Actorama
  • Forgot Password?
  • HOME
  • CASTING CALLS
  • MONOLOGUES
  • SCENES
  • EXTRAS CASTING
  • NEWS
  • UPGRADE TO PRO

UPLOAD MONOLOGUE OR SCENE


  • Go Back
  • Search Again

Start with as low as $10/Month




"Ellen Schoeters is a member of Actorama + where actors can upload a monologue or scene performance for peer review. What do you think of Ellen Schoeters's performance?"



  1. Home
  2. Scene for Men
  3. Dramatic Scene for Men
  4. Pericles
  • A Scene for 2 characters from the play "Pericles" by William Shakespeare
0 (0 votes)
CharacterCleon?Dionyza???
Scene type / Who areMarried, Scheming
TypeDramatic
PeriodRenaissance
GenreRomance, Tragedy, Comedy
DescriptionCleon and his wife Dionyza discuss Marina's murder
LocationACT IV, Scene 3

Summary

In the city of Antiochus, in Syria, King Antiochus rules the city. We learn in the prologue that he is committing incest with his beautiful daughter and is keeping all her suitors away by forcing them to answer a riddle or die. One of the suitors is Pericles who in the first scene of the play is in King's Antiochus court, determined to try and answer his riddle. When he reads the riddle he realizes that it is about the incest going on with his daughter. He then refuses to answer it saying that he knows the truth but rather not tell it. The king, who realizes Pericles knows about the incest, tells him he will be executed in 40 days. Pericles decides to flee and goes back to Tyre.

Back in Tyre one of his councilors, Helicanus, for fear that Antioch might invade Tyre to kill Pericles, advices him to flee to Tarsus, a neighboring city ruled by King Cleon and his wife Dionyza. When he is called back to Tyre Pericles is shipwrecked in a place called Pentapolis. There he learns of a king, King Simonides, who is giving his daughter's hand (Thaisa) to whoever wins a jousting tournament the following day. Pericles decides to enter the tournament and wins.

On the way back to Tyre, however, Thaisa dies giving birth to their child Marina. Considering the trip to Tyre too dangerous for his daughter, Pericles lands in Tarsus and gives his child to Cleon and Dionyza. When Marina grows up, however, Dionyza gets jealous of her and decides to hire a murderer to kill her. She hires an assassin, Leonine, who she later poisons in order to keep her plot secret.

In this monologue Cleon and Dionyza discuss Marina's murder and Cleon wonders what they will tell Pericles when he comes back. Dioniza argues nobody will ever find out about their plot, they will tell him she died "by foul play" and that they will erect a monument for her. She then confesses that she had Marina killed because she out shined their daughter and Dioniza felt jealous of her.

Written by Administrator

Excerpt
[Tarsus. A room in CLEON's house.]

[Enter CLEON and DIONYZA]

DIONYZA
Why, are you foolish? Can it be undone?

CLEON
O Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter
The sun and moon ne'er look'd upon!

DIONYZA
I think
You'll turn a child again.

CLEON
Were I chief lord of all this spacious world,
I'ld give it to undo the deed. O lady,
Much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess
To equal any single crown o' the earth
I' the justice of compare! O villain Leonine!
Whom thou hast poison'd too:
If thou hadst drunk to him, 't had been a kindness
Becoming well thy fact: what canst thou say
When noble Pericles shall demand his child?

DIONYZA
That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates,
To foster it, nor ever to preserve.
She died at night; I'll say so. Who can cross it?
Unless you play the pious innocent,
And for an honest attribute cry out
'She died by foul play.'

CLEON
O, go to. Well, well,
Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods
Do like this worst.

DIONYZA
Be one of those that think
The petty wrens of Tarsus will fly hence,
And open this to Pericles. I do shame
To think of what a noble strain you are,
And of how coward a spirit.

CLEON
To such proceeding
Who ever but his approbation added,
Though not his prime consent, he did not flow
From honourable sources.

DIONYZA
Be it so, then:
Yet none does know, but you, how she came dead,
Nor none can know, Leonine being gone.
She did disdain my child, and stood between
Her and her fortunes: none would look on her,
But cast their gazes on Marina's face;
Whilst ours was blurted at and held a malkin
Not worth the time of day. It pierced me through;
And though you call my course unnatural,
You not your child well loving, yet I find
It greets me as an enterprise of kindness
Perform'd to your sole daughter.

CLEON
Heavens forgive it!

DIONYZA
And as for Pericles,
What should he say? We wept after her hearse,
And yet we mourn: her monument
Is almost finish'd, and her epitaphs
In glittering golden characters express
A general praise to her, and care in us
At whose expense 'tis done.

CLEON
Thou art like the harpy,
Which, to betray, dost, with thine angel's face,
Seize with thine eagle's talons.

DIONYZA
You are like one that superstitiously
Doth swear to the gods that winter kills the flies:
But yet I know you'll do as I advise.

[Exeunt]

Back to Main Page

Back to Main Page

Back to Main Page

Back to Main Page


Back to Main Page


Back to Main Page

AVI, MPEG, MPG, VOB, QT, MOV, 3GP, FLV (except h264) allowed. Up to 100Mb file size.
OR


Submit your comments


logo
  • About
  • Terms of Service
  • Search Members
  • Virtual Casting Room
  • Site Map
  • Actor Profiles
  • Casting Profiles
  • Help
  • Contact

Copyright © 2025 | All Right Reserved