These well express in thee thy latter spirits: Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs, Scorned'st our brain's flow and those our droplets which From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead Is noble Timon: of whose memory Hereafter more. Bring me into your city, And I will use the olive with my sword, Make war breed peace, make peace stint war, make each Prescribe to other as each other's leech. Let our drums strike. _Pericles, Prince of Tyre._ _Written._ 1607-8 (?) _Published._ 1608. _Source of the Plot._ The plot is taken from an English prose version of a Latin translation of a fifth century Greek romance. This version was published by Lawrence Twine, in the year 1576, under the name of _The Patterne of Paynfull Adventures_ (etc., etc.). It was reprinted in 1607. An adaptation from the Latin story was made by John Gower for the eighth book of his _Confessio Amantis_. This adaptation was known to the authors of the play. _The Fable._ Act I. Pericles, Prince of Tyre, comes to Antioch to guess a riddle propounded by the King. If he guess rightly, he will be rewarded by the hand of the Princess in marriage. If he guess wrongly, he will be put to death. The riddle teaches him that the Princess is living incestuously with her father. He flies from Antioch to Tyre, and there takes ship to avoid the King's vengeance. Coming to Tarsus he relieves a famine by gifts of corn. Act II. He is wrecked near Pentapolis, recovers his armour, goes jousting at the King's court, wins the King's daughter Thaisa, and marries her. Act III. While bound for Tyre, Thaisa gives birth to a daughter, dies, and is thrown overboard. The body drifts ashore at Ephesus, and is restored to life by a physician. Thaisa, thinking Pericles dead, becomes a votaress at Diana's temple. Pericles leaves Marina, the newly born babe, in the care of the King and Queen of Tarsus. He then returns to Tyre. Act IV. The years pass. Marina grows up to such beauty and charm that she passes the Queen of Tarsus' own daughter. The Queen, deeply jealous for her own child, hires a murderer to kill Marina. Pirates surprise him in the act and carry off Marina to a brothel in Mitylene, from which she escapes. She becomes a singer and musician. Act V. Pericles, wandering, by sea, to Mitylene, in great melancholy for the loss of wife and child, hears Marina sing. He learns that she is his daughter. The goddess Diana bids him go to her temple at Ephesus. He goes, and finds Thaisa. The play ends happily with the reuniting of the family.