62 pages • 2-hour read
Pericles
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Act IChapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child sexual abuse and rape.
Act I, Chorus Summary
John Gower, the medieval poet, addresses the audience before the palace of King Antioch. Gower has come to life again to relay an ancient story told at festivals and dinner tables, before cozy fires and over beers, by lords and ladies alike. The story is a “restorative,” meant to teach people morals. If the modern audience, far cleverer than those in Gower’s time, indulges his old-fashioned style, Gower will light up the stage with the candle of his story.
Antiochus the Great built the city of Antioch, the most beautiful in all of Syria. It is said he wedded a fairy, who died young, leaving him with a baby daughter. The girl was so beautiful it seemed heaven itself had lent her all its grace. As she grew up, the king lusted for her, forcing his own daughter into an act of incest, which is an evil that should never be committed. She was a terrible daughter, and he was a worse father. Over time, the father and daughter sinned so often, they forgot that their actions were sin.
The beauty of Antiochus’s daughter attracted suitors from all over. To avoid losing his daughter, Antiochus set a condition for her marriage: Only the suitor who could solve a (seemingly) impossible riddle would win the princess in marriage. If he failed to answer correctly, the suitor would be condemned to instant death.
The grim looks on his audience’s faces tell Gower they have guessed that many princes died in this fruitless pursuit. What happened next, the audience must witness for themselves. Gower exits the stage.
Act I, Scene 1 Summary
Pericles, prince of Tyre, is in Antioch to try his luck at the king’s riddle. Antiochus warns Pericles that his task risks death. Pericles counters that the beauty of the princess is worth every risk. On Antioch’s command, the princess appears in a beautiful wedding dress. Pericles marvels at the princess, comparing her beauty and youth to the season of spring. The princess appears kind to her subjects and noble of virtue.
Pericles is filled with the desire to have the princess, or die trying to win her hand. Antiochus refers to his daughter as “Hesperides”—nymphs associated with lush fruit in Greek mythology—implying she possesses a harvest of beauty. However, this beauty is guarded by dangerous dragons, that is, the path to her is beset with danger. Gesturing to a pile of skeletons of killed suitors, Antiochus states that if Pericles is not careful, he will meet the same fate. The smarter move would be to heed the warning offered by the bones, and turn back.
Pericles thanks Antiochus for reminding him of the inevitable fact of his mortality. He thinks death should not be feared. Instead, the signs of death should act as a mirror, reminding humans not to put faith in life, as it can end anytime. Like a sick man sensing his death, Pericles will make a will stipulating all his belongings be given away to the world if he dies. However, he tells the princess, his love is reserved for her. Antiochus tells Pericles that as he refuses to heed his advice, he must now read the riddle before him and attempt an answer. The princess tells Pericles that of all the men who have sought to solve the riddle, it is him she hopes will be successful.
Pericles reads the riddle from a scroll. It says that it is a thing that is not a snake, yet eats its mother’s flesh. It wanted a husband, but found a father. The father is also son and husband. The riddle is “mother, wife, and yet, his child” (I.1.73). The riddle leaves for the reader to solve how this can be. Pericles blanches as he finishes reading and asks the gods how such a horrible thing is possible. He grabs the princess’s hand and tells her that though he loved her truly, he has solved her dark secret (implying that the riddle has revealed the incestuous relationship between the princess and her father). The princess is like a beautiful instrument, whom Pericles would have been blessed to play. However, knowing that she was violated young, he cannot marry her. He has lost all interest in her.
Antiochus asks Pericles to stop wasting time and tell him the answer to the riddle. Pericles retorts that he cannot answer, as no one likes being told of their sin, least of all kings, who believe they are gods on earth. Antioch persists in his actions even though he knows he is wrong. All Pericles can ask from Antioch is not to kill him for what Pericles just said. In an aside, Antioch marvels at Pericles’s sharp mind, which has figured out the riddle.
Confident in his ability to confuse Pericles, Antioch tells the young prince he has 40 more days to solve the riddle. If Pericles produces an answer at the end of that period, Antioch will welcome him as a son-in-law. Pericles rejects the offer of hospitality, saying that Antioch’s welcome couches his sin. Antioch cannot admit that Pericles has already solved the riddle, since it would reveal his own sin. The princess is the viper who eats her mother’s flesh by vitiating her marriage bed; Antioch is both her father and husband. Pericles wants to bid Antioch goodbye because if Antioch is capable of one sin—incest—he is certainly capable of another—the murder of Pericles. Pericles leaves.
Aware that Pericles now knows the truth, Antioch summons his trusted servant Thaliard. He gives Thaliard a vial of poison and a bag of gold, and asks him to track and murder Pericles at any cost. Meanwhile, a messenger brings the news that Pericles has sailed away. Vowing to find Pericles, Thaliard leaves.
Act I, Scene 2 Summary
At his palace in Tyre, Pericles tells his courtiers not to disturb him. Alone, he worries about the sense of gloom which has gripped him, as if he senses something horrid is about to happen. Even though now surrounded by things that should give him pleasure, he cannot shake off the feeling that Antioch is on his heels. The nature of worry is to multiply, until the mind convinces one that every danger is real. What amplifies Pericles’s worry is that Antioch is a mighty king who has the resources to invade his country, wage war upon it, and even punish Pericles’s innocent subjects. The concern for his people makes Pericles feel sick.
Helicanus, Pericles’s friend and advisor, enters with a few other lords. As they flatter Pericles, Helicanus scolds them for being so sycophantic. Good advisors should offer wise advice to those in power, rather than fan the fire of their sins with flattery. Pericles asks everyone save Helicanus to leave. Alone, Pericles pretends that Helicanus has made him angry and questions why Helicanus did so. Helicanus counters that the question is as unanswerable as that of why flowers face the sky to receive sun and rain. When Pericles threatens to kill him for his sharp tongue, Helicanus offers his neck. Pericles drops his act and tells Helicanus he was merely testing him. Pericles needs advice urgently, and Helicanus is the only one who can tell him the truth.
Pericles reveals the events at Antiochus to Helicanus, and his fears that a vengeful Antioch will plunge Tyre in blood. Helicanus tells Pericles his fears are justified, as Antioch is a tyrant. Helicanus’s advice is that Pericles should leave Tyre until Antioch either calms down or dies. In the interim, Helicanus will tend to Tyre. If Antioch still wages war, Helicanus will give him a fitting reply. Pericles agrees to Helicanus’s plan. He will leave for Tarsus and await Helicanus’s letter about the right time to return to Tyre.
Act I, Scene 3 Summary
Antioch’s hired assassin, Thaliard, arrives in Tyre. Thaliard admits that he is in a quandary: If he does not kill Pericles, Antioch will slay him. Now Thaliard understands the folktale about the man whose biggest boon from a king was never to know the king’s secrets. Thaliard is bound to do what Antioch commands.
Helicanus enters a different part of the stage, conversing with a few lords of Tyre. Helicanus tells the lords that Pericles has left Tyre because, for unknown reasons, Antioch has taken a dislike to him. He has left a letter with his royal seal with Helicanus, indicating the lord can rule in his stead.
Thaliard notes that since Pericles has sailed away, he is likely to die at sea. Thaliard no longer needs to kill Pericles or hide himself. He reveals himself to Helicanus and the others, telling that he bears a message for Pericles from Antioch. With Pericles gone, he will return the message to Antioch. The lords invite Thaliard to a feast before he leaves Tyre.
Act I, Scene 4 Summary
Tarsus, toward which Pericles is headed, is a shadow of its former glory. Cleon, the governor of Tarsus, laments the current state of his city. The streets which were once packed with wealthy people are now filled with the cries of the hungry. A mere two years ago, the people of Tarsus were not satisfied even with all that the elements had to offer, but today they would be happy to get mere bread crusts. Mothers are so hungry they’re tempted to consume their own infants. Cleon asks his wife, Dionyza, if listening to sad stories will help them forget their own sadness. Dionyza replies that the tales will have the opposite effect of amplifying their grief, much as air feeds a fire. Envious of prosperous cities, Cleon curses them with a fate similar to Tarsus.
Just then, a lord brings news of the sighting of approaching ships. Cleon is convinced the ships belong to an invading enemy, as misfortunes only multiply. The lord assures Tarsus this cannot be the case, as the ships bear the white flags of peace. Cleon tells the lord not to be so easily deceived, since the worst intentions hide behind a pleasant front. He asks the nobleman to request the general of the ships for a parley.
A while later, Pericles enters the stage. He tells Cleon that he’s heard of the troubles of Tarsus and only brings hope and peace. His ships may look like Trojan horses (as in hiding soldiers ready for an attack), but the only thing they’re stocked with is bags of grain to make bread. Cleon, Dionyza and the others kneel before Pericles, praising him. Pericles bids them to rise, saying he wants love from Tarsus, not adulation. Cleon curses those who don’t show enough gratitude to Pericles. He invites Pericles to stay in Tarsus. Pericles agrees. He will stay in the city until his fortunes take a turn for the better.
Act I Analysis
One of the important narrative features of Pericles is that each Act begins with a chorus spoken by the fictionalized John Gower. While prologues and choruses are common in Shakespeare’s plays, Pericles is unique in the sheer number of appearances of a choric character who is not part of the play’s plot. Gower also appears mid-act in Acts IV and V and in the Epilogue.
In functioning as a layer between the audience and the story on stage, Gower demonstrates an earlier form of storytelling, common in medieval—rather than Renaissance and Jacobean—theatre. For instance, in English morality and miracle plays, a narrator frequently broke the fourth wall to provide the audience with a moral commentary on the story being shown. The very presence of Gower, from whose source text the story of Pericles is taken, is thus a meta-fictional nod at the deliberate use of an older style of narrative in the play’s contemporary context. In another metafictional turn, Gower declares that “From ashes ancient Gower is come” (I.Chor.2), his very resurrection a nod to the play’s interest in loss and rebirth.
Unlike the other sections of the play, Gower’s verses are composed in rhyming couplets in iambic tetrameter, as can be seen in the following lines:
If you, born in these latter times,
When wit’s more ripe, accept my rhymes.
And that to hear an old man sing
May to your wishes pleasure bring. (I.Chor.11-14)
The style of the choruses is thus deliberately archaic, different from the blank verse that dominates the rest of the play. A deliberate stylistic choice, Gower’s sections show the play’s experiments with structure and form.
Another unique feature highlighted in this section is the play’s panoramic, shifting geography. The action jumps from ports around the Mediterranean Sea, with Antioch in Syria, Tarsus in contemporary Turkey, and Pentapolis in Greece. Rejecting the Aristotelian unities of time and place—which suggest a play’s action should evolve in a single location and time period—the plot of Pericles jumps countries and decades, from Pericles’s youth to Marina’s wedding. The play handles these jumps in space and time through the narrative device of Gower’s chorus. Thus, Gower’s presence is necessary in quickly setting up the stage in each act. He manages the swift transitions by urging the viewer to suspend their disbelief, visualize the fresh setting, and transport themselves to new realms.
Throughout the play, sea voyages will become a key motif that evokes The Tensions Between Fortune and Free Will. The play’s vast landscape reflects the Jacobean interest in sea journeys, since this was the era of burgeoning maritime trade and rapid colonization by sea. The first European colonies in North America, for instance, were established in the early 17th century. With European nations sending more ships out into unknown waters, calamities at sea were increasingly common, which fueled an interest in shipwreck narratives.
In the opening act of Pericles, the hazards of sea voyages are reflected in Thaliard’s assumption that, since Pericles is attempting to evade him through taking to the sea and going elsewhere, Pericles could die in a shipwreck, which would solve Thaliard’s problem. Meanwhile, Pericles’s voyage embodies his attempts at asserting his agency in the face of bad fortune: In leaving Helicanus in charge of Tyre and seeking refuge abroad, Pericles tries to ensure both his city’s and his own well-being, despite his ill luck in having guessed the answer to Antiochus’s riddle.
The riddle of Antiochus invokes the theme of Appearance Versus Reality. Throughout the play, appearances bely reality, such as the beauty of Antiochus’s daughter hiding her history of incestuous abuse, or the grandeur of Antioch’s palace functioning as a cover for his moral corruption. Solving the riddle presents the first major test for the often-tested character of Pericles. If he gives the wrong answer, he will die, per the condition set by Antiochus. However, the truth too will imperil him. Pericles’s ability to see past the riddle’s apparent complexity and into its true meaning suggests his perceptive nature, while his swift rejection of the princess shows that Pericles is not content merely with the appearance of beauty and power—he also seeks inner qualities and virtues in contracting a marital alliance.
The secret incestuous relationship between Antiochus and his daughter also introduces the play’s interest in The Importance of Chastity and Political Virtue. The play’s treatment of incest perpetuates abusive ideas, since Gower frames the relationship between Antiochus and his daughter as an exchange between equals. He calls the pair, “Bad child; worse father!” (I.Chor.27), even though he admits that Antiochus took a liking to his beautiful daughter and then abused her by having sex with her. The play evades the fact that what happens between Antiochus and his daughter is not just incest but rape, as Antiochus preys on his daughter.
However, the incest in the play functions more as a symbol of moral rot rather than a literal portrayal; since Antiochus is a tyrannical ruler, the play implies that his lack of sexual chastity is also linked to his lack of political virtue. Antiochus’s liking for arbitrary violence, as witnessed by his killing of the suitors who fail to solve the riddle, and his taste for macabre displays of his own power and amorality, as shown by his use of the would-be suitors’ bones to intimidate fresh contenders like Pericles, characterize him as a dangerous and selfish ruler.
Pericles, by contrast, is both committed to sexual propriety and a just and fair ruler. When Pericles realizes what the riddle means, he declares to the princess that he can no longer marry her, determined to have a bride who conforms to the dictates of his society’s sexual morality. Pericles’s sexual restraint is then reflected in his behavior as the ruler of Tyre: Unlike Antiochus, who regards human life cheaply, Pericles is deeply disturbed by the idea that his innocent people might suffer from Antiochus’s vendetta against him. To ensure his people’s safety, Pericles entrusts the city to Helicanus instead of trying to cling to his power and influence at any cost.
Furthermore, Pericles’s honoring of Helicanus’s unflinching honesty contrasts with Antiochus’s murderous fury when he realizes that Pericles knows his secret; Pericles remarks that telling kings the truth is dangerous. Pericles is so afraid of Antiochus that he has to flee immediately instead of speaking out, but when he is back in his own kingdom, he is grateful to Helicanus for speaking boldly: “Heaven forbid / That kings should let their ears hear their / faults hid!” (I.2.70-72). Impressed by Helicanus’s refusal to flatter him, Pericles calls his friend, “Fit counsellor and servant for a prince” (I.2.73), whose wisdom reverses their relationship, making Pericles the “servant” of Helicanus. In matters of both sex and state, then, Pericles and Antiochus are foils.
Thus, while chastity is important for the female characters in the play, it is not limited to them: The men also reveal important aspects of their fitness—or lack of fitness—to rule through their sexual attitudes and conduct. Throughout Pericles, concerns about the ideal family are mirrored in questions about ideal governance. Just as ideal families flourish under good stewardship and are sustained by virtuous women, so too are good kingdoms ruled by just kings and nourished by strong advisors.
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