is the scene of a new kind of trouble. Marina has been installed as one of the prostitutes, but she remains untouched. Those who approach her are quickly converted to virtue and leave with the determination to patronize brothels no more. The bawd is horrified, saying:
Fie, fie upon her!
She's able to freeze the god Priapus...
- Act IV, scene vi, lines 3-4
Priapus is a god of fertility, pictured as a dwarfish, ugly creature with a gigantic penis in a perpetual state of erection (whence our own medical term "priapism").
When Lysimachus, the governor of Mytilene, comes to the house, Marina quickly converts him too and sends him away virtuous. In despair, the pander and bawd hand Marina over to a servant to be deflowered, thinking that then she might become more amenable to their purposes. Marina, however, persuades him to make an effort to hire her out as a governess instead, capable of teaching many maidenly accomplishments.
The music of the spheres ...
Pericles' ship, returning from Tharsus to Tyre, passes by Mytilene. (If Tharsus is Tarsus, this is impossible. If Tharsus is Thasos, it is quite possible.)
The governor of Mytilene, Lysimachus, boards the ship and finds Pericles sitting there, speechless with grief. He is saddened by the sight and says that there is a girl in Mytilene who can console him. Marina is brought on board and, before long, it turns out that the two are father and daughter.
At the discovery, Pericles hears music the others cannot. He says:
The music of the spheres! List, my Marina.
- Act V, scene i, line 232
This is a reference to a mystical Greek notion. The philosopher Pythagoras of Samos discovered that twanging cords with lengths related to each other by small whole numbers emitted harmonious notes. It set him to thinking of the importance of numbers in the universe and he and his disciples evolved many odd beliefs based on numbers.
The Pythagoreans later developed the notion of the individual planets being set in spheres (see page I-25) at distances relative to each other such that they could emit harmonious notes. Perhaps at first this "music of the spheres" was considered metaphorically only, but eventually it was taken literally and came to mean a celestial sound that was far more beautiful than could be imagined on earth.
Pericles was finally being rewarded for having endured so much misfortune so patiently.
... goddess argentine
At the sound of the music, Pericles falls asleep and in his sleep the goddess Diana appears to him. Pericles is ordered to go to the Ephesian temple, there to make known his story to the people. He wakes and says:
Celestial Dian, goddess argentine,
I will obey thee.. .
- Act V, scene i, lines 252-53
Diana (Artemis) is goddess of the moon, which is silver, rather than the sun's bright gold. The Latin word for silver is argentum, so that Diana as the silver goddess of the moon is the "goddess argentine."
The nation of Argentina was so named because the earliest explorers found the natives wearing silver ornaments. The river which they were exploring became the Rio de la Plata (Spanish for "Silver River"). The nation that grew up about that river as a nucleus became the Latinized version of the same idea, Argentina.
As a result, the term "goddess argentine" would nowadays be rather ambiguous.
In Ephesus Pericles discovers his wife Thaisa and so, after fourteen years, the family is reunited. It is left to Gower to explain that Marina will be married to Lysimachus and that Pericles visited vengeance on Cleon and Dionyza by returning to Tharsus and burning them in their palace.
Part II. Roman 9. The Rape Of Lucrece
Shakespeare wrote four plays and one narrative poem dealing with Roman history, real, legendary, or fictional. Of these, it is the poem, The Rape of Lucrece, that deals with the earliest event, the legendary fall of the Roman monarchy in 509 b.c.
If I were treating all Shakespeare's works in a single chronological grouping, The Rape of Lucrece would be placed between Troilus and Cressida and Timon of Athens. However, since I am segregating the Greek and Roman works, The Rape of Lucrece appears as the first of the Roman group.
The love...
The Rape of Lucrece was published about May 1594, a year after Venus and Adonis. This later poem is both longer and more serious than the earlier, and makes for harder reading too. Like the earlier poem, it is dedicated to Southampton (see page I-3), and the additional year seems to have increased the intimacy between Shakespeare and his young patron.