Queen. And his acknowledged play, The Miseries of Enforced Marriage (1603), though totally unlike Pericles in plot (it is founded on the contemporary history of a Yorkshire family), has in common with it some tricks of metre, especially (as Delius noticed) the use of rhymes promiscuously interspersed in the midst of blank verse, even in verse-speeches which themselves alternate with prose. Cf. e.g. Pericles' dialogue with the fishermen in ii. 1., and the dialogues between Ilford and Scarborow, Ilford and the Clown (Miseries of Enforced Marriage, in HazlittDodsley, ix. 492, 493). But the suggestion that the publication of the First Quarto of Pericles was an act of reprisal by Shakespeare's company is wholly unwarranted. For the state of the text leaves no doubt that it was published surreptitiously from a copy less authentic than that on which Wilkins himself had based his paraphrase. Pericles was surpassed by few of Shakespeare's Later Litermost authentic plays in popularity. In 1609 an ary History anonymous satirist compared a crowd of outstretched throats to an audience come 'to see Shore or Pericles.'1 The name of Pericles became a by-word for good fortune,2 and Boult seems, like Pandarus, to have given a new sobriquet to his class.3 But the immense vogue of Pericles was chiefly among the populace of all ranks. Grave and scholarly persons resented its monstrous defects as a drama, as well as its pardonable if not legitimate grossness and presently their voices began to be heard. Jonson, smarting from the derisive rejection 1 Pimlyco, or Runne RedCap, 1609 (cf. Cent. of Shakespeare's Praise, p. 89). 2 " Fortunate like Pericles'; Taylor's The Hogg hath lost his 3 Barthwaite, Strappado for of his The New Inn (1629), turned savagely upon the 'mouldy tale' which it was still a safe venture to perform; and even Owen Feltham's Reply seems to admit that there were many whom Pericles 'deeply displeased.' After the Restoration it passed from the stage, on account of its offences against art rather than against decency, though its grossness was of too primitive a type to please the contemporaries of Etherege. Dryden singles it out, with the English histories collectively, as a type of the 'ridiculous incoherent story which in one play many times took up the business of an age'; and in an unfortunate, but often-quoted, line used it to illustrate the contention that no first plays are good, since Shakespeare's own Muse his Pericles first bore. In our own time it has, somewhat tardily, shared in the heightened repute of the Romances. PERICLES ACT I. Enter GOWER. Before the palace of Antioch. To sing a song that old was sung, To glad your ear, and please your eyes. It hath been sung at festivals, On ember-eves and holy-ales; And lords and ladies in their lives Have read it for restoratives : The purchase is to make men glorious; 1. old, of old; apparently intended for an archaism. 6. ember-eves, the eves of ember-days. 9. purchase, gain, profit. Built up, this city, for his chiefest seat; I tell you what mine authors say: Bad child; worse father! to entice his own As yon grim looks do testify. What now ensues, to the judgement of your eye [Exit. SCENE I. Antioch. A room in the palace. Enter ANTIOCHUS, PRINCE PERICLES, and followers. Ant. Young prince of Tyre, you have at large received 21. fere, mate. 29, 30. The confused syntax of this couplet is probably due to the writer. Malone proposed 20 30 40 By custom, which only emphasises its apparent tautology. 32. frame, betake them. selves. The danger of the task you undertake. Ant. Bring in our daughter, clothed like a bride, For the embracements even of Jove himself; Music. Enter the Daughter of Antiochus. Per. See where she comes, apparell'd like the spring, Graces her subjects, and her thoughts the king Her face the book of praises, where is read Per. That would be son to great Antiochus. 6. Bring in our daughter. Qq and Ff prefix Music' to these words, as a part of the speech. Malone distinguished ΤΟ 20 'Music' as a stage direction; and Dyce transferred it to v. II. 8. till Lucina reign'd, until her birth. C |