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| <title>PROLOGUE | |
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| <tr><td class="play" align="center">Pericles, Prince of Tyre | |
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| | <A href="/Shakespeare/pericles/">Pericles</A> | |
| | Act 1, Prologue | |
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| <h3>PROLOGUE</H3> | |
| <p><blockquote> | |
| <i>Enter GOWER</i> | |
| </blockquote> | |
| <p><blockquote> | |
| <i>Before the palace of Antioch</i> | |
| </blockquote> | |
| <blockquote> | |
| <A NAME=1>To sing a song that old was sung,</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=2>From ashes ancient Gower is come;</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=3>Assuming man's infirmities,</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=4>To glad your ear, and please your eyes.</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=5>It hath been sung at festivals,</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=6>On ember-eves and holy-ales;</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=7>And lords and ladies in their lives</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=8>Have read it for restoratives:</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=9>The purchase is to make men glorious;</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=10>Et bonum quo antiquius, eo melius.</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=11>If you, born in these latter times,</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=12>When wit's more ripe, accept my rhymes.</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=13>And that to hear an old man sing</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=14>May to your wishes pleasure bring</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=15>I life would wish, and that I might</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=16>Waste it for you, like taper-light.</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=17>This Antioch, then, Antiochus the Great</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=18>Built up, this city, for his chiefest seat:</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=19>The fairest in all Syria,</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=20>I tell you what mine authors say:</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=21>This king unto him took a fere,</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=22>Who died and left a female heir,</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=23>So buxom, blithe, and full of face,</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=24>As heaven had lent her all his grace;</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=25>With whom the father liking took,</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=26>And her to incest did provoke:</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=27>Bad child; worse father! to entice his own</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=28>To evil should be done by none:</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=29>But custom what they did begin</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=30>Was with long use account no sin.</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=31>The beauty of this sinful dame</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=32>Made many princes thither frame,</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=33>To seek her as a bed-fellow,</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=34>In marriage-pleasures play-fellow:</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=35>Which to prevent he made a law,</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=36>To keep her still, and men in awe,</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=37>That whoso ask'd her for his wife,</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=38>His riddle told not, lost his life:</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=39>So for her many a wight did die,</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=40>As yon grim looks do testify.</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=41>What now ensues, to the judgment of your eye</A><br> | |
| <A NAME=42>I give, my cause who best can justify.</A><br> | |
| <p><i>Exit</i></p> | |
| </blockquote> | |
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| | <A href="/Shakespeare/pericles/">Pericles</A> | |
| | Act 1, Prologue | |
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