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| Character | Pericles | |
|---|---|---|
| Gender | Male | |
| Age Range(s) | Young Adult (20-35), Adult (36-50) | |
| Type of monologue / Character is | Lamenting, Frustrated, Afraid | |
| Type | Dramatic | |
| Period | Renaissance | |
| Genre | Romance, Tragedy, Drama, Comedy | |
| Description | Pericles expresses his fear for Antiochus | |
| Location | ACT I, Scene 2 | |
Summary
In the city of Antiochus, in Syria, King Antiochus rules the city. We learn in the prologue that he is committing incest with his beautiful daughter and is keeping all her suitors away by forcing them to answer a riddle or die. One of the suitors is Pericles who in the first scene of the play is in King's Antiochus court, determined to try and answer his riddle. When he reads the riddle he realizes that it is about the incest going on with his daughter. He then refuses to answer it saying that he knows the truth but rather not tell it. The king, who realizes Pericles knows about the incest, tells him he will be executed in 40 days. Pericles decides to flee and goes back to Tyre.
In this monologue, at the beginning of the second scene of the play, Pericles expresses his fear that Antiochus will decide to invade his land even if Pericles promised that he will keep silent. He argues that the people of his city won't be able to fight back such a powerful enemy as Antiochus.
In this monologue, at the beginning of the second scene of the play, Pericles expresses his fear that Antiochus will decide to invade his land even if Pericles promised that he will keep silent. He argues that the people of his city won't be able to fight back such a powerful enemy as Antiochus.
Written by Administrator
| Excerpt |
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| 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 aim 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 be 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'll 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. |
