Page 210 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

Were I chief lord of all this spacious world, [5]
I’d give it to undo the deed. A lady
Much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess
To equal any single crown o’th’earth

I’th’justice of compare. O villain Leonine!
Whom thou hast poisoned too. [10]
If thou hadst drunk to him, ’t had been a kindness
Becoming well thy face. What canst thou say

When noble Pericles shall demand his child?

DIONYZA
That she is dead. Nurses are not the Fates.
To foster is not ever to preserve. [15]
She died at night. I’ll say so. Who can cross it?
Unless you play the impious 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 [20]

Do like this worst.

DIONYZA
Be one of those that thinks
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 [25]
Whoever but his approbation added,
Though not his prime consent, he did not flow

From honourable courses.

DIONYZA