And
in this kind hath our Cleon
One
daughter, and a wench full grown,
Even
ripe for marriage-rite; this maid
Hight
Philoten: and it is said
For
certain in our story, she
Would
ever with Marina be:
-Gower as Chorus
Pericles, Prince of Tyre Act IV,
Prologue, Line 18
Well, you kind of need to read the prologue as a whole, so I’ll
give you the link:
What it’s mostly talking about is the fact that Marina is
living in Tharsus under the benevolence of the governor, Cleon. Apparently
Marina is just about perfect and she’s making Cleon’s daughter, Philoten, look
bad in comparison, and so Cleon’s wife, Dionyza, is going to have Marina
eliminated. BTW, ‘Hight Philoten’ simply means ‘is called Philoten’.
Today’s Totally Random line is the introduction of Philoten
into the plot. Interestingly enough, whilst Philoten represents a significant
piece of the plot in this play, she never actually shows up on stage. What do
you think about that? But wait, let’s think about this: Gower says that
Philoten ‘for certain in our story...would ever with Marina be.’ But what’s up
with that if Philoten never actually shows up on stage? So all the time from
here on in that we see Marina there is never Philoten with here. Is Gower
saying something that’s figurative as opposed to literal? Does Philoten actually
exist, or does she just stand for some characteristic of Marina? Lots of
questions. Who has the answer? Harold?
Okay, I know you're asking 'what the heck is the connection to this pic?' Well, believe it or not, there's a good answer. This is my box of old baseball cards. But unfortunately it only goes back to the early 80's (because it's actually the cards that my daughters had). And since it only goes back to the 80's we all know what New York Met we don't have a baseball card of: Cleon Jones! Clearly a different Cleon than the one mentioned in today's line, but a Clean nonetheless.
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