On a tour with the least linear ports of call since The Odyssey, Shakespeare’s Pericles tries to win the hand of a princess in an incestuous relationship with her father by solving a riddle, ends a famine, gets into a shipwreck, wins a different bride in a tournament, and loses his family to a storm and pirates involved prostitution, only to miraculously reunite with them in the end. Will and James discuss this strange epic, the possible identity of its co-author, and whether Marina’s destruction of prostitution in Mytilene is the best brothel scene in Shakespeare.

Credits

• Intro Music: Jon Sayles, "The Witches' Dance" (composed by anonymous)

• Outro Music: Jon Sayles, “Saltarello” (composed by anonymous)

• Illustrative Excerpts: “Pericles,” dir. Howard Sackler, Shakespeare Recording Society (1964)