| [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] |