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    Pericles, Prince of Tyre
    Pericles, Prince of Tyre
    Pericles, Prince of Tyre
    Ebook168 pages1 hour

    Pericles, Prince of Tyre

    By William Shakespeare

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    About this ebook

    Perhaps one of Shakespeare's most adventure-filled plays, "Pericles" follows the extended sailing journeys of a young prince. Pericles is forced to flee Antioch when he correctly guesses a riddle that reveals the incestuous activity of King Antiochus. Unable to stay at home in Tyre because of Antiochus' vengeance, he sails away and ends up shipwrecked in Pentapolis, where he fights for and wins a princess named Thaisa. The trials and tribulations of this couple and their daughter Marina fill the remaining acts of "Pericles" with grief and trepidation, as well as joy and a truly heartwarming reunion. A laudable component of Shakespeare's collection of plays, "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" is a compelling story of family and struggle that resonates with readers even today.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStart Publishing LLC
    Release dateApr 1, 2013
    ISBN9781625589835
    Author

    William Shakespeare

    William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, in 1564. The date of his birth is not known but is traditionally 23 April, St George's Day. Aged 18, he married a Stratford farmer's daughter, Anne Hathaway. They had three children. Around 1585 William joined an acting troupe on tour in Stratford from London, and thereafter spent much of his life in the capital. A member of the leading theatre group in London, the Chamberlain's Men, which built the Globe Theatre and frequently performed in front of Queen Elizabeth I, Shakespeare wrote 36 plays and much poetry besides. He died in 1616.

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    Reviews for Pericles, Prince of Tyre

    3/5

    13 ratings8 reviews

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    • 4/5
      In only a few minutes we’re in the midst of incest and attempted murder. There’s soap opera level drama from the start. There’s a storm at sea, shipwreck, a lost infant, lost wife, prostitutes, pirates, and so much more. Pericles escapes a dangerous situation, on the run for his life. He ends up in a new kingdom and falls in love with a princess there. In a plot straight out of The Tempest, Shakespeare has the princess’ father pretends to be against the pairing to encourage the two to fall even faster in love. There is a narrator who helps the reader navigate the many location and time changes in each act. Pericles’ lost wife plot is reminiscent of Winter’s Tale.This is one of Shakespeare’s “romance” plays. Though the ending might be happy, the story is full of tragedy. Redemption doesn’t come until the characters are heartbroken by loss. The play is interesting, but it does feel like a pieced together effort that combines some of his better work. It was the very last of his plays that I read and I feel a huge sense of accomplishment that I've finally read ALL of his plays! “Few love to hear the sins they love to act.”“Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.”
    • 5/5
      One of the best plays I've read by Shakespeare. Truly notable. A great read!
    • 2/5
      "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" was easily my least favorite play by William Shakespeare so far. I didn't know until after reading it that many critics speculate the play was mostly written by a collaborator and not Shakespeare himself. I'm not surprised.... some of the writing was really cringe-worthy... it really lacks the masterful prose of the bard's more famous works.Plot wise, the play is pretty interesting and moves fairly quickly. King Pericles flees his country after finding out an unfortunate secret of a neighboring king, loses his wife, then loses his daughter. If the writing itself had been better, this would have been pretty entertaining.
    • 2/5
      I've read from that this play is another Shakespearian collaboration. I couldn't separate the Bard from the Hack to my satisfaction, as I could for Timon of Athens, because it was all written on the same level of pleasant mediocrity. I was mildly interested in the use of the author of the source material as a character who introduces each act. I was a little repulsed by the sex, which involved incest between father and daughter and a young girl on the verge of being broken in as a prostitute.
    • 4/5
      I don't know enough about Shakespeare to know which of his plays are comedies or tragedies and that made the reading of this play very suspenseful for me. I truly enjoyed and was wrapped up in Pericles; the conflict which happened to him pained me. It's possible that my emotions are just extra sensitive right now, but I thought this a fine read.
    • 3/5
      Okay. For starters, thanks to Marjorie Garber and her interesting piece on the play in her “Shakespeare After All,” I enjoyed this more than I otherwise would have. She talks about how the play, a “dramatic romance,” needs to be seen not as a failed effort at the sort of play where the protagonist develops and shows psychological depth through monologues and all, but as a play where the character development and other “deep” aspects are illustrated through mythic and fairy tale motifs. …...”Some modern audiences – like some early modern ones – have found these plays deficient in realism, but, as we will see, what they actually do is shift the “real” to a different plane, one more aligned to dream, fantasy, and psychology, while retaining, at the same time, a topical relationship to historical event in Shakespeare's day.”This really did help. When events in the play got particularly... goofy or illogical, I had something to think about other than, “Well, this is pretty dumb.” (Instead, I could think, “Well, this is dumb in a mythically symbolic” sort of way.”). Anyway. So, her essay was great, and starting with her appreciation and a nice overview, I was prepared to be pleased by what the play has to offer. And I did find stuff to like. Some lovely lines and scenes, especially towards the end, and the situation with the brothel, where Marina converts all the guys who come in to virtue and the brothel owners are increasingly outraged, was funny. Until Lysimachus. The local governor comes in to the brothel looking for a virgin to deflower. So, ick. But... he sees the error of his ways, and I imagined I'd seen the last of that scumbucket. But NO. Rather than retreating to his palace or wherever he lives, he continues along with Marina, and is welcomed by Pericles as a wonderful future son-in-law. So, the fall out from being identified as a particularly loathsome sort of sexual predator is that he is welcomed into a royal family??? Not that this made me think of today's news or anything, but this Completely made me think of current events, with Roy Moore running in Alabama for the U.S. Senate, with a solidly documented record of having, in his 30's, dated young teenaged girls, and with the defense of supportive Evangelical pastors being that “only by dating young teenagers could he find girls who were really pure” (a paraphrase of the argument of Pastor Flip Benham). It's a truly twisted logic that argues that grown men chasing after young girls is a sign of high moral values. Gah. This illustration of the play's timelessness did Not increase my enjoyment.Still, this isn't one I expect to ever return to, but I'm glad to have read it once. I listened to the ensemble recording from Librivox while reading, and, despite some truly jarring mispronunciations and silly accents, their recording features some excellent performances and did help me enjoy the play. Three stars.
    • 4/5
      3 stars for the play, 5 stars for this stunning scholarly edition. If you're an actor or young student looking to read Shakespeare, I recommend the Penguin editions, with their helpful, theatre-based endnotes and their simple layout. But for academics and long-term scholars, you really can't go past the depth of the Arden.
    • 2/5
      So, I'm no dramaturge or anything, but I kind of suspect this is actually not even a good play.In the introduction I find that only a relatively small part of it was written by Shakespeare and the rest was written by some neighborhood pimp who apparently also dabbled in playwriting on the side? The plot is just a bunch of random shit that happens. Totally pointless mini-arcs are introduced and then discarded to be resolved off-stage or not at all. The closest thing we have to an antagonist appears in only two scenes.One thing I found interesting (though not actually good) are the scenes in which a company of pimps attempt to coerce Pericles's daughter into taking up the profession. Knowing what I do about the author makes me uncertain about how they were really intended to come off and I suspect they were meant with a sense of sarcasm or irony that would have been obvious in contemporary performance but isn't really captured on the page.

    Book preview

    Pericles, Prince of Tyre - William Shakespeare

    ACT I

    PROLOGUE

    Enter GOWER

    Before the palace of Antioch

    To sing a song that old was sung,

    From ashes ancient Gower is come;

    Assuming man’s infirmities,

    To glad your ear, and please your eyes.

    It hath been sung at festivals,

    On ember-eves and holy-ales;

    And lords and ladies in their lives

    Have read it for restoratives:

    The purchase is to make men glorious;

    Et bonum quo antiquius, eo melius.

    If you, born in these latter times,

    When wit’s more ripe, accept my rhymes.

    And that to hear an old man sing

    May to your wishes pleasure bring

    I life would wish, and that I might

    Waste it for you, like taper-light.

    This Antioch, then, Antiochus the Great

    Built up, this city, for his chiefest seat:

    The fairest in all Syria,

    I tell you what mine authors say:

    This king unto him took a fere,

    Who died and left a female heir,

    So buxom, blithe, and full of face,

    As heaven had lent her all his grace;

    With whom the father liking took,

    And her to incest did provoke:

    Bad child; worse father! to entice his own

    To evil should be done by none:

    But custom what they did begin

    Was with long use account no sin.

    The beauty of this sinful dame

    Made many princes thither frame,

    To seek her as a bed-fellow,

    In marriage-pleasures play-fellow:

    Which to prevent he made a law,

    To keep her still, and men in awe,

    That whoso ask’d her for his wife,

    His riddle told not, lost his life:

    So for her many a wight did die,

    As yon grim looks do testify.

    What now ensues, to the judgment of your eye

    I give, my cause who best can justify.

    Exit

    ACT I. SCENE I. Antioch. A room in the palace.

    Enter ANTIOCHUS, Prince PERICLES, and followers

    ANTIOCHUS: Young prince of Tyre, you have at large received

    The danger of the task you undertake.

    PERICLES: I have, Antiochus, and, with a soul

    Embolden’d with the glory of her praise,

    Think death no hazard in this enterprise.

    ANTIOCHUS: Bring in our daughter, clothed like a bride,

    For the embracements even of Jove himself;

    At whose conception, till Lucina reign’d,

    Nature this dowry gave, to glad her presence,

    The senate-house of planets all did sit,

    To knit in her their best perfections.

    Music. Enter the Daughter of ANTIOCHUS

    PERICLES: See where she comes, apparell’d like the spring,

    Graces her subjects, and her thoughts the king

    Of every virtue gives renown to men!

    Her face the book of praises, where is read

    Nothing but curious pleasures, as from thence

    Sorrow were ever razed and testy wrath

    Could never be her mild companion.

    You gods that made me man, and sway in love,

    That have inflamed desire in my breast

    To taste the fruit of yon celestial tree,

    Or die in the adventure, be my helps,

    As I am son and servant to your will,

    To compass such a boundless happiness!

    ANTIOCHUS: Prince Pericles,—

    PERICLES: That would be son to great Antiochus.

    ANTIOCHUS: Before thee stands this fair Hesperides,

    With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touch’d;

    For death-like dragons here affright thee hard:

    Her face, like heaven, enticeth thee to view

    Her countless glory, which desert must gain;

    And which, without desert, because thine eye

    Presumes to reach, all thy whole heap must die.

    Yon sometimes famous princes, like thyself,

    Drawn by report, adventurous by desire,

    Tell thee, with speechless tongues and semblance pale,

    That without covering, save yon field of stars,

    Here they stand martyrs, slain in Cupid’s wars;

    And with dead cheeks advise thee to desist

    For going on death’s net, whom none resist.

    PERICLES: Antiochus, I thank thee, who hath taught

    My frail mortality to know itself,

    And by those fearful objects to prepare

    This body, like to them, to what I must;

    For death remember’d should be like a mirror,

    Who tells us life’s but breath, to trust it error.

    I’ll make my will then, and, as sick men do

    Who know the world, see heaven, but, feeling woe,

    Gripe not at earthly joys as erst they did;

    So I bequeath a happy peace to you

    And all good men, as every prince should do;

    My riches to the earth from whence they came;

    But my unspotted fire of love to you.

    To the Daughter of ANTIOCHUS

    Thus ready for the way of life or death,

    I wait the sharpest blow, Antiochus.

    ANTIOCHUS: Scorning advice, read the conclusion then:

    Which read and not expounded, ‘tis decreed,

    As these before thee thou thyself shalt bleed.

    DAUGHTER: Of all say’d yet, mayst thou prove prosperous!

    Of all say’d yet, I wish thee happiness!

    PERICLES: Like a bold champion, I assume the lists,

    Nor ask advice of any other thought

    But faithfulness and courage.

    He reads the riddle

    I am no viper, yet I feed

    On mother’s flesh which did me breed.

    I sought a husband, in which labour

    I found that kindness in a father:

    He’s father, son, and husband mild;

    I mother, wife, and yet his child.

    How they may be, and yet in two,

    As you will live, resolve it you.

    Sharp physic is the last: but, O you powers

    That give heaven countless eyes to view men’s acts,

    Why cloud they not their sights perpetually,

    If this be true, which makes me pale to read it?

    Fair glass of light, I loved you, and could still,

    Takes hold of the hand of the Daughter of ANTIOCHUS

    Were not this glorious casket stored with ill:

    But I must tell you, now my thoughts revolt

    For he’s no man on whom perfections wait

    That, knowing sin within, will touch the gate.

    You are a fair viol, and your sense the strings;

    Who, finger’d to make man his lawful music,

    Would draw heaven down, and all the gods, to hearken:

    But being play’d

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