I here confess myself the prince of Tyre, who, frighted from my country, at Pentapolis wedded the fair Thaisa:  she died at sea in childbed, but brought forth a maid-child called Marina.  The maid at Tharsus was nursed with Dionysia, who at fourteen years thought to kill her; but her better stars brought her to Metaline, by whose shores as I sailed, her good fortunes brought this child on board, where by her most clear remembrance she made herself known to be my daughter.”

Thaisa, unable to bear the transports which his words had raised in her, cried out, “You are, you are, O royal Pericles”—­and fainted.  “What means this woman?” said Pericles:  “she dies; help, gentlemen!” “Sir,” said Cerimon, “if you have told Diana’s altar true, this is your wife.”  “Reverend gentleman, no;” said Pericles:  “I threw her overboard with these very arms.”  Cerimon then recounted how, early one tempestuous morning, this lady was thrown upon the Ephesian shore; how, opening the coffin, he found therein rich jewels, and a paper; how, happily, he recovered her, and placed her here in Diana’s temple.  And now, Thaisa being restored from her swoon, said, “O my lord, are you not Pericles?  Like him you speak, like him you are.  Did you not name a tempest, a birth and death?” He, astonished, said, “The voice of dead Thaisa!” “That Thaisa am I,” she replied, “supposed dead and drowned.”  “O true Diana!” exclaimed Pericles, in a passion of devout astonishment.  “And now,” said Thaisa, “I know you better.  Such a ring as I see on your finger did the king my father give you, when we with tears parted from him at Pentapolis.”  “Enough, you gods!” cried Pericles, “your present kindness makes my past miseries sport.  O come, Thaisa, be buried a second time within these arms.”

And Marina said, “My heart leaps to be gone into my mother’s bosom.”  Then did Pericles shew his daughter to her mother, saying, “Look who kneels here, flesh of thy flesh, thy burthen at sea, and called Marina, because she was yielded there.”  “Blest and my own!” said Thaisa:  and while she hung in rapturous joy over her child, Pericles knelt before the altar, saying, “Pure Diana, bless thee for thy vision.  For this, I will offer oblations nightly to thee.”  And then and there did Pericles, with the consent of Thaisa, solemnly affiance their daughter, the virtuous Marina, to the well-deserving Lysimachus in marriage.

Thus have we seen in Pericles, his queen, and daughter, a famous example of virtue assailed by calamity (through the sufferance of Heaven, to teach patience and constancy to men), under the same guidance becoming finally successful, and triumphing over chance and change.  In Hellicanus we have beheld a notable pattern of truth, of faith, and loyalty, who, when he might have succeeded to a throne, chose rather to recall the rightful owner to his possession, than to become great by another’s wrong.  In the worthy Cerimon, who restored Thaisa to life, we are instructed how goodness directed by