Introduction
Pericles, our hero, must flee for his life from a wicked king who wants him killed for revealing a dark secret. As he wanders the world he relieves a famine in Tarsus and wins a beautiful princess for his wife in Pentapolis, but then seemingly loses his wife in a terrible storm at sea. Unbeknownst to him when her casket is washed ashore she is revived for a later unexpected reconciliation. Then he leaves his new born daughter with apparent friends in order to resume his travels. Fourteen years pass and his daughter is nearly murdered, captured by pirates and sold to a brothel. Pericles believes, like his wife, his daughter is dead. Enduring utter despair, he is eventually reunited with his daughter and later his wife.
Pericles was likely a collaborative work between Shakespeare and George Wilkins, considered by many to be something of an unsavoury hack, and who evidently wrote the first two acts, making it somewhat of an uneven work. It is suggested that Shakespeare sketched the first two acts and instructed Wilkins to write them. They may have been tight on time, as the season approached and the play was needed as soon as possible. Alternatively, it is possible that it is all Shakespeare and the actor / editor who recalled the first two acts did not recall very well compared to the actor /editor who pieced together the final three acts. When act three begins Shakespeare’s authentic voice is astounding, as he rails at the stormy sea, like nothing at all resembling the first two acts. Some of the finest writing of his career appears in the final three acts of this play. Pericles was one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays during his lifetime, having to be repeatedly reprinted. It is the first of his late romances and a story of adventure about a hero who suffers miserably only to overcome the odds and emerge triumphant. The romances were controversial, as many critics thought they revealed that his finest work was behind him and what was left was a mere shell of the talent displayed in his great tragedies. Yet others see these plays as the height of his theatrical prowess, with brilliant displays of imaginative and poetic genius. There are great spectacles here, including a tyrant of a king, acts of incest, a wicked stepmother, shipwrecks, pirates, gods, magic, brothels, the loss of a spouse and a child, deprivation, suffering, a miraculous resurgence and rebirth, and finally, a double reconciliation. Much of the thematic designs in Pericles also appear in the later romances. For instance, the resurrection of his wife, Thaisa, corresponds to the coming to life of Hermione’s statue in A Winter’s Tale. The lost daughter, exposed to danger and then found again, who helps to reconcile her parents, also reappears in A Winter’s tale. The storms in Pericles have a counterpart in The Tempest. Dionyza, the wicked step-mother will be resurrected in the second wife of Cymbeline. The degree of evil is displayed again in Cymbeline, A Winter’s Tale and The Tempest. The passage of many years will be presented yet again in A Winter’s Tale. Clearly Pericles creates the basic framework on which the later romances will be constructed. Perhaps more than any other Shakespeare genre, the romances are meant to be seen and not simply read. In Pericles, the plot moves wildly in both time and space, with a host of different settings reflecting the desperate travels of our hero fleeing danger and mourning his losses. This is essentially the story of good man moving from despair to happiness and the mood and style is that of a fairy tale. The brothel scene and the magical reconciliations with his daughter are vintage Shakespeare. This is a wondrous and sophisticated play once it is in Shakespeare’s more than capable hands. It is spellbinding and full of resonances, at one and the same time hard to believe but completely true in its magical spirit and evocative staging.
Act I (Prologue and 4 scenes)
Prologue
Gower: “To sing a song that old was sung, from ashes ancient Gower has come, to gold your ears and please your eyes. It has been sung at festivals, and lords and ladies in their lives have read it for restoratives. This Antioch then, Antiochus the Great, built up this city for his chiefest seat. This king took up a wife, who died and left a female heir, so buxom and full of face, as heaven had lent her all his grace, with whom the father liking took, and her to incest did provoke. Bad child! Worse father! To entice his own to evil should be done by none. The beauty of this sinful dame made many princes hither frame to seek her as a bed fellow, in marriage-pleasures play-fellow; which to prevent he made a law – to keep her still, and men in awe – that who so asked her for his wife, his riddle told not, lost his life; so for her many did die. What now ensues to the judgment of your eye I give, my cause who best can justify.” (exit)
Summary and Analysis
John Gower offers a prologue to each act of Pericles. In the 13th century, the medieval poet Gower re-worked the 2nd century story ‘The Adventures of Apollonius of Tyre’. It was Gower’s retelling of this ancient classic that Shakespeare used to write the play, along with his collaborator’s novel, ‘The Painful Adventures of Pericles, Prince of Tyre’ (1608), which explains the choice of George Wilkins as his partner in the rendering of this piece in 1609. In this first prologue Gower, who comes out in medieval clothing, explains to the audience that after Antiochus’s wife died he became sexually involved with his very attractive daughter. ‘Bad child! Worse father!’ Many princes came from far and wide to marry her but they were required to solve a riddle correctly or die. Naturally, since the riddle properly understood would expose their incest, to get it right would mean death as well. In this way their incest continues.
Act I (4 scenes)
Scene i
Antioch. The Palace.
Enter Antiochus, Pericles and others.
Antiochus: “Young Prince of Tyre, you have at large received the danger of the task you undertake.”
Pericles: “I have, Antiochus, and, with a soul emboldened with the glory of her praise think death no hazard in this enterprise.”
Antiochus: “Bring in our daughter, clothed like a bride. Nature this dowry gave to glad her presence: the senate-house of planets all did sit, to knit in her their best perfections.”
Enter the king’s daughter
Pericles: “See where she comes, apparelled like the spring, gracing her subjects. Her face, the book of praises, where is read nothing but curious pleasures. You gods who made me man, and sway in love, who have enflamed desire in my breast to taste the fruit of yonder celestial tree, or die in the adventure, as I am son and servant to your will, to compass such a boundless happiness!”
Antiochus: “Prince Pericles -“
Pericles: “Who would be son to great Antiochus.”
Antiochus: “Before thee stands this golden fruit, but dangerous to be touched; for death-like dragons here affright thee hard. Her face, like heaven, entices thee to view her countless glory. Yonder sometimes famous princes, like thyself, drawn by report, adventurous by desire, tell thee, with speechless tongues, that here they stand martyrs, slain in Cupid’s wars; and with dead cheeks advise thee to desist.”
Pericles: “Antiochus, I thank thee, who has taught my frail mortality to know itself. I’ll make my will then.” (to the princess) “But my unspotted fire of love to you is thus ready for the way of life or death, and I await the sharpest blow.”
Antiochus: “Scorning advice then, read the conclusion, which read and not expounded, thou shall bleed.”
Daughter: “May thou prove prosperous. I wish thee happiness!”
Antiochus: “Read the riddle.”
Pericles: “‘I am no viper, yet I feed on mother’s flesh which did me breed. I sought a husband, in which labour I found that kindness in a father. He’s father, son and husband mild; I, mother, wife and yet his child. How they may be, and yet in two, as you will live, resolve it you.'” (aside) “If this be true, it makes me pale to read it. I must tell you now my thoughts revolt. Good sooth, I care not for you.”
Antiochus: “Prince Pericles, your time has expired: either expound now or receive your sentence.”
Pericles: “Great king, few love to hear the sins they love to act; it would braid yourself to 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 other’s eyes, to spread itself; and yet the end of all is bought thus dear. Kings are earth’s gods; in vice their law’s their will. It is fit to smother it.”
Antiochus: (aside) “Heaven, he has found the meaning -” “Young Prince of Tyre, though by the tenor of our strict edict, your exposition misinterpreting, we might proceed to cancel your days; yet hope does tune us otherwise. Forty days longer we do respite you; if by which time our secret be undone, this mercy shows we’ll joy in such a son.”
Exit all but Pericles
Pericles: “How courtesy would seem to cover sin, when what is done is like a hypocrite, the which is good in nothing but in sight! If it be true that I interpret false, then were it certain you were not so bad as with foul incest to abuse your soul where now you’re both a father and a son by your untimely claspings with your child – which pleasure fits a husband, not a father – as she an eater of her mother’s flesh by the dealing of her parent’s bed; and both like serpents are, who, though they feed on sweetest flowers, yet they poison breed. Antioch, farewell! For wisdom sees those men blush not in actions blacker than the night will shun no course to keep them from the light. One sin I know another does provoke: murder is as near to lust as flame to smoke. Poison and treason are the hands of sin, ay, and the targets to put off the shame. Then, lest my life be cropped to keep you clear, by flight I’ll shun the danger which I fear.” (exit)
Enter Antiochus
Antiochus: “He has found the meaning, for which we mean to have his head. He must not live to trumpet forth my infamy, nor tell the world Antiochus does sin in such a loathed manner; and therefore instantly this prince must die; for by his fall my honour must keep high.”
Enter Thalliard
Thalliard: “Does your highness call?”
Antiochus: “Thalliard, you are of our chamber, and our mind partakes her private actions to your secrecy; and for your faithfulness we will advance you. Thalliard, behold here’s poison and here’s gold; we hate the prince of Tyre, and thou must kill him. It fits thee not to ask the reason why, because we bid it. Say, is it done?”
Thalliard: “My lord, tis done.”
Antiochus: “Enough.”
Enter a messenger
Messenger: “My lord, Prince Pericles has fled.”
Antiochus: (to Thalliad) “As thou will live, fly after; never return unless thou say Prince Pericles is dead.”
Exit Thalliard
Summary and Analysis
Pericles chooses to risk his life to win the daughter of King Antiochus, knowing that answering the riddle incorrectly means his death. When Pericles reads the riddle he immediately realizes that Antiochus and his daughter are incestuous. When pressed for an answer to the riddle Pericles insists it is a truth better not acknowledged, and Antiochus knows that Pericles has solved it but nonetheless insists his answer is incorrect and that he must remain near the court to be sentenced in forty days. Pericles smartly decides to flee Antioch immediately as the king orders Thalliard, one of his lords, to poison him. Once they discover Pericles has fled, Thalliard is told to pursue him and never to return home until he is dead. So begins the trials of Pericles. He will endure much hardship until heroically prevailing in the end. That is the formula for a romance. And Shakespeare has set our hero on his journey of endurance right in the first scene of the play.
Act I
Scene ii
Tyre. The Palace.
Enter Pericles
Pericles: “Why should this sad companion, dull-eyed melancholy, be my so used a guest, in the day’s glorious walk or peaceful night? Here pleasures court my eyes, and my eyes shun them, and danger, which I feared, is at Antioch. Then it is thus: the great Antiochus – against whom I am too little to contend, since he can make his will his act – will think me speaking, though I swear to silence. If he suspects I may dishonour him, and what may make him blush in being known, with hostile forces he’ll over-spread the land.”
Enter Helicanus and other lords
Pericles: “What sees thou in our looks?”
Helicanus: “An angry brow, dread lord.”
Pericles: “What would thou have me do?”
Helicanus: “To bear with patience such griefs as you yourself do lay upon yourself.”
Pericles: “Attend me, then: I went to Antioch, where, as thou knows, against the face of death, I sought the purchase of a glorious beauty. Her face was to my eye beyond all wonder; the rest – hark in thine ear – as black as incest; which by my knowledge found, the sinful father seemed not to strike. But thou knows this, tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss. Which fear so grew in me I hither fled under the cover of a careful night. I knew him tyrannous; and tyrant’s fears decrease not, but grow faster than the years; and should he doubt it, as no doubt he does, that I should open to the listening air how many worthy princes bloods were shed to keep his bed of blackness unlaid open, to lop that doubt, he’ll find this land with arms, and make pretence of wrong that I have done him.”
Helincanus: “Alas, sir.”
Pericles: “Drew sleep out of my eyes, blood from my cheeks, musings into my mind, with thousand doubts how I might stop this tempest ere it came.”
Helincanus: “Well, my lord, since you have given me leave to speak, freely will I speak. Antioch you fear, and justly too. I think you fear the tyrant, who either by public war or private treason will take away your life. Therefore, my lord, go travel for a while til that his rage and anger be forgot, or till the Destinies do cut his thread of life.”
Pericles: “Tyre, I now look from thee then, and to Tharsus intend my travel, where I’ll hear from thee; and by whose letters I’ll dispose myself. The care I had on thee I lay, whose wisdom’s strength can bear it. I’ll take thy word for faith.”
Summary and Analysis
Pericles is back in Tye but fears Antiochus will come and kill him. His counsellor, Helicanus, hears Pericles’ story and suggests he leave Tyre before the tyrant can get at him. Pericles decides to go to Tharsus and leave Helicanus in charge of Tyre in his absence. He is deeply affected by what he believes is the threat to his life, having unearthed Antiochus’ terrible secret. He can no longer remain in his home of Tyre and must wander the world until he is sure it is safe to return. And yet his journey has just begun.
Act I
Scene iii
Tyre. The palace.
Enter Thalliard.
Thalliard: “So, this is Tyre, and this the court. Here must I kill King Pericles; and if I do it not, I am sure to be hanged at home. Tis dangerous.”
Enter Helicanus and other lords
Helicanus: “You shall not need, my fellow peers of Tyre, further to question me of your king’s departure. His sealed commission, left in trust with me, does speak sufficiently that he’s gone to travel.”
Thalliard: (aside) “How! The king gone!”
Helicanus: “If further yet you will be satisfied why, I’ll give some light unto you. Being at Antioch -“
Thalliard: (aside) “What from Antioch?”
Helicanus: “Royal Antiochus, on what cause I know not, took some displeasure at him.”
Thalliard: (aside) “Well, he escaped the land to perish at the seas. I’ll present myself – Peace to the lords of Tyre!”
Helicanus: “Lord Thailand from Antioch is welcome.”
Thalliard: “With him I come with message unto princely Pericles; but since my landing I have understood your lord has betook himself to unknown travels.”
Helicanus: “Ere you shall depart, this we desire – as friends to Antioch, we may feast in Tyre.”
Summary and Analysis
The assassin, Thalliard, arrives in Tyre to murder Pericles, just as Pericles suspected. However, he overhears the lords of Tyre discussing Pericles travelling at sea, and fearing for his life, he decides to return and tell Antiochus that Pericles has perished at sea. It would appear that Thalliard is not the most determined of assassins.
Act I
Scene iv
Tharsus. The governor’s house
Enter Cleon (the governor) and Dionyza, his wife
Cleon: “My Dionyza, shall we, by relating the tales of others’ griefs, see if it will teach us to forget our own?”
Dionyza: “That were to blow on a fire in the hopes of quenching it. O my distressed lord, even such our griefs are!”
Cleon: “O Dionyza, this Tharsus, over which I have the government, a city whose towers bore heads so high they kissed the clouds, and strangers never beheld but wondered at; their tables were stored full and all poverty was scorned.”
Dionyza: “O, tis too true.”
Cleon: “But see what heaven can do! These mouths are now starved for want of exercise. Those palates would now be glad of bread, and beg for it. Those mothers are ready now to eat those little darlings whom they loved. So sharp are hunger’s teeth that man and wife draw lots who first shall die to lengthen life. Here stands a lord, and there a lady weeping; Here many sink, yet those who see them fall have scarce strength left to give them burial.”
Dionyza: “Our cheeks and hollow eyes do witness it.”
Enter a lord
Lord: “We have descried, upon our neighbouring shore, a portly sail of ships make hitherward.”
Cleon: “I thought as much. Some neighbouring nation, taking advantage of our misery, has stuffed the hollow vessels with their power to beat us down, the which are down already, and make a conquest of unhappy me.”
Lord: “By the semblance of their white flags displayed, they bring us peace, and come to us as favourers, not as foes.”
Cleon: “Who makes the fairest show means most deceit. But bring they what they will, what need we fear? Our ground is the lowest. Welcome is peace; if wars, we are unable to resist.”
Enter Pericles
Pericles: “Lord Governor, for so we hear you are, we have heard your miseries far as Tyre, and seen the desolation of your streets; nor come we to add sorrow to your tears, but to relieve them of their heavy load; and these our ships you may think are like the Trojan horse, stuffed within with bloody veins, expecting overthrow, are stored with corn to make your needy bread, and give them life whom hunger starved half dead.”
Cleon: “The gods of Greece protect you! We will pray for you.”
Pericles: “We do not look for reverend, but for love, and harbourage for ourself, our ships and our men.”
Cleon: “Your grace is welcome to our town and us.”
Pericles: “Which welcome we’ll accept; feast here awhile, until our stars that frown lend us a smile.”
Summary and Analysis
Cleon, the King of Tharsus, and his wife, Dionyza, are enduring a devastating famine when they learn that ships are arriving in their harbour. Fearing that hostile nations have arrived to take advantage of their plight and to conquer them, they soon learn that it is Pericles, who arrives in peace, with food and supplies to relieve the famine. In exchange he only wants to be able to remain safely in Tharsus for a time, ‘until our stars that frown lend us a smile.’ Tharsus and its rulers will soon play an important role in our play. Reminder that these first two acts were likely written by John Wilkins. They do well to advance the plot to where Shakespeare, in act III, can soar with the character development and linguistic dexterity we have come to expect.
Act II (5 scenes)
Prologue
Enter Gower
Gower: “Here have you seen a mighty king his child to incest bring and a better prince and benign lord. Good Helicanus, who stayed at home, strove to kill the bad and keep good alive; and to fulfil his prince’s desire, sends word how Thalliard came full bent with sin and had intent to murder him; and that Tharsus was no longer best for him to make his rest. So he put forth to sea, where there is seldom ease; for now the winds begin to blow; thunder above and deeps below making such unquiet that the ship that should house him is wrecked and split; and he, good prince, having all lost, by waves from coast to coast is tossed. All perished the men and naught escaped but himself, till fortune, tired with doing bad, threw him ashore, to give him glad. And here he comes. What shall be next?”
Summary and Analysis
Gower returns to remind us that we have thus far encountered a very bad king and a very good prince and that Thalliard had indeed come to Tyre with the intent to kill Pericles but has himself been killed by Helicanus, so that it is safe for Pericles to return home. But the seas and the wind have other plans and his ships are torn apart in a storm and only he survives, being washed ashore near Pentapolis. ‘What shall be next’ indeed! Gower performs a pantomime, or a dumb show, acting out with gestures most of what he has to tell us. Pericles has thus far escaped with his life from Antioch’s incestuous king, has survived a murder attempt in his home of Tyre and is the only person alive following a terrible storm at sea. And this is merely the beginning of act two! O, these romances!
Act I
Scene i
Pentapolis. An open place by the sea.
Enter Pericles, wet.
Pericles: “Cease your ire, you angry stars of heaven! Wind, rain and thunder, remember earthly man is but a substance who must yield to you; alas, the sea has cast me on the rocks; nothing to think about but ensuing death. Let it suffice the greatness of your powers to have bereft a prince of all his fortunes; and having thrown him from your watery grave, here to have death in peace is all he’ll crave.”
Enter three fishermen
2 Fisherman: “Come and bring away the nets.”
1 Fisherman: “What say you?”
3 Fisherman: “I am thinking of the poor men who were cast away before us even now.”
1 Fisherman: “Alas, poor souls! It grieved my heart to hear what pitiful cries they made to us to help them, when, we could scarce help ourselves.”
3 Fisherman: “I marvel how the fish live in the sea.”
1 Fisherman: “Why, as men do on land – the great ones eat up the little ones. I can compare our rich misers to nothing so fitly as to a whale. Such whales I have heard on the land, who never leave going till they have swallowed the whole parish, church, steeples, bells and all.”
Pericles: (aside) “A pretty moral. How from the finny subject of the sea these fishermen tell the infirmities of men. Peace by at your labour, honest fishermen.”
2 Fisherman: “Honest – good fellow! If it be a day that fits you, scratch it out of the calendar, and nobody look after it. What a drunken knave was the sea to cast thee in our way!”
Pericles: “What I have been I forgot to know; but what I am: a man thronged up with cold; my veins are chilled and have no more of life than may suffice to give my tongue that heat to ask your help; which if you shall refuse, when I am dead, for that I am a man, pray see me buried.”
1 Fisherman: “Now gods forbid it. I have a gown here! Come, put it on; keep thee warm. Thou shall go home, and we’ll have fish, and moreover pudding and flapjacks; and thou shall be welcome.”
Pericles: “I thank you, sir.” (aside) “How well this honest mirth becomes their labour!”
1 Fisherman: “Hark you, sir; do you know where you are?”
Pericles: “Not well.”
1 Fisherman: “Why, I’ll tell you: this is called Pentapolis, and our king the good Simonides. He deserves so to be called this for his peaceable reign and good government. And I’ll tell you, he has a fair daughter, and tomorrow is her birthday, and there are princes and knights come from all parts of the world to joust and tourney for her love.”
Pericles: “Were my fortunes equal to my desires, I could wish to make one there.”
2 Fisherman: “Help, master, help! Here’s a fish hangs in the net like a poor man’s rights in the law; t’will hardly come out. Tis come at last, and tis turned into a rusty armour.”
Pericles: “An armour, friends! I pray you let me see it. Thanks, fortune, yet, after all my crosses, thou gives me somewhat to repair myself; it was part of my heritage which my dead father did bequeath to me, with this strict charge, even as he left his life: ‘Keep it, my Pericles. It has been a shield twixt me and death. May it defend thee.’ It kept where I kept, so I dearly loved it; till the rough seas, that spare not any man, took it in rage. I thank thee for it. My shipwreck now is no ill, since I have here my father’s gift. Guide me to your sovereign’s court, where with it I may appear a gentleman.”
1 Fisherman: “Why, will thou tourney for the lady?”
Pericles: “Believe it, I will. By your furtherance I am clothed in steel.”
2 Fisherman: “I’ll bring thee to the court myself.”
Summary and Analysis
Pericles climbs ashore and encounters three fishermen. He asks for their help and they kindly assist him and tell him that he is in the kingdom of Pentapolis, ruled by the benevolent King Simonides, whose daughter is celebrating a birthday where princes and knights from around the world will compete for her love. Pericles wishes to join them. Miraculously, the fishermen have pulled up armour from their nets and it turns out to be that of Pericles’ father. He wears it proudly. This is yet another kingdom Pericles travels through and this one will change his life forever.
Act II
Scene ii
Pentapolis. A public way.
Enter Simonides and Thaisa, his daughter, with lords.
Simonides: “Are the knights ready to begin the triumph?
1 Lord: “They are, my liege.”
Simonides: “My daughter here, in honour of her birth, will entertain the labour of each knight in his device. Who is the first who does prefer himself?”
Thaisa: “A knight of Sparta, my renowned father.”
Simonides: “Who is the second who presents himself?”
Thaisa: “A prince of Macedon, my royal father.”
Simonides: “And what’s the third?”
Thaisa: “The third of Antioch.”
Simonides: “What is the fourth?”
Thaisa: “A burning torch that’s turned upside down. The fifth is holding out gold.”
Simonides: “And what’s the sixth and last?”
Thaisa: “He seems to be a stranger; but his present is a withered branch.”
Simonides: “From the dejected state wherein he is, he hopes by you his fortunes yet may flourish.”
2 Lord: “He comes to an honoured triumph strongly furnished.”
Simonides: “Opinion is but a fool, that makes us scan the outward habit for the inward man.”
Summary and Analysis
The king and his daughter watch as each of the six knights go by in their finest armour. And then comes Pericles in the rusted armour that was just fished out of the sea. The lords make fun of him but the king scolds them for judging the inner man by his outer look. This is not the first contest Pericles has entered for the daughter of a princess. However, this good King Simonides could not be more different from the evil King Antiochus. There is no incest here and death does not haunt the many suitors.
Act II
Scene iii
Pentapolis. A hall of state. A banquet is prepared.
Enter King Simonides, Thaisa, lords, knights and attendants.
Simonides: “Knights! Prepare for mirth, for mirth becomes a feast; you are princes and my guests.”
Thaisa: (to Pericles) “But to you, my knight and guest, this wreath of victory I give, and crown you king of this day’s happiness.”
Pericles: “Tis more by fortune, lady, than my merit.”
Simonides: “Call it by what you will, the day is yours, and here I hope is none who envies it. You are her laboured scholar.”
Pericles: “Some other is more fit.”
Thaisa: (aside) “By Juno, the queen of marriage, all that I eat does seem unsavoury, wishing him my meat. To me he seems like diamond to glass. Now, by the gods, he could not please me better.”
Simonides: “Tell him we desire to know of him of whence he is, his name and parentage.”
Pericles: “I am a gentleman of Tyre. My name is Pericles. My education has been in the arts and in arms, who, looking for adventure in the world, was by the rough sea reft of ships and men, and after shipwreck driven upon this shore.”
Simonides: “Now, by the gods, I pity his misfortune, and will awaken him from his melancholy. Thanks, gentlemen, to all; all have done well” (to Pericles) “but you the best.” “Pages, conduct these knights unto their several lodgings” (to Pericles) “yours, sir, we have given order to be next to ours.”
Pericles: “I am your Grace’s pleasure.”
Summary and Analysis
At the banquet both father and daughter congratulate Pericles for having won the tournament. They both appear thoroughly taken by Pericles. ‘You are her laboured scholar’ says the king. Princess Thaisa is a bit more graphic: ‘all that I eat does seem unsavoury, wishing him my meat.’ Goodness, Will!
Act II
Scene iv
Tyre. The governor’s house.
Enter Helicanus and Escanes
Helicanus: “Know this of me – Antiochus from incest lived not free, nor his daughter with him, and due to his heinous capital offence, a fire from heaven came and shrivelled up their bodies, even to loathing. And yet for justice.”
Enter three lords
1 Lord: “Lord Helicanus, a word. Know that our griefs are risen to the top and now overflow their banks.”
Helicanus: “Your griefs! For what?”
1 Lord: “If the prince do live, let us salute him. If in the world he lives, we’ll seek him out; if in his grave he rests, we’ll find him there.”
2 Lord: “And knowing this kingdom, if without a head, will soon fall to ruin, your noble self we thus submit unto – our sovereign. Live, noble Helicanus!”
Helicanus: “Forbear your suffrages. If that you love Prince Pericles, forbear. A twelvemonth longer let me entreat you to forbear the absence of your king; if in which time he not return, I shall with aged patience bear your yoke. Then you love us, and we you, and we’ll clasp hands: when peers thus knit, a kingdom ever stands.”
Summary and Analysis
We learn from Helicanus that a fire from heaven burnt to a crisp Antiochus and his daughter as a punishment for their incest. Lords of Tyre fear that Pericles is dead and wish to crown Helicanus, who instructs them to wait twelve months before giving up on the return of Pericles, who, as we know, is alive and well, and now has nothing to fear from Antioch.
Act II
Scene v
Pentapolis. The palace.
Enter Simonides, reading a letter. The knights meet him.
Simonides: “Knights, from my daughter this I let you know, that for this twelvemonth she’ll not undertake a married life. Her reason is to herself only known, which from her by no means can I get.”
2 Knight: “May we not gain access to her, my lord?”
Simonides: “Faith, by no means; she has so strictly tied herself to her chamber that it is impossible.”
3 Knight: “We take our leaves.”
Exit the knights
Simonides: (aside) “So, they are well dispatched. Now to my daughter’s letter. She tells me here she’ll wed the stranger knight. Tis well, mistress; your choice agrees with mine; I like that well. I do commend her choice, and will no longer have it be delayed.”
Enter Pericles
Pericles: “All fortune to the good Simonides!”
Simonides: “To you as much, sir. Let me ask you one thing: what do you think of my daughter, sir?”
Pericles: “A most virtuous princess.”
Simonides: “And she is fair too, is she not?”
Pericles: “Wondrous fair.”
Simonides: “Sir, my daughter thinks very well of you; ay, so well that you must be her master, and she will be your scholar.”
Pericles: “I am unworthy to be her schoolmaster.”
Simonides: “She thinks not so; peruse this writing else.”
Pericles: (aside) “What’s here? A letter, that she loves the knight of Tyre. Tis the king’s subtlety to have my life – O seek not to entrap me , gracious lord, a stranger and distressed gentleman that never aimed so high to love your daughter, but bent all offices to honour her.”
Simonides: “Thou has bewitched my daughter, and thou art a villain.”
Pericles: “By the gods, I have not. Nor never did my actions yet commence a deed that might gain her love or your displeasure.”
Simonides: “Traitor, thou lies.”
Pericles: “Traitor!”
Simonides: “Ay, traitor.” (aside) “Now, by the gods, I do applaud his courage.”
Pericles: “My actions are as noble as my thoughts. I came unto your court for honour’s cause, and he who otherwise accounts of me, this sword shall prove he’s honour’s enemy.”
Simonides: “Here comes my daughter; she can witness it.”
Enter Thaisa
Pericles: “Then, as you are virtuous as fair, resolve your angry father if my tongue did ever solicit, or my hand subscribe to any syllable that made love to you.”
Thaisa: “Why sir, say if you had, who takes offence that which would make me glad?”
Simonides: (aside) “I am glad with all my heart.” “Will you, not having my consent, bestow your love and your affections upon a stranger? Therefore, hear you, mistress, either frame your will to mine – and you, sir, hear you – or I will make you man and wife. Nay, come, your hands and lips must seal it too. Are you both pleased?”
Thaisa: “Yes, if you love me, sir.”
Pericles: “Even as my life fosters it.”
Simonides: “Ae you both agreed?”
Both: “Yes, if it pleases your majesty.”
Simonides: “I pleases me so well that I will see you wed: and then, with what haste you can, get you to bed.”
Summary and Analysis
Once King Simonides dispatches the other knights, he turns to consider the letter his daughter has written declaring that she wishes to marry Pericles. He admits that he agrees with her choice entirely but then tests Pericles’ mettle and resolve by accusing him of having bewitched his daughter. He calls him a traitor but at the same time commends him for his courage in holding up so well under scrutiny. Thaisa arrives and states that she would have been glad if he had advanced his cause upon her. The king concludes his ruse and enthusiastically agrees to have them married. Everyone is very well pleased and the king concludes by telling them to marry and with haste ‘get you to bed’. Pericles has behaved honourably and has won over both the king and his daughter. His adventures continue! And so concludes the first two acts written by George Wilkins. The difference is immediately noticeable in the first scene that follows.
Act III (4 scenes)
Prologue
Enter Gower
Gower: “Of this most pompous marriage feast, the cat now crouches before the mouse’s hole; hymen has brought the bride to bed, where by the loss of maidenhead, a babe is moulded. At last from Tyre, to the court of King Simonides, are letters brought, the tenor these: Antiochus and his daughter dead, the men of Tyrus on the head of Helicanus would set the crown of Tyre, but he will none. The mutiny he there hastens to oppress. He says to them, if King Pericles come not home in twice six moons, he will take the crown. Brief, Pericles must hence depart to Tyre. His queen with child makes her desire to go. And so to sea. Their vessel shakes and up and down the poor ship drives. The lady shrieks with her fear. On this stage, upon the deck, the sea-tossed Pericles appears to speak”
Summary and Analysis
Gower informs us that, having heard of the death of Antiochus and his daughter, and of the restlessness of the lords of Tyre, Pericles and his pregnant wife are on a ship heading home. However, a storm threatens to destroy the ship. Shakespeare’s language commences here:
Act III
Scene i
Enter Pericles, shipboard
Pericles: “Thou gods of this great vast, rebuke these surges, which wash both heaven and hell. O, still thy deafening dreadful thunders; gently quench thy nimble sulphurous flashes! How does my queen? Thou stormest venomously. Will thou split thyself?”
Enter their nurse, Lychorida with infant
Lychorida: “Here is a thing too young for such a place, who, if it had conceit, would die, as I am like to do. Take in your arms the piece of your dead queen. Here is all that is living of her, a little daughter. For the sake of it, be manly and take comfort.”
Pericles: “O, you gods! Why do you make us love your goodly gifts, and then snatch them straight away? A more blusterous birth had never a babe. Thou has as chiding a nativity as fire, air, water, earth and heaven can make, to herald thee from the womb.”
Enter two sailors
1 Sailor: “What courage, sir? God save you!”
Pericles: “Courage enough: I do not fear the flaw; it has done to me the worst. Yet for the love of this poor infant, this fresh new sea-fearer, I would it would be quiet.”
1 Sailor: “Sir, your queen must overboard: the sea will not lie till the ship be cleared of the dead.”
Pericles: “That’s your superstition.”
1 Sailor: “We are strong in custom. Therefore she must overboard straight.”
Pericles: “Most wretched queen! A terrible childbirth has thou had, my dear; The unfriendly elements forgot thee utterly; nor have I time to give thee hallowed to thy grave, but straight must cast thee, scarcely coffined, in the ooze; where, for a monument upon thy bones, the belching whale and humming water must overwhelm thy corpse, lying with simple shells. O Lychorida, bring me ink and paper and lay the babe upon the pillow, while I say a priestly farewell to her.”
2 Sailor: “Sir, we have a chest, beneath the hatches, caulked and ready.”
Pericles: “I thank thee, mariner.”
2 Sailor: “We are near Tarsus.”
Pericles: “O, Make for Tharsus! There I will visit Cleon, for the babe cannot hold out to Tyre; there I will leave it at careful nursing.”
Summary and Analysis
Pericles is caught up in yet another storm on his way home to Tyre with his very pregnant wife. During the tempest, the nurse comes to him with a baby girl and news that his wife did not survive childbirth. Her body is placed in a coffin and she is set adrift at sea. Meanwhile, the ship cannot make it to Tyre and will land in Tharsus, where he will leave the infant with Cleon and Dionyza, whom he befriended earlier. The separation from his ‘apparently’ dead wife and his daughter is necessary if there is to be a later reconciliation. But the worst of his misadventures still lie ahead.
Act III
Scene ii
Ephesus. Cerimon’s house.
Enter Cerimon with a servant
Cerimon: ” Philemon, ho!”
Enter Philemon
Philemon: “Does my lord call?”
Cerimon: “Get fire and meat for these poor men. It has been a turbulent and stormy night.”
Servant: “Such a night as this, til now I never endured.”
Enter two servants with a chest.
Cerimon: “What’s that?”
1 Servant: “Sir, even now did the sea toss up upon our shore this chest. Tis of some wreck.”
Cerimon: “Let’s look upon it.”
2 Servant: “Tis like a coffin, sir.”
Cerimon: “Tis wondrous heavy. Wrench it open straight. It smells most sweetly. O you most potent gods! What’s here? A corpse, shrouded in a cloth of state.”
1 Servant: “Most strange!”
Cerimon: ” (reads from a scroll) ‘If ever this coffin drives a land, I, King Pericles, have lost this queen. Who finds her, give her burial; she was the daughter of a king.’ They were too rough, who threw her in the sea. Look how fresh she looks! Fetch hither all my boxes in my closet. Death may usurp on nature many hours, and yet the fire of life kindles again the oppressed spirits. I heard of an Egyptian who had nine hours been dead, who was by good appliance recovered. I pray you, give her air, gentlemen; this queen will live; nature awakes; a warmth breathes out of her. See how she begins to blow into life’s flower again. She is alive. Behold her eyelids, cases to those heavenly jewels which Pericles has lost, begin to part. Live, and make us weep to hear your fate, fair creature, rare as you seem to be. (she moves)
Thaisa: “O dear Diana, where am I? Where is my lord? What world is this?”
2 Servant: “Is not this strange?”
1 Servant: “Most rare!”
Cerimon: “To the next chamber bear her.”
Summary and Analysis
Miracle of miracles! Thaisa is alive! A coffin like chest has washed ashore in Ephesus, within which appears to be a corpse. Cerimon determines that the person is alive and revives Thaisa, who wonders where in the world she is. Dramatic events abound in the romances and already Pericles has encountered incest, escaped murder, relieved a famine, survived two separate tempests, won a bride, became a father, lost a wife, who now suddenly, unbeknownst to him, turns out to be alive. And there is so much more to come!
Act III
Scene iii
Tharsus. Cleon’s house.
Enter Pericles, Cleon and Dionyza
Pericles: “Most honoured Cleon, I must needs be gone; Tyre stands in a litigious peace. We cannot but obey the powers above us. Could I range and roar as does the sea she lies in, yet the end must be as it is. My gentle babe, Marina, whom, for she was born at sea, I have named so, here I charge your charity withal, leaving her the infant in your care; beseeching you to give her princely training, that she may be mannered as she is born.”
Cleon: “Fear not, my lord, but think your grace, who fed my country with your corn, must in your child be thought on.”
Pericles: “I believe you; till she be married, unscissored shall this hair of mine remain. So I take my leave. Good madam, make me blessed in your care in bringing up my child.”
Dionyza: “I have one myself, who shall not be more dear to my respect than yours, my lord.”
Pericles: “Madam, my thanks and prayers.”
Summary and Analysis
Act III
Scene iv
Ephesus. Cerimon’s house.
Enter Cerimon and Thaisa.
Cerimon: “Madam, this letter lay with you in your coffin. Know you the character?”
Thaisa: “It is my lord’s. But since King Pericles, my wedded lord, I shall never see again, a vestal livery will I take me to, and never more have joy.”
Cerimon: “Madam, if this you purpose as you speak, Diana’s temple is not distant far.”
Summary and Analysis
Cerimon shows Thaisa a letter that was in the coffin with her and it is from Pericles, who she believes she will never see again. She decides, therefore, to retreat to Diana’s holy temple to live out her life. Neither Pericles or Thaisa believe they will ever be together again, which only makes the eventual reconciliation scenes even better.
Act IV
Prologue
Enter Gower
Gower: “Imagine Pericles arrived at Tyre, welcomed and settled to his own desire. He woeful queen we leave at Ephesus, unto Diana there. Now to Marina bend your mind, whom our fast-growing scene must find at Tharsus, and by Cleon trained in music, letters; who has gained of education all the grace, which makes her both the heart and place of general wonder. But, alack, that monster envy, Marina’s life seeks to take off by treason’s knife. And in this kind has our Cleon one daughter, and a wench full grown, for certain in our story, she would ever with Marina be. This Philoten contends in skill with absolute Marina. Marina gets all praises, which are paid as debts, and not as given. That Cleon’s wife, with envy rare, a present murderer does prepare for good Marina, that her daughter might stand peerless by this slaughter. Lychorida, our nurse, is dead and cursed Dionyza has pressed for this blow. Dionyza, does appear, with Leonine, a murderer.”
Summary and Analysis
Gower leaps ahead 16 years and provides us an update. Pericles is once again back in Tyre as king. Thaisa is in a nunnery in Ephesus. Pericles has assumed all the while that she perished in that tempest 16 years ago. And his daughter, Marina, has remained with Cleon and Dionyza all these years. However, Dionyza is wildly jealous of Marina’s beauty and poise because she totally outshines her own daughter, Philote. She is actually plotting to murder Marina, despite how Pericles rescued them from famine.
Act IV (6 scenes)
Scene i
Tharsus.
Enter Dionyza and Leonine
Dionyza: “Thy oath remember; thou has sworn to do it. Tis but a blow, which never shall be known. Thou cannot do a thing in the world so soon to yield thee so much profit. Let not conscience, which is but cold, inflaming love in thy bosom, inflame too nicely; nor let pity, which even women have cut off, melt thee, but be a soldier to thy purpose.”
Leonine: “I will do it; but yet she is a goodly creature.”
Dionyza: “The fitter, then, the gods should have her. Here she comes weeping for her only mistress’ death. Thou art resolved?”
Leonine: “I am resolved.”
Enter Marina, with flowers
The yellows, blues, the purple violets and marigolds, shall as a carpet hang upon thy grave while summer days do last! Ay me! Poor maid, born in a tempest, when my mother died this world is to me like a lasting storm, whirring me from my fiends.”
Dionyza: “How now, Marina! Why do you keep alone? Do not consume our blood with sorrowing; you have a nurse of me. Come, give me your flowers and walk with Leonine. Come, Leonine, take her by the arm and walk with her.”
Marina: “No, I pray you: I’ll not bereave you of your servant.”
Dionyza: “Come, come; I love the king, your father, and we every day expect him here. Go, I pray you, walk, and be cheerful once again.”
Marina: “Well, I will go; yet I have no desire to do it.”
Dionyza: “I know tis good for you. Walk half an hour, Leonine, at the least. Remember what I have said.”
Leonine: I warrant you, madam.”
Dionyza: “I’ll leave you, my sweet lady. Pray walk softly.”
Marina: “My thanks, sweet madam.”
Exit Dionyza
Marina: “Is this wind westerly that blows?”
Leonine: “South-west.”
Marina: “When I was born the wind was north.”
Leonine: “Was it so?”
Marina: “Never were rains nor wind more violent.”
Leonine: “Come, say your prayers.”
Marina: “What mean you?”
Leonine: “If you require a little space for prayer, I grant it. Pray, but be not tedious, for the gods are quick of ear, and I am sworn to do my work with haste.”
Marina: “Why will you kill me?”
Leonine: “To satisfy my lady.”
Marina: “Why would she have me killed? Now, as I can remember, by my troth, I never did her hurt in all of my life. I never spake a bad word, nor did ill turn to any living creature. Believe me, I never killed a mouse, nor hurt a fly; I trod upon a worm against my will, but I wept for it. How have I offended, wherein my death might yield her any profit, or my life imply her any danger?”
Leonine: “My commission is not to reason of the deed, but do it.”
Marina: “You will not do it for all the world, I hope. You are well-favoured and your looks foreshow you have a gentle heart. Your lady seeks my life; come you between, and save poor me, the weaker.”
Leonine: “I am sworn and will dispatch.”
Leonine seizes Marina
Enter pirates
1 Pirate: “Hold, villain.”
Leonine runs away.
2 Pirate: “A prize. A Prize!”
3 Pirate: “Come, let’s have her aboard suddenly.”
Exit Marina with pirates
Re-enter Leonine
Leonine: “These roguing thieves have seized Marina. Let her go. There’s no hope she will return. I’ll swear she is dead and thrown into the sea. But I’ll see further. Perhaps they will but please themselves upon her, not carry her aboard. If she remain, whom they have ravished must by me be slain.”
Summary and Analysis
Dionyza orders her servant, Leonine, to murder Marina. He takes a walk with her and tells her to say her prayers. She has no idea why Dionyza wishes to have her killed. Just as he is about to dispatch her pirates show up and take her on board their ship. Leonine will tell Dionyza that she is dead. This is the second assigned murder not to take place and we can begin to discern a pattern between Marina and her father, Pericles. They each must face a series of trials in order to find one other. A murderer has pursued them both and they have endured storms at sea. They will suffer further indignities, as well. This is also the second mistaken death, as Marina’s mother was also assumed to be dearly departed. Marina has been abducted by pirates, who will not abuse her, but as we shall see next, will sell her to a brothl. Since this is is a romance play, practically anything can happen, like Hermione’s statue coming to life after she was thought dead for 16 years in The Winter’s Tale.
Act IV
Scene ii
Mytilene. A brothel.
Enter Pander, Baud and Boult
Pander: “Boult!”
Boult: “Sir?”
Pander: “Search the market narrowly. Mytilene is full of gallants. We lost too much money by being too wenchless.”
Bawd: “We were never so much out of creatures. We have but poor three, and they can do no more than they can do; and they with continual action are even as good as rotten.”
Pander: “Therefore, let’s have fresh ones, whatever we pay for them.”
Boult: “Shall I search the market?”
Bawd: “What else, man? The stuff we have, a strong wind will blow to pieces, they are so pitifully sodden.”
Pander: “Thou says true; they are too unwholesome.”
Boult: “I’ll go search the market.”
Re-enter Boult with the pirates and Marina
Boult: “My masters, you say she’s a virgin?”
1 Pirate: “O sir, we doubt it not.”
Bawd: “Boult, has she any qualities?”
Boult: “She has a good face, speaks well, and has excellent good clothes.”
Pander: “Well, follow me, my masters; you shall have your money presently. Wife, take her in; instruct her what she has to do, that she may not be raw in her entertainment.”
Baud: “Boult, take you the marks of her – the colour of her hair, complexion, height, her age, with warrant of her virginity; and cry ‘he that shall give most shall have her first’. Such a maidenhead were no cheap thing, if men were as they have been.”
Boult: “Performance shall follow.”
Marina: “Alack, that Leonine was so slack, so slow! He should have struck, not spoke; or that these pirates, not enough barbarous, had not overboard thrown me, for to seek my mother!”
Bawd: “Why lament you, pretty one?”
Marina:”That I am pretty.”
Bawd: “You should live in pleasure.”
Marina: “No.”
Bawd: “Yes, indeed shall you, and taste gentlemen of all fashions. You shall fare well.”
Marina: “Are you a woman?”
Bawd: “What would you have me be?”
Marina: “An honest woman, or not a woman.”
Bawd: “Marry, whip thee, gosling!”
Marina: “The gods defend me.”
Enter Boult
Bawd: “Now, sir, has thou cried about her through the market?”
Boult: “I have drawn her picture with my voice.”
Bawd: “And I prithee tell me how does thou find the inclination of the people, especially of the younger sort?”
Boult: “Faith, they listened to me as they would have hearkened to their father’s testament. There was a Spaniard’s mouth so watered that he went to bed to her very description.”
Bawd: “We shall have him here tomorrow.”
Boult: “Tonight, tonight. But, mistress, do you know the French knight? He swore he would see her tomorrow.”
Bawd: (to Marina) “Pray you, come hither awhile. You have fortunes coming upon you. Mark me: you must seem to do that fearfully which you commit willingly.”
Marina: “I understand you not.”
Boult: “O, take her home, mistress, take her home. These blushes of hers must be quenched with some present practice.”
Bawd: “Boult, spend thou that in the town; report what a sojourner we have; when nature framed this piece she meant thee a good turn; therefore say what a paragon she is.”
Boult: “I warrant you, mistress, thunder shall not so awaken the beds of eels as my giving out her beauty stir up the lewdly inclined. I’ll bring home some tonight.”
Marina: “If fires be hot, knives sharp, or waters deep, untied I still my virgin knot will keep. Diana, aid my purpose.”
Bawd: “What have we to do with Diana?”
Summary and Analysis
Baud, Boult and Pander, who run the local brothel in Mytilene, claim they desperately need more women, just as the pirates show up and sell them Marina. Since she is apparently a virgin, they broadcast to the men throughout the town that the highest bidder can have her tomorrow. Marina pleads to Diana to preserve her virginity, but it is not looking good. This brothel scene, and the two more that will soon follow, represent some of Shakespeare’s finest writing. Audiences would have loved to see the common people so depicted while attending this play in the prostitute filled London just outside of their theatre. There is great wit and humour displayed and a terrific opportunity for Shakespeare to advance his profile of Marina the good and Marina the survivor, just like her father.
Act IV
Scene iii
Tharsus. Cleon’s house.
Enter Cleon and Dionyza
Dionyza: “Why are you foolish? Can it be undone?”
Cleon: “O, Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter the sun and moon never looked upon!”
Dionyza: “I think you’ll turn a child again.’
Cleon: “Were I chief lord of all this spacious world, I’d give it to undo the deed. O, villain Leonine, whom thou has poisoned too. What can thou say when noble Pericles shall demand his child?”
Dionyza: “That she is dead. She died at night, I’ll say. Who can cross it? Unless you play the pious innocent and cry out ‘she died by foul play’.”
Cleon: “O, go too. Well of all the faults beneath the heavens the gods do like this worst.”
Dionyza: “Yet none does know, but you, how she came dead, nor none can know. She did disdain my child, and stood between her and her fortunes. None would look on her, bur cast their gaze on Marina’s face; while ours was blurted at, and held not the time of day. It pierced me through. And though you call my course unnatural, you not your child well loving, yet I find it greets me as an enterprise of kindness performed to your sole daughter.”
Cleon: “Heaven forgive it!”
Dionyza: “And as for Pericles, what should he say? We wept after her hearse, and yet we mourn; her monument is almost finished, and her epitaphs in glittering golden characters express a general praise to her, and care in us at whose expense tis one.”
Cleon: “Thou art like the harpy, which, to betray, does, with thine angel’s face, seize with thine eagle’s talons.”
Summary and Analysis
Cleon and Dionyza discuss the apparent murder of Marina. Cleon, who had nothing to do with it, is sickened by it, but Dionyza justifies her actions by claiming that Marina was overshadowing their own daughter. They plan to tell Pericles, who is due to arrive any time soon, that she simply died in the night. They have even erected a monument to Marina and will appear in mourning. These are the people who were saved by Pericles, so it is shameful that Dionyza has committed this act against his daughter. But, again, as with Thaisa, unbeknownst to Pericles, she is not actually dead, but rather has been captured by pirates in Tharsus, and sold into prostitution in Myteline.
Act IV
Scene iv
Before Marina’s monument in Tharsus.
Enter Gower
Gower: “Thus time we waste, and longest leagues make short; sail seas to take our imagination region to region. I do beseech you to learn of me, who stands in the gaps to teach you the stages of our story. Pericles is now again thwarting the wayward seas, to see his daughter, all his life’s delight. Well-sailing ships and bounteous winds have brought this king to Tharsus to fetch his daughter home, who first is gone. See how belief may suffer from foul show! Pericles, in sorrow all devoured, with sighs shot through and biggest tears over-showered, leaves Tharsus, and again embarks. He puts on sackcloth and to sea. He bears a tempest and yet he rides it out. Let Pericles believe his daughter dead, and bear his courses to be ordered by Lady Fortune; while our scene must play his daughter’s weaned heavy well-a-day in her unholy service. Patience, then, and think you are now all in Mytilene.”
Summary and Analysis
Gower reports that Pericles is once again at sea, coming to Tharsus to see his daughter, only to learn from Cleon and Dionyza that she has died. After visiting her monument he departs in a state of permanent mourning. He has crossed the threshold of unbearable torment, having lost both wife and daughter. He becomes a figure like Job, having to endure the unendurable. And yet he endures.
Act IV
Scene v
Mytilene. A street before the brothel.
Enter, from the brothel, two gentlemen.
1 Gentleman: “Did you ever hear the like?”
2 Gentleman: “No, nor never shall do in such a place as this, she being once gone.”
1 Gentleman: “But to have divinity preached there! Did you ever dream of such a thing?”
2 Gentleman: “No, no. Come, I am for no more bawdy-houses. Shall we go and hear the vestals sing?”
1 Gentleman: “I’ll do anything now that is virtuous; but I am out of the road of rutting for ever.”
Summary and Analysis
Marina is in the brothel, but every man who visits her is struck by her righteousness and they swear off prostitution and seek religious fulfilment. She is as virtuous as her father in the face of comparable hardships.
Act IV
Scene vi
Mytilene. A room in the brothel
Enter Pander, Bawd and Boult
Pander: “Well, I had rather than twice the worth of her she had never come here.”
Bawd: “Fie, fie upon her! We must either get her ravished or be rid of her. When she should do for clients and do me the kindness of our profession, she has her master-reasons, her prayers, her knees; that she would make a puritan of the devil, if he should cheapen a kiss of her.”
Boult: “Faith, I must ravish her, or she disfurnish us of all and make our swearers priests.”
Pander: “Now the pox upon her!”
Bawd: “Faith, there’s no way to be rid of it but by the way to the pox. Here comes the Lord Lysimachus disguised.”
Enter Lysimachus
Lysimachus:”How now! How a dozen virginities?”
Boult: “I am glad to see your honour is in good health.”
Lysimachus: “What wholesome iniquity have you, that a man may deal withal and defy the surgeon?”
Bad: “We have one here, sir, if she would – but there never came her like in Mytilene.”
Lysimachus: “If she would do the deed of darkness, thou would say. Well, call forth, call forth!”
Bawd: “Here comes that which grows to the stalk, never plucked yet, I can assure you.”
Enter Boult with Marina
Bawd: “Is she not a fair creature?”
Lysimachus: “Faith, she would serve after a long voyage at sea. Well, there’s for you. Leave us.”
Bawd: (aside to Marina) “First, I would have you note this is an honourable man.”
Marina: “I desire to find him so.”
Bawd: “Next, he is the governor of this country, and a man whom I am bound to.”
Marina: “If he govern the country, you are bound to him indeed; but how honourable he is I know not.”
Bawd: “Pray you, without any more virginal fencing, will you use him kindly? He will line your apron with gold.”
Marina: “What he will do graciously I will thankfully receive.”
Lysimachus: “You done?”
Bawd: “My lord, she’s not paced yet; you must take some pains to work her to your manage. Come, we will leave his honour and her together.”
Lysimachus: “Now, pretty one, how long have you been at this trade?”
Marina: “What trade, sir?”
Lisimachus: “How long have you been of this profession?”
Marina: “Ever since I can remember.”
Lysimachus: “Did you go to it so young? Were you a gamester at 5 or 7?”
Marina: “Earlier too, sir, if not I be one.”
Lysimachus: “Why, the house you dwell in proclaims you to be a creature of sale.”
Marina: “Do you know this house to be a place of such resort, and will come into it? I hear say you are of honourable sorts, and are the governor of this place.”
Lysimachus: “Why, has your principal made known unto you who I am?”
Marina: “Who is my principal?”
Lydimachus: “Why, she that sets seeds and roots of shame and iniquity. You have heard something of my power, and so stand aloof for more serious wooing. But I protest to thee, pretty one, my authority shall not see thee, or else look friendly upon thee. Come, bring me to some private place.”
Marina: “If you were born to honour, show it now.”
Lysimachus: “How’s this? How’s this?”
Marina: “For me, that I am a maid, though most ungentle fortune has placed me in this sty, where, since I came, diseases have been sold more dear than physic – that the gods would set me free from this unhallowed place.
Lysimachus: “Hold, here is gold for thee. Persevere in that clear way thou goes, and the gods strengthen thee!”
Marina: “The good gods preserve you!”
Lysimachus: “For me, be you thought that I came with no ill intent; for the me the very doors and windows savour vilely. Fare thee well. Thou art a piece of virtue, and I doubt not but thy training has been noble. Hold, here’s more gold for thee. A curse upon him, die he like a thief, that robs thee of thy goodness! If thou does hear from me, it shall be for thy good.”
Enter Boult
Boult: “I beseech your honour, one piece for me.”
Lisimachus: “Avaunt, thou damned door keeper! Your house, but for this virgin that does prop it, would sink and overwhelm you. Away!”
Boult: “How’s this? We must take another course with you. Your peevish chastity, which is not worth a breakfast in the cheapest country, shall undo a whole household. Come your ways.”
Marina: “Wither would you have me?”
Boult: “I must have your maidenhead taken off or the common hangman shall execute it. Come your ways, I say.”
Enter Bawd
Bawd: “How now. What’s the matter?”
Boult: “Worse and worse, mistress; she has here spoken holy words to the Lord Lysimachus.”
Bawd: “Abominable!”
Boult: “She makes our profession as it were to stink before the face of the gods.”
Bawd: “Marry, hang her up for ever!”
Boult: “The nobleman would have dealt with her like a nobleman, and she sent him away, saying his prayers too.”
Bawd: “Boult, take her away; use her at thy pleasure. Crack the glass of her virginity, and make the rest malleable.”
Boult: “And if she were a thornier piece of ground than she is, she shall be ploughed.”
Marina: “Hark, hark, you gods.”
Bawd: “She conjures. Away with her. Would she had never come within my doors! She’s born to undo us.”
Boult: “Come, mistress, come your ways with me.”
Marina: “Wither will thou have me?”
Boult: “To take from you the jewel you hold so dear.”
Marina: “Thou holds a place for which the pained fiend of hell would not in reputation change; thou art the damned choleric fisting of every rogue thy ear is liable. Thy food is such as has been belched on by infected lungs.”
Boult: “What would you have me do? Go to the wars, would you, where a man may serve seven years for the loss of a leg, and have not done enough in the end to buy him a wooden one?”
Marina: “Do anything but this thou does. Empty old receptacles, or common shores of filth; serve by indenture to the common hangman. Any of these ways are yet better than this; that the gods would safely deliver me from this place! Here, here’s gold for thee. If that thy master would gain by me, proclaim that I can sing, weave, sew and dance, with other virtues which I’ll keep from boasting; and I will undertake all of these to teach. I doubt not but this populous city will yield many scholars.”
Boult: “Well, I will see what I can do for thee. If I can place thee, I will.”
Marina: “But amongst honest women?”
Boult: “Faith, my acquaintances lie little amongst them. But since my master and mistress have bought you, there’s no going but by their consent. Therefore I will make them acquainted with your purpose. Come, I’ll for thee what I can; come your ways.”
Summary and Analysis
This is one of Shakespeare’s finest scenes. The good Marina will not succumb to her fate and the brothel owners soon wish they had never purchased her. She even sends the governor away a reformed man. The brothel is quickly losing all of its clients and Bould is told to have his way with her and get it over with. Just when it seems she is about to be ravished against her will she even manages to soften this hardened man and he promises to do whatever he can to help her find more honourable work. She is such a virtuous woman that everyone who encounters her is transformed by her inherent goodness. Like her father, she endures and transcends her grave misfortunes.
Act V
Prologue
Enter Gower
Gower: “Marina thus the brothel escapes and chances into an honest house, our story says. She sings like one immortal, and she dances as goddess-like, and her gain she gives the cursed bawd. Here we place her, and to her father turn our thoughts again, where we left him on the sea. We there him lost; whence, driven before the winds, he is arrived here where his daughter dwells; and on this coast suppose him now at anchor, from whence Lysimachus our Tyre ship espies.”
Summary and Analysis
We learn from Gower that Marina escaped the brothel and has taken employment is an honest house. As well, Pericles is approaching Mytilene by sea, so we anticipate a most heartfelt reunion, as he has been informed that his daughter died and has even paid his respects at her monument. Marina has no idea what has become of her father, who she last encountered as a newborn infant. Act V will, indeed, have some wonder in store for us and them.
Act V (3 scenes)
Scene i
On Pericles’ ship, approaching Mytilene with Pericles and Helicanus aboard. A local barge from Mytilene has come up along side his ship. Two sailors approach, one from each vessel.
Tyrian soldier: “Sir, there is a barge put off from Mytilene, and in it is Lysimachus the governor, who craves to come aboard. What is your will?”
Helicanus: “I pray, greet him fairly.”
Enter Lysimachus
Lysimachus: “Hail, reverend sir! The gods preserve you. Being on shore, seeing this goodly vessel ride before us, I made to it, to know of whence you are.”
Helicanus: “Our vessel is of Tyre, in it the King; a man who for these three months has not spoken to anyone, nor taken sustenance but to prologue his grief.”
Lysimachus: “Upon what ground is his distemperature?”
Helicanus: “The main grief springs from the loss of a beloved daughter and a wife.”
Lysimachus: “May we not see him?”
Helicanus: “You may, but he will not speak to any. Behold him (Pericles appears). This was a goodly person till the disaster that, one mortal night, drove him to this.”
Lysimachus: “Sir King, all hail! The gods preserve you!”
Helicanus: “It is in vain: he will not speak to you.”
1 Lord: “Sir, we have a maid in Mytilene, I durst wager, would win some words of him.”
Lysimachus: “Tis well bethought. She, questionless, with her sweet harmony and other chosen attractions, would allure, and make a battery through his deafened parts, which now are midway stopped. She is all happy as the fairest of all.”
Helicanus: “Sure, all’s effortless; yet nothing we’ll omit that bears recovery’s name.”
Enter 1 Lord with Marina and another girl.
Lysimachus: “O, here is the lady that I sent for. Welcome, fair one!”
Helicanus: “She’s a gallant lady.”
Lysimachus: “Fair one, here is a kingly patient. If that thy prosperous feat can draw him but to answer thee in aught, thy sacred physic shall receive such pay as thy desires can wish.”
Marina: “Sir, I will use my utmost skill in his recovery, provided that none but I and my companion maid be suffered to come near him.”
Lysimachus: “Come, let us leave her and the gods make her prosperous!”
Marina sings
Lysimachus: “Marked he your music?”
Marina: “No, nor looked on us.”
Lysimachus: “See, she will speak to him.”
Marina: “Hail sir! My lord, lend an ear.”
Pericles: “Hum, ha!”
Marina: “She speaks, my lord, that, maybe, has endured a grief that might equal yours, if both were justly weighed. Though wayward fortune did malign my state, my derivation was from ancestors who stood equivalent with mighty kings; but time has rooted out my parentage, and to the world and awkward casualties bound me in servitude.”
Pericles: “My fortunes – parentage – good parentage – to equal mine – was it not thus? What say you?”
Marina: “I said, my lord, if you did know my parentage you would not do me violence.”
Pericles: “I do think so. Pray you turn your eyes upon me. You are like something that – what countrywoman? Here of these shores?”
Marina: “No, nor of any shores, yet I was mortally brought forth.”
Pericles: “I am great with woe, and shall deliver weeping. My dearest wife was like this maid, and such a one my daughter might have been: my queen’s square brows; her stature to an inch; as silver voiced; her eyes as jewel like, and cased as richly; who starves the ear she feeds, and makes them hungry the more she gives them speech. Where do you live?”
Marina: “Where I am but a stranger. From the deck you may discern the place.”
Pericles: “Where were you bred? And how achieved you these endowments, which, you make more rich to owe.”
Marina: “If I should tell my history, it would seem like lies, disdained in the reporting.”
Pericles: “Prithee, speak. Falseness cannot come from thee; for thou looks as modest as justice, and thou seems a palace for the crowned truth to dwell in. I will believe thee, for thou looks like one I loved indeed. Report thy parentage. I think thou said thou had been tossed from wrong to injury, and that thou thought thy griefs might equal mine, if both were opened.”
Marina: “Some such thing I said, and said no more but what my thoughts did warrant me was likely.”
Pericles: “Tell thy story; if thine considered prove the thousand part of my endurance, thou art a man, and I have suffered like a girl. Yet thou does look like patience gazing on king’s graves, and smiling extremity out of act. Thy name, my most kind virgin? Come sit by me.”
Marina: “My name is Marina.”
Pericles: “O, I am mocked by some incensed god sent hither to make the world laugh at me. Thou little knows how thou does startle me to call thyself Marina.”
Marina: “The name was given me by one who had some power, my father, and a king.”
Pericles: “How! A king’s daughter? And called Marina?”
Marina: “You said you would believe me.”
Pericles: “But you are flesh and blood? Have you a working pulse and are no fairy? Well, speak on. Where were you born? And therefore called Marina?”
Marina: “For I was born at sea.”
Pericles: “At sea! What mother?”
Marina: “My mother was the daughter of a king, who died the minute I was born, as my good nurse, Lychorida, has often delivered weeping.”
Pericles: “O, stop there a little (aside) this is the rarest dream that ever dulled sleep did mock sad fools withal. This cannot be: my daughter’s buried – Well, where were you bred? I’ll hear you more, to the bottom of your story, and never interrupt you. I will believe you to the syllable of what you shall deliver. You give me leave – How came you in these parts? Where were you bred?”
Marina: “The king, my father, did in Tharsus leave me; till cruel Cleon, with his wicked wife, did seek to murder me; a crew of pirates came and rescued me and brought me to Mytilene. But, good sir, why do you weep? It may be you think me an imposter. I am the daughter to King Pericles, if good King Pericles be.”
Pericles: “Ho, Helicanus!”
Helicanus: “Calls my lord?”
Pericles: “Thou art a grave and noble counsellor; tell me if thou can, what this maid is, or what is like to be, who thus has made me weep.”
Helicanus: “I know not; but here the regent, sir, of Mytilene, speaks nobly of her.”
Lysimachus: “She never would tell her parentage; being demanded that, she would sit still and weep.”
Pericles: “O Helicanus, strike me, honoured sir; give me a gash, put me to present pain, lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me overbear the shores of my mortality, and drown me with their sweetness. O, come hither, thou who begets him that did thee beget; thou who was born at sea, buried at Tarsus, and found at sea again! O Helicanus, down on my knees. This is Marina. What was thy mother’s name?”
Marina: “Sir, I pray, what is your title?”
Pericles: “I am Pericles of Tyre; but tell me now my drowned queen’s name.”
Marina: “Is it no more to be your daughter than to say my mother’s name was Thaisa? Thaisa was my mother, who did end the minute I began.”
Pericles: “Now blessing on thee! Rise; thou art my child. Give me fresh garments. Helicanus – she is not dead at Tharsus, as she should have been by savage Cleon. Who is this?”
Helicanus: “Sir, tis the governor of Mytilene, who, hearing of your melancholy state, did come to see you.”
Pericles: “I embrace you. Give me your robes. I am wild in my beholding. Heavens bless my girl! But, what music?”
Helicanus: “My lord, I hear none.”
Pericles: “None? The music of the spheres! Rarest sounds! Do ye not hear?”
Lysimachus: “My lord, I hear.”
Music is heard
Pericles:”Most heavenly music! It nips me unto listening, and thick slumber hangs upon my eyes: let me rest.” (Pericles sleeps)
Lysimachus: “A pillow for his head. So leave him all.”
Exit all but Pericles
The Goddess Diana appears to Pericles in a vision.
Diana: “My temple stands in Ephesus. Hie thee hither, and do unto my altar sacrifice. There, when my maiden priests are met together, before the people all, reveal how thou at sea did lose thy wife. Perform my bidding or live in woe; do it and be happy – by my silver bow. Awake and tell my Dream.”
Diana disappears
Pericles: “Celestial Diana, goddess, I will obey thee. Helicanus!”
Helicanus: “Sir?”
Pericles: “My purpose was for Tharsus, there to strike the inhospitable Cleon; but I am for other services first: toward Ephesus.” (to Lysimachus) “Shall we refresh us, sir, upon your shore, and give you gold for such provision as our intents will need?”
Lysimachus: “Sir, with all my heart; and when you come ashore I have another suit.”
Pericles: “You shall prevail, were it to woo my daughter; for it seems you have been noble towards her.”
Summary and Analysis
Pericles has arrived by ship in Mytilene and Lysimachus, the governor of Mytilene, has come out on a barge to greet him. In an earlier scene, Lysimachus was intent on ravishing the prostitute Marina before she converted him to purity and he mended his ways and supported her move to an honest house of employment. He learns that King Pericles will not speak because of the suffering he has endured, so he orders his men to bring Marina to try to help Pericles. Unbeknownst to all, they are father and daughter. Gradually, as they talk with one another Pericles first suspects and then confirms that this is, in fact, his daughter, thought to have died in Tharsus. It is one of Shakespeare’s most moving reconciliations. The Goddess Diana appears to him in a dream and tells him to visit her temple in Ephesus. Naturally, he obliges, but not before promising Marina to Lysimachus, which is just a tad awkward, as he was apparently a frequent flier at the brothel before Marina redeemed him. Both father and daughter have suffered immensely and that is the first clue that they are connected. She claims to have kingly ancestors, she looks like his wife, is named Marina, her father was a king, she was born at sea, her mother died just as she was born, her nurse was Lychorida, she was raised in Tharsus, where her caregivers tried to kill her, was captured by pirates and brought to Mytilene. Pericles feels he is being mocked by the gods because he was told she was dead and he actually visited her monument. Finally, she tells him that her mother’s name was Thaisa and he knows that this is miraculously true. He is blissfully reunited with his daughter he has not seen in fourteen years. The healing has begun in earnest!l
Act V
Scene ii
Ephesus, before the Temple of Diana.
Enter Gower
Gower: “Now our sands are almost run; more a little, and then dumb. This, my last boon, give me, that you aptly will suppose what pageantry, what feats, what shows the regent made in Mytilene, to greet the king. So he thrived, that he is promised to be wived to fair Marina. At Ephesus the temple does see our king.”
Summary and Analysis
Gower reminds us of the fine reception given Pericles in Mytilene and how Lysimachus and Marina will marry, once Pericles returns from Ephesus.
Act V
Scene iii
Ephesus: the Temple of Diana, with Thaisa standing as high priestess. Cerimon and others attending.
Enter Pericles, Lysimachus, Helicanus and Marina
Pericles: “Hail Diana! To perform thy just command, I here confess myself the King of Tyre’ who, frightened from my country, did wed at Pentapolis the fair Thaisa. At sea in childbirth died she, but brought forth a maid-child, called Marina. She at Tharsus was nursed with Cleon; who at fourteen years he sought to murder; but her better stars brought her to Mytilene, where, by her own most clear remembrance she made known herself my daughter.”
Thaisa: “Voice and favour! You are, you are – O royal Pericles!” (Thaisa swoons)
Pericles: “What means the nun? She dies! Help, gentlemen!”
Cerimon: “Noble sir, if you have told Diana’s altar true, this is your wife.”
Pericles: “Reverend appearer, no. I threw her overboard with these very arms.”
Cerimon: “Upon this coast, I warrant you.”
Pericles: “Tis most certain.”
Cerimon: “Look to the lady. O, she’s but overjoyed. Early in the blustering morn this lady was thrown upon this shore. I opened the coffin, found there rich jewels; recovered her, and placed her here in Diana’s temple.”
Pericles: “May we see them?”
Cerimon: “Great sir, they shall be brought to you. Look, Thais is recovered.”
Thaisa: “O, let me look! O, my lord, are you not Percles? Like him you speak, like him you are.”
Pericles: “The voice of dead Thaisa!”
Thaisa: “That Thaisa am I, supposed dead and drowned.”
Pericles: “Immortal Diana!”
Thaisa: “Now I know you better. When we with tears parted Pentapolis, the King, my father gave you such a ring.” (she shows him a ring)
Pericles: “This, this! No more, you gods! Your present kindness makes my past miseries sport. You shall do well that on the touching of her lips I may melt and no more be seen. O, come, be buried a second time within these arms.”
Marina: “My heart leaps to be gone into my mother’s bosom.” (She kneels to Thaisa)
Pericles: “Look who kneels here! Flesh of thy flesh, Thaisa; thy burden at the sea, and called Marina, for she was yielded there.”
Thaisa: “Blessed and my own!”
Helicanus: “Hail, madam, and my queen!”
Thaisa: “I know you not.”
Pericles: “You have heard me say, when I did fly from Tyre, I left behind an ancient substitute. I have named him often.”
Thaisa: “Twas Helicanus then.”
Pericles: “Embrace him, dear Thaisa; this is he. Now do I long to hear how you were found; how possibly preserved; and who to thank, besides the gods, for this great miracle.”
Thaisa: “Lord Cerimon, my lord – this man through whom the gods have shown their power – that can first to last resolve you.”
Pericles: “Reverend sir, the gods can have no mortal officer more like a god than you. Will you deliver how this dead queen re-lives?”
Cerimon: “I will, my lord. Beseech you first to go with me to my house, where shall be shown to you all that was found with her; how she came placed here in the temple; no needful things omitted.”
Pericles: “Pure Diana, bless thee for thy vision! I will offer night oblations to thee. Thaisa, this prince, the fair bethrothed of your daughter, shall marry her at Pentapolis. And what these fourteen years no razor touched, to grace thy marriage day, I’ll beautify. Our son and daughter shall in Tyre reign. Lord Cerimon, we do our longing stay to hear the rest untold. Sir, lead the way.”
Gower: “In Antiochus and his daughter you have heard of monstrous lust the due and just reward: in Pericles, his queen, and daughter, seen although assailed with fortune fierce and keen, virtue preserved from fell destruction’s blast, led on by heaven, and crowned with a joy at last. In Helicanus may you well descry a figure of truth, of faith, of loyalty; In reverend Cerimon there well appears the worth that learned charity wears. For wicked Cleon and his wife, when fame had spread their cursed deed, and honoured name of Pericles, to rage the city turn that him and his they in his palace burned. So on your patience ever-more attending, new joy waits on you! Here our play is ending.”
Summary and Analysis
Pericles stands before the Temple of Diana and recounts his story, while priestess Thaisa listens. He says he is the king of Tyre and once married Thaisa in Pentapoli, who died at sea but birthed a daughter who was raised in Tharsus until the king and queen tried to murder her. She escaped to Mytilene, where he was reunited with her. Thaisa reveals herself as his wife, but he cannot believe her at first because he himself buried her adrift at sea fourteen years ago. Cerimon explains that he found her washed up on land and revived her. They are re-united along with Marina, their daughter. The reconciliation is complete. In the end, Gower fills in some details about how Antiochus and his incestuous daughter were blasted to death by the gods in heavens and how Cleon and his evil wife were attacked by their own people and burned in a palace fire. In contrast Helicanus and Cerimon are lauded as heroic figures. So Pericles’ journey is complete. He endured every hardship and found happiness, so much like a tragic comedy / romance.
Final Thoughts
A tremendous later play by Shakespeare with obvious limitations. After composing the finest tragic genius the world had ever seen in Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Measure for Measure, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear and Antony and Cleoptra between 1600-1606 he turns to a new genre, the tragic-comic romances of Pericles, Cymbeline and The Winter’s Tale from 1607 to 1610. That was quite the sharp turn in his career and not everyone was enamoured. Yet, these are wonderful plays, meant to be seen more than read in their visual splendour, extravagant story lines and character quests of misadventure. There are miraculous reconciliations and resurrections, dramatic fairy tale-like plot twists, tyrants and wicked stepmothers, a variety of locations, extraordinary costumes and set designs, tragedy mixed with comedy, murder, rape, incest, many storms and shipwrecks at sea, magic cures, terrible suffering, happy endings and a strong emphasis on fathers and daughters. We encounter Leontes and Perdida in The Winter’s Tale, Pericles and Marina in Pericles, Cymbeline and Innogen in Cymbeline and then Prospero and Miranda in The Tempest, all composed within 3-4 years of one another. We know that Shakespeare lost his only son, Hamnet, at age 11 in 1596, leaving him with two surviving children, both girls. By the time he was composing these romances about fathers and daughters Suzanne and Judith would have been in their twenties. Suzanne married in 1608 and presented Shakespeare with his first grandchild, Elizabeth, in 1608, just as he was writing Pericles.
Pericles is certainly an uneven play, as it was likely a collaboration, with Shakespeare writing the final three acts, once George Wilkins had advanced the narrative sufficiently in acts one and two. There is nothing of the depth of characterization we find in the great tragedies, as what we see is what we get with the lead characters here. We never really can discern what drives their motivation other than the very plot itself. They suffer, endure and are ultimately rewarded with rebirth and reunion. Significant questions remain unanswered. Why does Antiochus even have a riddle to be solved about his abomination if he wants to keep his incest a secret? Why does Pericles set off from Tyre to begin with? Why does he not ensure that Thaisa is actually dead before tossing her overboard at sea? Why does he leave his daughter Marina with Cleon and Dionyza for 14 years after having just lost his wife? Why does Dionyza try to have Marina murdered when she knows Pericles is planning to arrive soon and take her away with him? Why does Marina marry the man who frequented the brothels and tried his best to ravage her? And yet, it works! This was certainly one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays in his lifetime and remains so today. There is a wonderful stage production available on youtube, presented by the Old Vic Theatre School in England. It comes up first if you enter ‘Shakespeare’s Pericles’ into the youtube search bar. Highly recommended. There are also audio versions, but again, this is really one that should be seen and not just heard.
William Shakespeare: Journey Through Genius 