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Pericles, the prince of Tyre

Gwen Herat

On and oft, Shakespeare borrows his plot from another. John Gower, the medieval poet retells the story of Apollonius of Tyre from his play, Confessio Amanti which he wrote in 1385. This impressed the Bard and was the main source for Pericles.

Shakespeare wrote this play in 1607-8 and cited it in various Mediterranian countries. Fairly a complexed plot, Shakespeare disentangle it, as it reaches its climax.

'See where she comes, apparelled like the spring,

Graces her subjects, and her thoughts the king;

Of ev'ry virtue gives renown to man.

Her face the book of praises, where is read

Nothing but curious pleasures as from thence

Sorrow were ever razed and tasty wrath

Could never be her mild companion'...

Act. 1. scene 1.

The riddle profounded by Antiochus, the King of Antioch is solved by Pericles, to his daughter's suitors. Death is the penalty who fails to solve it as no one has found the answer yet. The whole episode revolves around the father who has had an incestuous affair with his daughter.

When Pericles reveals that he knows the answer, Antichus while being suspicious, is hospitable. However, the young prince realises the potential danger, escapes to Tyre. He invites Helicanus to govern in his absence, and sets off for Tarsus to relive in this famine-striken city.

Still petsued by a minion of Antiochus, Pericles is put to see where he is shipwrecked on the shores of Pentapolis. The King of this city is celebrating a festival for this daughter's birthday. She is the beautiful Thaisa. Pericles joins the party and end up being betrothed to Thaisa. After a while, they decide to leave for Tyre where Pericles hopes he will be safe from Antiochus.

They confront a great storm when Thaisa gives birth to a daughter, Marina is thought to be dead and thrown overboard in a waterproof chest. A letter is also enclosed in the chest. When it reaches the land in Ephesus, the Lord Cerimon revives Thaisa. Beliveing to be the only survivor, Thaisa becomes a priestess of Diana's Temple. Devastated by the loss of Thaisa, Pericles returns to Tyre with the infant, Marina and gives her over to Cleon, Governor of Tarus and his wife Dionyza for care and safety.

Shakespeare moves into the second chapter of the play fourteen years after the disappearance of Thaisa whom he believes to be dead.

Fourteen years later, Marina has grown up in Tarsus while Pericles is in Tyre. Marina's beauty overshadows Dionyza's daughter and she becomes jealous enough to get innocent Marina murdered. Around this time, Marina is Kidnapped by pirates and they take her to a brothel in Mytilene. Pericles vows that he will not wash his face nor cut his hair until he finds Marina when Dionyza and Cleon inform him that Marina is dead.

Marina's purity shocks her employees in Myteline and startles the Governor. The manager of the brothel, Lysmachus is a man of repentance and sets to find honest work.

Pericles is utterly dejected and while roaming, chances to visit the city. Lysimachus in desperation, sends for Marina to comfort the stranger. A little later in his anchored ship, Pericles realises that this girl is his daughter. When he slept that night, Diana appears to him in a dream asking him to go to her temple at Ephesus, where he relates his tale to the high priestess. She happens to be Thaisa and all his grief are over.

In the meantime, the united family is overjoyed at the prospect of Lysimachus being betrothed to Marina. Pericles commissions them to rule Tyre while he and Thaisa spend the rest of their lives in Pentapolis.

Chief character is one of the enchanting lost girls.

Marina: One of the enchanting lost girls of Shakespeare's final period, Marina is the daughter of Pericles. She moves with speed throughout the play and should not be doubles with her mother, Thaisa.

Her innocence keeps her out of danger at the brothel where Lysimachus guards over her. Pericles, Prince of Tyre. He is the wanderer who walks through many hazard. Antiochus King of Antich whose evil riddle is solved by Pericles (his affairs with his daughter) because of which he prevents her suitors seeking her hand.

Lycimachus The Governor of Mytilene who rescues Marina from the brothel. In Performance Shakespeare remembers some aspects of Apollonius as well as some of his old ideas to mix them in his later work in this play.

He rambles a narratine whose music and its masquing was the envy of his contemporaries while Ben Jonson soured it, hinting it as another man's success. Pericles is a beguiling stage exploit. Its diverse aspects of story-value, can hold us from the riddle as well as the unnamed daughter of Antiochus.

There is the storm around which the characters are built: the reunion of Pericles and Thaisa in Diana's temple; a princess arise from a wave-tossed chest and Pericles before whose eyes his wife miraculously restored. All these and many an event through a period of fourteen years.

All these events and or part of them have been exploited on stage with success. More suited for movies because of the environment of the play along with many a distant places, it is humanly impossible to recreate some of the scenes on stage. Viewed from memory a large Shakespearean text the first had only a blurred and vague recollection. But whenever it is a great moment, Shakespeare's unmistakable voice enters with the Third Act.

Funnily, Pericles was the first Shakespeare play staged at the Restoration with Thomas Betterton at 25 years of age, was Pericles. This play was applauded as well as mocked by the literati and did not appear in the First Folio. In 1738, it suffered a feeble adaption by George Lillo called Marina. It was revived by Samuel Phelps in 1854 for The Sadler's Wells but was not a success.

In 1947 Pericles was mounted with Paul Scofield as Pericles in a cut-one act adaption. In 1954. The Birmingham Repertory revived a strained Stratford adaption. The play continued down the years up to 1990. In 1985, it won the prestigious Olivier Award for the Best Newcomer. In 1990 David Thacker directed the play for the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford which was a roaring success.

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