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Summary
Gower enters and recounts the reception Pericles received in Mytilene, where Lysimachus was promised to wed Marina. Gower then announces that Pericles and his company have now arrived in Ephesus.
Along with Marina, Lysimachus, Helicanus, and Cerimon, Pericles stands at the Temple of Diana and recounts the series of misfortunes that have shaped the last fifteen years of his life. He says he married Thaisa at Pentapolis, but she died at sea while giving birth to a child named Marina. He then explains how Marina lived at Tarsus until Cleon ordered her killed. Finally, he tells of his arrival in Mytilene, where Marina miraculously arrived on his ship and made herself known to him. Thaisa herself is in attendance as a priestess, and she faints. Cerimon informs Pericles that this is his wife. Pericles insists that she died and that he cast her overboard in a chest, but Cerimon explains how the chest washed up onshore and he revived the woman inside.
When Thaisa recovers, she, Pericles, and Marina are reunited. Pericles says that he will offer daily oblations to Diana, and he adds that when Marina is married, he can finally cut his hair. Thaisa tells Pericles that she has heard about the death of her father Simonides. Pericles decides that they should all go to Pentapolis and celebrate the marriage of Marina and Lysimachus there. Then, Pericles and Thais will remain to rule Pentapolis while Marina and Lysimachus reign over Tyre.
Everyone exits except for Gower, who remains to give an overview of the figures we have met throughout the play. Gower has told of the monstrous corruption of Antiochus and his daughter, and how they received their just reward. He has also told of how Pericles, Thaisa, and Marina have been assailed with terrible misfortune, but they have preserved their virtue and thus are rewarded with joy at last. Helicanus, he notes, is a figure of truth, faith, and loyalty, and Cerimon is a man of charity. As for Cleon and Dionyza, he explains that once the story of their evil deed had spread, their city revolted and burned them to death in their palace.
Analysis
As the play comes to a close, Pericles’s family is reunited at last. Pericles has done as Diana has instructed him, traveling to Ephesus to visit her temple. In giving a speech where he publicly recounts the trials he’s endured, it’s revealed that his wife, Thaisa, survived her apparent death. Thus, Pericles’s marriage is restored, and Thaisa embraces her daughter for the first time. Given that the neat resolution of the play’s main plot has been orchestrated by a goddess, it is tempting to think that the ordeals Pericles and his family have suffered have all been part of some divine plan. It’s as though they have been separated in order to test their individual virtue, and all three have demonstrated great fortitude and strength of character. Each has accepted their misfortunes without cursing the gods, and they have all found ways to carry on and still make something of their lives in the wake of tragedy. For their virtuous suffering they have now been rewarded not just with reunion, but also with expanded power. With Simonides now deceased, Pericles and his family now take over the rule of two kingdoms: Tyre and Pentapolis. Furthermore, Marina’s betrothal to Lysimachus gives the family a strong political bond with Mytilene.
In the play’s brief epilogue, Gower returns to drive home the play’s key contrasts between the morally despicable and the morally virtuous. The chief figures of contempt have been Antiochus and his daughter, whose incestuous relationship has been punished by the gods. To their number Gower now adds Cleon and Dionyza, whom we learn are murdered in their palace by their own people. Against these negative examples Gower re-presents the play’s chief figures of moral goodness. The primary examples are, of course, Pericles, Thaisa, and Marina. But Gower also underscores the virtues of Helicanus and Cerimon, who have both proven to be models of loyalty and charity. Thus, the bad are punished and the good are rewarded. It’s notable, though, that it’s only the members of the nobility whose moral reputation seems to be evaluated. Gower offers no commentary on the numerous commoners who have appeared in the play. What, we may wonder, happened to the kind fishermen who helped Pericles reach Pentapolis? Were the pirates who kidnapped and sold Marina ever punished for their misdoings? And what of the morally ambiguous Pander, Bawd, and Bolt? As is typical for a romance set in antiquity, Pericles leaves the commoners’ fates ambiguous.
