Pericles, Prince of Tyre · William Shakespeare
SCENE III. Tarsus. A room in Cleon’s house.
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’d give it to undo the deed. A 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 face. 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 thinks 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 Whoever but his approbation added, Though not his prime consent, he did not flow From honourable courses.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.