GOWER

Thus time we waste, long leagues make short.

To skip o’er the sea, you just make a wish for’t.

Taken by your imagination

From bourn to bourn, nation to nation.

You’ve suspended your belief and we’ve committed no crime

In using one language in each several climb

Our scenes live, so… Now I beseech you:

Keep learning of me. I stand here to teach you

The stages of the wasting of our time.

Stage I:

Pericles again thwarts the wayward seas

To soothe a grief that brings him to his knees.

Attended on by many, his lords and his knights,

He goes to see his daughter, his life’s chief delight.

Now, old Escanes, whom Helicanus late

Advance in time to great, high estate,

Is left to govern Tyre - Bear this in mind

As old Helicanus goes along behind.

Now look: strong winds and sails have already brought

Pericles to Tarsus just as swift as your thought

In the stages of the wasting of our time.

Stage II:

The King disembarks, and on the shore is met

By Cleon and his Queen, their cheeks pale and wet.

Now, see how belief may suffer by foul show,

Where this borrowed passion stands for true woe.

They bring him to a grave where Dionyza hath

For young marina writ this *fake* epitaph:

DIONYZA

The fairest, sweetest, and best lies here

Who wither’d in the April of her years.

She was of Tyrus, the King’s only child

By whom foul Death hath made the heavens smile.

Marina was she called at her birth,

And in death, the Gods swallowed the dearest part of the Earth.

Such a waste. Taken before her time.

GOWER

Stage III

Pericles, in sorrow devour’d,

With sighs shot through, and big tears overshower’d,

Leaves Tarsus at once, and henceforth, he swears,

He won’t brush his teeth, wash his face, cut his hair,

He wears naught but rags, and to grief dead devout,

His ship hits a tempest, yet he just rides it out

Through the rages of the wasting of his time.

O, these stages of the wasting of our time.

For now, let Pericles believe that his daughter’s dead,

And bear what consequences fall on his head.

Now, let your imagination carry us away

To Marina’s woe, her heavy well-a-day.

Back to the brothel. Have patience then,

And think that we all are back in Myteline.

Here we go.

SHAKESPEARE

ME