Pericles

“ANTIOCHUS. Prince Pericles,—

PERICLES. That would be son to great Antiochus.”

This bleakly tragicomic exchange between Antiochus and Pericles establishes Pericles’s youth and innocence, as he is still unaware of the problem of Appearance Versus Reality. Unaware of the deception of Antiochus and infatuated by the beauty of his daughter, Pericles hurriedly proclaims himself the son-in-law of the king, interrupting Antiochus mid-sentence. Pericles’s eagerness to be Antiochus’s son also indicates his search for a fatherly figure following the death of his own parent.

“Before thee stands this fair Hesperides,

With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touch’d;

For death-like dragons here affright thee hard:

Her face, like heaven, enticeth thee to view

Her countless glory, which desert must gain;

And which, without desert, because thine eye

Presumes to reach, all thy whole heap must die.”

Antiochus’s description of his daughter is packed with figurative language and allusions, speaking to Appearance Versus Reality. In Greek mythology, the Hesperides are beautiful nymph-goddesses tasked with guarding golden apples of Hera. Here, Antioch’s daughter is both Hesperides and the fruit they guard (the fruit perhaps a reference to her sexuality and fertility). The juxtaposition of beauty with “death-like dragons” ostensibly refers to the condition of the riddle, but is a veiled reference to the terrible secret of incest the loveliness of the princess hides.

“You are a fair viol, and your sense the strings;

Who, finger’d to make man his lawful music,

Would draw heaven down, and all the gods, to hearken:

But being play’d upon before your time,

Hell only danceth at so harsh a chime.”

Rife with sexual imagery, these lines by Pericles invoke The Importance of Chastity and Political Virtue. Pericles uses the metaphor of a musical instrument for Antiochus’s daughter: Because the instrument has been “play’d upon” in an unlawful manner (i.e., since she has been sexually abused), she can no longer make heavenly music. If the instrument had been “finger’d”—a crude, sexual reference—in the lawful way, that is, in the context of marriage, she would have made heavenly music, but now she only produces harsh sounds.

“They do abuse the King that flatter him,

For flattery is the bellows blows up sin;

The thing the which is flattered, but a spark

To which that wind gives heat and stronger glowing;

Whereas reproof, obedient and in order,

Fits kings as they are men, for they may err.”

Helicanus’s words establish his blunt honesty, an essential quality in a king’s advisor. Using the metaphor of bellows that fan a fire, Helicanus describes how the support of flattery sets a king’s sins ablaze. What the king—and polity—really need is the sobering effect of cold reproof, so the king’s wrongdoings do not spread like flames. The use of “obedient” and “in order” show the importance of self-control and modesty in a king, speaking to The Importance of Chastity and Political Virtue in the play.

“Why, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the

little ones: I can compare our rich misers to

nothing so fitly as to a whale; a’ plays and

tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at

last devours them all at a mouthful: such whales

have I heard on o’ the land, who never leave gaping

till they’ve swallowed the whole parish, church,

steeple, bells, and all.”

This extended metaphor by the fishermen uses the play’s marine backdrop and nautical imagery to make a critical commentary about the state of the world. Much as big fish eat little fish, the wealthy prey on the poor. The reference to the parish is a sly dig at wealthy and corrupt clergy who “swallow” or prey on their congregation, a running concern in Shakespeare’s time.

“How from the finny subject of the sea

These fishers tell the infirmities of men;

And from their watery empire recollect

All that may men approve or men detect!”

The three fishermen embody Appearance Versus Reality, since their simple manner belies their deep wisdom. Overhearing their insightful conversation, Pericles marvels how these men of labor, like philosophers, sense the flaws of society. The lines contain Christian imagery, since Jesus Christ is known as a fisher of humans, casting a net to draw them in. In their simplicity and plainspokenness, the fishermen also embody Christian values, drawing in Pericles.

“Opinion’s but a fool, that makes us scan

The outward habit by the inward man.”

Simonides’s pithy lines are an example of his wisdom concerning Appearance Versus Reality, since he exhorts the knights mocking Pericles’s rusty armor to not judge people by appearances. While Antiochus’s daughter’s beauty hid her inner corruption, here Pericles’s rusty armor hides his true nobility and virtue.

“Whose death indeed’s the strongest in our censure:

And knowing this kingdom is without a head,—

Like goodly buildings left without a roof

Soon fall to ruin,—”

Although the family is at the center of Pericles, kingship and governance are also important concerns in the play, reflecting Jacobean concerns with The Importance of Chastity and Political Virtue. Here, Tyre’s courtiers use the simile of a roofless building to describe a kingless kingdom. Both are bound to fall into disrepair, and so they worry about Pericles’s continuing absence.

“Now, mild may be thy life!

For a more blustrous birth had never babe:

Quiet and gentle thy conditions! for

Thou art the rudeliest welcome to this world

That ever was prince’s child. Happy what follows!

Thou hast as chiding a nativity

As fire, air, water, earth, and heaven can make,

To herald thee from the womb […]”

Pericles’s tender words for the newborn Marina juxtapose the fragility and innocence of the newborn with the harsh conditions of her birth, reflecting The Tensions Between Fortune and Free Will. “Blustrous birth had never babe” is an example of alliteration, with the “b” sound repeated. Pericles prays that the “chiding” or scolding conditions of Marina’s birth may be the worst travails of her life, so that what follows can only be happier.

“A terrible childbed hast thou had, my dear;

No light, no fire: the unfriendly elements

Forgot thee utterly: nor have I time

To give thee hallow’d to thy grave, but straight

Must cast thee, scarcely coffin’d, in the ooze;

Where, for a monument upon thy bones,

And e’er-remaining lamps, the belching whale

And humming water must o’erwhelm thy corpse,

Lying with simple shells.”

Another emotionally charged speech by Pericles, these lines are also rich in marine imagery, reflecting how the sea symbolizes The Tensions Between Fortune and Free Will in the play. Pericles laments the fact that Thaisa’s labor was unaccompanied by warmth of fire or home; her end is even worse because it thrusts her straight into the “ooze” or the chaos of the sea. Throughout this speech, Pericles sets up a binary between light/ dark, warm/cold, dry/wet to emphasize the alienation of Thaisa. Instead of warm, safe lamps for company, her cold tomb will have gushing water.

“I have,

Together with my practice, made familiar

To me and to my aid the blessed infusions

That dwells in vegetives, in metals, stones;

And can speak of the disturbances

That Nature works, and of her cures; which doth give me

A more content in course of true delight

Than to be thirsty after tottering honor,

Or tie my pleasure up in silken bags

To please the fool and death.”

Like Prospero in The Tempest, Cerimon is associated with magic, healing, and knowledge. However, unlike Prospero, who can use magic to exert control, Cerimon uses his powers in a more balanced and lawful fashion. His words make it obvious that Cerimon is an example of a virtuous leader in the play, as he considers goodness and intelligence greater wealth than money and status. “Tottering” honor suggests public approval is unsteady, while the use of silken bags for money denotes the fragility of material goods. These pursuits please only death, since death has the last laugh with the people who chase them (because money and approval don’t help after a person is dead).

“She is alive; behold,

Her eyelids, cases to those heavenly jewels

Which Pericles hath lost,

Begin to part their fringes of bright gold;

The diamonds of a most praised water

Do appear, to make the world twice rich.”

Cerimon’s description of Thaisa uses the metaphor of jewels for her eyes. So beautiful are the diamonds of her eyes, that their light brightens the world around her. Jewels are a common motif in the play, associated with the treasure that is the family, as well as the treasures of the sea.

“Fear not, my lord, but think

Your grace, that fed my country with your corn,

For which the people’s prayers still fall upon you,

Must in your child be thought on. If neglection

Should therein make me vile, the common body,

By you relieved, would force me to my duty:

But if to that my nature need a spur,

The gods revenge it upon me and mine,

To the end of generation!”

Cleon’s hyperbolic promise to Pericles is filled with dramatic irony and speaks to Appearances Versus Reality, since it foreshadows that Cleon will indeed fail the Tyrian king. Further, much as he unwittingly prophesizes, his own people, loyal to Pericles, will take revenge by burning down “me and mine,” that is, Cleon and Dionyza once they discover their treachery toward Marina.

“No, I will rob Tellus of her weed,

To strew thy green 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 to me is like a lasting storm,

Whirring me from my friends.”

Marina’s lines show her tender, loving nature, as she gathers flowers to honor the grave of her beloved nurse. Tellus is the personification of the earth, with flowers her clothes. Marina will rob the earth of these beautiful garments to dress up Lychorida’s resting place. The second half of Marina’s lines contain her lament about her motherless state and The Tensions Between Fortune and Free Will: She compares the world to a tempest since fortune is always “whirring” her from her loved ones. Her speech is similar to Pericles’s lament about fortune treating him like a tennis ball.

“BAWD. What else, man? The stuff we have, a strong wind

will blow it to pieces, they are so pitifully sodden.

PANDAR. Thou sayest true; they’re too unwholesome, o’

conscience. The poor Transylvanian is dead, that

lay with the little baggage.

BOULT. Ay, she quickly pooped him; she made him roast-meat

for worms. But I’ll go search the market.”

The lewd exchange between Bawd, Boult, and Pandar is filled with graphic imagery, juxtaposing sex with rot and death. The traffickers constantly dehumanize the workers of the brothel, referring to them as “stuff” and even the customers, calling the man with the small penis “little baggage.” While on the Jacobean stage, these lines would be comic, they are also bleak and devoid of hope, illustrating the worst of human nature. Even the people running the brothel depict it as a terrible place, where workers die of disease, taking customers with them (through infecting them). The bleak description of the brothel highlights the suboptimal living conditions of sex workers in Shakespeare’s time.

“BAWD. Why lament you, pretty one?

MARINA. That I am pretty.”

When Bawd questions Marina about her sorrow, calling her a pretty one, Marina replies with bitter irony that her prettiness is the cause of her sorrow. Marina is aware that her youth and beauty make her a prized commodity, and hence briefly laments them. Marina’s resistance to becoming a sex worker also speaks to her commitment to The Importance of Chastity and Political Virtue in the play.

“You are like one that superstitiously

Doth swear to the gods that winter kills the flies:

But yet I know you’ll do as I advise.”

Dionyza’s sharp lines to Cleon draw attention to his hypocrisy, highlighting Appearance Versus Reality. Cleon may berate her for her crimes against Marina, but Dionyza is well-aware that her husband will not betray her, as it will be inconvenient for him. Dionyza compares Cleon to the man who kills flies for sport, yet swears they died because of the cold.

“Thus time we waste, and longest leagues make short;

Sail seas in cockles, have an wish but for’t;

Making, to take your imagination,

From bourn to bourn, region to region.”

Metafictional in tone, Gower’s lines establish that he is using the conventions of storytelling to travel “[f]rom bourn to bourn” in the blink of an eye. Thus, from one act to another, Gower travels decades and hundreds of miles, sailing seas in the span of “cockles” or shells. The difference of scale between a sea and a cockle amplifies Gower’s ability to condense the narrative; the expression is also an example of the play’s marine imagery.

“MARINA. What canst thou wish thine enemy to be?

BOULT. Why, I could wish him to be my master, or rather, my

mistress.

MARINA. Neither of these are so bad as thou art,

Since they do better thee in their command.

Thou hold’st a place, for which the pained’st fiend

Of hell would not in reputation change:

Thou art the damned doorkeeper to every

Coistrel that comes inquiring for his Tib;

To the choleric fisting of every rogue

Thy ear is liable; thy food is such

As hath been belch’d on by infected lungs.”

Marina’s uncharacteristically harsh words to Boult are meant to jolt him into self-awareness. When Boult claims that his master and mistress, or Pandar and Bawd, are the worst people he knows, Marina shows him the mirror of his hypocrisy. Marina’s speech uses the play’s conflation of sex, death, and eating to invoke feelings of disgust around sin; so terrible are Boult’s deeds that his food has been breathed upon by lungs struck with consumption (tuberculosis). Coistrel refers to a knave, while “Tib” is a derogatory term for a sex worker.

“Give me a gash, put me to present pain;

Lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me

O’erbear the shores of my mortality,

And drown me with their sweetness. O, come hither,

Thou that beget’st him that did thee beget;

Thou that wast born at sea, buried at Tarsus,

And found at sea again! O Helicanus,

Down on thy knees, thank the holy gods as loud

As thunder threatens us: this is Marina.”

These lines capture Pericles’s overwhelming joy when he realizes that Marina is not only alive, but in front of him. To match the extreme tenor of Pericles’s happiness, the lines are filled with a raving cadence and assonant long “o” sounds, as in “O Helicanus / Down on thy knees, thank the holy gods as loud.” Further, the vocabulary for ecstasy here is close to violence, with Pericles asking Helicanus to “gash” or strike him in case he is dreaming. Joys are described as “rushing” toward Pericles.

“PERICLES. I am wild in my beholding.

O heavens bless my girl! But, hark, what music?

Tell Helicanus, my Marina, tell him

O’er, point by point, for yet he seems to doubt,

How sure you are my daughter. But, what music?

HELICANUS. My lord, I hear none.

PERICLES. None!

The music of the spheres! List, my Marina.”

Continuing the rapturous cadence of discovery, in these lines Pericles enters a state of divine vision, invoking the play’s motif of music in his joy. The lines between natural and supernatural blur, with Pericles hearing music that no one else can. Pericles’s raving utterances are punctuated by poignant calls to his daughter—“My Marina”—establishing Marina as Pericles’s salvation.

“My heart

Leaps to be gone into my mother’s bosom.”

The final act of the play shows that despite its roving geography and grand themes, it is the intimate tale of a separated and then reunited family, as evident in Marina’s simple childlike lines. Her heart wants to join her mother’s bosom or return to the nurturing safety of the mother’s body, torn from her 14 years ago.

“And now,

This ornament

Makes me look dismal will I clip to form;

And what this fourteen years no razor touch’d,

To grace thy marriage-day, I’ll beautify.”

Pericles’s resolve to shave off the “dismal” ornament of his beard adds a light sweetness to the reunion scene with his family. The emotions released, he can now enjoy some levity, promising his daughter that he will “beautify” himself for her wedding day.