At careful nursing. Go thy ways, good mariner.

I’ll bring the body presently.

⌈Exit Master at one door and Sailor beneath the hatches. Exit Pericles to Thaisa, closing the curtains⌉

Sc. 12 Enter Lord Cerimon with a ⌈poor man and a⌉ servant

CERIMON

Philemon, ho!

Enter Philemon

PHILEMON Doth my lord call?

CERIMON

Get fire and meat for those poor men.

⌈Exit Philemon⌉

‘T’as been a turbulent and stormy night.

SERVANT

I have seen many, but such a night as this

Till now I ne’er endured.

CERIMON

Your master will be dead ere you return.

There’s nothing can be ministered in nature

That can recover him. ⌈To poor man⌉ Give this to th’

pothecary

And tell me how it works.

⌈Exeunt poor man and servant⌉

Enter two Gentlemen

FIRST GENTLEMAN Good morrow.

SECOND GENTLEMAN

Good morrow to your lordship.

CERIMON Gentlemen,

Why do you stir so early?

FIRST GENTLEMAN Sir,

Our lodgings, standing bleak upon the sea,

Shook as the earth did quake.

The very principals did seem to rend

And all to topple. Pure surprise and fear

Made me to quit the house.

SECOND GENTLEMAN

That is the cause we trouble you so early;

’Tis not our husbandry.

CERIMON O, you say well.

FIRST GENTLEMAN

But I much marvel that your lordship should,

Having rich tire about you, at this hour

Shake off the golden slumber of repose. ’Tis most

strange,

Nature to be so conversant with pain,

Being thereto not compelled.

CERIMON I held it ever

Virtue and cunning were endowments greater

Than nobleness and riches. Careless heirs

May the two latter darken and dispend,

But immortality attends the former,

Making a man a god. ‘Tis known I ever

Have studied physic, through which secret art,

By turning o’er authorities, I have,

Together with my practice, made familiar

To me and to my aid the blest infusions

That dwells in vegetives, in metals, stones,

And so can speak of the disturbances

That nature works, and of her cures, which doth

give me

A more content and cause of true delight

Than to be thirsty after tott’ring honour,

Or tie my pleasure up in silken bags

To glad the fool and death.

SECOND GENTLEMAN Your honour has

Through Ephesus poured forth your charity,

And hundreds call themselves your creatures who by

you

Have been restored. And not alone your knowledge,

Your personal pain, but e’en your purse still open

Hath built Lord Cerimon such strong renown

As time shall never—

Enter ⌈Philemon and one or⌉ two with a chest

⌈PHILEMON⌉ So, lift there.

CERIMON What’s that? ⌈PHILEMON⌉ Sir, even now

The sea tossed up upon our shore this chest.

’Tis off some wreck.

CERIMON Set’t down. Let’s look upon’t.

SECOND GENTLEMAN

’Tis like a coffin, sir.

CERIMON Whate’er it be,

’Tis wondrous heavy.—Did the sea cast it up?

⌈PHILEMON⌉

I never saw so huge a billow, sir,

Or a more eager.

CERIMON Wrench it open straight.

The others start to work

If the sea’s stomach be o‘ercharged with gold

’Tis by a good constraint of queasy fortune

It belches upon us.

SECOND GENTLEMAN ’Tis so, my lord.

CERIMON

How close ’tis caulked and bitumed!

⌈They force the lid⌉

Soft, it smells

Most sweetly in my sense.

SECOND GENTLEMAN A delicate odour.

CERIMON

As ever hit my nostril. So, up with it.

They take the lid off

O you most potent gods! What’s here—a corpse?

SECOND GENTLEMAN

Most strange.

CERIMON Shrouded in cloth of state, and crowned,

Balmed and entreasured with full bags of spices.

A passport, too!

He takes a paper from the chest

Apollo perfect me i’th’ characters.

‘Here I give to understand,

If e’er this coffin drives a-land,

I, King Pericles, have lost

This queen worth all our mundane cost.

Who finds her, give her burying;

She was the daughter of a king.

Besides this treasure for a fee,

The gods requite his charity.’

If thou liv’st, Pericles, thou hast a heart

That even cracks for woe. This chanced tonight.

SECOND GENTLEMAN

Most likely, sir.

CERIMON Nay, certainly tonight,

For look how fresh she looks. They were too rash

That threw her in the sea. Make a fire within.

Fetch hither all my boxes in my closet. ⌈Exit Philemon⌉

Death may usurp on nature many hours,

And yet the fire of life kindle again

The o’erpressed spirits. I have heard

Of an Egyptian nine hours dead

Who was by good appliances recovered.

Enter ⌈Philemon⌉ with napkins and fire

Well said, well said, the fire and cloths.

The still and woeful music that we have,

Cause it to sound, beseech you.

Music

The vial once more.

How thou stirr‘st, thou block! The music there!

I pray you give her air. Gentlemen,

This queen will live. Nature awakes, a warmth

Breathes out of her. She hath not been entranced

Above five hours. See how she ’gins to blow

Into life’s flow’r again.

FIRST GENTLEMAN The heavens

Through you increase our wonder, and set up

Your fame for ever.