Character guide

Pericles

major

Also known as Prince Pericles, Pericles of Tyre, King Pericles, noble Pericles, royal Pericles, princely Pericles

Pericles enters Antioch as a confident suitor, willing to stake his life on a princess whose beauty is framed by a field of dead princes. The riddle he solves reveals a horror he cannot speak aloud, forcing him to flee his own kingdom and trade a prince's safety for a wanderer's exposure to storm, shipwreck, and grief. His readiness to endure is the engine of the play: every loss tests whether a good man can keep his integrity when fortune strips him of home, wife, and child.

Marina

major

Also known as Marina Alack, Marina Whither, Marina Prithee, Marina Sir, Marina Patience

Marina grows up in Tarsus as a governor's ward, gifted enough that her guardian's wife begins to see her as a threat to her own daughter's prospects. Sold into a Mytilene brothel, she refuses every customer with such eloquence that she converts would-be clients and infuriates the owners who cannot profit from her. Her resemblance to a woman she has never met becomes the thread that could pull a shattered king back into the world.

Thaisa

major

Also known as dear Thaisa, the fair Thaisa

Thaisa moves through her father's court as a prize in a tournament of kings, but her attention fixes on the melancholy stranger from Tyre rather than the knights who arrive with titles and retinues. Her father tests Pericles in disguise, and she becomes the bridge between two kingdoms and two lonely people. When childbirth at sea turns her joy into a coffin, her absence becomes the wound that shapes the rest of Pericles's life.

King Simonides

supporting

Also known as the good King Simonides, the good Simonides, Simonides

Simonides rules Pentapolis with an eye for character, hosting a contest of arms where the ragged stranger from Tyre outshines gilded princes. He feigns anger at Pericles's supposed presumption in courting Thaisa, a test that reveals whether the man has the humility and courage to match his daughter's worth. His approval sets the play's one stretch of happiness in motion, making the later losses feel like a theft from a world that briefly worked.

Cleon

supporting

Also known as Cleon O Dionyza, Cleon O, exeunt Cleon, Till cruel Cleon, savage Cleon, wicked Cleon, Cleon Heavens

Cleon first appears as a ruler whose people are starving, saved when Pericles arrives with grain and asks nothing in return. He accepts Marina as a ward and raises her alongside his own daughter, but his authority shrinks beside Dionyza's ambition. His failure to protect the child he promised to keep turns a story about rescue into one about how easily a weak man's silence becomes complicity.

Dionyza

supporting

Also known as Dionyza, cruel Cleon

Dionyza watches Marina outshine her own daughter in every grace and decides the comparison is intolerable. She arranges a killing and then stages a monument and a public grief so convincing that Pericles accepts the loss and retreats further into his sorrow. Her villainy matters because it shows how domestic envy can counterfeit the language of mourning, and how the play's worst crime hides behind soft flattery.

Antiochus

supporting

Also known as the great Antiochus, Antiochus Prince Pericles, Antiochus Thaliard

Antiochus stages his daughter like a bride for Jove, then warns Pericles that her beauty is a Hesperides guarded by death. His court is a graveyard of princes, and he wields the riddle as both gate and executioner's axe. The tension between his royal hospitality and the lethal trap he sets makes him the story's first test of whether courage can survive a corrupt throne.

Helicanus

supporting

Also known as Helicanus Sir, Helicanus Lord Thaliard, Helicanus For honour, Helicanus Gentlemen, Helicanus Kneeling, Old Helicanus, lord Helicanus, noble Helicane, Lord Helicane, Helicane

Helicanus answers Pericles's anger with the plain question of how plants dare look at heaven, showing a counselor who trusts his own integrity more than royal favor. When Pericles flees Antioch, Helicanus holds Tyre together and later recounts Antiochus's fiery end as proof that the gods collect on incest. His steady presence gives the play its moral anchor while its hero wanders.

Lysimachus

supporting

Also known as Lysimachus Sir, the Lord Lysimachus, Lysimachus See, Lysimachus O, Enter Lysimachus

Lysimachus governs the port where Pericles's grief-stricken vessel lies anchored, and he comes aboard with courteous authority to learn the cause of the king's muteness. He sends for Marina, hoping her music can break the silence, and his willingness to be moved by her marks him as a ruler who can be converted by grace. His presence links the play's maritime wandering to its final reconciliations.

Cerimon

supporting

Also known as Lord Cerimon Such, Thaisa Lord Cerimon, Lord Cerimon, Cerimon Philemon, Cerimon Nay

Cerimon is the learned lord of Ephesus whose skill with herbs and minerals makes him a figure of near-magical authority. When a chest washes ashore bearing Thaisa's body, his study and his charity combine to restore her, turning a burial into a rebirth. He embodies the play's faith that loss is not final and that knowledge, rightly used, serves mercy.

Bawd

supporting

Also known as Bawd Boult, Bawd Marry, Bawd Who, Bawd Well, Bawd Ay, Bawd To Marina

The Bawd presides over a house where desire is merchandise, and she buys Marina expecting another profitable commodity. Instead Marina preaches chastity to customers and sends Lysimachus away cold, threatening the brothel's whole economy. The Bawd's outrage at this 'dish of chastity' measures how radically Marina's virtue disrupts the world she has been sold into.

Boult

supporting

Also known as Boult Ay, Boult Performance, Pandar Boult

Boult serves the Bawd as muscle and middleman, tasked with deflowering Marina when she refuses the trade. But Marina turns his own trade back on him, naming him damned door-keeper to every rogue and offering gold if he will place her among honest women. His grudging agreement shows that even the play's coarsest figures can be moved by eloquence and self-interest.

Leonine

minor

Also known as O villain Leonine

Servant of Dionyza hired to murder Marina.

Pandar

minor

Also known as Pandar Boult

The brothel keeper in Mytilene.

Thaliard

minor

Also known as Helicanus Lord Thaliard, Antiochus Thaliard

A lord sent by Antiochus to kill Pericles.

Lychorida

minor

Nurse to Marina who raises her after Thaisa's apparent death.

Diana

minor

Also known as Dian, Pericles Celestial Dian, noble Pericles

Goddess who appears in a vision to Pericles, directing him to Ephesus.

Escanes

minor

Also known as Old Escanes

A lord of Tyre who serves with Helicanus.

Gower

minor

Chorus figure who narrates and introduces scenes throughout the play.

Philemon

minor

Also known as Cerimon Philemon

Servant to Cerimon who assists in reviving Thaisa.

Second Fisherman

minor

Also known as Fisherman

One of the fishermen who help Pericles after his shipwreck.

Tyrus

minor

A minor character, possibly a lord or messenger.

Monsieur Veroles

minor

A French knight who jousts at Simonides's court.