The storm still continuing to rage furiously, and the sailors having a superstition that while a dead body remained in the ship the storm would never cease, they came to Pericles to demand that his queen should be thrown overboard; and they said, “What courage, sir?  God save you!” “Courage enough,” said the sorrowing prince:  “I do not fear the storm; it has done to me its worst; yet for the love of this poor infant, this fresh new sea-farer, I wish the storm was over.”  “Sir,” said the sailors, “your queen must overboard.  The sea works high, the wind is loud, and the storm will not abate till the ship be cleared of the dead.”  Though Pericles knew how weak and unfounded this superstition was, yet he patiently submitted, saying, “As you think meet.  Then she must overboard, most wretched queen!” And now this unhappy prince went to take a last view of his dear wife, and as he looked on his Thaisa, he said, “A terrible child-bed hast thou had, my dear; no light, no fire; the unfriendly elements forgot thee utterly, nor have I time to bring thee hallowed to thy grave, but must cast thee scarcely coffined into the sea, where for a monument upon thy bones the humming waters must overwhelm thy corpse, lying with simple shells.  O Lychorida, bid Nestor bring me spices, ink, and paper, my casket and my jewels, and bid Nicandor bring me the satin coffin.  Lay the babe upon the pillow, and go about this suddenly, Lychorida, while I say a priestly farewel to my Thaisa.”

They brought Pericles a large chest, in which (wrapt in a satin shroud) he placed his queen, and sweet-smelling spices he strewed over her, and beside her he placed rich jewels, and a written paper, telling who she was, and praying, if haply any one should find the chest which contained the body of his wife, they would give her burial:  and then with his own hands he cast the chest into the sea.  When the storm was over, Pericles ordered the sailors to make for Tharsus.  “For,” said Pericles, “the babe cannot hold out till we come to Tyre.  At Tharsus I will leave it at careful nursing.”

After that tempestuous night when Thaisa was thrown into the sea, and while it was yet early morning, as Cerimon, a worthy gentleman of Ephesus, and a most skilful physician, was standing by the sea-side, his servants brought to him a chest, which they said the sea-waves had thrown on the land.  “I never saw,” said one of them, “so huge a billow as cast it on our shore.”  Cerimon ordered the chest to be conveyed to his own house, and when it was opened he beheld with wonder the body of a young and lovely lady; and the sweet-smelling spices, and rich casket of jewels, made him conclude it was some great person who was thus strangely entombed:  searching further, he discovered a paper from which he learned that the corpse which lay as dead before him had been a queen, and wife to Pericles, prince of Tyre; and much admiring at the strangeness of that accident, and more pitying the husband who had lost