Pericles, Prince of Tyre: Act 3, Prologue Translation

Enter Gower.

GOWER
Now sleep yslackèd hath the rout;
No din but snores about the house,
Made louder by the o’erfed breast
Of this most pompous marriage feast.
The cat with eyne of burning coal 5
Now couches from the mouse’s hole,
And crickets sing at the oven’s mouth
Are the blither for their drouth.
Hymen hath brought the bride to bed,
Where, by the loss of maidenhead, 10
A babe is molded. Be attent,
And time that is so briefly spent
With your fine fancies quaintly eche.
What’s dumb in show I’ll plain with speech.

Dumb Show.

Enter Pericles and Simonides at one door with
Attendants. A Messenger meets them, kneels, and gives
Pericles a letter. Pericles shows it Simonides. The Lords
kneel to him; then enter Thaisa with child, with
Lychorida, a nurse. The King shows her the letter. She
rejoices. She and Pericles take leave of her father, and
depart with Lychorida and their Attendants. Then
Simonides and the others exit.

By many a dern and painful perch 15
Of Pericles the careful search,
By the four opposing coigns
Which the world together joins,
Is made with all due diligence
That horse and sail and high expense 20
Can stead the quest. At last from Tyre,
Fame answering the most strange enquire,
To th’ court of King Simonides
Are letters brought, the tenor these:
Antiochus and his daughter dead, 25
The men of Tyrus on the head
Of Helicanus would set on
The crown of Tyre, but he will none.
The mutiny he there hastes t’ oppress,
Says to ’em, if King Pericles 30
Come not home in twice six moons,
He, obedient to their dooms,
Will take the crown. The sum of this,
Brought hither to Pentapolis,
Y-ravishèd the regions round, 35
And everyone with claps can sound,
“Our heir apparent is a king!
Who dreamt, who thought of such a thing?”
Brief, he must hence depart to Tyre.
His queen, with child, makes her desire— 40
Which who shall cross?—along to go.
Omit we all their dole and woe.
Lychorida, her nurse, she takes,
And so to sea. Their vessel shakes
On Neptune’s billow. Half the flood 45
Hath their keel cut. But Fortune, moved,
Varies again. The grizzled North
Disgorges such a tempest forth
That, as a duck for life that dives,
So up and down the poor ship drives. 50
The lady shrieks and, well-anear,
Does fall in travail with her fear.
And what ensues in this fell storm
Shall for itself itself perform.
I nill relate; action may 55
Conveniently the rest convey,
Which might not what by me is told.
In your imagination hold
This stage the ship upon whose deck
The sea-tossed Pericles appears to speak. 60

He exits.