Which holy vow he firmly kept,
And most devoutly wore
A grisly meteor on his face,
Till they were both no more.
In Pericles, Prince of Tyre, when the royal hero leaves his infant daughter Marina in charge of his friend Cleon, governor of Tharsus, to be brought up in his house, he declares to Cleon’s wife (Act iii, sc. 3):
Till she be married, madam,
By bright Diana, whom we honour all,
Unscissored shall this hair of mine remain,
Though I show well in’t;
and that he meant his beard is evident from what he says at the close of the play, when his daughter is about to be married to Lysimachus, governor of Mitylene (Act v, sc. 3):