Synopsis of Pericles

Another one from the archives. We went to see Pericles at the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City several years back and I wrote this for the family and friends as a way to familarize everyone with the plot.

Synopsis of Pericles, Prince of Tyre
or A Whirlwind Tour of the Eastern Mediterranean
by that Shakespeare guy.

Antiochus is the king of Antioch (duh!). He has been carrying on a secret incestuous relationship with his beautiful daughter. In order to hide the mess, he has declared that any who wish her hand in marriage must solve a riddle he gives them. If they answer correctly they get the girl, if not they loose their head. Pericles, the young prince of Tyre, comes to Antioch to seek Antiochus's daughter as his wife. He correctly solves the riddle, and by so doing learns about the incest. Antiochus decides to kill him anyway, but he escapes to Tyre with an assassin, Thaliard, on his heels.

In Tyre he decides to take a boat trip 'til the whole thing blows over and leaves his trusted advisor, Helicanus, in charge of things while he's gone. He takes a fleet of ships to Tharsus and helps alleviate the famine there. This earns him the friendship of the governor, Cleon, and his wife, Dionyza. He sets sail again, but the fleet is caught in storm and only Pericles survives to be cast up on the shore near Pentapolis. He manages to salvage a suit of armor and wins the local jousting match in honor of Thaisa, the king's daughter's, birthday. Of course he wins over her father, Simonides, and marries the girl.

In the meantime, Antiochus and his daughter have been toasted to ashes by a bolt of lightning. The people back in Tyre are convinced that Pericles is dead and are asking Helicanus to become the new king. Pericles finds out and sails homeward with his very pregnant wife. As we should expect (since the play is only half over) there is another storm and Thaisa dies giving birth to their child, whom Pericles names Marina (and since she's the daughter of a king I guess that makes her Marina del Rey). In any case, the sailors convince Pericles that a dead body on board is bad luck and they toss Thaisa's body into the sea in a coffin. They make their way to Tharsus, where Pericles asks Cleon and Dionyza to raise his daughter for him. He then sails back to Tyre to straighten things out.

In the meantime, Thaisa's coffin washes up on the shores of Ephesus and she is brought back to life by the ministering of Cerimon, who is apparently a really good doctor. Thinking that she's the only survivor, Thaisa becomes a vestal at the Temple of Diana in Ephesus.

Fourteen years pass and Marina has become a beautiful and talented young lady. So beautiful and talented that she eclipses Dionyza's own daughter in court. Dionyza gets her servant Leonine to whack the girl. Fortunately? she is captured by pirates just as he is trying to finish her off. The pirates take her to Mitylene and sell her into a brothel.

Pericles makes a voyage back to Tharsus to see his daughter (for the first time in 14 years, one assumes he did send child support). Cleon & Dionyza tell him she died of natural causes and show him the tomb. Being a bit gullible, Pericles believes the story and is so upset that he stops shaving and laundering his clothes.

In the meantime, Marina has not been much of a hit in the brothel. Every time customer comes to see her she makes them feel so sorry and guilty that they quit their wenching days for ever. One of these is Lysimachus, the governor. Marina manages to convince the owners of the brothel that it's in their own best interest to send her off as a servant girl in a more respectable house.

A while later Pericles' fleet sails by. The sad news of his acute bout of depression has preceded the boats. Lysimachus decides that the girl he met in the brothel is just the remedy for a sad sack like Pericles and he sails out with Marina to see him. After a lengthy group therapy session on the deck of the ship it becomes apparent that Marina is Pericles's (assumed) dead daughter. Pericles shaves, puts on a clean set of clothes and allows Marina and Lysimachus to get engaged. He then sets sail back to Tharsus to rearrange Cleon and Dionyza's anatomy.

However, that night the goddess Diana (sans Charles) appears to Pericles in a dream and tells him to sail to Ephesus instead and tell his story on the steps of the altar in her temple there. Realizing what happens to mortals that tick off Olympian gods, he does so and is reunited with Thaisa who has become the chief vestal of the temple. The dysfunctional family is finally all together. News comes that Thaisa's daddy is dead, so Pericles et al run off to Pentapolis for the wedding and then send the two love-birds off to rule Tyre while Pericles and Thaisa settle down in Pentapolis.