Pericles, Prince of Tyre: Act 4, Scene 3

    comedy

    Tarsus. A room in CLEON's house.

    Scene Summary

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    Dionyza reports to Cleon that Marina is dead. Cleon is horrified and furious — he is now an accessory after the fact in the eyes of heaven, though the murder was not completed. Dionyza is cool and unrepentant. They erect a monument to Marina and show it to Pericles when he eventually comes to collect his daughter.

    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 again.
    CLEON
    Were I chief lord of all this spacious world,
    I'ld give it to undo the deed. O 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'll 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
    Who ever 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 disdain 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