Original: How courtesy would seem to cover sin,
Modern: How politeness and good manners can hide terrible wrongdoing,

Original: When what is done is like an hypocrite,
Modern: When the actions themselves are hypocritical,

Original: The which is good in nothing but in sight!
Modern: Looking good only on the surface but rotten underneath!

Original: If it be true that I interpret false,
Modern: If I’m wrong about what I think I’ve discovered,

Original: Then were it certain you were not so bad
Modern: Then it would mean you’re not as evil

Original: As with foul incest to abuse your soul;
Modern: As to corrupt your soul with disgusting incest;

Original: Where now you’re both a father and a son,
Modern: Now you act as both a father and a son,

Original: By your untimely claspings with your child,
Modern: By your inappropriate intimate relations with your daughter,

Original: Which pleasure fits an husband, not a father;
Modern: Taking pleasures that belong to a husband, not a father;

Original: And she an eater of her mother’s flesh,
Modern: And she becomes like someone consuming her own mother’s flesh,

Original: By the defiling of her parent’s bed;
Modern: By polluting her father’s marriage bed;

Original: And both like serpents are, who though they feed
Modern: And you’re both like snakes, who even though they eat

Original: On sweetest flowers, yet they poison breed.
Modern: The most beautiful flowers, still create poison.

Original: Antioch, farewell! for wisdom sees, those men
Modern: Goodbye, Antioch! Because wisdom shows me that men

Original: Blush not in actions blacker than the night,
Modern: Who aren’t ashamed of deeds darker than night itself,

Original: Will shun no course to keep them from the light.
Modern: Will stop at nothing to keep their secrets hidden.

Original: One sin, I know, another doth provoke;
Modern: I know that one sin leads to another;

Original: Murder’s as near to lust as flame to smoke:
Modern: Murder follows lust as surely as smoke follows fire:

Original: Poison and treason are the hands of sin,
Modern: Poison and betrayal are the tools that sin uses,

Original: Ay, and the targets, to put off the shame:
Modern: Yes, and also the shields to deflect the shame:

Original: Then, lest my lie be cropp’d to keep you clear,
Modern: So that my life won’t be cut short to protect your secret,

Original: By flight I’ll shun the danger which I fear.
Modern: I’ll escape by running away from the danger I’m afraid of.

In Act I, Scene i of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, the chorus figure Gower appears to introduce the action, setting the scene at the court of Antioch, where King Antiochus has posed a deadly riddle to all suitors who seek the hand of his beautiful daughter. The terms of the challenge are grim: any suitor who fails to solve the riddle will be put to death, and the severed heads of previous failed suitors are displayed as a warning. Pericles, Prince of Tyre, arrives at the court undeterred, and Antiochus presents him with the riddle. Despite witnessing the grim evidence of those who have failed before him, Pericles presses forward and is granted a brief period to consider the riddle’s answer.

Upon reading the riddle, Pericles quickly grasps its terrible meaning — that it alludes to an incestuous relationship between Antiochus and his own daughter. Pericles finds himself in a dangerous position: if he speaks the answer aloud, he risks the wrath of the powerful king for exposing his secret, yet if he claims not to know the answer, he faces execution. Pericles carefully words his response so as to make clear to Antiochus that he has understood the riddle’s true meaning, without stating it outright before the court. Antiochus, realizing that Pericles knows the truth, grants him a forty-day extension but privately resolves to have Pericles killed before he can reveal the secret, and Pericles, sensing the mortal danger he is now in, prepares to flee Antioch.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre follows the wandering journey of Prince Pericles across the Mediterranean. The play opens with Pericles fleeing Antioch after discovering that King Antiochus is engaged in an incestuous relationship with his daughter. Fearing for his life, Pericles leaves his kingdom of Tyre in the care of his trusted advisor Helicanus and sets sail. He arrives in Tarsus during a famine, where he provides grain to the starving people, earning the gratitude of Governor Cleon and his wife Dionyza.

Continuing his travels, Pericles is shipwrecked near Pentapolis, where he washes ashore and participates in a tournament to win the hand of Thaisa, daughter of King Simonides. Pericles wins both the tournament and Thaisa’s love, and they marry. However, news arrives that Antiochus and his daughter have died, making it safe for Pericles to return to Tyre. During the sea voyage home, Thaisa gives birth to a daughter during a violent storm but appears to die in childbirth. The sailors insist her body must be cast overboard, so Pericles places her in a sealed coffin and commits it to the sea.

Thaisa’s coffin washes ashore in Ephesus, where the physician Cerimon revives her. Believing her husband and child are dead, she becomes a priestess in Diana’s temple. Meanwhile, Pericles leaves his infant daughter Marina with Cleon and Dionyza in Tarsus, asking them to raise her. Fourteen years pass, and Marina grows into a beautiful and virtuous young woman, causing Dionyza’s own daughter to pale in comparison. Jealous, Dionyza orders Marina’s murder, but pirates capture her before the deed is done and sell her to a brothel in Mytilene.

In the brothel, Marina’s purity and eloquence convert clients to virtue rather than vice, eventually leading to her release and employment as a teacher. When Pericles returns to Tarsus, Cleon and Dionyza show him a false tomb, claiming Marina died of natural causes. Grief-stricken, Pericles becomes a hermit aboard his ship. His vessel eventually arrives in Mytilene, where the governor Lysimachus brings Marina aboard to cure the melancholy stranger through music. Father and daughter recognize each other, leading to joyful reunion. The goddess Diana then appears to Pericles in a vision, directing him to her temple in Ephesus, where he is reunited with Thaisa. The play concludes with Marina’s betrothal to Lysimachus.