Pericles, Prince of Tyre • Paragraph 37
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PERICLES. Great king, Few love to hear the sins they love to act; ’Twould braid yourself too near for me to tell it. Who has a book of all that monarchs do, He’s more secure to keep it shut than shown: For vice repeated is like the wandering wind, Blows dust in others’ eyes, to spread itself; And yet the end of all is bought thus dear, The breath is gone, and the sore eyes see clear. To stop the air would hurt them. The blind mole casts Copp’d hills towards heaven, to tell the earth is throng’d By man’s oppression; and the poor worm doth die for’t. Kind are earth’s gods; in vice their law’s their will; And if Jove stray, who dares say Jove doth ill? It is enough you know; and it is fit, What being more known grows worse, to smother it. All love the womb that their first bred, Then give my tongue like leave to love my head.