payment page
Summary
After the tournament has concluded, a banquet is prepared in the palace at Pentapolis. King Simonides and Thaisa enter, along with Pericles and other knights. Simonides and Thaisa congratulate Pericles on winning the tournament, and Thaisa gives him the wreath of victory. While dining, both Simonides and Thaisa find they are so taken with Pericles that they lose their appetite. Pericles observes a similarity between Simonides and his own father, and he notes that his condition is much changed from his life in Tyre: unrecognized as a prince, now he must take things as they come. Thinking Pericles looks melancholy, Simonides sends Thaisa to him with a glass of wine, telling her to ask him about his parentage. He says he is Pericles of Tyre, recently shipwrecked. Thaisa relates this information to her father, who pities the man’s misfortune and offers himself as a friend to Pericles. Dancing follows the banquet, and then the knights go to bed to prepare to woo Thaisa the next day.
Back in Tyre, Helicanus and Escanes discuss how Antiochus and his daughter died in a fire induced by lightning from the heavens, which Helicanus interprets as the gods’ punishment for their sins. Justice, he declares, has been done. Several lords enter, saying that Pericles has been gone for so long they wonder if they have a king anymore. They want to crown Helicanus, but Helicanus resists, suggesting that they should wait twelve months before making any decisions about a new leader. The lords agree and leave to seek out Pericles.
The next day, back at the palace at Pentapolis, King Simonides tells his knights that his daughter has written him a letter saying that she intends not to marry. The knights decide to leave. Simonides, alone, reveals that Thaisa’s letter says she wants to marry the stranger, Pericles. When Pericles enters, Simonides commends his singing from the night before and asks him what he thinks of Thaisa. Simonides shows him Thaisa’s letter, and Pericles immediately thinks he has caused offense. Simonides plays along, calling him a traitor and accusing him of having bewitched his child. Pericles is offended, saying he came to the court in search of honor, which he intends to defend with his sword. Thaisa enters, and Pericles asks her to tell her father that he never said a word to her about love. Thaisa doesn’t understand who would take offense at something she wants him to do. Simonides then interrogates his daughter, pretending to be angry while noting his delight in a series of asides. Thaisa insists that, regardless of his birth, she loves Pericles and won’t be controlled. Letting his deception go, Simonides expresses his approval of their match, and the two are engaged to be married.
Analysis
Despite having won the jousting tournament, Pericles appears to be in a rather glum mood. This mood may stem in part from his genuine humility, which he indicates when he shrugs off the various honors bestowed upon him for his victory. His melancholy also relates to the turn of events that has landed him in Pentapolis. While he has won the tournament and made the best of his situation, he seems to feel that he is now at the mercy of fate. In this way, Pericles may for the first time in his life be experiencing his life as something that’s happening to him rather than something he’s making happen. This situation makes him think wistfully of Tyre and of his father, who once ruled his realm in a way that earned him the respect of all his courtiers. The fact that he sees a similar goodness in the “good king” Simonides offers some foreshadowing that this man will soon become Pericles’s father-in-law.
Meanwhile, Simonides and his daughter are both intrigued by the strange knight who washed up on their shores, and we see them working together to find out who he is. The relationship between the king and his daughter stands in stark contrast to that between Antiochus and his daughter, which was thoroughly corrupted by their incestuous union. Shakespeare underscores the contrast by briefly returning the action to Tyre in scene 4, where Helicanus reports that the king and princess of Antioch have died in a fire of divine punishment. Simonides clearly differs from Antiochus in the way he honors his daughter’s preference in the choice of a suitor. He also differs in the way he goes about arranging her marriage. Instead of presenting Pericles with a potentially fatal task, as Antiochus did with his riddle, Simonides takes a playful approach, merely pretending to be a tyrant while secretly preparing the way for their joyful engagement.
