Sit with my cousin. Lend him your kind pains Fri. P. Would he were here, my lord, for he indeed 250 Hath set the women on to this complaint. Go, do it instantly. [Exit Provost.] And you, my noble and well-warranted cousin, Whom it concerns to hear this matter forth, 255 Do with your injuries as seems you best, In any chastisement. I for a while will leave you; But stir not you till you have well determin'd Upon these slanderers. Escal. My lord, we 'll do it throughly. 260 [Exit Duke. Signior Lucio, did not you say you knew that Friar Lodowick to be a dishonest person? Lucio. Cucullus non facit monachum: honest in nothing but in his clothes; and one that hath spoke most villanous speeches of the Duke. 265 200 Escal. We shall entreat you to abide here till he come and enforce them against him. We shall find this friar a notable fellow. Lucio. As any in Vienna, on my word. Escal. Call that same Isabel here once again; I would speak with her. [Exit an attendant.] Pray you, my lord, give me leave to question; you shall see how I'll handle her. Lucio. Not better than he, by her own report. Escal. Say you? 275 Lucio. Marry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately, she would sooner confess. Perchance, publicly, she 'll be asham'd. To accuse this worthy man, but, in foul mouth And in the witness of his proper ear, 310 To call him villain, and then to glance from him Joint by joint, but we will know his purpose. Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop, Escal. Slander to the state! Away with him to prison! 325 Ang. What can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio? Is this the man that you did tell us of? Lucio. 'Tis he, my lord. Come hither, goodman bald-pate. Do you know me? 320 Duke. I remember you, sir, by the sound of Escal. Such a fellow is not to be talk'd withal. Away with him to prison! Where is the Provost? Away with him to prison! Lay bolts enough upon him. Let him speak no more. Away with those giglots too, and with the other confederate companion! [The Provost lays hands on the Duke.] Duke. Stay, sir; stay awhile. Ang. What, resists he? Help him, Lucio. Lucio. Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you bald-pated, lying rascal, you must be hooded, must you? Show your knave's visage, with a pox to you! Show your sheepbiting face, and be hang'd an hour! Will t not off? [Pulls off the friar's hood.] Duke. Thou art the first knave that e'er mad'st a duke. 300 First Provost, let me bail these gentle three. Must have a word anon. Lay hold on him. Hast thou or word, or wit, or impudence, Ang. 370 O my dread lord, I should be guiltier than my guiltiness, To think I can be undiscernible, When I perceive your Grace, like power divine, Hath look'd upon my passes. Then, good Prince, No longer session hold upon my shame, Duke. 378 Come hither, Mariana. Say, wast thou e'er contracted to this woman? Ang. I was, my lord. 381 Duke. Go take her hence, and marry her instantly. Do you the office, friar; which consummate, Return him here again. Go with him, Provost. [Exeunt [Angelo, Mariana, Friar Peter, and Provost]. Duke. Against all sense you do importune her. Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact, Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break, And take her hence in horror. 441 Mari. Isabel, Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me. Hold up your hands, say nothing; I'll speak all. They say, best men are moulded out of faults, And, for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad; so may my husband. 440 O Isabel, will you not lend a knee? Duke. He dies for Claudio's death. Isab. [Kneeling.] Most bounteous sir, Look, if it please you, on this man condemn'd, As if my brother liv'd. I partly think A due sincerity governed his deeds, Till he did look on me. Since it is so, Let him not die. My brother had but justice, In that he did the thing for which he died; For Angelo, 450 ་ His act did not o'ertake his bad intent, Intents, but merely thoughts. Merely, , my lord. Duke. Your suit 's unprofitable; stand up, I say. I have bethought me of another fault. Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded At an unusual hour? Prov. 460 It was commanded so. Duke. Had you a special warrant for the deed? Prov. No, my good lord; it was by private Duke. For which I do discharge you of your office: Give up your keys. Prov. Pardon me, noble lord. I thought it was a fault, but knew it not; Yet did repent me, after more advice. For testimony whereof, one in the prison, That should by private order else have died, I have reserv'd alive. Duke. What's he? 470 Prov. His name is Barnardine. Duke. I would thou hadst done so by Claudio. Go fetch him hither; let me look upon him. [Exit Provost.] Escal. I am sorry, one so learned and so wise As 475 you, Lord Angelo, have still appear'd, Should slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood, And lack of temper'd judgement afterward. 480 Ang. I am sorry that such sorrow I procure; And so deep sticks it in my penitent heart That I crave death more willingly than mercy. 'T is my deserving, and I do entreat it. Re-enter PROVOST, with BARNARDINE, CLAUDIO [muffled], and JULIET. Duke. Which is that Barnardine ? Prov. But, for those earthly faults, I quit them all; Prov. This is another prisoner that I sav'd, Who should have died when Claudio lost his head; As like almost to Claudio as himself. JUnmuffles Claudio.] Duke. [To Isabella.] If he be like your brother, for his sake 495 Is he pardon'd; and, for your lovely sakeGive me your hand and say you will be mine He is my brother too. But fitter time for that. 500 By this Lord Angelo perceives he 's safe; Joy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo! 540 There's more behind that is more gratulate. know. PERICLES is first mentioned in an entry to Edward Blount in the Stationers' Register, May 20, 1608. Blount does not seem to have issued the play, but in the following year a pirated quarto was published with Shakespeare's name on the title-page, and this was reprinted in 1609, 1611, 1619, 1630, and 1635. It was not included in the First or the Second Folio, but appeared with six other additional plays, all of which were spurious, in the second impression of the Third Folio in 1664, the text following that of the Sixth Quarto. The text of the First Quarto is the original authority for all succeeding editions, and, though very corrupt, is here followed, with many corrections from later editors, especially Malone. Owing, however, to the doubtful authenticity of much of the play, it has been thought advisable to be more than usually conservative in the treatment of the text. The story of Apollonius of Tyre, of which the play is a dramatized version, is one of the most widely diffused themes in fiction. The earliest extant form is a Latin prose Historia, supposed to have been compiled from Greek sources about the fifth century, and found in many MSS., the earliest belonging to the ninth or tenth century. The versions used in the play are that of Gower in his Confessio Amantis, book vIII, and that of Laurence Twine in his Patterne of Painful Adventures (Stationers' Register, 1576); but the diffusion of the story throughout all Europe makes it possible that details from other versions may have reached the authors. The chief features appearing for the first time in the play are the substitution of a tournament for the ball game in which the hero distinguishes himself at Pentapolis; the playful trickery of Simonides in the scene where the marriage is arranged; the details of the scenes in the brothel; and the omission of the revenges of the hero upon the bawds and the treacherous fosterparents of Marina. Only the last of these changes occurs in the part generally ascribed to Shakespeare. The absence of Pericles from the first two Folios, the inequality of workmanship, and the differences in metrical style in the play as we have it, account for the general opinion that it is only in part Shakespeare's. The parts most generally suspected are Acts I and II, Scenes ii, v, and vi of Act IV, and all the Choruses spoken by Gower. The remaining parts are almost unanimously attributed to Shakespeare. There is, however, no general agreement as to the manner in which these elements came to be united. Some have held that Shakespeare revised an older play, rewriting the later acts; while the more recent tendency is to regard Pericles as the completion by two minor authors of a play on Marina which Shakespeare had left unfinished. But the occurrence even in the earlier acts of passages and phrases with a Shakespearean ring points to the more subtle and, judging by modern practice, more usual method of collaboration, by which joint authors each discuss and retouch the whole play. It is widely accepted that the author mainly responsible for Acts I and II and the Choruses was that George Wilkins who, in 1608, published a novel, "The Painful Adventures of Pericles Prince of Tyre. Being the true History of the Play of Pericles, as it was lately presented by the worthy and ancient poet Iohn Gower." While there is nothing unlikely in this, it can hardly be regarded as absolutely proved. Still less certain is the conjecture that the prose scenes in Act IV are the work of W. Rowley, elsewhere a collaborator with Wilkins. Indeed, the evidence against the Shakespearean authorship of these scenes is by no means complete, and it cannot be denied that without them the conception of the character and spirit of Marina is much less definite. The absence of allusion to these scenes in the dialogue after the meeting of Pericles and Marina is the most significant point in favor of the theory of a third author. It is to be noted that the Choruses are not all in the same class. The first three and that occurring in v. ii. are in eight-syllabled verse, and the earlier ones have occasional archaisms to fit them to Gower. Those in Act IV and the beginning and end of Act v are in ten-syllabled verse, and are somewhat less crude in style. All this points, as before indicated, to a much less absolute division f parts among the collaborators than is usually made out. |