PERICLES PRINCE OF TYRE
Page: 28

By turning o'er authorities, I have,
Together with my practice, made familiar
To me and to my aid the blest infusions
That dwell in vegetives, in metals, stones;
And I can speak of the disturbances
That nature works, and of her cures; which doth give me
A more content in course of true delight
Than to be thirsty after tottering honour,
Or tie my treasure up in silken bags,
To please the fool and death.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
Your honour has through Ephesus pour'd forth
Your charity, and hundreds call themselves
Your creatures, who by you have been restored:
And not your knowledge, your personal pain, but even
Your purse, still open, hath built Lord Cerimon
Such strong renown as time shall ne'er decay.

[Enter two or three Servants with a chest.]

FIRST SERVANT.
So; lift there.

CERIMON.
What is that?

FIRST SERVANT.
Sir, even now
Did the sea toss upon our shore this chest:
'Tis of 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. Wrench it open straight:
If the sea's stomach be o'ercharged with gold,
'Tis a good constraint of fortune it belches upon us.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
'Tis so, my lord.

CERIMON.
How close 'tis caulk'd and bitumed!
Did the sea cast it up?

FIRST SERVANT.
I never saw so huge a billow, sir,
As toss'd it upon shore.

CERIMON.
Wrench it open;
Soft! it smells most sweetly in my sense.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
A delicate odour.

CERIMON.
As ever hit my nostril. So up with it.
O you most potent gods! what's here? a corse!

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Most strange!

CERIMON.
Shrouded in cloth of state; balm'd and entreasured
With full bags of spices! A passport too!
Apollo, perfect me in the characters!

[Reads from a scroll.]

'Here I give to understand,
If e'er this coffin drive a-land,
I, King Pericles, have lost
This queen, worth all our mundane cost.
Who her, give her burying;
She was the daughter of a king:
Besides this treasure for a fee,
The gods requite his charity!'