Journeyings of Pericles, Thaisa and Marina in William Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre.
"Pentapolis" just means an association of five cities, and there were several of these in the ancient world. On the map I've placed Pentapolis in Cyrenaica, as explicitly stated in the earliest extant version of the story, the Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri (Latin, 5th-6th century CE). The tale's six locations (Antioch, Tyre, Tarsus, Pentapolis, Ephesus, Mytilene) are reverently preserved in all the subsequent renderings relevant to Shakespeare's play, though these later authors may have had a different idea, or no idea at all, where Pentapolis was supposed to be.
William Shakespeare and his putative co-author George Wilkins strictly maintained the locations too, though they changed quite a few of the characters' names: e.g. Pericles had previously been Apollonius; Marina had previously been "Thaise" (Gower); Thaisa wasn't named at all by Gower and was "Lucina" in Twine.
*
(In the map and below, the scenes in brackets are those in which Pericles himself doesn't appear.)
Journey #0.
Before the play begins. Pericles has travelled from Tyre to Antioch.
Act I Scene 1: Antioch, where Pericles discovers the king Antiochus's secret incest, and realizes that he's a marked man.
Journey #1.
Pericles returns swiftly to Tyre.
Act I Scenes 2 and 3: Tyre. Pericles appoints Helicanus his regent, and sails off quickly enough to just miss the assassin Thaliard, commissioned by Antiochus.
Journey #2.
Pericles sails to Tarsus.
Act I Scene 4: Tarsus, where Pericles relieves the famine and earns the gratitude of Cleon and Dionyza (as he believes).
Journey #3.
Advised by Helicanus' letter that it isn't safe to prolong his stay in Tarsus, Pericles takes to the high seas again, is driven before a storm and shipwrecked off the coast of Pentapolis.
Act II Scenes 1,2,3 and 5 take place in Pentapolis, where Pericles wins the hand of the king's daughter Thaisa.
(Act II Scene 4 brings us up to date with the regent Helicanus in Tyre.)
Journey #4. Pericles and his heavily-pregnant wife Thaisa set off for Tyre. Act III Scene 1, on the ship: they run into a storm, are blown off course, Thaisa gives birth to Marina and dies in childbirth. After placing Thaisa in a coffin and throwing it overboard (urged by the superstitious sailors), Pericles proceeds with the newborn Marina to Tarsus, because it's near to where the ship has ended up.
Journey #5. Meanwhile, Thaisa's coffin is carried by the waves to Ephesus.
(Act III Scenes 2 and 4: Ephesus, where Thaisa is restored to life by Cerimon, and goes to live in the temple of Diana.)
Act III Scene 3: Tarsus, where Pericles asks Cleon and Dionyza to take care of Marina.
Journey #6. See the end of III.3, and the beginning of IV.Prologue. After leaving Marina to be brought up in Tarsus, Pericles returns to Tyre.
About fourteen years pass....
(Act IV Scene 1: Tarsus. Dionyza, jealous of Marina outshining her own daughter, orders her murder.)
Journey #7.
In the nick of time, Marina is captured by pirates and taken to Mytilene.
(Act IV Scene 2: Mytilene, where Marina is purchased for a brothel.)
(Act IV Scene 3: Tarsus, where Cleon and Dionyza argue about her wicked order, which they believe has been carried out.)
Journey #8.
Pericles sails from Tyre to Tarsus.
Act IV Scene 4: Tarsus, where Pericles is told of his daughter's death and breaks down in despair.
(Act IV Scenes 5 and 6: Mytilene. More brothel scenes, the meeting with Lysimachus, Marina's eventual release to a virtuous life.)
Journey #9.
Pericles in despair is "driven by the winds" to Mytilene.
Act V Scene 1: on the ship, moored at Mytilene. Pericles is reunited with Marina.
Journey #10.
Pericles and Marina (with Lysimachus, her husband-to-be) sail to Ephesus, as instructed by Diana in a dream.
Act V Scenes 2 and 3: Ephesus. Pericles and Marina are reunited with Thaisa.
Journey #11.
After the play is over: Pericles, Thaisa and Marina (with Lysimachus) return to Tyre.
*
The 1609 quarto title page tells us that the author was William Shakespeare and that the play had been performed "divers and sundry times" at the Globe by His Majesty's Servants.
The play is usually dated 1607-1608. Despite the plain statement on the title page, there are stretches of the play that contain little hint of Shakespeare's distinctive late style (especially in the first two acts) and most scholars have concluded that the play is co-authored.
Shakespeare was the lead dramatist of the most prestigious company, but he was apparently returning to co-authorship after many years of not needing it; e.g. the never-finished (?) Timon of Athens (1606?) with Middleton (?). His own productivity was starting to decline.
A defence of Shakespeare's sole authorship would need to argue that he deliberately wrote much of the play in an alien and primitive manner. It's possible. The choruses by the character Gower are definitely written in a quaint quasi-medieval style; a similar approach could extend to the scenes in between. F. David Hoeniger did a good job of arguing this:
F. David Hoeniger, "Gower and Shakespeare in Pericles," Shakespeare Quarterly Vol 33 No 4 (Winter 1982), pp. 461-479.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2870126
Hoeniger knew what he was ignoring, but it was a provocative and persuasive vision. And in practice most commentators on the play's meaning, once their thesis gathers momentum, find the play remarkably unified and are apt to speak loosely about Shakespeare as its creator, tacitly ignoring the co-authorship.
*
The tale of Apollonius of Tyre exists in numerous versions though its ultimate origins (Greek, 3rd century CE?) are lost.
Most of the relevant texts for a study of Pericles are, happily for us amateurs, available online. I've labelled them chronologically from T to Z (I was trying to avoid letters like F and Q that usually have other meanings when it comes to Shakespeare texts).
T. Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri (Latin, 5th-6th century CE). The primary extant source.
https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/histapoll.html
U. In Godfrey of Viterbo's Pantheon aka Liber Universalis (Latin, c. 1185). Not available online.
V. In the Latin collection Gesta Romanorum (Latin, 13th-early 14th c.). In the Oesterley presentation linked below it's No 153, subtitled "De tribulacione temporali que in gaudium sempiternum postremo commutabitur".
https://la.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Gesta_Romanorum_(Oesterley)/153
W. John Gower, Confessio Amantis (English, c. 1390). The tale of Apollonius is in Book VIII, lines 268-2008.
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Confessio/1:9?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
[Gower says that his source for the tale is Godfrey of Viterbo's Pantheon (U). It was certainly one of his sources, but he also seems to have used the Gesta Romanorum (V) and other sources, as well as introducing his own creative changes. See Thari L. Zweers, "Godfrey of Viterbo’s Pantheon and John Gower’s Confessio Amantis: The Story of Apollonius Retold," Accessus Vol. 5 Iss. 1 , Article 3 (2019): https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1045&context=accessus .]
X. Laurence Twine's Patterne of Painefull Aduentures (English, 1576, reprinted in 1594(5?) and in 1607).
https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/Twine_Q1/complete/index.html
This is an English prose rendering of the tale of Apollonius (it wasn't the first); it was translated from a French version of the Gesta Romanorum (V).
Y. William Shakespeare (and perhaps another author; currently the most favoured candidate is George Wilkins): Pericles, Prince of Tyre (English, written and performed c. 1607). It was a big hit. It was printed in 1609 in an unauthorised quarto. The quarto text is very poor, but it's all we've got. Was it scribbled down in shorthand by someone in the audience who then struggled to make sense of their notes, regularly mistook words ("to" for "too", "will" for "ill"...) and inserted full stops in the wrong place? I'm trying to describe the impression the quarto text makes, not seriously offering this as an explanation (though I think it's been mooted before). [When I need to I'll distinguish the lost original ("YO") from the extant quarto ("YQ").]
The quarto text (YQ):
A basic modern edition divided into Acts and Scenes:
The Folger Shakespeare Library edition, edited by Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine, which supplies the line references I use in this post:
The play's main source is Gower (W) but it also uses Twine (X) e.g. for the brothel scenes, and it adds its own original features including new names for many of the characters.
Z. George Wilkins, The Painefull Aduentures of Pericles Prince of Tyre (English, 1608).
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A15355.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext
Wilkins' introduction pitches his work as what we would call a "book of the play" (i.e. Y), telling the whole story that his readers had already enjoyed watching at the Globe. Wilkins apparently had access to the text of Y, some of it anyway. His rendering of Antiochus's riddle is basically identical to Y's. But such parallel passages are rare; Wilkins is writing a "novel" (which is to say, a fairly swift-moving prose fiction), so he operates mainly through third-person narrative and reported speech. With that proviso, he often uses the same wording as Y.
Wilkins also used Twine (X) as a labour-saving device. Twine's text was already in the right format (i.e. prose fiction). Wilkins could copy chunks of Twine if he brought the names into line, and he often did, e.g. to replace the compressed summaries of the chorus Gower in Y.
The snag with labour-saving devices is they lead to the odd mistake (just like copy-and-paste does today). Sometimes Wilkins copied a bit of Twine that either unnecessarily repeated or contradicted what he had written elsewhere. It happens.
But it's quite wrong to give the impression (as some scholars have done), that Wilkins' novel is a lazy and rushed bit of hack-work. On the contrary, he went to considerable and sometimes pedantic pains to tell the full story of the play, to fill in the background and to spell out the characters' motives and inner feelings. His account of e.g. Lysimachus meeting Marina is a lot more comprehensible than the play's. He also took some trouble to describe the action that his play-going readers had seen on the stage; which can be very helpful to editors when (as often) the text of YQ is so corrupt that the action is unclear. But since a prose fiction doesn't have the logistical constraints of a stage play (e.g. in time and space), Wilkins sometimes handles the action differently; we'll see some examples in the detailed analysis that follows. One thing he wasn't bothered about was capturing every scrap of the play's dialogue, even if he'd written it himself. He only used what contributed to a well-proportioned narrative.
There's an awkward possibility that we have to entertain. It could be that Wilkins wrote some or most of Z before the play was written; in other words, rather than Z being a novelization of Y, Y could have been a dramatization of Z. Some older scholars thought so, though I haven't noticed any modern proponents of this view.
*
The tourney in Pentapolis
Let's have a look at how Y and Z compare in a shortish stretch of Act II. I've chosen this section for two reasons: (1) because most people think Wilkins himself wrote this part of the play, and (2) because the action was not taken from older versions of the Apollonius story. In that sense it was "new" material, though the play-authors doubtless recalled many similar things from elsewhere (not least The Merchant of Venice). Some of the knights' "devices", probably all of them, were taken from emblem books (Henry Green's Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers (1869) gives the details; I've mentioned a couple that I've seen myself).
How do you get your hero, shipwrecked, alone and naked, into a position where he meets the king and attracts the favourable attention of the royal family?
Well, in the Historia (T) a poor fisherman takes pity on Apollonius and gives him half of his own rough robe. Apollonius then goes to the public gymnasium, where nakedness of course is no issue, excels at catching and throwing during a ball-game, and gives the king a damn good waxing. The king invites him to dinner and, understanding he's been shipwrecked, gives him some nice clothes to wear. This plot-line makes perfect sense in a classical world of public baths.
The story in the Gesta Romanorum (V) is basically the same as the Historia (T), except that the ball-throwing game becomes a game of dart-throwing (or something more like javelins, perhaps).
Gower (W) essentially gives the same account, but he affects to not really understand the social context, and asks his readers (with a humorously raised eyebrow?) to just accept that in Pentapolis it was the custom to put on some sort of undefined sporting contest between naked youths, judged by the king.
Twine (X) translates V, but he describes the game as tennis (his hero intervening as a sort of unofficial ball-boy).
The authors of Pericles (Y) had to come up with something different. Tennis on stage was simply not going to work! (If there's one thing even more likely to cause trouble than children and animals, it's a ball.) And nakedness would mean a gymnasium scene prior to the court scenes, aside from any other practical difficulties. (Naturally they wanted to get the princess Thaisa involved in the action as early as possible.)
The solution they came up with wasn't stunningly original, but in the magical world of Pericles the unoriginal is often strangely effective.
First they decided, taking a hint from Gower (W), that Pericles should enter a contest judged by the king, but it had to be a clothed one and at the royal court. So they went for a medieval-style tourney and decided it should be in honour of the princess' birthday, and potentially to win her love. In effect they partly conflated the hero's display of sporting excellence with the later episode (in both Gower (W) and Twine (X)) in which three princely suitors submit written accounts of their lineage and assets. (There's still a ghost of this later episode in Y (II.5.1-12), but not in Z.)
Y's approach significantly tightened up the process by which Pericles comes together with Thaisa. Subsequent developments (his tutorship, her headstrong declaration) could then be dealt with fairly swiftly.
Nevertheless it entailed certain complications. Pericles would need some equipment, so the play-authors invented the episode where his rusty armour is fished up from the sea. The actual contest (variously called triumph, joust, tourney and tilt), being on horseback, would have to take place off-stage; the only bits that would be seen on stage were the initial presentation of the knights (II.2) and the feast afterwards (II.3).
Here's how it unfolds in Y and Z. [Y quotations are from the quarto, but the line references are from the Folger edition.]
From nakedness to equipment.
Y:
Pericles is given a gown by the First Fisherman (II.1.82).
The other fishermen fish up the rusty armour, Pericles recognizes it, and the fishermen let him take it. (II.1.121-160) [I don't think he actually puts the armour on at this point, though line 160 might seem to imply that; presumably he'd need to put on the "Bases" first.]
Pericles still has a jewel on his arm (an arm-bracelet I suppose). He says he'll sell it and buy a good horse. (II.1.161-165)
Pericles laments his lack of "a paire of Bases" ("a kind of skirt worn under armour when riding"). The Second Fisherman offers to make him a pair of bases out of his gown. (II.1.166-170)
Z:
Wilkins' leisurely account of the scene with the fishermen includes the same details as above, and adds yet another fisherman's gift: caparisons for the horse (made from another old gown).
Comment: It's a solid start from utter nakedness, but of course we're meant to take the point that Pericles is going to be "disgracefully habilited", as Z puts it. (It might occur to you that Pericles is going to need a few other things, such as a lance, but let's not be more pedantic than Wilkins!)
Z begins the scene on the seashore, but soon the fishermen carry Pericles to the chief (First) fisherman's house, and supply him with food as well as a garment. Well, of course someone who's just escaped drowning isn't going to be in any state to walk. And what would you naturally do if you found them? Obviously, chuck a blanket over them and give them something to eat and drink. But in a stage presentation it isn't desirable to have realistic first aid or non-essential changes of scene or meals; so in Y (II.1) the half-dead Pericles indiscernibly recovers until by the end of the scene he's energetically preparing for a joust. The rehandling in Z is an example of what I mentioned earlier, Wilkins exploiting his freedom from logistical constraints, in pursuit of greater naturalism.
At the court of King Simonides
Y:
Enter Simonydes, with attendaunce, and Thaisa.
King. Are the Knights ready to begin the Tryumph?
1.Lord. They are my Leidge, and stay your comming,
To present them selues.
King. Returne them, We are ready, & our daughter heere,
In honour of whose Birth, these Triumphs are,
Sits heere like Beauties child, whom Nature gat,
For men to see; and seeing, woonder at.
Thai. It pleaseth you (my royall Father) to expresse
My Commendations great, whose merit's lesse.
King. It's fit it should be so, for Princes are
A modell which Heauen makes like to it selfe:
As Iewels loose their glory, if neglected,
So Princes their Renownes, if not respected:
T'is now your honour (Daughter) to entertaine
The labour of each Knight, in his deuice.
Thai. Which to preserue mine honour, I'le performe.
[II.2.1-16]
Z:
This is the day, this Symonides Court, where the King himselfe, with the Princesse his daughter, haue placed themselues in a Gallery, to beholde the triumphes of seuerall Princes, who in honour of the Princes birth day, but more in hope to haue her loue, came purposely thither, to approoue their chiualrie. They thus seated, and Prince Pericles, as well as his owne prouiding, and the Fishermens care could furnish him, likewise came to the court. In this maner also 5. seuerall princes (their horses richly caparasoned, but themselues more richly armed, their Pages before them bearing their Deuices on their shields) entred then the Tilting place.
Comment:
In Y the presentation scene (II.2) is necessarily in a different place from the actual tourney. At this point the king and his daughter are apparently down on the main stage, not the upper stage. (The king only talks of withdrawing to the gallery at II.1.61.)
In Z there is no need for split locations, so Wilkins from the outset has the king and his daughter in the gallery above the tilting-place. Another instance of the novel's pursuit of greater naturalism.
Y's characterization of the king Simonides is quite distinctive. From the outset he's intelligent, perceptive, and has a dry, sardonic wit that half conceals his kindliness. In hindsight we're being prepared for his pretended raging at Pericles and Thaisa later in Act II. (This is all newly invented by the play-authors; the king isn't like this in Gower (W) or Twine (X).)
Z of course follows the same storyline, but doesn't include these subtle foretastes of the king's personality. On the other hand it later describes the king's internal debate about marrying his daughter to a possessionless man, and it has much more of his violent threats to Pericles (and Thaisa's equally forceful responses). Z's portrait of king Simonides seems unsubtle compared to Y's. But maybe that's partly to do with the change of genre. When it comes to character portrayal I rarely feel that prose fiction of this period matches the graphic and intimate realization that we find in the plays.
Knight #1.
Y:
The first Knight passes by.
King. Who is the first, that doth preferre himselfe?
Thai. A Knight of Sparta (my renowned father)
And the deuice he beares vpon his Shield,
Is a blacke Ethyope reaching at the Sunne:
The word: Lux tua vita mihi.
King. He loues you well, that holdes his life of you.
[II.2.17-22]
Z: The first a prince of Macedon, and the Deuice hée bore vpon his shield, was a blacke Ethiope reaching at the Sunne, the word, Lux tua vita mihi: which being by the knights Page deliuered to the Lady, and from her presented to the King her father, hée made playne to her the meaning of each imprese: and for this first, it was, that the Macedonian Prince loued her so well hée helde his life of her.
Comment: The first five knights, unlike Pericles, are splendidly turned out. For each knight except Pericles the action (explicit in Z, and I think implicit in Y) is as follows:
The knight enters with his squire/page, who is carrying the knight's shield. The shield has a device on it, and a related motto (aka "word") in a foreign language. The squire passes (or perhaps simply shows) the shield to the princess, who describes the device and reads out the motto. She then passes (or perhaps the squire shows) the shield to the king, who supplies a translation/interpretation. However it's done, the shield must be returned to the squire when he and his knight exit the stage (the shield will be needed for the tourney).
How the princess knows each knight's place of origin is not apparent. Perhaps we could imagine that it's somehow conveyed by the colours of his shield or style of his costume. By contrast, the princess can't work out where the rusty Pericles comes from, saying only that "Hee seemes to be a Stranger" (Y, II.2.44).
It's immediately clear that there are disparities between Y and Z when it comes to the details of these five knights. In the case of Knight #1, they agree about the device but give a different place of origin (Y: Sparta, Z: Macedon). As far as I can see there's no meaningful connection between the places of origin and the devices, nothing that would lead us to prefer one pairing to another.
The obvious explanation for these discrepancies is that YQ is reconstructed by memory from the lost original (YO). What, after all, could be more forgettable than the very similar details of five evanescent stage presences? And YQ does show some characteristic signs of memorial reconstruction, such as recycling the same line (see II.2.19, II.2.25). There's loads of this in Marlowe's The Massacre at Paris, another play that survives only in a memorial reconstruction.
Nevertheless there are some questions that arise here. It's entirely credible that the reconstructors might forget some of the knights' places of origin, but surprising that they remembered all the devices and mottoes (albeit in a different sequence from Z). And if the reconstructors knew that each knight was supposed to have a place of origin, why didn't they just borrow some other classical place-names to fill the gaps in their memory? A similar argument could be made for the missing translations: since they knew what the motto was, why not just retranslate it?
In general the accounts of the five knights in YQ become more skimpy as we proceed. But to some extent that's also true in Z. (Fun as emblematic devices are, the story is basically standing still.) I can't help feeling that YQ handles the acceleration more artfully than Z does, and it makes me wonder if YQ's lack of some places of origin and some translations might actually be a faithful report of YO (Wilkins then fussily filling in the gaps when he wrote Z).
Knight #2.
Y:
The second Knight.
[King.] Who is the second, that presents himselfe?
Tha. A Prince of Macedon (my royall father)
And the deuice he beares vpon his Shield,
Is an Armed Knight, that's conquered by a Lady:
The motto thus in Spanish. Pue per doleera kee per forsa.
[II.2.23-28]
Z: The second, a Prince of Corinth, and the Deuice hée bare vpon his shield was a wreathe of Chiualry, the word, Me pompae prouexet apex, the desire of renowne drew him to this enterprise.
Comment:
Y's place of origin (Macedon) is the same as Z's Knight #1. Y's device is the same as Z's Knight #3, but without the translation.
In
Y (not
Z) Thaisa describes the language of the motto as Spanish. Maybe the idea is to underline Thaisa's lack of language skills compared with her father's (preparing us for her desire for a tutor, too). The motto actually seems more like Italian, especially the first word (modern Italian:
Più per dolcezza che per forza); though arguably
Z's "dolcera" is nearer to Spanish "dulzura" than Italian "dolcezza". (By the way, Gabriel Harvey had used the Italian version of the motto in his marginalia.) The spellings "Pue" and "kee" seem to be phonetic. It might suggest the quarto reconstructors didn't know Italian themselves, but knew what the motto was supposed to sound like. But the phonetic spellings might also come from the lost original, written thus for the benefit of actors learning their lines who didn't know Italian. As for the
Y quarto "doleera", if that's correct it looks like a type-setter's error; he obviously didn't know Italian either, so had no reason to question his misreading of copy. [But in the
Y quarto reproduced on the Folger site the fourth letter looks to me like it could well be an italic "c". Ink spillage gives it the superficial appearance of an italic "e", but the shape in the middle of the loop doesn't look right. So I wonder if the
Y quarto actually says "dolcera", as in
Z.]
Z's device is the same as Y's Knight #3, but with a translation. Apparently this device wasn't made up; it was in the 1557 edition of Claude Paradin's Devises heroiques. [Google referred me to the Glasgow University Emblems Site, but it's no longer online.]
Knight #3.
Y:
3.Knight. Kin. And with the third?
Thai. The third, of Antioch; and his deuice,
A wreath of Chiually: the word: Me Pompey prouexit apex.
[II.2.29-32]
Z: The third of Antioch, and his Deuice was an armed Knight, being conquered by a Lady, the word, Pue per dolcera qui per sforsa: more by lenitie than by force.
Comment:
Y and Z both give Knight #3's place of origin as Antioch; a slightly jarring choice considering Antioch is also one of the key locations in Pericles' story. Also, all the other places of origin are in mainland Greece.
Y's device is the same as Z's Knight #2, but without the translation.
Z's device is the same as Y's Knight #2, but with a translation.
Knight #4.
Y:
4.Knight. Kin. What is the fourth.
Thai. A burning Torch that's turned vpside downe;
The word: Qui me alit me extinguit.
Kin. Which shewes that Beautie hath his power & will,
Which can as well enflame, as it can kill.
[II.2.33-37]
Z: The fourth of Sparta, and the Deuice he bare was a mans arme enuironed with a cloude, holding out golde thats by the touchstone tride, the word, Sic spectanda fides, so faith is to be looked into.
Comment:
Y gives no place of origin for Knight #4. Y's device is the same as Z's Knight #5, but Y's translation is elaborated into a rhyming couplet. This device is not made up. I found it in Princelijcke Dewijsen (1563), a Dutch translation of Claude Paradin's Devices heroiques.
 |
| Qui me alit me extinguit |
Z's place of origin (Sparta) is the same as Y's Knight #1. Z's device is the same as Y's Knight #5, but with a translation. This device is not made up. I found it in Geoffrey Whitney's A Choice of Emblemes (1586), p. 139.
 |
| Sic spectanda fides |
Knight #5.
Y:
5.Knight. Thai. The fift, an Hand enuironed with Clouds,
Holding out Gold, that's by the Touch-stone tride:
The motto thus: Sic spectanda fides.
[II.2.38-40]
Z: The fift of Athens, and his Deuice was a flaming Torch turned downeward, the word, Qui me alit me extinguit, that which giues me life giues me death.
Comment:
Y gives no place of origin for Knight #5. Y's device is the same as Z's Knight #4, but without the translation.
Z's device is the same as Y's Knight #4, but with a briefer and somewhat different translation (alit actually means "nourishes").
Knight #6 (Pericles).
Y:
6.Knight. Kin. And what's the sixt, and last; the which,
The knight himself with such a graceful courtesie deliuered?
Thai. Hee seemes to be a Stranger: but his Present is
A withered Branch, that's onely greene at top,
The motto: In hac spe viuo.
Kin. A pretty morrall frõ the deiected state wherein he is,
He hopes by you, his fortunes yet may flourish.
1. Lord. He had need meane better, then his outward shew
Can any way speake in his iust commend:
For by his rustie outside, he appeares,
To haue practis'd more the Whipstocke, then the Launce.
2.Lord. He well may be a Stranger, for he comes
To an honour'd tryumph, strangly furnisht.
3. Lord. And on set purpose let his Armour rust
Vntill this day, to scowre it in the dust.
Kin. Opinion's but a foole, that makes vs scan
The outward habit, by the inward man.
But stay, the Knights are comming,
We will with-draw into the Gallerie.
[II.2.41-61]
Z: The sixt and last was Pericles Prince of Tyre, who hauing neither Page to deliuer his shield, nor shield to deliuer, making his Deuice according to his fortunes, which was a withered Braunch being onely gréene at the top, which prooued the abating of his body, decayed not the noblenesse of his minde, his word, In hac spe viuo, In that hope I liue. Himselfe with a most gracefull curtesie presented it vnto her, which shée as curteously receiued, whilest the Péeres attending on the King forbare not to scoffe, both at his presence, and the present hée brought, being himselfe in a rusty Armour, the Caparison of his horse of plaine country russet, and his owne Bases but the skirtes of a poore Fishermans coate, which the King mildely reproouing them for, hée tolde them, that as Uertue was not to be approoued by wordes, but by actions, so the outward habite was the least table of the inward minde, and counselling them not to condemne ere they had cause to accuse: ...
Comment:
Pericles looks very different to the other knights. His appearance is "mean". He has no squire, so has to do his own presenting (Y and Z agree). Z says he has no shield, and I think that's the case in Y too, though it isn't so clear. What he presents to the princess is literally a withered branch with some green leaves on top. As he has no use for this vegetation during the tourney, the princess presumably keeps hold of it herself, making a visual statement of her interest in him.
At II.1.166-170 Y had gone out of its way to describe Pericles' acquisition of home-made "bases" (skirts). On the Chekhovian premise that you don't put a pistol on the mantelpiece unless someone's going to use it, we should assume that these makeshift bases are now a visible part of Pericles' costume, contributing to the mean impression that stirs unfavourable comment.
Regarding the king's comment in Y about withdrawing into the gallery (II.2.61), it's possible that the royal party now ascend to the stage gallery (aka upper stage) and pretend to view the tourney that the theatre audience only hears. But it sounds like too much faffing around; I reckon they just walk off-stage. Whatever, when the tourney's over they'll need to re-enter down on the main stage.
The tourney and the feast
Y:
Great shoutes, and all cry, the meane Knight.
Enter the King and Knights from Tilting.
King. Knights, to say you're welcome, were superfluous.
I place vpon the volume of your deedes,
As in a Title page, your worth in armes,
Were more then you expect, or more then's fit,
Since euery worth in shew commends it selfe:
Prepare for mirth, for mirth becomes a Feast.
You are Princes, and my guestes.
Thai. But you my Knight and guest,
To whom this Wreath of victorie I giue,
And crowne you King of this dayes happinesse.
[II.3.1-11]
Z:
They went forward to the triumph, in which noble exercise they came almost all, as short of Pericles perfections, as a body dying, of a life flourishing. To be short, both of Court and Commons, the praises of none were spoken of, but of the meane Knights (for by any other name he was yet vnknowne to any.) But the Triumphes being ended, Pericles as chiefe, (for in this dayes honour hée was Champion) with all the other Princes, were by the Kings Marshall conducted into the Presence, where Symonides and his daughter Thaysa, with a most stately banquet stayed to giue them a thankefull intertainment. At whose entraunce, the Lady first saluting Pericles, gaue him a wreathe of Chiualry, welcommed him as her knight and guest, and crowned him King of that dayes noble enterprise.
Comment:
In Y the tourney takes place off-stage, but it's clear that "the meane Knight" is the star performer, as hyperbolically expressed in Z.
Then the spectators and participants come back onto the main stage for an elaborate feast scene; the king and princess, the five splendidly turned-out knights and the shabby Pericles. Later there'll be a dance of the five knights, and then Pericles dancing with the princess.
YQ's rendering of the opening lines is defective. What's superfluous isn't the king's welcome but banging on about the knights' deeds and their "worth in armes".
*
The message in the coffin
Let's look at something else, one of the few passages where the play (Y) and Wilkins' novel (Z) really run parallel.
I've already mentioned another such passage, Antiochus's riddle. The play-authors altered the riddle a bit, compared to what they found in their sources. In the play, Pericles reads it out loud (I.1.66-73); the audience need to hear it. Likewise in Wilkins' novel, he needed to quote the full riddle for the benefit of his readers. His quotation is basically identical to Y's; he must have had access to this part of the play-text.
The passage I'm going to focus on now is another one where a document is best quoted verbatim, regardless of whether you're writing a play or a novel. This time it's the message that Pericles places in Thaisa's coffin before consigning it to the waves.
This message was already part of the tale in the Historia (T), but I don't need to go back that far. However I'll quote the two versions of the message that the play-authors definitely knew, followed by the message as quoted in the play quarto (YQ) and finally in Wilkins' novel (Z).
Gower (W):
I, king of Tyr Appollinus,
Do alle maner men to wite,
That hiere and se this lettre write,
That helpeles withoute red
Hier lith a kinges doghter ded:
And who that happeth hir to finde,
For charite tak in his mynde,
And do so that sche be begrave
With this tresor, which he schal have.
(VIII.1122-1130)
Twine (X):
Whosever shal find this chest, I pray him to take ten pieces of gold for his paines, and to bestowe tenne pieces more upon the buriall of the corpes; for it hath left many teares to the parents and fnends, with dolefull heaps of sorow and heavines. But whosoever shall doe otherwise than the present griefe requireth, let him die a shamefull death, and let there be none to bury his body.
Pericles, Prince of Tyre (YQ):
Heere I giue to vnderstand,
If ere this Coffin driues aland;
I King Pericles haue lost
This Queene, worth all our mundaine cost:
Who finds her, giue her burying,
She was the Daughter of a King:
Besides, this Treasure for a fee,
The Gods requit his charitie.
(III.2.79-86)
Wilkins' Painfull Aduentures (Z):
If ere it hap this Chest be driuen
On any shoare, on coast or hauen,
I Pericles the Prince of Tyre,
(That loosing her, lost all desire,)
Intreate you giue her burying,
Since she was daughter to a King:
This golde I giue you as a fee,
The Gods requite your charitie.
Comment:
Gower (W) is evidently the main source for the message in Y and Z. From Gower comes both its form (tetrameter couplets) and its basic structure (1, the writer names himself; 2 , he says the corpse is a king's daughter; 3 he requests the finder to bury her; and 4 he offers the treasure).
On the other hand the play-authors didn't use the prose version of Twine (X) directly. His rendering is actually pretty close to T, e.g. ending with a curse on whoever neglects to bury the princess. The play-authors followed Gower in dropping the curse. In fact they reversed Twine's emphasis, asking the gods to reward (requite) whoever does give the princess a decent burial. In this indirect way, you can say that the play-authors were influenced by Twine. [The idea that the gods punish neglect of a sacred duty is also voiced by Cleon in the next scene (III.3.29-30).]
In Pericles (Y) the placement of the message is different from in the other three I've quoted. They all recount the message at the point where Pericles/Apollonius writes it, on board a ship in a storm (equivalent to III.1 in the play); when you're writing a third-person narrative you usually tell your readers about something when it first enters the story, unless you have a good reason not to. But a play-audience can only learn the contents of a message when someone reads it aloud, and the most natural occasion is when the message is received. So in Y the message is not recited until later, when Cerimon receives it (III.2.79-86). The idea of a message is not even hinted in III.1, where it would just impede the drama.
Comparing the message in Y and Z, it's clear the two versions aren't independent. Some of the lines, especially in the second half, are virtually the same. Both include the idea of the gods requiting someone who faithfully complies with Pericles' instructions, an idea that wasn't in the sources. Nevertheless there are substantial differences between the two versions.
We have basically three theories to think about (though they are not necessarily uncombinable).
Theory A. Wilkins in Z substantially reproduces the lost original (YO). The quarto reconstructors (YQ) remembered the message as best they could, and patched up the rest.
Theory B. The reverse of Theory A. YQ substantially reproduces YO. When Wilkins wrote Z he didn't have access to the text of this part of the play. He remembered the message as best he could, and patched up the rest.
Theory C. YQ substantially reproduces YO. Wilkins had access to it too, but when he wrote Z he decided for some reason or other to change it.
I'm dismissing Theory C at once. There's nothing about the hypothetical "changes" that seems to gain any end. I think if Wilkins had the original to hand he copied it exactly, just as he did with Antiochus's riddle in Act I Scene 1.
So it comes down to a straight fight between the version in YQ and the version in Z. Which one looks most like original text, reconstructed by the other?
I think the evidence favours YQ, especially in the second half of the message where the two versions are closest. YQ is distinctly tauter, because it articulates the relationship between Pericles' "fee" and the gods' blessing, whereas Z merely lists one and then the other. Z remembers the individual elements all right, but not the drift of the thought. It's easy to see how Z could arise as a memorial reconstruction of what we find in YQ, but hard to see how a memorial reconstruction of what we find in Z would end up acquiring the extra tautness of YQ.
So I'm going for Theory B: YQ gives a substantially accurate rendering of YO. Wilkins knew the passage well but he didn't, in this instance, have access to text that he could just copy. When he wrote Z he had to resort to a bit of memorial reconstruction.
[As it happens I also think that's the best explanation for the differences between Y and Z in the third parallel passage, the epitaph on the monument to Marina in Tarsus (IV.4.35-44).]
*
I suppose if anyone has read this far they might be expecting me to venture an opinion on the authorship of Pericles, but I'm not going to give a straight answer.
What I will say is that it's extremely difficult to give a totally accurate account of a story that you didn't write yourself. (If you read plot summaries on Wikipedia, or if you've tried to write similar things yourself, you'll know what I mean.) If George Wilkins wasn't the author of the first two acts of Pericles (Y), I'd have expected that sooner or later Z would betray it by a casual misinterpretation of some detail. The trouble is, of course, that Z isn't a simple account of Y. When Wilkins wrote Z he often changed the details, but it seems to me that the changes I've examined are manifestly or at least credibly purposeful. I haven't found a really clear-cut instance of him just slipping up. (The nearest thing might be Z's somewhat different idea of the character of King Simonides.)
He also knew the rest of the play very well, but he didn't have a full text to hand, whereas he did have a text of e.g. Antiochus's riddle in I.1. Obviously you could link that observation to his supposed authorship of Acts I-II but not Acts III-V.
If you want to take it further, one thing you'll certainly need to do is read Wilkins' other plays. (Something I fancy I'll never get round to.)
Let me know how you get on!
George Wilkins, William Rowley and John Day, The Travels of the Three English Brothers (1607):
https://archive.org/details/travailesofthree00dayj/page/n23/mode/1up
This play was performed by the Queen Anne's Men, aka the Queen's Men.
George Wilkins, The Miseries of Enforced Marriage (1607):
https://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/iemls/renplays/miseries.htm
This play was performed by His Majesty's Servants, aka the King's Men -- i.e. Shakespeare's company, the same company that performed Pericles with such success.
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These notes on Shakespeare: full list
Labels: George Wilkins, Gesta Romanorum, John Gower, Laurence Twine, William Shakespeare
