while it was yet early morning, as Cerimon a worthy gentleman of
Ephesus, and a most skilful physician, was standing by the sea-side, his
servants brought to him a chest, which they said the sea-waves had
thrown on the land. "I never saw," said one of them, "so huge a billow
as cast it on our shore." Cerimon ordered the chest to be conveyed to
his own house, and when it was opened he beheld with wonder the body of
a young and lovely lady; and the sweet-smelling spices and rich casket
of jewels made him conclude it was some great person who was thus
strangely entombed: searching farther, he discovered a paper, from which
he learned that the corpse which lay as dead before him had been a
queen, and wife to Pericles, Prince of Tyre; and much admiring at the
strangeness of that accident, and more pitying the husband who had lost
this sweet lady, he said, "If you are living, Pericles, you have a heart
that even cracks with woe." Then observing attentively Thaisa's face, he
saw how fresh and unlike death her looks were, and he said, "They were
too hasty that threw you into the sea:" for he did not believe her to be
dead. He ordered a fire to be made, and proper cordials to be brought,
and soft music to be played, which might help to calm her amazed spirits
if she should revive; and he said to those who crowded round her,
wondering at what they saw, "I pray you, gentlemen, give her air; the
queen will live; she has not been entranced above five hours; and see,
she begins to blow into life again; she is alive; behold, her eyelids
move; this fair creature will live to make us weep to hear her fate."
Thaisa had never died, but after the birth of her little baby had fallen
into a deep swoon, which made all that saw her conclude her to be dead;
and now by the care of this kind gentleman she once more revived to
light and life; and opening her eyes, she said, "Where am I? Where is my
lord? What world is this?" By gentle degrees Cerimon let her understand
what had befallen her; and when he thought she was enough recovered to
bear the sight, he showed her the paper written by her husband, and the
jewels; and she looked on the paper, and said, "It is my lord's writing.
That I was shipped at sea, I well remember, but whether there delivered
of my babe, by the holy gods I cannot rightly say; but since my wedded
lord I never shall see again, I will put on a vestal livery, and never
more have joy." "Madam," said Cerimon, "if you purpose as you speak, the
temple of Diana is not far distant from hence; there you may abide as a
vestal. Moreover, if you please, a niece of mine shall there attend
you." This proposal was accepted with thanks by Thaisa; and when she was
perfectly recovered, Cerimon placed her in the temple of Diana, where
she became a vestal or priestess of that goddess, and passed her days in
sorrowing for her husband's supposed loss, and in the most devout
exercises of those times.
Pericles carried his young daughter (whom he named Marina, because she
was born at sea) to Tarsus, intending to leave her with Cleon, the
governor of that city, and his wife Dionysia, thinking, for the good he
had done to them at the time of their famine, they would be kind to his
little motherless daughter. When Cleon saw Prince Pericles, and heard of
the great loss which had befallen him, he said, "O your sweet queen,
that it had pleased Heaven you could have brought her hither to have
blessed my eyes with the sight of her!" Pericles replied, "We must obey
the powers above us. Should I rage and roar as the sea does in which my
Thaisa lies, yet the end must be as it is. My gentle babe, Marina here,
I must charge your charity with her. I leave her the infant of your
care, beseeching you to give her princely training." And then turning to
Cleon's wife, Dionysia, he said, "Good madam, make me blessed in your
care in bringing up my child:" and she answered, "I have a child myself
who shall not be more dear to my respect than yours, my lord;" and
Cleon made the like promise, saying, "Your noble services, Prince
Pericles, in feeding my whole people with your corn (for which in their
prayers they daily remember you) must in your child be thought on. If I
should neglect your child, my whole people that were by you relieved
would force me to my duty; but if to that I need a spur, the gods
revenge it on me and mine to the end of generation." Pericles, being
thus assured that his child would be carefully attended to, left her to
the protection of Cleon and his wife Dionysia, and with her he left the
nurse Lychorida. When he went away, the little Marina knew not her loss,
but Lychorida wept sadly at parting with her royal master. "O, no tears,
Lychorida," said Pericles: "no tears; look to your little mistress, on
whose grace you may depend hereafter."
Pericles arrived in safety at Tyre, and was once more settled in the
quiet possession of his throne, while his woeful queen, whom he thought
dead, remained at Ephesus. Her little babe Marina, whom this hapless
mother had never seen, was brought up by Cleon in a manner suitable to
her high birth. He gave her the most careful education, so that by the
time Marina attained the age of fourteen years, the most deeply-learned
men were not more studied in the learning of those times than was
Marina. She sang like one immortal, and danced as goddess-like, and with
her needle she was so skilful that she seemed to compose nature's own
shapes, in birds, fruits, or flowers, the natural roses being scarcely
more like to each other than they were to Marina's silken flowers. But
when she had gained from education all these graces, which made her the
general wonder, Dionysia, the wife of Cleon, became her mortal enemy
from jealousy, by reason that her own daughter, from the slowness of her
mind, was not able to attain to that perfection wherein Marina excelled:
and finding that all praise was bestowed on Marina, whilst her daughter,
who was of the same age, and had been educated with the same care as
Marina, though not with the same success, was in comparison disregarded,
she formed a project to remove Marina out of the way, vainly imagining
that her untoward daughter would be more respected when Marina was no
more seen. To encompass this she employed a man to murder Marina, and
she well timed her wicked design, when Lychorida, the faithful nurse,
had just died. Dionysia was discoursing with the man she had commanded
to commit this murder, when the young Marina was weeping over the dead
Lychorida. Leonine, the man she employed to do this bad deed, though he
was a very wicked man, could hardly be persuaded to undertake it, so had
Marina won all hearts to love her. He said, "She is a goodly creature!"
"The fitter then the gods should have her," replied her merciless enemy:
"here she comes weeping for the death of her nurse Lychorida: are you
resolved to obey me?" Leonine, fearing to disobey her, replied, "I am
resolved." And so, in that one short sentence, was the matchless Marina
doomed to an untimely death. She now approached, with a basket of
flowers in her hand, which she said she would daily strew over the grave
of good Lychorida. The purple violet and the marigold should as a carpet
hang upon her grave, while summer days did last. "Alas, for me!" she
said, "poor unhappy maid, born in a tempest, when my mother died. This
world to me is like a lasting storm, hurrying me from my friends." "How
now, Marina," said the dissembling Dionysia, "do you weep alone? How
does it chance my daughter is not with you? Do not sorrow for Lychorida,
you have a nurse in me. Your beauty is quite changed with this
unprofitable woe. Come, give me your flowers, the sea-air will spoil
them; and walk with Leonine: the air is fine, and will enliven you.
Come, Leonine, take her by the arm, and walk with her." "No madam," said
Marina, "I pray you let me not deprive you of your servant:" for Leonine
was one of Dionysia's attendants. "Come, come," said this artful woman,
who wished for a pretence to leave her alone with Leonine, "I love the
prince, your father, and I love you. We every day expect your father
here; and when he comes, and finds you so changed by grief from the
paragon of beauty we reported you, he will think we have taken no care
of you. Go, I pray you, walk, and be cheerful once again. Be careful of
that excellent complexion, which stole the hearts of old and young."
Marina, being thus importuned, said, "Well, I will go, but yet I have no
desire to it." As Dionysia walked away, she said to Leonine, "_Remember
what I have said!_"--shocking words, for their meaning was that he
should remember to kill Marina.
Marina looked towards the sea, her birthplace, and said, "Is the wind
westerly that blows?" "South-west," replied Leonine. "When I was born
the wind was north," said she: and then the storm and tempest, and all
her father's sorrows, and her mother's death, came full into her mind;
and she said, "My father, as Lychorida told me, did never fear, but
cried, _Courage, good seamen_, to the sailors, galling his princely
hands with the ropes, and, clasping to the masts, he endured a sea that
almost split the deck." "When was this?" said Leonine. "When I was
born," replied Marina: "never were wind and waves more violent;" and
then she described the storm, the action of the sailors, the boatswain's
whistle, and the loud call of the master, "which," said she, "trebled
the confusion of the ship." Lychorida had so often recounted to Marina
the story of her hapless birth that these things seemed ever present to
her imagination. But here Leonine interrupted her with desiring her to
say her prayers. "What mean you?" said Marina, who began to fear, she
knew not why. "If you require a little space for prayer, I grant it,"
said Leonine; "but be not tedious, the gods are quick of ear, and I am
sworn to do my work in haste." "Will you kill me?" said Marina: "alas!
why?" "To satisfy my lady," replied Leonine. "Why would she have me
killed?" said Marina: "now, as I can remember, I never hurt her in all
my life. I never spake bad word, nor did any ill turn to any living
creature. Believe me now, I never killed a mouse, nor hurt a fly. I trod
upon a worm once against my will, but I wept for it. How have I
offended?" The murderer replied, "My commission is not to reason on the
deed, but to do it." And he was just going to kill her, when certain
pirates happened to land at that very moment, who seeing Marina, bore
her off as a prize to their ship.
The pirate who had made Marina his prize carried her to Mitylene, and
sold her for a slave, where, though in that humble condition, Marina
soon became known throughout the whole city of Mitylene for her beauty
and her virtues; and the person to whom she was sold became rich by the
money she earned for him. She taught music, dancing, and fine
needleworks, and the money she got by her scholars she gave to her
master and mistress; and the fame of her learning and her great industry
came to the knowledge of Lysimachus, a young nobleman who was governor
of Mitylene, and Lysimachus went himself to the house where Marina
dwelt, to see this paragon of excellence, whom all the city praised so
highly. Her conversation delighted Lysimachus beyond measure, for though
he had heard much of this admired maiden, he did not expect to find her
so sensible a lady, so virtuous, and so good, as he perceived Marina to
be; and he left her, saying, he hoped she would persevere in her
industrious and virtuous course, and that if ever she heard from him
again it should be for her good. Lysimachus thought Marina such a
miracle for sense, fine breeding, and excellent qualities, as well as
for beauty and all outward graces, that he wished to marry her, and
notwithstanding her humble situation, he hoped to find that her birth
was noble; but ever when they asked her parentage she would sit still
and weep.
Meantime, at Tarsus, Leonine, fearing the anger of Dionysia, told her he
had killed Marina; and that wicked woman gave out that she was dead, and
made a pretended funeral for her, and erected a stately monument; and
shortly after Pericles, accompanied by his loyal minister Helicanus,
made a voyage from Tyre to Tarsus, on purpose to see his daughter,
intending to take her home with him: and he never having beheld her
since he left her an infant in the care of Cleon and his wife, how did
this good prince rejoice at the thought of seeing this dear child of his
buried queen! but when they told him Marina was dead, and showed the
monument they had erected for her, great was the misery this most
wretched father endured, and not being able to bear the sight of that
country where his last hope and only memory of his dear Thaisa was
entombed, he took ship, and hastily departed from Tarsus. From the day
he entered the ship a dull and heavy melancholy seized him. He never
spoke, and seemed totally insensible to everything around him.
Sailing from Tarsus to Tyre, the ship in its course passed by Mitylene,
where Marina dwelt; the governor of which place, Lysimachus, observing
this royal vessel from the shore, and desirous of knowing who was on
board, went in a barge to the side of the ship, to satisfy his
curiosity. Helicanus received him very courteously and told him that the
ship came from Tyre, and that they were conducting thither Pericles,
their prince; "A man, sir," said Helicanus, "who has not spoken to any
one these three months, nor taken any sustenance, but just to prolong
his grief; it would be tedious to repeat the whole ground of his
distemper, but the main springs from the loss of a beloved daughter and
a wife." Lysimachus begged to see this afflicted prince, and when he
beheld Pericles, he saw he had been once a goodly person, and he said to
him, "Sir king, all hail, the gods preserve you, hail, royal sir!" But
in vain Lysimachus spoke to him; Pericles made no answer, nor did he
appear to perceive any stranger approached. And then Lysimachus
bethought him of the peerless maid Marina, that haply with her sweet
tongue she might win some answer from the silent prince: and with the
consent of Helicanus he sent for Marina, and when she entered the ship
in which her own father sat motionless with grief, they welcomed her on
board as if they had known she was their princess; and they cried, "She
is a gallant lady." Lysimachus was well pleased to hear their
commendations, and he said, "She is such a one, that were I well assured
she came of noble birth, I would wish no better choice, and think me
rarely blessed in a wife." And then he addressed her in courtly terms,
as if the lowly-seeming maid had been the high-born lady he wished to
find her, calling her _Fair and beautiful Marina_, telling her a great
prince on board that ship had fallen into a sad and mournful silence;
and, as if Marina had the power of conferring health and felicity, he
begged she would undertake to cure the royal stranger of his melancholy.
"Sir," said Marina, "I will use my utmost skill in his recovery,
provided none but I and my maid be suffered to come near him."
She, who at Mitylene had so carefully concealed her birth, ashamed to
tell that one of royal ancestry was now a slave, first began to speak to
Pericles of the wayward changes in her own fate, telling him from what a
high estate herself had fallen. As if she had known it was her royal
father she stood before, all the words she spoke were of her own
sorrows; but her reason for so doing was, that she knew nothing more
wins the attention of the unfortunate than the recital of some sad
calamity to match their own. The sound of her sweet voice aroused the
drooping prince; he lifted up his eyes, which had been so long fixed and
motionless; and Marina, who was the perfect image of her mother,
presented to his amazed sight the features of his dead queen. The
long-silent prince was once more heard to speak. "My dearest wife," said
the awakened Pericles, "was like this maid, and such a one might my
daughter have been. My queen's square brows, her stature to an inch, as
wand-like straight, as silver-voiced, her eyes as jewel-like. Where do
you live, young maid? Report your parentage. I think you said you had
been tossed from wrong to injury, and that you thought your griefs would
equal mine, if both were opened." "Some such thing I said," replied
Marina, "and said no more than what my thoughts did warrant me as
likely." "Tell me your story," answered Pericles; "if I find you have
known the thousandth part of my endurance, you have borne your sorrows
like a man, and I have suffered like a girl; yet you do look like
Patience gazing on kings' graves, and smiling extremity out of act. How
lost you your name, my most kind virgin? Recount your story I beseech
you. Come, sit by me." How was Pericles surprised when she said her name
was _Marina_, for he knew it was no usual name, but had been invented by
himself for his own child to signify _seaborn_: "O, I am mocked," said
he, "and you are sent hither by some incensed god to make the world
laugh at me." "Patience, good sir," said Marina, "or I must cease here."
"Nay," said Pericles, "I will be patient; you little know how you do
startle me, to call yourself Marina." "The name," she replied, "was
given me by one that had some power, my father, and a king." "How, a
king's daughter!" said Pericles, "and called Marina! But are you flesh
and blood? Are you no fairy? Speak on; where were you born? and
wherefore called Marina?" She replied, "I was called Marina, because I
was born at sea. My mother was the daughter of a king; she died the
minute I was born, as my good nurse Lychorida has often told me weeping.
The king, my father, left me at Tarsus, till the cruel wife of Cleon
sought to murder me. A crew of pirates came and rescued me, and brought
me here to Mitylene. But, good sir, why do you weep? It may be, you
think me an impostor. But, indeed, sir, I am the daughter to King
Pericles, if good King Pericles be living." Then Pericles, terrified as
he seemed at his own sudden joy, and doubtful if this could be real,
loudly called for his attendants, who rejoiced at the sound of their
beloved king's voice; and he said to Helicanus, "O Helicanus, strike me,
give me a gash, put me to present pain, lest this great sea of joys
rushing upon me, overbear the shores of my mortality. O come hither,
thou that wast born at sea, buried at Tarsus, and found at sea again. O
Helicanus, down on your knees, thank the holy gods! This is Marina. Now
blessings on thee, my child! Give me fresh garments, mine own Helicanus!
She is not dead at Tarsus as she should have been by the savage
Dionysia. She shall tell you all, when you shall kneel to her and call
her your very princess. Who is this?" (observing Lysimachus for the
first time). "Sir," said Helicanus, "it is the governor of Mitylene,
who, hearing of your melancholy, came to see you." "I embrace you, sir,"
said Pericles. "Give me my robes! I am well with beholding----O heaven
bless my girl! But hark, what music is that?"--for now, either sent by
some kind god, or by his own delighted fancy deceived, he seemed to hear
soft music. "My lord, I hear none," replied Helicanus. "None?" said
Pericles; "why it is the music of the spheres." As there was no music to
be heard, Lysimachus concluded that the sudden joy had unsettled the
prince's understanding; and he said, "It is not good to cross him: let
him have his way:" and then they told him they heard the music; and he
now complaining of a drowsy slumber coming over him, Lysimachus
persuaded him to rest on a couch, and placing a pillow under his head,
he, quite overpowered with excess of joy, sank into a sound sleep, and
Marina watched in silence by the couch of her sleeping parent.
While he slept, Pericles dreamed a dream which made him resolve to go to
Ephesus. His dream was, that Diana, the goddess of the Ephesians,
appeared to him, and commanded him to go to her temple at Ephesus, and
there before her altar to declare the story of his life and misfortunes;
and by her silver bow she swore, that if he performed her injunction, he
should meet with some rare felicity. When he awoke, being miraculously
refreshed, he told his dream, and that his resolution was to obey the
bidding of the goddess.
Then Lysimachus invited Pericles to come on shore, and refresh himself
with such entertainment as he should find at Mitylene, which courteous
offer Pericles accepting, agreed to tarry with him for the space of a
day or two. During which time we may well suppose what feastings, what
rejoicings, what costly shows and entertainments the governor made in
Mitylene, to greet the royal father of his dear Marina, whom in her
obscure fortunes he had so respected. Nor did Pericles frown upon
Lysimachus's suit, when he understood how he had honoured his child in
the days of her low estate, and that Marina showed herself not averse to
his proposals; only he made it a condition, before he gave his consent,
that they should visit with him the shrine of the Ephesian Diana: to
whose temple they shortly after all three undertook a voyage; and, the
goddess herself filling their sails with prosperous winds, after a few
weeks they arrived in safety at Ephesus.
There was standing near the altar of the goddess, when Pericles with his
train entered the temple, the good Cerimon (now grown very aged) who had
restored Thaisa, the wife of Pericles, to life; and Thaisa, now a
priestess of the temple, was standing before the altar; and though the
many years he had passed in sorrow for her loss had much altered
Pericles, Thaisa thought she knew her husband's features, and when he
approached the altar and began to speak, she remembered his voice, and
listened to his words with wonder and a joyful amazement. And these were
the words that Pericles spoke before the altar: "Hail, Diana! to perform
thy just commands, I here confess myself the Prince of Tyre, who,
frighted from my country, at Pentapolis wedded the fair Thaisa: she died
at sea in childbed, but brought forth a maid-child called Marina. She at
Tarsus was nursed with Dionysia, who at fourteen years thought to kill
her, but her better stars brought her to Mitylene, by whose shores as I
sailed, her good fortunes brought this maid on board, where by her most
clear remembrance she made herself known to be my daughter."
Thaisa, unable to bear the transports which his words had raised in her,
cried out, "You are, you are, O royal Pericles"----and fainted. "What
means this woman?" said Pericles: "she dies! gentlemen, help."--"Sir,"
said Cerimon, "if you have told Diana's altar true, this is your wife."
"Reverend gentleman, no," said Pericles: "I threw her overboard with
these very arms." Cerimon then recounted how, early one tempestuous
morning, this lady was thrown upon the Ephesian shore; how, opening the
coffin, he found therein rich jewels, and a paper; how, happily, he
recovered her, and placed her here in Diana's temple. And now, Thaisa
being restored from her swoon said, "O my lord, are you not Pericles?
Like him you speak, like him you are. Did you not name a tempest, a
birth, and death?" He astonished said, "The voice of dead Thaisa!" "That
Thaisa am I," she replied, "supposed dead and drowned." "O true Diana!"
exclaimed Pericles, in a passion of devout astonishment. "And now," said
Thaisa, "I know you better. Such a ring as I see on your finger did the
king my father give you, when we with tears parted from him at
Pentapolis." "Enough, you gods!" cried Pericles, "your present kindness
makes my past miseries sport. O come, Thaisa, be buried a second time
within these arms."
And Marina said, "My heart leaps to be gone into my mother's bosom."
Then did Pericles show his daughter to her mother, saying, "Look who
kneels here, flesh of thy flesh, thy burthen at sea, and called Marina,
because she was yielded there." "Blessed and my own!" said Thaisa: and
while she hung in rapturous joy over her child, Pericles knelt before
the altar, saying, "Pure Diana, bless thee for thy vision. For this, I
will offer oblations nightly to thee." And then and there did Pericles,
with the consent of Thaisa, solemnly affiance their daughter, the
virtuous Marina, to the well-deserving Lysimachus in marriage.