Act 2, Scene 1

Pentapolis. An open place by the sea-side.

[Enter Gower.]
Gower
496 Mere have you seen a mighty king
497 His child, I wis, to incest bring;
498 A better prince and benign lord,
499 That will prove awful both in deed word.
500 Be quiet then as men should be,
501 Till he hath pass'd necessity.
502 I'll show you those in troubles reign,
503 Losing a mite, a mountain gain.
504 The good in conversation,
505 To whom I give my benison,
506 Is still at Tarsus, where each man
507 Thinks all is writ he speken can;
508 And, to remember what he does,
509 Build his statue to make him glorious:
510 But tidings to the contrary
511 Are brought your eyes; what need speak I?
[DUMB SHOW.]
[Enter at one door Pericles talking with Cleon talking with CLEON; all the train with them. Enter at another door a Gentleman, with a letter to Pericles; Pericles shows the letter to Cleon; gives the Messenger a reward, and knights him. Exit Pericles at one door, and Cleon at another.]
Gower
512 Good Helicane, that stay'd at home.
513 Not to eat honey like a drone
514 From others' labours; for though he strive
515 To killen bad, keep good alive;
516 And to fulfil his prince' desire,
517 Sends word of all that haps in Tyre:
518 How Thaliard came full bent with sin
519 And had intent to murder him;
520 And that in Tarsus was not best
521 Longer for him to make his rest.
522 He, doing so, put forth to seas,
523 Where when men been, there's seldom ease;
524 For now the wind begins to blow;
525 Thunder above and deeps below
526 Make such unquiet, that the ship
527 Should house him safe is wreck'd and split;
528 And he, good prince, having all lost,
529 By waves from coast to coast is tost:
530 All perishen of man, of pelf,
531 Ne aught escapen but himself;
532 Till fortune, tired with doing bad,
533 Threw him ashore, to give him glad:
534 And here he comes. What shall be next,
535 Pardon old Gower, — this longs the text.
[Exit.]
[Enter Pericles, wet.]
Pericles
536 Yet cease your ire, you angry stars of heaven!
537 Wind, rain, and thunder, remember, earthly man
538 Is but a substance that must yield to you;
539 And I, as fits my nature, do obey you:
540 Alas, the sea hath cast me on the rocks,
541 Wash'd me from shore to shore, and left me breath
542 Nothing to think on but ensuing death:
543 Let it suffice the greatness of your powers
544 To have bereft a prince of all his fortunes;
545 And having thrown him from your watery grave,
546 Here to have death in peace is all he'll crave.
[Enter three Fishermen.]
First Fisherman
547 What, ho, Pilch!
Second Fisherman
548 Ha, come and bring away the nets!
First Fisherman
549 What, Patch-breech, I say!
Third Fisherman
550 What say you, master?
First Fisherman
551 Look how thou stirrest now! come away, or I'll fetch thee with a
552 wanion.
Third Fisherman
553 'Faith, master, I am thinking of the poor men that were cast away
554 before us even now.
First Fisherman
555 Alas, poor souls, it grieved my heart to hear what pitiful cries
556 they made to us to help them, when, well-a-day, we could scarce
557 help ourselves.
Third Fisherman
558 Nay, master, said not I as much when I saw the porpus how he
559 bounced and tumbled? they say they're half fish, half flesh:
560 a plague on them, they ne'er come but I look to be washed.
561 Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea.
First Fisherman
562 Why, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones: I
563 can compare our rich misers to nothing so fitly as to a whale;
564 a' plays and tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at
565 last devours them all at a mouthful. such whales have I heard
566 on o' the land, who never leave gaping till they they've
567 swallowed the whole parish, church, steeple, bells, and all.
[Aside.]
Pericles
568 A pretty moral.
Third Fisherman
569 But, master, if I had been the sexton, I would have been that day
570 in the belfry.
Second Fisherman
571 Why, man?
Third Fisherman
572 Because he should have swallowed me too; and when I had been in
573 his belly, I would have kept such a jangling of the bells, that
574 he should never have left, till he cast bells, steeple, church,
575 and parish, up again. But if the good King Simonides were of
576 my mind, —
[Aside.]
Pericles
577 Simonides!
Third Fisherman
578 We would purge the land of these drones, that rob the bee of her
579 honey.
[Aside.]
Pericles
580 How from the finny subjec of the sea
581 These fishers tell the infirmities of men;
582 And from their watery empire recollect
583 All that may men approve or men detect!
584 Peace be at your labour, honest fishermen.
Second Fisherman
585 Honest! good fellow, what's that; If it be a day fits you, search
586 out of the calendar, and nobody look after it.
Pericles
587 May see the sea hath cast upon your coast.
Second Fisherman
588 What a drunken knave was the sea to cast thee in our way!
Pericles
589 A man whom both the waters and the wind,
590 In that vast tennis-court, have made the ball
591 For them to play upon, entreats you pity him;
592 He asks of you, that never used to beg.
First Fisherman
593 No, friend, cannot you beg? Here's them in our country of Greece
594 gets more with begging than we can do with working.
Second Fisherman
595 Canst thou catch any fishes, then?
Pericles
596 I never practised it.
Second Fisherman
597 Nay, then thou wilt starve, sure; for here's nothing to be got
598 now-a-days, unless thou canst fish for 't.
Pericles
599 What I have been I have forgot to know;
600 But what I am, want teaches me to think on:
601 A man throng'd up with cold: my veins are chill,
602 And have no more of life than may suffice
603 To give my tongue that heat to ask your help;
604 Which if you shall refuse, when I am dead,
605 For that I am a man, pray see me buried.
First Fisherman
606 Die quoth-a? Now gods forbid! I have a gown here; come, put it
607 on; keep thee warm. Now, afore me, a handsome fellow! Come,
608 thou shalt go home, and we'll have flesh for holidays, fish for
609 fasting-days, and moreo'er puddings and flap-jacks, and thou
610 shalt be welcome.
Pericles
611 I thank you, sir.
Second Fisherman
612 Hark you, my friend; you said you could not beg.
Pericles
613 I did but crave.
Second Fisherman
614 But crave! Then I'll turn craver too, and so I shall 'scape
615 whipping.
Pericles
616 Why, are your beggars whipped, then?
Second Fisherman
617 O, not all, my friend, not all; for if all your beggars were
618 whipped, I would wish no better office than to be beadle.
619 But, master, I'll go draw up the net.
[Exit with Third Fisherman.]
[Aside.]
Pericles
620 How well this honest mirth becomes their 1abour!
First Fisherman
621 Hark you, sir, do you know where ye are?
Pericles
622 Not well.
First Fisherman
623 Why, I'll tell you: this is called Pentapolis, and our king the
624 good Simonides.
Pericles
625 The good King Simonides, do you call him?
First Fisherman
626 Ay, sir; and he deserves so to be called for his peaceable reign
627 and good government.
Pericles
628 He is a happy king, since he gains from his subjects the name of
629 good government. How far is his court distant from this shore?
First Fisherman
630 Marry sir, half a day's journey: and I'll tell you, he hath a
631 fair daughter, and to-morrow is her birth-day; and there are
632 princes and knights come from all parts of the world to just and
633 tourney for her love.
Pericles
634 Were my fortunes equal to my desires, I could wish to make one
635 there.
First Fisherman
636 O, sir, things must be as they may; and what a man cannot get, he
637 may lawfully deal for — his wife' soul.
[Re-enter Second and Third Fishermen, drawing up a net.]
Second Fisherman
638 Help, master, help! here's a fish hangs in the net, like a poor
639 man's right in the law; 'twill hardly come out. Ha! bots on't,
640 'tis come at last, and 'tis turned to a rusty armour.
Pericles
641 An armour, friends! I pray you, let me see it.
642 Thanks, fortune, yet, that, after all my crosses,
643 Thou givest me somewhat to repair myself,
644 And though it was mine own, part of my heritage,
645 Which my dead father did bequeath to me,
646 With this strict charge, even as he left his life.
647 'Keep it, my Pericles; it hath been a shield
648 'Twixt me and death;' — and pointed to this brace; —
649 For that it saved me, keep it; in like necessity —
650 The which the gods protect thee from! — may defend thee.'
651 It kept where I kept, I so dearly loved it;
652 Till the rough seas, that spare not any man,
653 Took it in rage, though calm'd have given't again:
654 I thank thee for 't: my shipwreck now's no ill,
655 Since I have here my father's gift in's will.
First Fisherman
656 What mean you' sir?
Pericles
657 To beg of you, kind friends, this coat of worth,
658 For it was sometime target to a king;
659 I know it by this mark. He loved me dearly,
660 And for his sake I wish the having of it;
661 And that you'ld guide me to your sovereign court,
662 Where with it I may appear a gentleman;
663 And if that ever my fortune's better,
664 I'll pay your bounties; till then rest your debtor.
First Fisherman
665 Why, wilt thou tourney for the lady?
Pericles
666 I'll show the virtue I have borne in arms.
First Fisherman
667 Why, do'e take it, and the gods give thee good on 't!
Second Fisherman
668 Ay, but hark you, my friend; 'twas we that made up this garment
669 through the rough seams of the waters: there are certain
670 condolements, certain vails. I hope, sir, if you thrive, you'll
671 remember from whence you had it.
Pericles
672 Believe't I will.
673 By your furtherance I am clothed in steel;
674 And, spite of all the rapture of the sea,
675 This jewel holds his building on my arm:
676 Unto thy value I will mount myself
677 Upon a courser, whose delightful steps
678 Shall make the gazer joy to see him tread.
679 Only, my friend, I yet am unprovided
680 Of a pair of bases.
Second Fisherman
681 We'll sure provide: thou shalt have my best gown to make thee a
682 pair; and I'll bring thee to the court myself.
Pericles
683 Then honour be but a goal to my will,
684 This day I'll rise, or else add ill to ill.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 497archaic vocab
“I wis, to incest bring”
'I wis' is a Middle English phrase meaning 'I know' or 'certainly.' It is a hallmark of Gower's deliberately archaic, pseudo-medieval voice. Here it means: 'a better prince who, I know, will prove himself worthy — as opposed to the incestuous king just shown.'
historical John Gower and the Confessio Amantis
TLN 498archaic vocab
“A better prince and benign lord, That will prove awful”
'Benign' means gracious and good-natured (a standard opposite to tyranny). 'Awful' here means 'inspiring awe and reverence' — not frightening in the modern sense. Gower is praising Pericles as a ruler whose deeds will command genuine respect.
historical John Gower and the Confessio Amantis
TLN 504archaic vocab
“good in conversation, To whom I give my benison”
'Benison' (also 'benizon') is Middle English for 'blessing' — the opposite of 'malison' (a curse). Gower says he gives his blessing to 'the good in conversation,' meaning those good in conduct and behaviour. 'Conversation' in Elizabethan English meant one's whole manner of life, not just talk.
historical John Gower and the Confessio Amantis
TLN 507archaic vocab
“all is writ he speken can”
'Speken' is an archaic infinitive form of 'speak,' copied from Middle English (compare Chaucer's 'speken'). Gower's line means: everyone at Tarsus thinks that whatever Pericles can say is worth writing down — he is honoured as a man of unquestioned wisdom.
historical John Gower and the Confessio Amantis
TLN 515archaic vocab
“To killen bad, keep good alive”
'Killen' is another Middle English infinitive form ('to kill'). Gower is praising Helicanus, the loyal regent of Tyre, for actively working to suppress wicked men and protect the good in Pericles' absence — the very image of faithful stewardship.
historical John Gower and the Confessio Amantis
TLN 530archaic vocab
“All perishen of man, of pelf, Ne aught escapen but himself”
'Perishen' and 'escapen' are Middle English plural/infinitive forms — 'perished' and 'escaped.' 'Pelf' means money or property, especially wealth gained by dubious means (Old French pelfre, plunder). 'Ne aught' means 'nor anything.' The lines describe the total wreck of Pericles' ship: every person and every possession was lost; only he survived.
historical John Gower and the Confessio Amantisclassical Fortune and her wheel
TLN 535archaic vocab
“this longs the text”
'Longs' here means 'belongs to' or 'extends' — Gower is saying this action belongs to (or fills out) the larger story he is telling. It is his way of acknowledging that the play's plot is too long to narrate in full, and that the dumb-show and the dialogue must carry the rest.
historical John Gower and the Confessio Amantishistorical The romance of Apollonius of Tyre
TLN 551archaic vocab
“fetch thee with a wanion”
'With a wanion' means 'with a vengeance' or 'with a curse' — a threatening intensifier. The First Fisherman is warning the Third to stop dawdling and come help, or he will fetch him forcibly. It is a colloquial Elizabethan oath-substitute.
TLN 562rhetorical device
“the great ones eat up the little ones: I can compare our rich misers to nothing so fitly as to a whale”
The First Fisherman uses an extended analogy — how fish live in the sea mirrors how men live on land — to deliver pointed social satire: the wealthy devour the poor just as big fish swallow small ones. The whale that 'swallowed the whole parish, church, steeple, bells, and all' is a comic fantasy built on the same moral. This device of using natural observation to expose social injustice is a set-piece of popular Elizabethan prose writing.
TLN 585wordplay
“Honest! good fellow, what's that; If it be a day fits you, search out of the calendar”
The Second Fisherman's joke is that 'honesty' is so rare it would need to be looked up in the calendar as if it were a saint's day — something so exceptional it comes around only once a year. The joke satirizes the idea that honest men are uncommon, and perhaps also that Pericles himself, washed up and penniless, looks nothing like the honest, respectable person his words claim.
TLN 590rhetorical device
“In that vast tennis-court, have made the ball For them to play upon”
Pericles describes the ocean as a giant tennis court, and himself as the ball batted back and forth by wind and wave. The conceit turns a gentleman's sport into an image of helplessness: the ball has no agency; it can only be struck. The metaphor was striking and slightly comic — tennis was the game of courtiers and princes, and here the prince has been reduced to the court's own ball.
classical Neptune, god of the sea
TLN 601archaic vocab
“A man throng'd up with cold”
'Throng'd up with cold' means 'compressed and constricted by cold' — his veins and muscles are contracted and stiffened by the cold seawater. The verb 'throng' here carries the sense of being pressed, crowded, or crammed tight, which Elizabethan usage applied both to crowds of people and to physical constriction.
TLN 614cultural context
“I'll turn craver too, and so I shall 'scape whipping”
Elizabethan vagrancy laws made unlicensed begging a punishable offence; able-bodied 'sturdy beggars' were publicly whipped. If Pericles merely 'craved' (asked politely) rather than 'begged,' the Second Fisherman jokes, he could reclassify his own requests as 'craving' and avoid punishment. The joke is also about the thin line between polite asking and illegal mendicancy.
TLN 638rhetorical device
“a fish hangs in the net, like a poor man's right in the law; 'twill hardly come out”
The Second Fisherman jokes that the armour stuck in the net resembles a poor man's legal rights — something that is technically there but nearly impossible to extract in practice. The simile is a quick satire on Elizabethan legal access: the poor had rights in law but lacked the money and influence to enforce them. The comedy turns immediately when the armour proves to be Pericles' father's armour, transforming a fisherman's joke into a providential moment.
TLN 647cultural context
“'Keep it, my Pericles; it hath been a shield 'Twixt me and death;' — and pointed to this brace”
Pericles recalls his father's dying words: the armour was a shield between him and death in battle, and he bequeathed it as an heirloom with protective power. 'Brace' here means the armguard (a piece of plate armour protecting the forearm). The speech establishes the armour as an emblem of inherited knightly virtue — it passed from father to son and was then taken and returned by the sea.
classical Fortune and her wheel
TLN 658archaic vocab
“it was sometime target to a king”
'Target' in Elizabethan use means a small round shield (a targe or buckler). 'Sometime' means 'formerly' or 'once.' Pericles is telling the fishermen that this piece of armour — recovered from the sea — once belonged to a king, his dead father: it was formerly that king's shield.
TLN 669archaic vocab
“there are certain condolements, certain vails”
'Vails' are tips, gratuities, or perquisites — extra payments expected by servants and workmen over and above their wages. 'Condolements' in this context means acknowledged debts or dues — things owed in recognition of a service rendered. The Second Fisherman is politely (and humorously) reminding Pericles that if he thrives at court, he owes the fishermen a reward for pulling the armour out of the sea.
TLN 674archaic vocab
“spite of all the rapture of the sea”
'Rapture' here means 'violent seizure, plunder, carrying off by force' (from Latin rapere, to seize) — not 'ecstasy' as in its modern use. Pericles is saying that despite everything the sea violently tore away from him, this jewel and armour hold fast. The word keeps its Latin root meaning of forcible snatching.
TLN 679cultural context
“unprovided Of a pair of bases”
'Bases' were the skirt-like fabric hanging worn over armour from the waist to the knee — part of the full tournament dress for a mounted knight. Pericles has his father's metal armour but lacks this fabric overskirt, which completes the knightly appearance for a joust. The Second Fisherman offers his best gown to make up a pair, and this act of generosity allows Pericles to enter the tournament properly dressed.