MARSHALL.
Sir, yonder is your place.
PERICLES.
Some other is more fit.
FIRST KNIGHT.
Contend not, sir; for we are gentlemen
Have neither in our hearts nor outward eyes
Envied the great, nor shall the low despise.
PERICLES.
You are right courteous knights.
SIMONIDES.
Sit, sir, sit.
By Jove, I wonder, that is king of thoughts,
These cates resist me, he but thought upon.
THAISA.
By Juno, that is queen of marriage,
All viands that I eat do seem unsavoury,
Wishing him my meat. Sure, he’s a gallant gentleman.
SIMONIDES.
He’s but a country gentleman;
Has done no more than other knights have done;
Has broken a staff or so; so let it pass.
THAISA.
To me he seems like diamond to glass.
PERICLES.
Yon king’s to me like to my father’s picture,
Which tells me in that glory once he was;
Had princes sit, like stars, about his throne,
And he the sun, for them to reverence;
None that beheld him, but, like lesser lights,
Did vail their crowns to his supremacy:
Where now his son’s like a glow-worm in the night,
The which hath fire in darkness, none in light:
Whereby I see that time’s the king of men,
He’s both their parent, and he is their grave,
And gives them what he will, not what they crave.
SIMONIDES.
What, are you merry, knights?