he wrought Alcibiades. He wrought both from
something feeling within himself, as he wrought Cleopatra, and Macbeth,
and Sir Toby Belch. They are as much autobiographical, and as little, as
the hundred other passionate moods that built up the system of his soul.

The poetry of the play is that of the great late manner--

"will these moss'd trees,
That have outlived the eagle, page thy heels,
And skip when thou point'st out?"

"Come not to me again: but say to Athens,
Timon hath made his everlasting mansion
Upon the beached verge of the salt flood:
Who, once a day with his embossed froth
The turbulent surge shall cover."

The final speech, spoken by Alcibiades after he has read the epitaph,
with which Timon goes down to death, like some hurt thing shrinking even
from the thought of passers, is one of the most lovely examples of the
power and variety of blank verse as a form of dramatic speech.

_Alcib._ (reading) _Pass by and curse thy fill; but pass, and
stay not here thy gait._

These well express in thee thy latter spirits:
Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs,
Scorned'st our brain's flow and those our droplets which
From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit
Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye
On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead
Is noble Timon: of whose memory
Hereafter more. Bring me into your city,
And I will use the olive with my sword,
Make war breed peace, make peace stint war, make each
Prescribe to other as each other's leech.
Let our drums strike.

_Pericles, Prince of Tyre._

_Written._ 1607-8 (?)

_Published._ 1608.

_Source of the Plot._ The plot is taken from an English prose
version of a Latin translation of a fifth century Greek romance.
This version was published by Lawrence Twine, in the year 1576,
under the name of _The Patterne of Paynfull Adventures_ (etc.,
etc.). It was reprinted in 1607. An adaptation from the Latin story
was made by John Gower for the eighth book of his _Confessio
Amantis_. This adaptation was known to the authors of the play.

_The Fable._ Act I. Pericles, Prince of Tyre, comes to Antioch to
guess a riddle propounded by the King. If he guess rightly, he will
be rewarded by the hand of the Princess in marriage. If he guess
wrongly, he will be put to death. The