Pericles, Prince of Tyre

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1. ACT I.

   Gower introduces the tale. Pericles solves the deadly riddle of Antiochus, discovers the king's incest, and flees; warned that an assassin pursues him, he leaves Helicanus to govern Tyre and sails on, relieving famine-struck Tarsus.

   1. Scene 1 — Antioch. A room in the palace.

      At Antioch, Pericles seeks the hand of the king's daughter — a prize that requires solving a riddle on pain of death. Reading it, he sees that it conceals Antiochus's incest with his own child. Antiochus, knowing he has guessed the secret, grants him forty days but secretly resolves to kill him, and Pericles flees.

   2. Scene 2 — Tyre. A room in the palace.

      Home in Tyre, Pericles broods in fear that Antiochus will make war to silence him. His wise counsellor Helicanus advises him to travel until the danger passes; Pericles leaves Helicanus to govern Tyre and puts to sea.

   3. Scene 3 — Tyre. An ante-chamber in the Palace.

      Thaliard, Antiochus's hired assassin, reaches Tyre to murder Pericles but finds he has already sailed; he resolves to report the prince drowned.

   4. Scene 4 — Tarsus. A room in the Governor's house.

      At Tarsus, the governor Cleon and his wife Dionyza despair in a terrible famine until Pericles arrives with ships of grain to relieve the city; the people hail him as their savior.

2. ACT II.

   Gower and a dumb-show carry Pericles, warned from Tarsus, into a shipwreck. Cast ashore at Pentapolis and sheltered by fishermen, he wins the tournament and the love of Thaisa, daughter of good King Simonides, who marries them.

   1. Scene 1 — Pentapolis. An open place by the sea-side.

      Shipwrecked and destitute on the Pentapolis shore, Pericles is taken in by plain-spoken fishermen who moralize on how 'the great ones eat up the little ones.' Their net hauls up his drowned father's rusty armour, and he resolves to try the king's tournament.

   2. Scene 2 — The same. A public way, or platform leading to the lists. A pavilion by the side of it for the reception of the King, Princess, Lords, etc.

      At Simonides' court the knights parade their heraldic devices; the stranger Pericles, in rusty armour and mocked for his poor show, is courteously defended by Thaisa and the king.

   3. Scene 3 — The same. A hall of state: a banquet prepared.

      Pericles wins the tournament. At the feast Simonides and Thaisa single him out above the other knights, and Thaisa's love for the unknown champion grows.

   4. Scene 4 — Tyre. A room in the Govenor's house.

      In Tyre, Helicanus tells Escanes how Antiochus and his daughter were struck dead by fire from heaven for their sin. Fearing Pericles lost, the lords press Helicanus to take the crown, but he persuades them to wait a year and search for their prince.

   5. Scene 5 — Pentapolis. A room in the palace.

      Simonides tests the lovers: feigning anger at a letter in which Thaisa vows to wed the stranger or none, he privately rejoices and joins Pericles and Thaisa in marriage.

3. ACT III.

   Gower narrates Pericles' recall to Tyre. A sea-storm brings on Thaisa's labour; she seems to die bearing Marina and is cast overboard, washed ashore at Ephesus and revived by the physician Cerimon. Pericles leaves the baby at Tarsus.

   1. Scene 1

      In a storm at sea Thaisa appears to die giving birth to a daughter. The superstitious sailors demand the 'dead' queen be cast overboard to calm the waves; Pericles seals her in a caulked chest with spices, jewels, and a letter, and turns for nearer Tarsus to save the fragile infant, Marina.

   2. Scene 2 — Ephesus. A room in Cerimon's house.

      At Ephesus the learned, charitable lord Cerimon receives the chest the sea has cast up. Opening it, he finds Thaisa, and with his medical art and the warmth of fire and music restores her to life.

   3. Scene 3 — Tarsus. A room in Cleon's house.

      At Tarsus, Pericles entrusts the infant Marina to Cleon and Dionyza to be raised, vows not to cut his hair until she is married, and sails for Tyre.

   4. Scene 4 — Ephesus. A room in Cerimon's house.

      At Ephesus the recovered Thaisa, believing her husband and child lost at sea, resolves to withdraw into the temple of Diana as a votaress.

4. ACT IV.

   Gower shows Marina grown, outshining Cleon's own daughter, so the jealous Dionyza plots her murder. Pirates save her from the assassin only to sell her to a brothel at Mytilene, where her purity defeats every attempt to corrupt her.

   1. Scene 1 — Tarsus. An open place near the sea-shore.

      The jealous Dionyza sends Marina walking by the sea with the servant Leonine, sworn to murder her. As he hesitates, pirates land, seize Marina, and carry her off; Leonine reports her killed.

   2. Scene 2 — Mytilene. A room in a brothel.

      At Mytilene the brothel-keepers — the Pandar, the Bawd, and their man Boult — buy the virgin Marina from the pirates and set about advertising her for profit.

   3. Scene 3 — Tarsus. A room in Cleon's house.

      At Tarsus, Dionyza coolly admits the murder to her appalled husband Cleon, defending it as done for their own daughter's advancement.

   4. Scene 4

      Gower, with a dumb-show, shows Pericles coming to Tarsus for his daughter, shown her tomb and false epitaph, and departing in speechless grief, believing Marina dead.

   5. Scene 5 — Mytilene. A street before the brothel.

      Two gentlemen leave the Mytilene brothel converted to virtue, ashamed, by Marina's holy speech.

   6. Scene 6 — The same. A room in the brothel.

      Marina's purity shames even the governor Lysimachus, who came as a customer and leaves as her protector. When the furious Bawd sets Boult to break her by force, Marina's appeal moves even him; she buys her way out of the brothel by promising to earn honest money teaching music, sewing, and song.

5. ACT V.

   Gower brings Pericles' ship to Mytilene, where Marina is sent to rouse the silent, grieving king and proves to be his lost daughter. Directed by the goddess Diana to Ephesus, Pericles finds Thaisa alive among her votaresses, and the family is restored.

   1. Scene 1 — On board Pericles' ship, off Mytilene. A close pavilion

      Pericles' storm-driven ship lies off Mytilene during Neptune's feast. To rouse the mute, grief-wasted king, Lysimachus brings the gifted Marina aboard; as she tells her own story, Pericles realizes she is his daughter, and in overwhelming joy hears the music of the spheres. The goddess Diana appears to him in a vision and commands him to her temple at Ephesus.

   2. Scene 2 — Enter Gower, before the temple of Diana at Ephesus.

      Gower bridges the voyage, bringing Pericles — with Marina and her betrothed Lysimachus — to the temple of Diana at Ephesus.

   3. Scene 3 — The temple of Diana at Ephesus; Thaisa standing near the altar, as high priestess; a number of Virgins on each side;

      Before Diana's altar Pericles tells his whole story; the votaress Thaisa knows his voice, swoons, and is revealed alive. Cerimon confirms her recovery, and the family is whole again: Marina and Lysimachus will rule Tyre, Pericles and Thaisa Pentapolis. In the Epilogue Gower draws the moral — lust punished in Antiochus, falsehood burned in Cleon and Dionyza, and virtue, though long assailed, preserved and crowned at last.

Characters

• Gower chorus

  The Presenter — the ghost of the real medieval poet John Gower (c. 1330–1408), whose 'Confessio Amantis' is the play's main source. 'From ashes ancient Gower is come' to narrate the story across many years and countries: he speaks a rhymed chorus before every act, introduces the silent dumb-shows, and closes with the Epilogue's moral.

• Pericles protagonist

  Prince (later King) of Tyre. Fleeing the murderous anger of Antiochus after solving his incest riddle, Pericles is tossed across the Mediterranean by storm and fortune: he wins Thaisa at Pentapolis, believes her dead in childbirth at sea, loses their daughter Marina to treachery, and sinks into speechless grief — until both are miraculously restored to him.

• Marina deuteragonist

  Daughter of Pericles and Thaisa, born at sea in a storm (hence 'Marina'). Raised at Tarsus, she is marked for murder by the jealous Dionyza, seized instead by pirates, and sold to a brothel at Mytilene — where her invincible virtue and eloquence convert her would-be customers, including the governor Lysimachus, and preserve her until she is reunited with her father and married.

• Thaisa major

  Daughter of King Simonides of Pentapolis, who chooses the shipwrecked Pericles over richer suitors. Apparently dying as she gives birth to Marina in a sea-storm, she is sealed in a chest and cast overboard, washed ashore at Ephesus, and revived by the physician Cerimon; believing her family lost, she becomes a votaress (priestess) of Diana until the final reunion.

• Helicanus major

  A wise and faithful old lord of Tyre, left to govern in Pericles' absence. The play's pattern of loyalty: he warns Pericles of Antiochus's plot, refuses the people's offer of the crown, and keeps Tyre for its lost prince until his return. (The verse sometimes shortens his name to 'Helicane.')

• Simonides supporting

  The 'good Simonides,' King of Pentapolis and father of Thaisa, who hosts the tournament at which the shipwrecked Pericles wins his daughter. Genially testing the couple, he blesses their marriage.

• Cerimon supporting

  A lord and learned physician of Ephesus, devoted to charity and the healing virtues of nature. He recovers the chest cast up by the sea and, with his art, restores the supposedly dead Thaisa to life.

• Lysimachus supporting

  The governor of Mytilene, who visits the brothel where Marina is held but is shamed into reform by her purity and eloquence. He later helps draw Pericles out of his grief and becomes betrothed to Marina.

• Antiochus antagonist

  The tyrant King of Antioch, who hides an incestuous relationship with his daughter behind a deadly riddle: suitors who fail to solve it die, and the one who solves it (Pericles) he marks for murder. He and his daughter are later struck dead by fire from heaven — the play's first image of divine justice.

• Cleon supporting

  Governor of Tarsus, whose famine-stricken city Pericles relieves with grain. Entrusted with the infant Marina, he is weakly complicit in his wife Dionyza's plot to murder her, and is finally burned in his palace by an enraged people.

• Dionyza supporting

  Wife of Cleon, governor of Tarsus. Jealous that the ward Marina outshines her own daughter, she orders the servant Leonine to murder the girl, then lies that she died naturally — a crime for which she and Cleon are destroyed.

• Thaliard minor

  A lord of Antioch hired by Antiochus to poison or murder Pericles; he follows him to Tyre but finds his quarry already fled to sea.

• Leonine minor

  Dionyza's servant, sworn to murder Marina on the seashore; pirates seize her before he can strike, and he reports her dead.

• Bawd supporting

  The brothel-keeper's wife at Mytilene, who buys Marina from the pirates and tries, with mounting frustration, to break the girl's virtue for profit.

• Pandar minor

  The keeper of the Mytilene brothel, the Bawd's husband, who complains that his trade is failing and invests in the captured Marina.

• Boult supporting

  The brothel's servant, sent to advertise Marina and to subdue her; even he is finally moved by her appeals and helps her into honest service.

• Lychorida minor

  Marina's nurse, who attends Thaisa's fatal childbirth at sea and raises Marina at Tarsus until her own death.

• Escanes minor

  A lord of Tyre and counsellor alongside Helicanus, later advanced to help govern the city.

• Philemon minor

  Servant to the physician Cerimon at Ephesus.

• Diana minor

  The goddess of chastity, whose temple stands at Ephesus. She appears to the grieving Pericles in a vision and directs him there, where the family is reunited — the play's presiding deity of restored purity.

• Daughter of Antiochus minor

  The beautiful daughter of Antiochus, kept by her father in incest and used as the deadly prize of his riddle; she dies with him by heavenly fire.

• Marshal minor

  The marshal who orders the knights' procession at the Pentapolis tournament.

• Messenger minor

  A messenger at the court of Antioch.

• First Lord minor

  One of the lords of Tyre attending Helicanus and Pericles.

• Second Lord minor

  One of the lords of Tyre.

• Third Lord minor

  One of the lords of Tyre.

• A Lord minor

  An attendant lord.

• First Knight minor

  One of the knights who competes for Thaisa at the Pentapolis tournament.

• Second Knight minor

  One of the knights at the Pentapolis tournament.

• Third Knight minor

  One of the knights at the Pentapolis tournament.

• Knights ensemble

  The knights who tilt for Thaisa's hand at Pentapolis, speaking together.

• First Fisherman minor

  The chief of the Pentapolis fishermen, whose plain talk of the sea and 'how the fishes live in the sea' greets the shipwrecked Pericles and nets him his father's rusty armour.

• Second Fisherman minor

  One of the Pentapolis fishermen who shelter the shipwrecked Pericles.

• Third Fisherman minor

  One of the Pentapolis fishermen.

• First Sailor minor

  A sailor on Pericles' storm-tossed ship who urges that the apparently dead Thaisa be cast overboard.

• Second Sailor minor

  A sailor on Pericles' ship during the storm at sea.

• Tyrian Sailor minor

  A sailor of the Tyrian vessel off Mytilene in Act 5.

• First Gentleman minor

  A gentleman of Ephesus (and of Mytilene), among those who attend Cerimon and who leave the brothel reformed by Marina.

• Second Gentleman minor

  A gentleman of Ephesus and Mytilene.

• First Servant minor

  A servant in Cerimon's house at Ephesus.

• Servant minor

  An attendant servant.

• First Pirate minor

  One of the pirates who seize Marina from Leonine on the shore at Tarsus and sell her into the brothel.

• Second Pirate minor

  One of the pirates who carry off Marina.

• Third Pirate minor

  One of the pirates who carry off Marina.

• All ensemble

  Several speakers answering together.

• Both ensemble

  Two speakers answering together.

Cross-references

• Folger Shakespeare
• MIT plain text
• Wikipedia