I really enjoyed this unknown (to me) and rarely performed play. While my edition classifies it as a tragedy, it is really a tragic-comedy. Spoiler: Not everyone dies at the end!
There are kings, shipwrecks, being buried alive at sea, attempted murder, pirates, a brothel, princesses, a nun and a happily-ever-after! Who could ask for anything more?
Pericles, after discovering while visiting a nearby country that there is an incestual relationship between the King Antiochus and his daughter, promises to stay silent
I.1 Pericles: "King, Few love to hear the sins they love to act;"
Knowing a bounty is on his head for having discovered the improper relationship Pericles sets sail to other lands. His first stop Tarsus which is struggling with famine:
I.4 Cleon (Governor): "One sorrow never comes but brings an heir
That may succeed as his inheritor;"
Pericles sets off again but his shipwrecked off the coast of Pentapolis where he assumes the role of a knight rather than the prince that he is:
II.3 Simonides: "Opinion's but a fool, that makes us scan
The outward habit by the inward man."
Here is where the Princess, Thaisa meets and falls for Pericles:
II.3 Thaisa: "All viands that I eat do seem unsavoury,
Wishing him my meat."
Hearing that the King Antiochus and his daughter are dead Pericles and his now wife, Thaisa set sail to return to Tyre but alas, another storm!
III.1 Pericles: "Thou god of this great vast, rebuke these surges,
Which wash both heaven and hell; and thou that hast
Upon the winds command, bind them in brass,
Having call'ed them from the deep! O, still
Thy deaf'ning dreadful thunders; gently quench
Thy nimble sulfurous flashes!...
...Thou stormest venomously;
Wilt thou spit all thyself?"
Upon Thaisa's death at sea (note: might want to double check for signs of life), Pericles drops his daughter, Marina, off at Tarsus with Cleon and his wife to raise. He vows not to cut his hair until she marries (remember this). Marina grows up to be very beautiful and Cleon's wife, Dionyza becomes jealous for her own daughter is getting no attention so she hires someone to murder Marina.
IV.1 Dionyza: "Let not conscience,
Which is but cold, inflaming love in thy bosom,
Inflame too nicely; nor let pity, which
Even women have cast off, melt thee, but be
A soldier to thy purpose."
Marina pleads for her life:
IV.1 Marina: "I never spake bad word, nor did ill turn
To any living creature. Believe me, la,
I never kill'd a mouse, nor hurt a fly;
I trod upon a worm against my will,
But I wept for it...."
And she is captured by pirates only to be taken to Mytilene and sold to a brothel!!
Dionyza is unaware of the failed murder plot and to save face she commissions a monument as a memorial to Marina which Pericles visits when he returns after 14 years to be told his daughter his dead and he vows AGAIN to never cut his hair!
Thank goodness though, Pericles finds his daughter by chance when he visits Mytilene and then a dream tells him to venture to Ephesus where they are reunited with Thaisa (she survived her watery coffin when it arrived on the shore at the residence of a doctor) and they lived happily ever after!
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