Act 5, Scene 3

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

[Enter Pericles, with his train; Lysimachus, Helicanus, Marina, and a Lady.]
Pericles
2291 Hail, Dian! to perform thy just command,
2292 I here confess myself the king of Tyre;
2293 Who, frighted from my country, did wed
2294 At Pentapolis the fair Thaisa.
2295 At sea in childbed died she, but brought forth
2296 A maid-child call'd Marina; who, O goddess,
2297 Wears yet thy silver livery. She at Tarsus
2298 Was nursed with Cleon; who at fourteen years
2299 He sought to murder: but her better stars
2300 Brought her to Mytilene; 'gainst whose shore
2301 Riding, her fortunes brought the maid aboard us,
2302 Where by her own most clear remembrance, she
2303 Made known herself my daughter.
Thaisa
2304 Voice and favour!
2305 You are, you are — O royal Pericles!
[Faints.]
Pericles
2306 What means the nun? she dies! help, gentlemen!
Cerimon
2307 Noble sir,
2308 If you have told Diana's altar true,
2309 This is your wife.
Pericles
2310 Reverend appearer, no;
2311 I threw her overboard with these very arms.
Cerimon
2312 Upon this coast, I warrant you.
Pericles
2313 'Tis most certain.
Cerimon
2314 Look to the lady; O, she's but o'er-joy'd.
2315 Early in blustering morn this lady was
2316 Thrown upon this shore. I oped the coffin,
2317 Found there rich jewels; recover'd her, and placed her
2318 Here in Diana's temple.
Pericles
2319 May we see them?
Cerimon
2320 Great sir, they shall be brought you to my house,
2321 Whither I invite you. Look, Thaisa is
2322 Recovered.
Thaisa
2323 O, let me look!
2324 If he be none of mine, my sanctity
2325 Will to my sense bend no licentious ear,
2326 But curb it, spite of seeing. O, my lord,
2327 Are you not Pericles? Like him you spake,
2328 Like him you are: did you not name a tempest,
2329 A birth, and death?
Pericles
2330 The voice of dead Thaisa!
Thaisa
2331 That Thaisa am I, supposed dead
2332 And drown'd.
Pericles
2333 Immortal Dian!
Thaisa
2334 Now I know you better,
2335 When we with tears parted Pentapolis,
2336 The king my father gave you such a ring.
[Shows a ring.]
Pericles
2337 This, this: no more, you gods! your present kindness
2338 Makes my past miseries sports: you shall do well,
2339 That on the touching of her lips I may
2340 Melt and no more be seen. O, come, be buried
2341 A second time within these arms.
Marina
2342 My heart
2343 Leaps to be gone into my mother's bosom.
[Kneels to Thaisa.]
Pericles
2344 Look, who kneels here! Flesh of thy flesh, Thaisa;
2345 Thy burden at the sea, and call'd Marina
2346 For she was yielded there.
Thaisa
2347 Blest, and mine own!
Helicanus
2348 Hail, madam, and my queen!
Thaisa
2349 I know you not.
Pericles
2350 You have heard me say, when did fly from Tyre,
2351 I left behind an ancient substitute:
2352 Can you remember what I call'd the man
2353 I have named him oft.
Thaisa
2354 'Twas Helicanus then.
Pericles
2355 Still confirmation:
2356 Embrace him, dear Thaisa; this is he.
2357 Now do I long to hear how you were found:
2358 How possibly preserved; and who to thank,
2359 Besides the gods, for this great miracle.
Thaisa
2360 Lord Cerimon, my lord; this man,
2361 Through whom the gods have shown their power; that can
2362 From first to last resolve you.
Pericles
2363 Reverend sir,
2364 The gods can have no mortal officer
2365 More like a god than you. Will you deliver
2366 How this dead queen re-lives?
Cerimon
2367 I will, my lord
2368 Beseech you, first go with me to my house,
2369 Where shall be shown you all was found with her;
2370 How she came placed here in the temple;
2371 No needful thing omitted.
Pericles
2372 Pure Dian, bless thee for thy vision! I
2373 Will offer night-oblations to thee. Thaisa,
2374 This prince, the fair-betrothed of your daughter,
2375 Shall marry her at Pentapolis. And now,
2376 This ornament
2377 Makes me look dismal will I clip to form;
2378 And what this fourteen years no razor touch'd
2379 To grace thy marriage-day, I'll beautify.
Thaisa
2380 Lord Cerimon hath letters of good credit, sir,
2381 My father's dead.
Pericles
2382 Heavens make a star of him! Yet there, my queen,
2383 We'll celebrate their nuptials, and ourselves
2384 Will in that kingdom spend our following days:
2385 Our son and daughter shall in Tyrus reign.
2386 Lord Cerimon, we do our longing stay
2387 To hear the rest untold: sir, lead's the way.
[Exeunt.]
[Enter Gower.]
Gower
2388 In Antiochus and his daughter you have heard
2389 Of monstrous lust the due and just reward:
2390 In Pericles, his queen and daughter, seen,
2391 Although assail'd with fortune fierce and keen,
2392 Virtue preserved from fell destruction's blast,
2393 Led on by heaven, and crown'd with joy at last:
2394 In Helicanus may you well descry
2395 A figure of truth, of faith, of loyalty:
2396 In reverend Cerimon there well appears
2397 The worth that learned charity aye wears:
2398 For wicked Cleon and his wife, when fame
2399 Had spread their cursed deed, and honour'd name
2400 Of Pericles, to rage the city turn,
2401 That him and his they in his palace burn;
2402 The gods for murder seemed so content
2403 To punish them although not done but meant.
2404 So, on your patence evermore attending,
2405 New joy wait on you! Here our play has ending.
[Exit.]

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Notes

TLN 2291classical allusion
“Hail, Dian! to perform thy just command”
Pericles addresses Diana, the goddess of chastity and the moon, whose temple at Ephesus is the scene's setting. In Act 5 Scene 1 she appeared to him in a vision and commanded him to come to Ephesus and give thanks at her altar, which is the errand he now fulfills. Thaisa, who has lived as the goddess's high priestess, stands before him.
classical Diana, virgin goddess of the moon
TLN 2297archaic vocab
“Wears yet thy silver livery”
'Livery' is a uniform or badge of service worn by a servant or household follower to show whose retinue they belong to. Pericles says Marina still wears Diana's 'silver livery,' meaning she is still a virgin — still in the goddess's service, her chastity intact. Silver is Diana's color as moon-goddess.
classical Diana, virgin goddess of the moon
TLN 2304archaic vocab
“Voice and favour! You are, you are”
'Favour' here means face or appearance (from Old French 'faveur'). Thaisa catches her husband's voice first and then his face — both are overwhelming. The exclamatory 'Voice and favour!' is an elliptical cry of recognition, meaning 'That voice! That face!' She faints before she can finish the sentence.
TLN 2306archaic vocab
“What means the nun? she dies”
Pericles calls the fainting Thaisa 'the nun,' not knowing yet who she is. 'Nun' here does not mean a Christian religious sister but simply a woman living under a vow of chastity in a sacred precinct — a votaress or priestess, as Thaisa has been in Diana's temple at Ephesus for many years. The word was used loosely for any woman bound to celibate religious service.
TLN 2310archaic vocab
“Reverend appearer, no”
'Reverend appearer' is Pericles' address to Cerimon — a phrase meaning 'venerable person who has appeared before me.' 'Appearer' is not a common word even in Shakespeare; it stresses that Cerimon has just now presented himself. Pericles uses it in polite denial: he is not rejecting Cerimon's claim that Thaisa lives, but insisting he cannot believe it, since he threw her overboard himself.
TLN 2324syntax grammar
“my sanctity Will to my sense bend no licentious ear”
This is dense syntax. Thaisa says: if the man before her is not really Pericles, then her holy vows as Diana's priestess ('my sanctity') will keep her sense — her feeling, her emotion — from listening to any unlawful ('licentious') impulse. In other words: 'If you are not my husband, my religious vows will stop me from desiring you.' She is asserting her chastity even as she yearns to believe the recognition.
TLN 2337rhetorical device
“your present kindness Makes my past miseries sports”
Pericles addresses the gods directly in a sudden outpouring of gratitude. 'Sports' means pastimes or amusements — trifles. He is saying that the gods' present kindness (giving him back Thaisa and Marina) makes all his past sufferings feel like mere play by comparison. The extreme reversal — misery become sport — is a rhetorical figure of antithesis that measures the scale of the restoration.
TLN 2339rhetorical device
“on the touching of her lips I may Melt and no more be seen. O, come, be buried A second time within these arms”
Pericles asks the gods to let him dissolve — 'Melt' — at the moment of kissing Thaisa, as if he could not survive a joy this great. Then he shifts to 'be buried... within these arms': an embrace as a second burial, echoing the first burial when he cast her in the sea-chest. The juxtaposition of melting (dissolution) and burial (enclosure) compresses the play's central loss and recovery into two images.
TLN 2344biblical allusion
“Flesh of thy flesh, Thaisa”
Pericles echoes the language of Genesis when God presents Eve to Adam and Adam calls her 'bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh' (Genesis 2:23). Here Pericles turns the phrase to present Marina to Thaisa: their daughter is 'flesh of thy flesh,' formed of the mother's own body. The biblical echo deepens the moment — this family reunion carries the weight of a creation restored.
TLN 2364cultural context
“The gods can have no mortal officer More like a god than you”
Pericles praises Cerimon as the closest thing to a divine agent a mortal can be. 'Officer' means agent or deputy — one who acts on another's behalf. Earlier in the play (Act 3 Scene 2) Cerimon revives the apparently dead Thaisa through his medical learning; Pericles now understands that Cerimon was the instrument through which the gods worked the miracle. The compliment echoes classical ideas of the physician as a minister of divine healing power.
TLN 2372cultural context
“Pure Dian, bless thee for thy vision! I Will offer night-oblations to thee”
'Night-oblations' are offerings or sacrifices made at night. Diana was a moon-goddess, and her sacred rites were naturally nocturnal. An 'oblation' is a formal religious offering — from Latin oblatio, a gift presented to a deity. Pericles vows to honor Diana with night-time sacrifice in gratitude for the vision she sent him and for the reunion she has brought about.
classical Diana, virgin goddess of the moon
TLN 2376cultural context
“This ornament Makes me look dismal will I clip to form; And what this fourteen years no razor touch'd To grace thy marriage-day”
Pericles refers to his unkempt hair and beard — 'this ornament' said with irony, since it makes him look 'dismal' (wretched, gloomy). He promises to cut ('clip') it into proper shape to look worthy of his daughter's wedding. Throughout Act 5 Pericles has appeared in a wild, matted state as a visible sign of his grief; the promise to shave and groom himself marks his reintegration into human society. 'Fourteen years' recalls Marina's age — he has not cut his hair since he believed Thaisa dead.
TLN 2388historical topical
“In Antiochus and his daughter you have heard Of monstrous lust the due and just reward”
Gower's Epilogue opens the play's closing moral account, beginning with Antiochus, whose incestuous relationship with his daughter opened the play. 'Due and just reward' means the punishment they deserved — an allusion to Act 2 Scene 4, where both were struck dead by fire from heaven. The whole Epilogue is a 'de casibus' moral tally: virtue rewarded, vice punished, each character assigned their exemplary lesson.
historical John Gower and the Confessio Amantishistorical The romance of Apollonius of Tyre
TLN 2394rhetorical device
“In Helicanus may you well descry A figure of truth, of faith, of loyalty”
'Descry' means to make out or perceive, especially something at a distance. Gower uses the word as if asking the audience to recognize in Helicanus — a minor figure whose steadfast loyalty held Tyre together through the whole play — an embodiment of abstract virtues. 'A figure of' means a living example or type of: Helicanus is the personification of truth, faith, and loyalty, as formally as if he were a character in a morality play.
historical John Gower and the Confessio Amantis
TLN 2396archaic vocab
“In reverend Cerimon there well appears The worth that learned charity aye wears”
'Aye' (rhymes with 'day') is an archaic adverb meaning always or ever — Gower's deliberately old-fashioned diction. The line praises Cerimon as the embodiment of 'learned charity': he is a scholar-physician who uses his medical knowledge in selfless service to others. The phrase echoes the praise of Cerimon in Act 3 Scene 2, where he says he has labored to master the 'secret art' of healing not for gain but because 'virtue and cunning' bring a man nearer to the divine.
historical John Gower and the Confessio Amantis
TLN 2398syntax grammar
“For wicked Cleon and his wife, when fame Had spread their cursed deed, and honour'd name Of Pericles, to rage the city turn, That him and his they in his palace burn”
This passage is grammatically compressed. The sense is: when rumor ('fame') had spread Cleon and Dionyza's crime (their attempted murder of Marina) and Pericles' honored name, the people of Tarsus turned to rage and burned Cleon and Dionyza inside their palace. 'To rage' is used as a noun in apposition to 'the city' — the city turned into rage. 'Him and his' means Cleon and his wife. None of this is shown onstage; Gower narrates it as swift divine retribution.
historical John Gower and the Confessio Amantis
TLN 2402cultural context
“The gods for murder seemed so content To punish them although not done but meant”
Gower states that the gods saw fit to punish Cleon and Dionyza for the murder of Marina even though it was not actually carried out — the pirates seized her before Leonine could strike. 'Content' here means satisfied, pleased — the gods were willing to punish intention as equal to the act. The moral is a sharp one: evil intent is enough to bring divine punishment, a doctrine in tension with legal practice (which generally requires an act, not merely a plan) but consistent with the play's providential framework.
historical John Gower and the Confessio Amantis
TLN 2404archaic vocab
“on your patence evermore attending, New joy wait on you! Here our play has ending”
'Patence' is Gower's archaic spelling of 'patience,' in keeping with his deliberately old-fashioned diction throughout the play. 'Evermore attending' means always waiting upon, always in attendance on — he has been the audience's patient guide through the whole long story. The Epilogue ends with a direct blessing to the audience ('New joy wait on you'), a conventional closure of medieval narrative performance, and a self-aware closing tag ('Here our play has ending') that returns us from the fictional world to the theatre.
historical John Gower and the Confessio Amantis