MAR.

My heart

[Kneels to THAISA.

Leaps to be gone into my mother's bofom.

PER. Look, who kneels here! Flesh of thy flesh,

Thaifa;

Thy burden at the fea, and call'd Marina,

For fhe was yielded there.

THAI.

Blefs'd and mine own !5

I know you not.

HEL. Hail, madam, and my queen!

THAI.

PER. You have heard me fay, when I did fly from

Tyre,

Í left behind an ancient substitute.

Can you remember what I call'd the man?
I have nam'd him oft.

THAI.

"Twas Helicanus then.

PER. Still confirmation:

Embrace him, dear Thaifa; this is he.

Now do I long to hear how you were found;
How poffibly preferv'd; and whom to thank,
Befides the gods, for this great miracle.

THAI. Lord Cerimon, my lord; this man Through whom the gods have shown their power;

that can

From first to last resolve you.

PER.

Reverend fir,

"Not like a corfe ;-or if-not to be buried,
"But quick, and in mine arms." MALONE.

5 Blefs'd, and mine own!] So, in The Winter's Tale :
"Tell me, mine own,

"Where haft thou been preferv'd? Where liv'd? How found

"Thy father's court?" MALONE.

The gods can have no mortal officer
More like a god than you.
you. Will you
How this dead queen re-lives?

CER.

deliver

I will, my lord.

Befeech you, firft go with me to my house,

Where fhall be shown you all was found with her; How the came placed here within the temple;

No needful thing omitted.

PER.

Pure Diana!

I bless thee for thy vifion, and will offer

My night oblations to thee. Thaifa,

This prince, the fair-betrothed of your daughter, Shall marry her at Pentapolis.

And now,

This ornament that makes me look fo difmal,

Will I, my lov'd Marina, clip to form;

And what this fourteen years no razor touch'd,
Το grace thy marriage-day, I'll beautify.9

6 I bless thee-] For the infertion of the perfonal pronoun I am refponfible. MALONE.

7 the fair-betrothed-] i. e. fairly contracted, honourably affianced. STEEVENS.

-Thaifa,

This prince, the fair-betrothed of your daughter,

Shall marry her at Pentapolis.] So, in the last scene of The Winter's Tale, Leontes informs Paulina :

This your fon-in-law,

"And fon unto the king, (whom heavens directing,) Is troth-plight to your daughter." MALONE.

And now,

This ornament that makes me look so difmal,
Will I, my lov'd Marina, clip to form;

And what this fourteen years no razor touch'd,

Ado about Nothing:

To grace thy marriage-day, I'll beautify.] So, in Much -the barber's man hath been feen with him; and the old ornament of his cheek hath already stuffed tennis balls."

The author has here followed Gower, or Gefta Romanorum :

THAT. Lord Cerimon hath letters of good credit, Sir, that my father's dead.

PER. Heavens make a ftar of him! Yet there, my queen,

We'll celebrate their nuptials, and ourselves
Will in that kingdom fpend our following days;
Our fon and daughter fhall in Tyrus reign.
Lord Cerimon, we do our longing ftay,
To hear the reft untold. Sir, lead the way."

[Exeunt.

My berde for no likynge Shave, "Till it befalle that I have

"In convenable time of age

"Befette hir unto mariage." Confeffo Amantis. The word fo in the first line, and the words-my lov'd Marina, in the fecond, which both the fenfe and metre require, I have fupplied. MALONE.

The author is in this place guilty of a flight inadvertency. It was but a short time before, when Pericles arrived at Tharfus, and heard of his daughter's death, that he made a vow never to wath his face or cut his hair. M. MASON.

See p. 283, n. 3; where, if my reading be not erroneous, a proof will be found that this vow was made almoft immediately after the birth of Marina; and confequently that Mr. M. Mafon's present remark has no fure foundation. STEEVENS.

• Heavens make a ftar of him!] So, in Romeo and Juliet : "Take him and cut him into little ftars"

"To inlay heaven with Stars." STEEVENS.

2 Sir, lead the way.] Dr. Johnfon has justly objected to the lame and impotent conclufion of The Second Part of King Henry IV: "Come, will you hence?" The concluding line of The Winter's Tale furnishes us with one equally abrupt, and nearly refembling the prefent: Haftily lead away. This paffage will justify the correction of the old copy now made. It reads Sir, leads the way. MALONE.

Enter Gower.

Gow. In Antioch, and his daughter,3 you
have heard

Of monftrous luft the due and just reward:
In Pericles, his queen and daughter, seen
(Although affail'd with fortune fierce and keen,)
Virtue preferv'd from fell deftruction's blast,
Led on by heaven, and crown'd with joy at
laft.4

In Helicanus may you well defcry

A figure of truth, of faith, of loyalty:
In reverend Cerimon there well appears,
The worth that learned charity aye wears.
For wicked Cleon and his wife, when fame
Had fpread their curfed deed, and honour'd

name5

Of Pericles, to rage the city turn;

That him and his they in his palace burn.

3 In Antioch, and his daughter.] The old copies read-In Antiochus and his daughter, &c. The correction was fuggefted by Mr. Steevens. "So, (as he obferves,) in Shakspeare's other plays, France, for the king of France; Morocco, for the king of Morocco," &c. MALONE.

4 Virtue preferv'd from fell destruction's blast,

Led on by heaven, and crown'd with joy at laft.] All the copies are here, I think, manifeftly corrupt. They read : Virtue preferr'd from fell deftruction's blaft.

The grofs and numerous errors of even the most accurate copy of this play, will, it is hoped, juftify the liberty that has been taken on this and some other occafions.

It would be difficult to produce from the works of Shakspeare many couplets more spirited and harmonious than this.

MALONE.

and honour'd name-] The first and fecond quarto read-the honour'd name. The reading of the text, which appears to me more intelligible, is that of the folio 1664. The city is here used for the collective body of the citizens. MALONE.

The gods for murder feemed fo content
To punish them; although not done, but
meant."

So on your patience evermore attending,
New joy wait on you! Here our play has
[Exit GoWER.7

ending.

• To punish them; although not done, but meant.] The defective metre of this line in the old copy, induces me to think that the word them, which I have supplied, was omitted by the careleffness of the printer. MALONE.

This play is fo uncommonly corrupted by the printers, &c. that it does not so much seem to want illuftration as emendation : and the errata are so numerous and grofs, that one is tempted to fufpect almost every line where there is the leaft deviation in the language from what is either ufual or proper, Many of the corruptions appear to have arisen from an illiterate tranfcriber having written the fpeeches by ear from an inaccurate reciter; who between them both have rendered the text (in the verbs particularly) very ungrammatical,

More of the phrafeology ufed in the genuine dramas of Shakspeare prevails in Pericles, than in any of the other six doubted plays. PERCY.

The fragment of the MS. poem, mentioned in the preliminary obfervations, has fuffered fo much by time, as to be fcarcely legible. The parchment on which it is written having been converted into the cover of a book, for which purpose its edges were cut off, fome words are entirely loft. However, from the following concluding lines the reader may be enabled to form a judgment with respect to the age of this piece:

thys was tranflatyd almoft at englonde ende to the makers ftat tak fich a mynde have y take hy's bedys on hond and fayd hys patr. noftr. and crede

... have

"Thomas vicary y underftonde at wymborne mynftre in that stede

*The letters in the Italick character have been supplied by the conjecture of Mr. Tyrwhitt, who very obligingly examined this ancient fragment, and furnished the editor with the above extract.