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your highness call?

ANTIOCHUS

      Thaliard,

      You are of our chamber, and our mind partakes

      Her private actions to your secrecy;

      And for your faithfulness we will advance you.

      Thaliard, behold, here's poison, and here's gold;

      We hate the prince of Tyre, and thou must kill him:

      It fits thee not to ask the reason why,

      Because we Bid it. Say, is it done?

THALIARD

      My lord,

      Tis done.

ANTIOCHUS

      Enough.

      [Enter a Messenger.]

      Let your breath cool yourself, telling your haste.

MESSENGER

      My lord, prlnce Pericles is fled.

      [Exit.]

ANTIOCHUS

      As thou

      Wilt live, fly after: and like an arrow shot

      From a well-experienced archer hits the mark

      His eye doth level at, so thou ne'er return

      Unless thou say 'Prince Pericles is dead.'

THALIARD

      My lord,

      If I can get him within my pistol's length,

      I'll make him sure enough: so, farewell to your highness.

ANTIOCHUS

      Thaliard! adieu!

      [Exit Thaliard.]

      Till

      Pericles be dead,

      My heart can lend no succour to my head.

      [Exit.]

      SCENE II. Tyre. A room in the palace

      [Enter Pericles.]

PERICLES. [To Lords without.]

      Let none disturb us. – Why should this change of thoughts,

      The sad companion, dull-eyed melancholy,

      Be my so used a guest as not an hour,

      In the day's glorious walk, or peaceful night,

      The tomb where grief should sleep, can breed me quiet?

      Here pleasures court mine eyes, and mine eyes shun them,

      And danger, which I fear'd, is at Antioch,

      Whose arm seems far too short to hit me here:

      Yet neither pleasure's art can joy my spirits,

      Nor yet the other's distance comfort me.

      Then it is thus: the passions of the mind,

      That have their first conception by mis-dread

      Have after-nourishment and life by care;

      And what was first but fear what might he done,

      Grows elder now and cares it be not done.

      And so with me: the great Antiochus,

      'Gainst whom I am too little to contend,

      Since he 's so great can make his will his act,

      Will think me speaking, though I swear to silence;

      Nor boots it me to say I honour him.

      If he suspect I may dishonour him:

      And what may make him blush in being known,

      He'll stop the course by which it might be known;

      With hostile forces he'11 o'erspread the land,

      And with the ostent of war will look so huge,

      Amazement shall drive courage from the state;

      Our men be vanquish'd ere they do resist,

      And subjects punish'd that ne'er thought offence:

      Which care of them, not pity of myself,

      Who am no more but as the tops of trees,

      Which fence the roots they grow by and defend them,

      Makes both my body pine and soul to languish,

      And punish that before that he would punish.

      [Enter Helicanus, with other Lords.]

FIRST LORD

      Joy and all comfort in your sacred breast!

SECOND LORD

      And keep your mind, till you return to us,

      Peaceful and comfortable!

HELICANUS

      Peace, peace, and give experience tongue.

      They do abuse the king that flatter him:

      For flattery is the bellows blows up sin;

      The thing the which is flatter'd, but a spark,

      To which that blast gives heat and stronger glowing:

      Whereas reproof, obedient and in order,

      Fits kings, as they are men, for they may err.

      When Signior Sooth here does proclaim a peace,

      He flatters you, makes war upon your life.

      Prince, pardon me, or strike me, if you please;

      I cannot be much lower than my knees.

PERICLES

      All leave us else; but let your cares o'erlook

      What shipping and what lading is in our haven,

      And then return to us.

      [Exeunt Lords.]

      Helicanus, thou

      Hast moved us: what seest thou in our looks?

HELICANUS

      An angry brow, dread lord.

PERICLES

      If there be such a dart in princes' frowns,

      How durst thy tongue move anger to our face?

HELICANUS

      How dare the plants look up to heaven, from whence

      They have their nourishment?

PERICLES

      Thou know'st I have power

      To take thy life from thee.

HELICANUS. [Kneeling.]

      I have ground the axe myself;

      Do you but strike the blow.

PERICLES

      Rise, prithee, rise.

      Sit down: thou art no flatterer:

      I thank thee for it; and heaven forbid

      That kings should let their ears hear their faults hid!

      Fit counsellor and servant for a prince,

      Who by thy wisdom makest a prince thy servant,

      What wouldst thou have me do?

HELICANUS

      To bear with patience

      Such griefs as you yourself do lay upon yourself.

PERICLES

      Thou speak'st like a physician, Helicanus,

      That minister'st a potion unto me

      That thou wouldst tremble to receive thyself.

      Attend

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