Pericles, Prince of Tyre - Prologue & Act One - “’Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.”

Pericles, Prince of Tyre - Prologue & Act One - “’Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.”

Around 1607, Shakespeare started an association, which turned into a loose friendship which turned into a collaboration with George Wilkins. Wilkins was an inn-keeper, pamphleteer and eventually a dramatist but we know most of what we know about Wilkins from his regular appearances in court. Shakespeare was probably asked by Wilkins to collaborate on producing ‘Pericles’ and he would have probably read John Gower’s Confessio Amantis and Lawrence Twine’s version of the same story contained in Twine’s The Pattern of Painful Adventures. Perhaps Wilkin’s had shown Shakespeare a draft of his The Painful Adventures of Pericles or maybe he started this after starting work with Shakespeare on ‘Pericles’. 

The play starts with a Prologue/Chorus spoken by Gower. He tells the audience that he has come back to life to tell this story. He sets the scene in Antiochus, in Ancient Syria, where King Antiochus is ruler. We are told that the king’s wife has died and that her daughter is so attractive that even King Antiochus desired her and “…to incest did provoke…” Gower then reveals that whenever young princes came to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage the king would ask them to answer a riddle and if they could not answer the riddle, they would be put to death.

“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.”

King Antiochus enters with Pericles, the Prince of Tyre who has come to answer the riddle and win Antiochus’ daughter. It is pointed out to Pericles that he will die if he does not answer the riddle. Enter Antiochus's daughter and Pericles extols her beauty:

“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!”

Pericles says that he is ready solve the riddle or die and Antiochus throws the riddle on the floor before Pericles.

When Pericles reads the riddle, the horror of the riddle dawns on him that the riddle reveals that Antiochus has committed incest with his own daughter. Pericles decides to subdue his feeling for Antiochus's daughter and when asked what the riddle means, Pericles diplomatically reveals that some truths are better kept hidden.

“Great king,

Few love to hear the sins they love to act;

'Twould braid yourself too near for me to tell it.

Who has a book of all that monarchs do,

He's more secure to keep it shut than shown:

For vice repeated is like the wandering wind.

Blows dust in other's eyes, to spread itself;

And yet the end of all is bought thus dear,

The breath is gone, and the sore eyes see clear:

To stop the air would hurt them. The blind mole casts

Copp'd hills towards heaven, to tell the earth is throng'd

By man's oppression; and the poor worm doth die for't.

Kings are earth's gods; in vice their law's their will;

And if Jove stray, who dares say Jove doth ill?

It is enough you know; and it is fit,

What being more known grows worse, to smother it.

All love the womb that their first being bred,

Then give my tongue like leave to love my head.”

When he hears this, Antiochus knows that Pericles has worked out the riddle but refuses to reveal his answer. Under Antiochus’ rules. Pericles must die because he will not reveal his answer but Antiochus says that he will allow Pericle forty days before his death sentence is carried out. All exit except for Pericles who sees the danger he has put himself in and decides that he will escape the city.

“How courtesy would seem to cover sin,

When what is done is like an hypocrite,

The which is good in nothing but in sight!

If it be true that I interpret false,

Then were it certain you were not so bad

As with foul incest to abuse your soul;

Where now you're both a father and a son,

By your untimely claspings with your child,

Which pleasure fits an husband, not a father;

And she an eater of her mother's flesh,

By the defiling of her parent's bed;

And both like serpents are, who though they feed

On sweetest flowers, yet they poison breed.

Antioch, farewell! for wisdom sees, those men

Blush not in actions blacker than the night,

Will shun no course to keep them from the light.

One sin, I know, another doth provoke;

Murder's as near to lust as flame to smoke:

Poison and treason are the hands of sin,

Ay, and the targets, to put off the shame:

Then, lest my lie be cropp'd to keep you clear,

By flight I'll shun the danger which I fear.”

Enter Antiochus who reveals that he wants to kill Pericles before he can reveal Antiochus’ secret. When Thaliart enters, he is paid gold to kill Pricles and he agrees to this. Then a messenger enters and tells that Pericles has escaped the city. Thaliart is told to pursue Pericles and capture and kill him. Thaliart exits and Antiochus says he will not rest until Pericles is killed:

“Till Pericles be dead,

My heart can lend no succor to my head.”

Pericles has arrived back in Tyre, but his mind is not at rest for he knows that Antiochus will pursue him and invade Tyre, and his people will become the true victims.

“Why should this change of thoughts,

The sad companion, dull-eyed melancholy,

Be my so used a guest as not an hour,

In the day's glorious walk, or peaceful night,

The tomb where grief should sleep, can breed me quiet?

Here pleasures court mine eyes, and mine eyes shun them,

And danger, which I fear'd, is at Antioch,

Whose aim seems far too short to hit me here:

Yet neither pleasure's art can joy my spirits,

Nor yet the other's distance comfort me.

Then it is thus: the passions of the mind,

That have their first conception by mis-dread,

Have after-nourishment and life by care;

And what was first but fear what might be done,

Grows elder now and cares it be not done.

And so with me: the great Antiochus,

'Gainst whom I am too little to contend,

Since he's so great can make his will his act,

Will think me speaking, though I swear to silence;

Nor boots it me to say I honour him.

If he suspect I may dishonour him:

And what may make him blush in being known,

He'll stop the course by which it might be known;

With hostile forces he'll o'erspread the land,

And with the ostent of war will look so huge,

Amazement shall drive courage from the state;

Our men be vanquish'd ere they do resist,

And subjects punish'd that ne'er thought offence:

Which care of them, not pity of myself,

Who am no more but as the tops of trees,

Which fence the roots they grow by and defend them,

Makes both my body pine and soul to languish,

And punish that before that he would punish.”

Helicanus, Pericles’ chief counselor and other lords enter and Helicanus  chastises for his melancholy. Pericles sends all the lords except Helicanus away and tells Helicanus the horrific discovery he made about Antiochus committing incest with his daughter. Pericles also reveals that he thinks his knowledge will bring war to his own people. Helicanus advises Pericles that he should leave Tyre until the vengefulness of Antiochus passes and suggests that Pericles for expedience give the throne over to Helicanus himself. Pericles consents to leaving the kingdom to Helicanus whom he trusts and decides to leave:

“Tyre, I now look from thee then, and to Tarsus

Intend my travel, where I'll hear from thee;

And by whose letters I'll dispose myself.

The care I had and have of subjects' good

On thee I lay whose wisdom's strength can bear it.

I'll take thy word for faith, not ask thine oath:

Who shuns not to break one will sure crack both:

But in our orbs we'll live so round and safe,

That time of both this truth shall ne'er convince,

Thou show'dst a subject's shine, I a true prince.”

We catch up with Thaliart who has just arrived in Tyre. He knows he has to kill Pericles or else face death himself. Then Helicanus and Aeschines enter and Thaliart hears that Pericles has left Tyre. Thaliart reveals himself and says that he had come to deliver a message from Antiochus for Pericles, but that since Pericles is gone that he will return back to Antioch In fact, Thaliart decides that the message he will take back to Antiochus is that Pericles left Tyre and has perished at sea and is dead.

The scene switches to Tarsus, where Cleon, the governor of Tarsus, and his wife Dionyza. Try to tell sad tales to distract themselves but eventually return to their own sad predicament whereby continuous years of famine have left them and all of Tarsus poor and almost destitute. They hear the news that a ship has been seen off the coast of Tarsus and they believe that this may be another country sending a force to invade them. Even though the ship has been seen to be flying a white flag, Cleon believes that this is a ploy.

Then Pericles enters and says that he is here to help Tarsus:

“Lord governor, for so we hear you are,

Let not our ships and number of our men

Be like a beacon fired to amaze your eyes.

We have heard your miseries as far as Tyre,

And seen the desolation of your streets:

Nor come we to add sorrow to your tears,

But to relieve them of their heavy load;

And these our ships, you happily may think

Are like the Trojan horse was stuff'd within

With bloody veins, expecting overthrow,

Are stored with corn to make your needy bread,

And give them life whom hunger starved half dead.”

All in Tarsus seem to show reverence to Pericles who rejects this and says he and his men “…do not look for reverence, but for love, and harbourage for ourself, our ships, and our men.” To which Cleon replies:

“The which when any shall not gratify,

Or pay you with unthankfulness in thought,

Be it our wives, our children, or ourselves,

The curse of heaven and men succeed their evils!

Till when,--the which I hope shall ne'er be seen,--

Your grace is welcome to our town and us.”