Om care traieste un naufragiu. Print din Tyr, arogant, 
isi pierde fiica in naufragiu.
Mesajul este increderea in oameni.

===========

The actual authorship of Pericles has been long debated and never resolved. It is probable that another playwright named George Wilkins wrote the first nine scenes and Shakespeare wrote the remaining thirteen. Dual authorship is a good explanation for the stylistic differences between the two parts of the play. In the first part, the language closely reflects John Gower's fourteenth century language rather than that of Shakespeare or his contemporaries. Though both Wilkins and Shakespeare use iambic pentameter, Wilkins uses more rhyming couplets ending with the end of the line, while Shakespeare relies on his characteristic use of enjambment, where a phrase or idea doesn't end at the end of a line, but carries over to the next. Structurally the dual-author theory works as well, since the actions of the first half of the play repeat themselves for the most part in the second half, with various episodes repeating or reflecting each other.

Another interesting problem about Pericles is the unreliability of its source text. Almost all of Shakespeare's other plays, first published in Quarto form, draw directly on the author's manuscript or the actor's promptbooks. Pericles, however, was assembled out of reports by actors and spectators. Elizabethan citizens and actors lived in a world where far less printed text was available, so memorization was common. Their memory capacities were probably much greater than our own--but certainly they were not flawless. For this reason no really authoritative text of Pericles exists.

Various editors approach the problem of reliability differently, making greater or lesser efforts to increase the intelligibility of the play. Editors of the Oxford edition of the plays, which many further adaptations draw from, decided to use a First Quarto version of this play, largely unchanged. Other editors have drawn on another of Wilkins's plays about Pericles to add more to the story. But if the First Quarto edition was already based on reported speech, than any edition that tries to further reconstruct what the original Pericles may have been probably strays even farther from any "original text."

But it is important to remember that none of Shakespeare's texts are really word-for-word "original." Shakespeare worked in collaboration with a company of actors, and he probably worked with them to change or improve speeches, so his plays were constantly in the process of changing and adapting. It is incorrect to conceive of the "original text" as one that Shakespeare wrote at his desk and then simply presented to his actors, which they performed verbatim. Most likely what he first wrote substantially changed during rehearsals and again during performances. What was published in the First Quarto is probably a combination of the first text, the changes, and reportage from actors. Pericles is an extreme example, a play based almost entirely on reportage.

==============
Summary
Gower, an offscene narrator, enters to tell about the kingdom of Antioch, where king Antiochus and Antiochus's daughter are engaging in incest. Antiochus has kept suitors from marrying her by requiring that they answer a riddle correctly or die. Pericles, Prince of Tyre, tries his hand at the riddle. He is successful, but discovers that its answer reveals the incestuous relationship between father and daughter. Pericles doesn't reveal the truth, and Antiochus gives him forty days before his death sentence. But Pericles is sure Antiochus will want him dead for knowing the truth, so he flees back to Tyre. Antiochus sends an assassin after him.

In Tyre, Pericles worries that Antiochus will take some form of revenge, whether a military attack or an underhanded assassination attempt. Filled with melancholy, he takes the advice of Helicanus, his councilor, to travel for a while until Antiochus is no longer after him. Pericles first goes to Tarsus, where king Cleon and his wife Dionyza bemoan the famine that has beset their nation. Pericles arrives with corn and saves them. But soon a letter from Helicanus calls Pericles back to Tyre, so he sets off.

On the way home Pericles is shipwrecked in a storm in Pentapolis. Some fishermen tell him about king Simonides's daughter, a lovely girl who will be married to whoever wins a jousting contest the following day. Pericles determines to enter the contest. Though his is the rustiest armor, Pericles wins the tournament, and dines with Simonides and his daughter Thaisa, both of whom are very impressed with him.

Meanwhile in Tyre, Helicanus reveals that Antiochus and his daughter have been burnt to death by fire from heaven, so Pericles can return. Other citizens want to crown Helicanus as king, but Helicanus insists they wait to see if Pericles returns.

In Pentapolis, Pericles hears of recent events and determines to go back to Tyre. On board a boat with his wife and Lychordia, a nurse, they come upon a great storm, during which Thaisa dies in childbirth. The shipmaster insists the body be thrown overboard, or the storm won't stop, and Pericles complies. Thaisa's body is put in a chest, which washes up in Ephesus, where it is brought to the attention of Cerimon, a generous doctor. He discovers that Thaisa is not dead, and revives her.

Pericles lands in Tarsus and hands over his child, Marina, to Cleon and Dionyza, since he thinks it won't survive the journey to Tyre. Then times passes; Pericles is king of Tyre, Thaisa becomes a priestess for Diana, and Marina grows up. But Dionyza is jealous of Marina, who takes all the attention away from her own daughter who is of similar age. Dionyza plots to have Leonine murder Marina, but at the last moment, pirates seize her, and take her to Myteline on Lesbos to sell her as a prostitute.

Sold to a brothel run by Pander and Bawd, Marina refuses to give up her honor, despite the many men who come wanting to buy her virginity. She manages to convince the men who come to the brothel that her honor is sacred, and they leave seeking virtue in their own lives. Soon she gets work in a reputable house, educating girls. Meanwhile, Pericles goes on a trip to Tarsus to reunite with his daughter, but Cleon and Dionyza tell him that she has died, and show him the monument they have ordered built in order to erase their complicity in the matter. Pericles is distraught, and sets to the seas again.

Pericles and his crew arrive in Myteline, and Lysimachus goes out to meet the ships. Helicanus explains that Pericles has not spoken in three months, and Lysimachus says he knows someone in his city who may be able to make him talk. Marina is brought to the ship, and she tells Pericles that her own sufferings must match his. He asks her about her birth, and she says her name is Marina. Startled, Pericles asks her to continue, and to his surprise finds that everything Marina says matches the story of his own lost Marina. They are reunited, but Pericles is exhausted, and in his sleep the goddess Diana tells him to go to her temple in Ephesus and tell of his experiences. When he wakes, he promises Marina to Lysimachus, and they set off for Ephesus.

In Ephesus, Thaisa is a priestess at the temple where Pericles tells his story. When she realizes Pericles is her lost husband, she faints, and Cerimon explains that she is Thaisa. The whole family is reunited, and overjoyed.

Gower returns to offer a conclusion, noting that we have seen evil punished (Antiochus and his daughter have died, and when the people of Tarsus discovered Cleon's evil, they revolted and killed him and his wife in a palace fire), but that we have met a variety of good people along the way, such as loyal Helicanus and charitable Cerimon. Pericles and his family have endured the vagaries of fortune, and through it all remained virtuous, so in the end they were rewarded with the joy of being reunited.

===============

John Gower -  Gower plays a narrator for this play, coming on before and between scenes to retell the action of previous scenes, and to instigate "dumb shows," where some action of the play is pantomimed to advance the action of the play. He also gives the epilogue at the end of the play, pulling together the threads. John Gower is also the name of a fourteenth-century English poet, whose story of Apollonius of Tyre in the eighth book of his Confessio Amantis served as an important source for this play.
Antiochus -  King of Antioch. After his wife's death, he enters into an incestuous relationship with his daughter. When young princes come calling to ask to marry her, he tests them by asking them to answer a riddle correctly, or lose their life. Action of the play starts when Pericles arrives in Antioch to undergo the test.
Antiochus's daughter  -  Antiochus's daughter has few lines, but she is the object of desire that Pericles seeks when he comes to see Antiochus.
Thaliart -  Thaliart is a villain hired by Antiochus to kill Pericles after Pericles flees Antioch, having discovered the secret incest of the king and his daughter. Thaliart follows Pericles to Tyre, where he learns Pericles has left Tyre, so Thaliart returns to Antioch intending to say Pericles must have died at sea.
Pericles  -  Husband of Thaisa and father of Marina. Pericles begins the play in Antioch, where he desires to marry Antiochus's daughter. After he discovers their secret, he flees to Tyre. Prone to melancholy, Pericles worries about Antiochus trying to have him killed, and sets off on more adventures and endures several shipwrecks. In many ways Pericles is a kind of classical hero figure--always ready to enter a contest or competition, especially if the prize is a king's daughter. While he starts out the play by making active decisions, to go to Antioch and then to flee it, he becomes increasingly inactive throughout the play. Things happen to him, and he endures it, never cursing the gods or his fate. As he must endure greater and greater misfortune, he becomes less active, finally ceasing to speak altogether. Yet Pericles is above all a good man, and, despite his hardships, has remained virtuous. Hence he is rewarded in the end.
Helicanus -  One of Pericles's advisors in Tyre, Helicanus takes care of Pericles in his melancholy moods, and recommends he leave Tyre for a while after the events in Antioch. Helicanus takes over as provisionary ruler of Tyre; when Pericles fails to return, the citizens want to crown Helicanus king. But Helicanus is loyal to Pericles, so he refuses. Helicanus is a genuinely good man, not touched by ambition, who believes that Pericles is the only true ruler of Tyre.
Aeschines -  Another of Pericles's advisors, with a lesser role than Helicanus.
Cleon -  Governor of Tarsus, a city beset by famine. Tarsus is Pericles's first stop, where Cleon assumes that Pericles's ships contain soldiers intent on conquering Tarsus when none can defend it. Pericles instead gives corn to the nation, and the citizens are grateful. Cleon later pledges to take care of Pericles's infant child, but his wife, Dionyza, plots to kill the child. Cleon was apparently unaware of the scheme, but when he hears of it, wishes it could be undone. But soon Cleon takes the blame for what Dionyza has done, and both are punished.
Dionyza -  Wife of Cleon, Dionyza too pledges to care for Pericles's child, but falls prey to jealousy and envy when her own daughter is less praised than Pericles's. Hence she makes a plot to have Marina killed. Cleon is stunned by Dionyza's cruelty, yet they are both punished in the end.
Simonides -  King of Pentapolis, father of Thaisa. Pericles is shipwrecked in Pentapolis, and wins a jousting contest for the hand of Simonides's daughter, Thaisa. Simonides is impressed with Pericles, and tries to jolt him out of his melancholy by offering to be his friend. Later when he finds out his daughter wants to marry Pericles, Simonides tests Pericles by insulting his honor, and then marries the two.
Thaisa  -  Daughter of Simonides, mother of Marina. Thaisa expects to marry whoever wins the jousting contest in Pentapolis. She is very impressed with Pericles, and writes to her father that she wants to marry him. Simonides sends away the other knights and challenges Thaisa, saying that Pericles is not a good catch since they don't know his lineage. She insists she will have him, and they are married. Later, at sea with Pericles on the way back to Tyre, Thaisa gives birth to Marina but seems to die during the birth. She is tossed off the boat in a wooden chest, but is later discovered and revived in Ephesus by Cerimon. She becomes a priestess in Diana's temple in Ephesus.
Marina  -  Daughter of Pericles and Thaisa, Marina was born at sea during a tempest. Pericles leaves her in Tarsus with Cleon and Dionyza because he believes the child won't survive the journey to Tyre. Raised like royalty, Marina is astonished when faced with a murderer hired by Dionyza to kill her. Before she can be killed, though, she is saved by pirates, who turn around and sell her into prostitution in Mytilene. Her virtue prevails, and she convinces every man who wants to buy her that it would be a crime to take her honor. Eventually she is assigned to a more honorable household, and becomes a teacher. The governor of Mytilene, Lysimachus, is smitten with her.
Leonine  -  Murderer hired by Dionyza to kill Marina. When the pirates take her, Leonine plans to tell Dionyza that he killed Marina anyway. Dionyza poisons Leonine.
Lychordia -  Thaisa's nurse, who reveals to Pericles that Marina has died. Later Marina's nurse, Lychordia lives with Marina in Tarsus until her death, prior to Dionyza's murder plot.
Cerimon -  A kindly physician in Ephesus, Cerimon helps the destitute and heals miraculously, bringing Thaisa back from the brink of death. When she wants to become a priestess, he helps her. He is a model of charity.
Philomon -  Cerimon's assistant.
Lysimachus -  Governor of Mytilene, Lysimachus comes in disguise to the brothel where Marina works, but she convinces him to leave her alone. When Pericles comes into port, Lysimachus goes out to greet him and wants to help Pericles's suffering. When he discovers that Marina is his daughter, he has Marina brought to talk to Pericles. Later, he and Marina are engaged to be married.
Pander -  A generic name for one who runs a brothel. This Pander buys Marina from the pirates who took her from Tarsus.
Bawd -  A generic name for one who takes care of the prostitutes, probably a Pander's wife. She has several exchanges with Marina, trying to convince her to give up her virginity.
Fishermen  -  The Fishermen meet Pericles on the shores of Pentapolis, and fish his armor out of the sea. These 'regular people' make observations about the world of the sea and of man, and Pericles is impressed by their simple wisdom.
Master  -  The master of the fishermen offers to take Pericles to the jousting competition on Pentapolis.
Knights  -  Suitors for Thaisa's hand at the jousting competition in Pentapolis
Boult -  Servant to Pander and Bawd, Boult too falls under the virtuous spell of Marina and offers to help her find a more honorable place to work.
Diana -  Goddess of chastity, Diana appears to Pericles in a dream after he discovers Marina is alive, urging him to go to her temple in Ephesus and reveal all his misfortune. Since Thaisa lives in that same temple, Diana sets up the eventual reunion of Pericles's family.
Shipmaster  -  Captain of the ship on which Thaisa allegedly dies. He insists that the body be thrown overboard, following a superstition that the sea can't be calm with a dead body on a ship.
Lords  -  A variety of characters who come on stage to announce things or to further the plot in some way, often without many lines.