For nature puts me to a heavy task;— Mar. Tear for tear, and loving kiss for kiss, To melt in showers: Thy grandsire lov'd thee well: Friends should associate friends in grief and wo: Would I were dead, so you did live again !- Enter Attendants, with Aaron. 1 Rom. You sad Andronici, have done with woes; Give sentence on this execrable wretch, That hath been breeder of these dire events. Luc. Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him; There let him stand, and rave and cry for food: For the offence he dies. This is our doom: Aar. O, why should wrath be mute, and fury dumb? I am no baby, I, that, with base prayers, I should repent the evils I have done; I do repent it from my very soul. Luc. Some loving friends convey the emperor hence, And give him burial in his father's grave No funeral rite, nor man in mournful weeds, But throw her forth to beasts, and birds of prey. [Excunt. All the editors and critics agree in supposing this play spurious. I see no reason for differing from them; for the colour of the style is wholly different from that of the other plays. JOHNSON. Simonides, king of Pentapolis. Cleon, governor of Tharsus. Lysimachus, governor of Mitylene. Thaliard, a lord of Antioch. Philemon, servant to Cerimon. Leonine, servant to Dionyza. Marshal. A Pandar, and his Wife. Boult, their servan. Gower, as chorus. The Daughter of Antiochus. Dionyza, wife to Cleon. Thaisa, daughter to Simonides. Marina, daughter to Pericles and Thaisa. Lychorida, nurse to Marina. Diana. Lords, Ladies, Knights, Gentlemen, Sailors, Ptrales, Fishermen, and Messengers, &c. Scene, dispersedly in various countries.1 (1) That the reader may know through how many regions the scene of this drama is dispersed, it is necessary to observe, that Antioch was the metropolis of Syria; Tyre a city of Phoenicia, in Asia; Tarsus, the metropolis of Cilicia, a country of Asia Minor; Mitylene, the capitol of Lesbos, an island in the Egean sea; and Ephesus, the capital of Ionia, a country of the Lesser Asia. |