Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Act 4 Scene 3 — Summary & Analysis

What happens

Cleon recoils in horror at Dionyza's crime, calling Marina's near-murder the worst of all sins. Dionyza coldly dismisses his moral anguish, arguing that no one will know the truth since Leonine is gone. She reframes the murder as an act of kindness to their own daughter, whose prospects were threatened by Marina's beauty. Cleon, trapped between conscience and complicity, surrenders to her logic. The couple erects a monument to Marina with a flattering epitaph, crafting a lie to protect themselves.

Why it matters

This scene reveals the moral bankruptcy of those who benefit from evil without executing it. Cleon's horror is genuine—he recognizes that murder is among the darkest sins—yet his objections crumble under Dionyza's pragmatic argument that concealment is possible and profitable. His weakness is not ignorance but cowardice; he knows what is right but lacks the will to stand against his wife. Dionyza's reframing of the crime as maternal devotion is chilling in its sophistry. She has poisoned Cleon's conscience not through force but through rationalization, transforming a crime into a family service. The monument they build becomes a monument to their shared dishonesty.

The scene also marks a turning point in how moral judgment operates in the play. Unlike Antiochus, whose incest is clearly condemned by heaven with divine fire, Cleon and Dionyza are punished not immediately by the gods but slowly by their own knowledge. Cleon's words—'Heavens forgive it!'—suggest that he understands the divine reckoning will come, even if no human law touches them. The irony is that their lie, the monument with its golden epitaph, becomes the very instrument of their future exposure. Pericles will come to Tarsus believing his daughter dead, and the false memorial will deepen his grief while failing to protect them from ultimate justice.