payment page
THIRD LORD And on set purpose let his armor rust
Until this day, to scour it in the dust.
SIMONIDES Opinion’s but a fool that makes us scan
The outward habit by the inward man. (2.2.56–59)
When Pericles washes up on the shores near Pentapolis, he has nothing but a jeweled armband and his father’s rusted armor, which a trio of local fishermen pull out of the sea. Pericles takes this armor to King Simonides’s court, where he enters a jousting tournament. The participating knights each present themselves to the king and his daughter before the event begins, and when the unknown Pericles shows up in his rusted suit, the local lords laugh at him. In this exchange, King Simonides cautions one of these scornful lords that he mustn’t let appearances deceive him. The “outward habit” says little indeed about the “inward man.” Simonides’s lesson bears out, as becomes clear when Pericles handily wins the tournament.
For look how fresh she looks. They were too rough
That threw her in the sea.—Make a fire within;
Fetch hither all my boxes in my closet.
Death may usurp on nature many hours,
And yet the fire of life kindle again
The o’erpressed spirits. I heard of an Egyptian
That had nine hours lain dead,
Who was by good appliance recoverèd. (3.2.90–98)
Soon after Lychorida announces that Thaisa has died in childbirth, the shipmaster enjoins Pericles to cast her body overboard in the belief that this act will quell the stormy seas. The urgency of the situation leads to her quick disposal. As the audience soon learns, though, the chest they seal her body in washes up on the shores of Ephesus, where it’s brought to the attention of the local wiseman and physician, Cerimon. In these lines, Cerimon notes that those who cast her overboard were too hasty in thinking her dead. Observing that her skin tone still seems fresh, he claims that it is entirely possible for death to appear final even if it hasn’t fully set in. With some “good appliance” of his own, he will shortly revive her.
Her monument is
Almost finished, and her epitaphs
In glitt’ring golden characters express
A general praise to her, and care in us
At whose expense ’tis done. (4.3.46–51)
Dionyza addresses these lines to Cleon, describing the “monument” she’s commissioned to commemorate Marina. Crucially, this monument is a tool for deception. Dionyza wants to make it seem like she is deeply mourning the young woman that she secretly had murdered. Honoring the maiden with extravagant “epitaphs / In glitt’ring golden characters,” Dionyza especially hopes to deceive Marina’s father, Pericles, when he finally returns to Tarsus to collect her. As we soon learn, this monument does indeed deceive Pericles, who is devastated by the news of his daughter’s death. Of course, we also know that Marina has survived. Thus, this monument to her memory also symbolizes Dionyza’s deception at the hands of the assassin Leonine, who convinced her that Marina was dead in the first place.
