Dionyza instructs Leonine to murder Marina to prevent her beauty from overshadowing her own daughter. As Leonine prepares to kill Marina by the shore, she speaks movingly of her father's courage during the storm that birthed her. Before Leonine can strike, pirates suddenly appear and capture Marina, carrying her off to sea. Leonine, relieved of his burden, decides to report her dead to Dionyza.
This scene crystallizes the play's exploration of envy as a corrosive force. Dionyza's jealousy of Marina—whose accomplishments and beauty naturally eclipse her own daughter—has metastasized into murderous intent. The irony is brutal: Dionyza claims to love Pericles and his child, yet acts to destroy the very child she promised to nurture. Her language strips away all pretense of maternal care, reducing Marina to an obstacle to be removed. Leonine, initially willing to comply, becomes a reluctant instrument of her malice. Marina's innocence makes the attempted murder all the more grotesque—she has done nothing but exist beautifully, yet must die for it. The scene exposes how virtue and talent, without protection, are powerless against corrupt authority.
The intervention of the pirates functions as both rescue and new captivity. Marina escapes assassination only to be sold into a brothel—a fate that initially appears worse than death. Yet the play's logic suggests that this apparent misfortune is actually providential. The pirates' arrival disrupts Dionyza's plot and sets Marina on the path toward the recognition and reunion that will ultimately heal her father. Leonine's decision to lie about her death creates a false monument, a deception that will torment Pericles but paradoxically keeps him alive—his grief gives him reason to endure. Marina's own words about her father's courage in the storm foreshadow her own resilience: she too will face trials and emerge unbroken. The scene demonstrates how the play operates through accident and chance, where disaster often contains the seeds of redemption.
I am sworn, And will dispatch.
I am sworn, And will do it.
Leonine · Act 4, Scene 1
Leonine, accepting the task to murder Marina, speaks with grim finality—two words that contain a whole tragedy. The line cuts because it is the moment oath becomes act, and a man surrenders his will to another's malice. It shows how quickly evil finds its instrument when ambition and envy align.
I will do’t; but yet she is a goodly creature.
I’ll do it; but she’s a beautiful woman.
Leonine · Act 4, Scene 1
Leonine agrees to kill Marina, yet in the same breath admits she is beautiful—a crack in his resolve that makes his oath worse, not better. The line matters because it shows that moral weakness does not live in ignorance but in knowledge. He sees her goodness and chooses to destroy it anyway.
Original Shakespeare alongside modern English. Synced read-along narration in the app.
