Summary
Gower enters, informing the audience that Thaisa is pregnant.
Pericles has learned about the deaths of Antiochus and his daughter, as well as the plot to crown Helicanus King of Tyre. He decides it is time to return to Tyre and he, Thaisa, and a nurse Lychordia board a ship for their journey back. They are soon caught in a dangerous storm.
Lychordia approaches Pericles during the storm and hands him his newborn daughter, while also informing him that Thaisa is dead. The shipmaster explains that Thaisa's body must be thrown overboard according to an ancient sailing superstition. Pericles cries over his wife's body before putting her in a chest and throwing it into the sea.
He learns that the ship is near Tarsus, and decides to land there to give his daughter to Cleon and Dionyza, fearful that she will not survive the rest of the journey.
In Ephesus, a doctor named Cerimon finds the chest that holds Thaisa's body, after it washes up on the shore. He concludes that she is not really dead, and revives her with medicine.
In the chest, Thaisa finds some jewels and a letter that Pericles had written, asking whomever found her to give her a proper burial. Thaisa believes she will never see Pericles again, and resolves to take up holy orders as a virgin of the goddess Diana. Cerimon offers to help her.
Meanwhile, Pericles arrives in Tarsus and asks Cleon and Dionyza to care for his daughter, whom he has named Marina. Wanting to repay Pericles for his aid during their famine, Cleon and Dionyza agree to raise Marina as a noble in Tarsus while Pericles returns to Tyre.
Analysis
Act Three of the play features one of the most emotionally charged moments of the performance. When Lychordia brings Pericles his newborn daughter in the middle of a tempest, she also informs him that his wife, Thaisa, has died in childbirth. She tells him, "Take in your arms this piece of your dead queen," referring to the baby as a piece of Thaisa herself. This moment emphasizes the play's major theme of family and parenthood, as it suggests that good parents live on through their children and thus that it is figuratively impossible for parents to "die."
Ironically, however, audiences learn just moments later that Thaisa herself is not actually dead. This revelation introduces the motif of appearance and reality, as Pericles is unable to tell that Thaisa is still alive, while Cerimon is easily able to notice and revive her. Thus, the play suggests that even at this point and after many trials, Pericles is still not savvy enough to distinguish between how something appears and how it truly is.
His decision to follow – to place Marina in the hands of Cleon and Dionyza – is another example of his good intentions clouding his judgment, as Dionyza eventually tries to have Marina murdered.
Audiences may note that this is the second major storm in which Pericles has found himself, and the seemingly random and chaotic events of the play present a rather bleak portrait of what is to come. Scholars have long criticized Pericles for its randomness and its reliance on coincidence. A few examples include Pericles's arrival in Pentapolis on the exact day a jousting tournament is being held for Thaisa's hand in marriage, the tempest pushing Pericles directly toward Tarsus, Cerimon finding Thaisa's coffin, and of course – everyone's favorite – the arrival of pirates to spare Marina's life in Act Four. While critics have often cited these examples as reasons for the play's lack of academic popularity, it is worth noting that Pericles has always been more popular with audiences than it has with literary scholars – and likely for these exact same moments of randomness and happy coincidence.
Ultimately, Pericles explores the concept of fate and questions whether the events of one's life are indeed destined to happen. Pericles himself even loses faith in the gods, briefly, when he learns of his wife's passing. These moments of seeming randomness therefore contribute to the play's exploration of this theme, portraying an antagonist who is buffeted about by forces beyond his control.
