omit we all their dole and woe.

Lychorida her nurse she takes,
And so to sea. Their vessel shakes
On Neptune’s billow; half the flood [45]
Hath their keel cut; but fortune’s mood

Varies again; the grisled north
Disgorges such a tempest forth
That, as a duck for life that dives,
So up and down the poor ship drives. [50]

The lady shrieks and, well-a-near,
Does fall in travail with her fear.
And what ensues in this fell storm
Shall for itself itself perform.

I nill relate, action may [55]
Conveniently the rest convey,
Which might not what by me is told.
In your imagination hold

This stage the ship, upon whose deck
The sea-tossed Pericles appears to speak. [60]