History Theatre / PericlesPrinceOfTyre

* BusCrash: The incestuous king and princess motivate the plot for the first act, and then in a later scene are reported to have conveniently been killed by being hit by a meteor.

The story is framed by a narrator called Gower. He tells the story of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, a virtuous adventurer who encounters many hardships on his road to happiness. Pericles gets in trouble for uncovering an incestuous relationship between a king and his daughter, and sails the world trying to avoid their assassination attempts. He meets and marries Thaisa, another princess, and sets sail to return home. A storm hits and Thaisa dies during childbirth; Pericles puts her body in a coffin and dumps it in the sea, which wards off the storm. Her body washes up on shore, and we learn Thaisa is not, in fact, dead; believing she survived a shipwreck and that her family is dead, she becomes a priestess in a temple of Diana.

** The folks who run the brothel see Marina as this, since her IncorruptiblePurePureness is ruining their business.
* MadeASlave: Marina. Thankfully, [[IncorruptiblePurePureness she]] is so bad for business that they can't wait to get rid of her.

* MadeASlave: Marina. Thankfully [[IncorruptiblePurePureness she]] is so bad for business that they can't wait to get rid of her.

* MadeASlave: Marina. Thankfully [[sheIncorruptiblePurePureness]] is so bad for business that they can't wait to get rid of her.

* MadeASlave: Marina. Thankfully [[she IncorruptiblePurePureness]] is so bad for business that they can't wait to get rid of her.

* EngagementChallenge: Antiochus' riddle, which is actually a trap to prevent his daughter from getting married. If you can't solve it you die, and if you solve it, you'll also die for [[HeKnowsTooMuch knowing too much]]. Not that anyone's lived to figure out that second part...

* IdiotBall: Antiochus for putting down he and his daughter are having incest in a riddle. It seems like Pericles is the first to figure out the (fairly obvious) meaning, but it could be that Antiochus simply kills everyone who takes the challenge and claims they got it wrong.

** It's so effective that it borders on a JediMindTrick or straight up HeelFaceBrainwashing.

* MadeASlave: Marina. Thankfully he IncorruptiblePurePureness is so bad for business that they can't wait to get rid of her.

* AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle
* BornDuringAStorm: Thaisa gives birth to her appropriately-named daughter Marina in the middle of a storm at sea. Fitting with the drama of the trope, Thaisa is presumed [[DeathByChildbirth dead]] and Marina is left in the care of Cleon and Dionyza.

* ContrivedCoincidence: The entire final third of the story.

* EasyEvangelism: How Marina keeps her virginity: converting the Brothel's potential customers.
* EngagementChallenge

* IdiotBall: Antiochus for putting down he and his daughter are having incest in a riddle.

* MortonsFork: Failing to solve Antiochus's riddle means death. Solving it also means death because the solution reveals his incestuous relationship with his daughter. When Pericles tries to TakeAThirdOption and asks for some more time, Antiochus decides to just have him killed anyway.

* RagsToRoyalty: Both Pericles before he encounters Simonides, and Marina before Pericles finds her.

* TooDumbToLive: It's not clear exactly why Antiochus goes around telling everyone a (very unsubtle) riddle about a secret he's willing to kill to keep from getting out.

-->'''Gower''': ''To sing a song that old was sung,\\

* MortonsFork: Failing to solve Antiochus's riddle means death. Solving it also means death because the solution reveals his incestuous relationship with his daughter. When Pericles tries to TakeAThirdOption and ask for some more time Antiochus decides to just have him killed anyway.

Pericles fears his newborn daughter Marina will die before they get home, so he leaves her with the governor of Tarsus and his wife. Time passes, and Pericles decides to retrieve her. Marina has grown up beautiful, and the governor and his wife are angry because she is more beautiful than their own daughter. They plan to kill her, but she is captured by pirates and sold into prostitution. Marina is so virtuous that she not only remains a virgin, but also convinces her potential customers to leave and seek meaning in their lives. She eventually gets a respectable job in Mytilene, working for a lord as a musician/singer.

* DoomAsTestPrize: Solving Antiochus' riddle means discovering that the king is engaging in incest with his daughter, which leads to death by HeKnowsTooMuch.

* MortonsFork: Failing to solve Antiochus' riddle means death. Solving it also means death because the solution reveald his incestuous relationship with his daughter. When Pericles tries to TakeAThirdOption and ask for some more time Antoichus decides to just have him killed anyway.

* RagsToRoyalty: Both Pericles before he encounters Simonides, and Marina, before Pericles finds her.

* TooDumbToLive: Its not clear exactly why Antiochus goes around telling everyone a (very unsubtle) riddle about a secret he's willing to kill to keep from getting out.

A {{comedy}} / {{romance}} by Creator/WilliamShakespeare. It's one of his less-known and less-liked plays, and it's theorized that it was co-written or script-doctored by a less accomplished writer. It doesn't help that the surviving text is corrupt, possibly a pirate copy from memory; various scholarly attempts have been made to produce an improved version. It is certainly based on the ChivalricRomance ''Apollonius'', which has never been noted for coherent plot -- the "moldy tale" Ben Jonson termed it -- which could not have helped.

A {{comedy}} / {{romance}} by Creator/WilliamShakespeare. It's one of his less-known and less-liked plays, and it's theorized that it was co-written or script-doctored by a less accomplished writer. It doesn't help that the surviving text is corrupt, possibly a pirate copy from memory; various scholarly attempts have been made to produce an improved version. It is certainly based on the ChivalricRomance ''Apollonius'', which has never been noted for coherent plot -- the "moldy tale" Creator/BenJonson termed it -- which could not have helped.

* YourPrizeIsDeath: As explained in the Morton's Fork example, solving Antiochus's riddle is as bad as failing to do so.

* CrystalDragonJesus: Thaisa becomes a nun in a temple of Apollo.

* MinionWithAnFInEvil
* MortonsFork: Failing to solve Antiochus' riddle means death. Solving it means he'll have you killed for discovering his incestuous relationship with his daughter. When Pericles tries to TakeAThirdOption and ask for some more time Antoichus decides to just have him killed anyway.

* MortonsFork: Whether you solve the riddle or not Antiochus would have you killed. It is questionable why he set up that riddle at all.

* BusCrash: the incestuous king and princess motivate the plot for the first act, and then in a later scene are reported to have conveniently been killed by being hit by a meteor.

* IdiotBall
* MortonsFork

* DesignatedVillain: Cleon is horrified at his wife's attempted murder, yet he is branded "wicked" and punished with her in the conclusion.

* TearsOfRemorse
* TenderTears

A {{comedy}} / {{romance}} by Creator/WilliamShakespeare. It's one of his less-known and less-liked plays, and it's theorized that it was co-written or script-doctored by a less accomplished writer. It doesn't help that the surviving text is corrupt, possibly a pirate copy from memory; various scholarly attempts have been made to produce an improved version.

* ContrivedCoincidence
* EasyEvangelism

* GreenEyedMonster
* HeKnowsTooMuch

* OnlyMostlyDead
* RagsToRoyalty
* SoBeautifulItsACurse

* VillainousIncest
* VirginTension

A {{comedy}}/{{romance}} by WilliamShakespeare. It's one of his less-known and less-liked plays, and it's theorized that it was co-written or script-doctored by a less accomplished writer. It doesn't help that the surviving text is corrupt, possibly a pirate copy from memory; various scholarly attempts have been made to produce an improved version.

* [=~Morton's Fork~=]