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Pericles
Ruler of Tyre as well as husband of Thaisa and father of Marina. Pericles begins the play in Antioch, where he desires to marry Antiochus’s daughter. After he discovers their secret, he flees to Tyre. Prone to melancholy, Pericles worries about Antiochus trying to have him killed, and sets off on more adventures and endures several shipwrecks. In many ways Pericles is a kind of classical hero figure who is always ready to enter a contest or competition, especially if the prize is a king’s daughter. But though he starts out the play by making active decisions, he becomes increasingly inactive throughout the play as he endures greater and greater misfortune. Yet Pericles is above all a good man, and, despite his hardships, he remains virtuous.
Read an in-depth analysis of Pericles.
John Gower
John Gower serves as a narrator for this play, coming on before and between scenes to retell the action of previous scenes and to instigate “dumb shows,” which feature pantomimed scenes that advance the action of the play. Gower is also the name of a fourteenth-century English poet, whose story of Apollonius of Tyre in the eighth book of his Confessio Amantis was an important source for this play.
Read an in-depth analysis of John Gower.
Marina
Daughter of Pericles and Thaisa. After she is born at sea during a tempest, Pericles believes she won’t survive the journey to Tyre, so he leaves her in Tarsus with Cleon and Dionyza. Raised like royalty, Marina is astonished when faced with a murderer hired by Dionyza to kill her. Before she can be killed, though, she is saved by pirates, who turn around and sell her into prostitution in Mytilene. Her virtue prevails, and she convinces every man who wants to buy her that it would be a crime to take her honor. Eventually she is assigned to a more honorable household and earns renown with her many other skills. The governor of Mytilene, Lysimachus, is smitten with her.
Read an in-depth analysis of Marina.
Antiochus
King of Antioch. After his wife’s death, he enters an incestuous relationship with his daughter. When young princes come calling to ask to marry her, he tests them by asking them to solve a riddle or lose their life. The play starts with Pericles arriving in Antioch to undergo this test.
Antiochus’s daughter
Antiochus’s daughter has few lines, but she is the object of desire that Pericles seeks when he comes to see Antiochus.
Thaliard
An assassin. Antiochus hires Thaliard to kill Pericles after he flees Antioch, having discovered the secret incest of the king and his daughter. Thaliard follows Pericles to Tyre, but he fails to complete his task before Pericles leaves the city. He plans to tell Antiochus that Pericles died at sea.
Helicanus
One of Pericles’s advisors in Tyre. Helicanus takes care of Pericles in his melancholy moods, and he tells him to leave Tyre for a while after the events in Antioch. Helicanus takes over as provisionary ruler of Tyre, and when Pericles fails to return, the citizens want to crown Helicanus king. But Helicanus is loyal to Pericles, so he refuses. Helicanus is a genuinely good man, not touched by ambition, and he believes that Pericles is the only true ruler of Tyre.
Escanes
Another of Pericles’s advisors. He becomes the provisional ruler of Tyre when Pericles and Helicanus leave to find Marina.
Cleon
Governor of Tarsus, a city beset by famine. Tarsus is Pericles’s first stop, where Cleon assumes that Pericles’s ships contain soldiers intent on conquering Tarsus. Pericles instead gives corn to the nation, and the citizens are grateful. Cleon later pledges to take care of Pericles’s infant child, but his wife, Dionyza, plots to kill the child. Cleon was apparently unaware of the scheme, and when he hears of it, wishes it could be undone. But soon Cleon takes the blame for what Dionyza has done, and both are punished.
Dionyza
Wife of Cleon. Dionyza pledges to care for Pericles’s child, but she falls prey to envy when her own daughter receives less attention that Marina. She therefore plots to have Marina killed. Cleon is stunned by Dionyza’s cruelty, yet they are both punished in the end.
Fishermen
The fishermen meet Pericles on the shores of Pentapolis, and they drag his armor out of the sea. These commoners impress Pericles with their simple wisdom.
Simonides
King of Pentapolis and father of Thaisa. Pericles is shipwrecked in Pentapolis and wins a jousting contest for the hand of Simonides’s daughter, Thaisa. Simonides is impressed with Pericles and tries to jolt him out of his melancholy by offering to be his friend. Later, when he finds out his daughter wants to marry Pericles, Simonides tests Pericles by insulting his honor, and then marries the two.
Thaisa
Daughter of Simonides and mother of Marina. Thaisa expects to marry whoever wins the jousting contest in Pentapolis. She is very impressed with Pericles and writes to her father that she wants to marry him, and Simonides authorizes their wedding. Later, while sailing with Pericles back to Tyre, Thaisa seems to die during childbirth during a storm. She is tossed off the boat in a wooden chest, which washes up onshore in Ephesus. The physician Cerimon revives her, and she becomes a priestess in Diana’s temple.
Knights
Suitors for Thaisa’s hand at the jousting competition in Pentapolis.
Shipmaster
Captain of the ship on which Thaisa allegedly dies. He insists that the body be thrown overboard, following a belief that the sea can’t be calm with a dead body on a ship.
Lychorida
Marina’s nurse. Lychorida lives with Marina in Tarsus until her death, prior to Dionyza’s murder plot.
Cerimon
A kindly physician in Ephesus. Cerimon helps the destitute and is a renowned healer. He revives Thaisa and helps her become a priestess at the Temple of Diana. He is a model of charity.
Philomon
Cerimon’s assistant.
Leonine
Assassin hired by Dionyza to kill Marina. Even though pirates abduct Marina, Leonine plans to tell Dionyza that she is dead. However, Dionyza poisons Leonine to keep him quiet.
Pirates
A group of villainous seafarers who save Marina from Leonine by kidnapping her. They take her to Mytilene, where they sell her into prostitution.
Pander
A generic name for one who runs a brothel. This Pander buys Marina from the pirates who took her from Tarsus.
Bawd
A generic name for one who takes care of the prostitutes, probably Pander’s wife. She has several exchanges with Marina, trying to convince her to give up her virginity.
Bolt
Servant to Pander and Bawd. Bolt falls under Marina’s virtuous spell and offers to help her find a more honorable place to work.
Lysimachus
Governor of Mytilene. Lysimachus comes in disguise to the brothel where Marina works, but she convinces him not to take her honor. He promises to help her if he can. Later, when Pericles comes into port, Lysimachus goes out to greet him and has Marina summoned to cheer him up. Having facilitated the reunion between father and daughter, Lysimachus is rewarded with an engagement to Marina.
Diana
Goddess of chastity. Diana appears to Pericles in a dream after he discovers Marina is alive, and she urges him to go to her temple in Ephesus and reveal all his misfortune. Since Thaisa lives in that same temple, Diana sets up the eventual reunion of Pericles’s family.
