This romantic drama portrays the travails of a wandering prince and the redemptive powers of a daughter's love. Driven from one end of the Mediterranean to another by the winds of fate, Pericles endures loss and heartbreak before his odyssey ends in a miraculous reunion. Shipwreck, famine, and other disasters punctuate this wondrous tale, in which a knight in rusty armor fights for his true love and a princess kidnapped by pirates retains her honor by setting a virtuous example for her captors.
Prologues delivered in the character of medieval English poet John Gower introduce each act of this unusual play, whose authorship has long been disputed. Written late in Shakespeare's career, Pericles was enormously popular in the 17th century and was the first of the playwright's dramas to be staged after the Restoration. The play fell into neglect until recent years, and now its charms are being rediscovered by modern audiences.