Pericles, Prince of Tyre Family Quotes

Oh, wait a minute. You know how we said earlier that all the bad parents get punished in this play? Well, we forgot to mention that Bawd and Pander (who are kind of like foster parents to Marina and all the "bastard" kids born in their brothel) never really get punished. That's weird, don't you think? Why do you think Shakespeare lets these two lower-class characters off the hook? Do we get the sense that they have fewer options than the upper-class characters, so their actions are somehow less horrible? Or is it something else?

We've got one question, Shmoopers: why the heck does Pericles leave his daughter in Tharsus for so long (about fourteen years) without visiting her? 

This quote is hugely important. When Pericles discovers that he's just been reunited with his long-lost daughter, he experiences a kind of rebirth. Here, he speaks a kind of riddle that plays on the phrase "to beget," which is an old-fashioned way of saying "to give life to." Let's break it down. On the one hand, Pericles calls Marina the daughter that he "did beget" with his wife. (Translation: he and his wife made her.) But at the same time, Pericles feels like his daughter has also given him life. Why? Is it because their family reunion has given him a renewed love of life? It seems that way to us.

We also notice that the play ends and begins with two riddles. (Remember the incest riddle in the opening prologue? It opened up a giant can of worms by revealing King Antiochus's sexual relationship with his daughter.) Both riddles are about confusing family relationships, but this one seems to resolve a lot of the play's fears about family dysfunction.