Chapter Act I of Pericles Prince of Tyre - Study Guide by William Shakespeare

own, but Cleon feels impelled to at least tell his own story: "That, if heaven slumber while their creatures want, / They may awaken their helps to comfort them" (16-7). When arriving ships are sighted, Cleon assumes that this is fresh trouble - "I thought as much / One sorrow never comes but brings an heir" (63) - even though the ships are carrying a white flag. His distrust is transformed into gratitude and abasement when Pericles arrives, almost like help from heaven (but, significantly, from the sea), with ships full of food.

The argument at the beginning of the scene is about whether or not to narrate, and narration is a constant theme in a play whose most moving scene is one of telling. To be more precise, Dionyza's argument against narration effectively creates in opposition a need to narrate, or a need to be narrated, linking expression and emotion. However, the story Cleon tells is only meant to be moving; less a lament (e.g., the Lamentations of Jeremiah, or Spenser's On Mutabilitie) than a sermon - "But see what heaven can do by this our change," (32) he cries, "O, that cities that of plenty's cup / And her prosperities so largely taste, / With their superfluous riots, hear these tears! / The misery of Tharsus may be theirs" (52-5). Dionyza is asked to provide appropriate back up: "I'll then discourse our woes, felt several years, / And wanting breath to speak help me with tears" (18-20). Her reply, "I'll do my best, sir," does not convince.

The scene is a moral picture, a speaking emblem that advises against hubris and uncharitable pride; its didacticism renders its emotional appeal coercive and as wooden as its verse. In the last three acts of the play couplets like "Thou speaks like him's untutored to repeat: / Who makes the fairest show means most deceit" (74-5) make way for more supple verse, and while the play continues to demonstrate something beyond its actual events, it is no longer a diagram on the moral blackboard, but a depth of expression that the misery of Tharsus only barely sounds.