299
is filled with dramatic irony: “I am
great with woe, and shall deliver
weeping. / My dearest wife was
like this maid, and such / My
daughter might have been. My
queen’s square brows, / Her stature
to an inch, as wand-like straight, /
As silver-voiced, her eyes as jewel-
like, / And cased as richly, in pace
another Juno, / Who starves the
ears she feeds, and makes them
hungry / The more she gives them
speech” (21.95–102).
Building tension
Pericles’ yearning to see his
daughter again is palpable, but
Shakespeare delays the revelation,
thereby increasing the audience’s
desire to see this moment. With
every speech the pair edge closer
to their mutual understanding.
When Pericles discovers Marina’s
name, he fears that the gods are
mocking him; when he discovers
that her mother died at sea while
giving birth, he believes he is
experiencing “the rarest dream”
(21.149). When it eventually comes,
the revelation also serves as a plot-
reminder for the audience: “The
King my father did in Tarsus leave
me, / Till cruel Cleon, with his
wicked wife, / Did seek to murder
me, and wooed a villain / To
attempt the deed; who having
drawn to do’t, / A crew of pirates
came and rescued me. / To
Myteline they brought me. But,
good sir, / What will you of me?THE KING’S MAN
O come, be buried
A second time within
these arms.
Pericles
Scene 22Why do you weep? It may be /
You think me an impostor. No,
good faith, I am the daughter to
King Pericles, / If good King Pericles
be” (21.158–167). Pericles’ tears begin
to fall during Marina’s speech,
although Marina has yet to realize
the importance of her story. When
she confirms that her mother was
called Thaisa, her father shares the
knowledge he has determined: “Now
blessing on thee! Rise. Thou art my
child” (21.200). Marina’s thoughts
about this are not put into words, but
her silence is touchingly truthful.Closing scenes
There are similarities between
Pericles and The Winter’s Tale.
Rather than staging the reunion
between King Leontes and his
daughter Perdita, Shakespeare
conveys this information through
reported speech. Both plays end
with another revelation and a
reunion. In The Winter’s Tale,
Shakespeare created a moving
scene in which Leontes stares at a
lifelike statue of his wife; and father
and daughter are stunned when it
begins to move. There is a similar
effect in Pericles. Pericles finds
himself unwittingly before his wife
Thaisa at the Temple of Ephesus.
She listens as his story unfolds:
“I here confess myself the King of
Tyre, / Who, frighted from my country,
did espouse / The fair Thaisa at
Pentapolis. / At sea in childbed died
she, but brought forth / A maid child
called Marina, who, O goddess, /
Wears yet thy silver liv’ry” (22.22–27).
As Pericles reunites mother with
child, despair is replaced with hope;
the “ceaseless storm” (15.71) of ill
fortune has been abated. ■Marina, played here by Ony Uhiaria,
defends herself from the bawd, played
by Linda Bassett, in this production at
Stratford-upon-Avon (2006).