THE story on which this play is formed, is of great antiquity. It is found in a book, once very popular, entitled Gesta Romanorum, which is supposed by Mr. Tyrwhitt, the learned editor of The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, 1775, to have been written five hundred years ago. The earliest impression of that work (which I have seen) was printed in 1488*; in that edition the history of Appolonius King of Tyre makes the 153d chapter. It is likewise related by Gower in his Confessio Amantis, lib. VIII. p. 175-185, edit. 1554. The Rev. Dr. Farmer has in his possession a fragment of a MS. poem on the same subject, which appears, from the handwriting and the metre, to be more ancient than Gower. There is also an ancient romance on this subject, called Kyng Appolyn of Thyre, translated from the French by Robert Copland, and printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1510. In 1576 William Howe had a licence for printing The most excellent, pleasant, and variable Historie of the strange Adventures of Prince Appolonius, Lucine his wyfe, and Tharsa his daughter. The author of Pericles having introduced Gower in his piece, it is reasonable to suppose that he chiefly followed the work of that poet. It is observable, that the hero of this tale is, in Gower's poem, as in the present play, called Prince of Tyre; in the Gesta Romanorum, and Copland's prose Romance, he is entitled King. Most of the incidents of the play are found in the Conf Amant. and a few of Gower's expressions are occasionally borrowed. However, I think it is not unlikely, that there may have been (though I have not met with it) an early prose translation of this popular story, from the Gest. Roman. in which the name of Appolonius was changed to Pericles; to which, likewise, the author of this drama may have been indebted. In 1607 was published at London, by Valentine Sims, "The patterne of painful adventures, containing the most excellent, pleasant, and variable Historie of the strange Accidents that befell unto Prince Appolonius, the lady Lucina his wife, and Tharsia his daughter, wherein the uncertaintie of this world and the fickle state of man's life are lively described. Translated into English by T. Twine, Gent." I have never seen the book, but it was without doubt a re-publication of that published by W. Howe in 1576. Pericles was entered on the Stationers' books, May 2, 1608, by Edward Blount, one of the printers of the first folio edition of Shakspeare's plays; but it did not appear in print till the following year, and then it was published not by Blount, but by Henry Gosson; who had probably anticipated the other, by getting a hasty transcript from a playhouse copy. There is, I believe, no play of our author's, perhaps I might say, in the English language, so incor There are several editions of the Gesta Romanorum before 1488. DOUCE. rect as this. The most corrupt of Shakspeare's other dramas, compared with Pericles, is purity itself. The metre is seldom attended to; verse is frequently printed as prose, and the grossest errors abound in almost every page. I mention these circumstances, only as an apology to the reader for having taken somewhat more licence with this drama than would have been justifiable, if the copies of it now extant had been less disfigured by the negligence and ignorance of the printer or transcriber. The numerous corruptions that are found in the original edition in 1609, which have been carefully preserved and augmented in all the subsequent impressions, probably arose from its having been frequently exihibited on the stage. In the four quarto editions it is called the much-admired play of PERICLES, PRINCE of TYRE; and it is mentioned by many ancient writers as a very popular performance. For the division of this piece into scenes I am responsible, there being none found in the old copies. MALONE. Chaucer refers to the story of Apollonius, King of Tyre, in The Man of Lawe's Prologue: "Or elles of Tyrius Appolonius, "How that the cursed king Antiochus There are three French translations of this tale, viz. -" La Chronique d'Appollin, Roy de Thyr;" 4to. Geneva, bl. 1. no date;and "Plaisante et agreable Histoire d'Appollonius Prince de Thyr en Affrique, et Roi d'Antioche; traduit par Gilles Corozet,” 8vo. Paris, 1530; and (in the seventh volume of the Histoires Tragiques, &c. 12mo. 1604, par François Belle-Forest, &c.) "Accidens diuers aduenus à Appollonie Roy des Tyriens: ses malheurs sur mer, ses pertes de femme & fille, & la fin heureuse de tous ensemble." The popularity of this tale of Apollonius, may be inferred from the very numerous MS. in which it appears. Both editions of Twine's translation are now before me. Thomas Twine was the continuator of Phaer's Virgil, which was left imperfect in the year 1558. In Twine's book our hero is repeatedly called "Prince of Tyrus." It is singular enough that this fable should have been republished in 1607, the play entered on the books of the Stationers' Company in 1608, and printed in 1609. It is almost needless to observe that our dramatick Pericles has not the least resemblance to his historical namesake; though the adventures of the former are sometimes coincident with those of Pyrocles, the hero of Sidney's Arcadia; for the amorous, fugitive, shipwrecked, musical, tilting, despairing Prince of Tyre is an accomplished knight of Romance, disguised under the name of a statesman. "Wielded at will a fierce democratie, "Shook th' arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece." As to Sidney's Pyrocles,-Tros, Tyriusve, "The world was all before him, where to choose "His place of rest.” but Pericles was tied down to Athens, and could not be removed to a throne in Phoenicia. No poetick licence will permit a unique, classical, and conspicuous name to be thus unwarrantably transferred. A Prince of Madagascar must not be called Æneas, nor a Duke of Florence Mithridates; for such peculiar appellations would unseasonably remind us of their great original possessors. The playwright who indulges himself in these wanton and injudicious vagaries will always counteract his own purpose. Thus, as often as the appropriated name of Pericles occurs, it serves but to expose our anthor's gross departure from established manners and historick truth; for laborious fiction could not designedly produce two personages more opposite than the settled demagogue of Athens, and the vagabond Prince of Tyre. It is remarkable, that many of our ancient writers were ambitious to exhibit Sidney's worthies on the stage; and when his subordinate agents were advanced to such honour, how happened it that Pyrocles, their leader, should be overlooked? Musidorus, (his companion,) Argalus and Parthenia, Phalantus and Eudora, Andromana, &c. furnished titles for different tragedies; and perhaps Pyrocles, in the present instance, was defrauded of a like distinction. The names invented or employed by Sidney, had once such popularity, that they were sometimes borrowed by poets who did not profess to follow the direct current of his fables, or attend to the strict preservation of his characters. Nay, so high was the credit of this romance, that many a fashionable word and glowing phrase selected from it, was applied, like a Promethean torch, to contemporary sonnets, and gave a transient life even to those dwarfish and enervate bantlings of the reluctant Muse. I must add, that the Appolyn of the Story-book and Gower, could have been rejected only to make room for a more favourite name; yet, however conciliating the name of Pyrocles might have been, that of Pericles could challenge no advantage with regard to general predilection. I am aware, that a conclusive argument cannot be drawn from the false quantity in the second syllable of Pericles; and yet if the Athenian was in our author's mind, he might have been taught by repeated translations from fragments of satiric poets in Sir Thomas North's Plutarch, to call his hero Pericles; as, for instance, in the following couplet : "O Chiron, tell me, first, art thou indeede the man Again, in George's Gascoigne's Steele Glas: "Pericles stands in rancke amongst the rest." Again, ibidem: "Pericles was a famous man of warre." Such therefore was the poetical pronunciation of this proper name, in the age of Shakspeare. The address of Persius to a youthful orator- Magni pupille Pericli, is familiar to the ear of every classical reader. By some of the observations scattered over the following pages, it will be proved that the illegitimate Pericles occasionally adopts not merely the ideas of Sir Philip's heroes, but their very words and phraseology. All circumstances therefore considered, it is not improbable that our author designed his chief character to be called Pyrocles, not Pericles, however ignorance or accident might have shuffled the latter (a name of almost similar sound) into the place of the former. The true name, when once corrupted or changed in the theatre, was effectually withheld from the publick; and every commentator on this play agrees in a belief that it must have been printed by means of a copy "far as Deucalion off" from the manuscript which had received Shakspeare's revisal and improvement. STEEVENS. In this play we have exhibited more variations of text than in any other. This arises not only from the greater licence avowedly taken by Messrs. Steevens and Malone with the erroneous old copies, but from the pleasure these gentlemen always had in differing from each other; of what importance their various readings are, it would be unnecessary to state. |