Good sooth, I care not for you.
[I, i, 81-86]
We might assume that, since the character speaks an aside, the actor was standing some distance from the Daughter in order to give the illusion that he is not overheard. But the next line, which Antiochus addresses to Pericles, shows that Pericles was actually next to the Daughter.
Ant. Prince Pericles, touch not, upon thy life,
For that’s an article within our law,
As dangerous as the rest. Your time’s expir’d.
Either expound now, or receive your sentence.
[I, i, 87-90]
Apparently, Pericles in his aside gestures toward the Daughter on the line, “Good sooth, I care not for you.” Antiochus misinterprets the meaning of the gesture and warns Pericles not to touch his daughter. Thus, instead of speaking from afar, Pericles delivers the aside in the midst of the other actors.
In analyzing the aside as a dramatic device, writers have accepted the convention but rejected a conventional delivery by suggesting that in performance the platform stage enabled the actor to render it realistically. Not only this scene in Pericles, but equally significant instances of spatial compression contradict this theory. Many asides give the actor neither time nor motivation for creating verisimilitude. When Othello meets Desdemona, after Iago has awakened the “green-eyed monster” within him, he is struggling to hide his conviction of her guilt. Desdemona greets him.