A play in five acts first performed in 1608-09 and published in a quarto edition in 1609, a poor text containing both auditory and graphic errors. The play was based on the classical tale of Apollonius of Tyre as told in book eight of Confessio amantis by John Gower.

The spirit of Gower, an off scene narrator, enters, to tell about the kingdom of Antioch, where king Antiochus and Antiochus's daughter are engaging in incest. Antiochus has kept suitors from marrying her by requiring that they answer a riddle correctly, or die. Pericles, Prince of Tyre, tries his hand at the riddle. He is successful, but discovers that its answer reveals the incestuous relationship between father and daughter. Pericles does not reveal the truth; however, Pericles is sure Antiochus will want him dead when he does find out. Pericles appoints his counsellor Helicanus to rule as regent and then sails from Tyre for Tarsus, then Pentapolis.

In Tyre, Pericles worries that Antiochus will take some form of revenge, whether a military attack or an underhanded assassination attempt, filled with melancholy, he takes the advice of Helicanus, his councillor, to travel for a while until Antiochus is no longer after him. Pericles first goes to Tarsus, where King Cleon and his wife Dionyza bemoan the famine that has beset their nation. Pericles arrives with corn and saves them. Soon a letter from Helicanus calls Pericles back to Tyre.

On the way home, a storm shipwrecks Pericles in Pentapolis. Some fishermen tell him about king Simonides's daughter, a lovely girl who will be married to whoever wins a jousting contest the following day. Pericles determines to enter the contest, which, despite wearing the rustiest armour, he wins, later dining with Simonides and his daughter Thaisa, both of whom are very impressed with him.

Meanwhile in Tyre, Helicanus reveals that a fire from the heaven has burnt Antiochus and his daughter, so Pericles can safely return. Other citizens want to crown Helicanus as king, but Helicanus insists they wait to see if Pericles will return.

In Pentapolis, Pericles hears of the recent events and determines to go back to Tyre. On board a boat with his wife and Lychordia, a nurse, they come upon a great storm, which brings about the birth of Marina, their daughter; Thaisa, appears to die in childbirth. The shipmaster insists on throwing the body overboard, to appease the storm, to this, Pericles complies. They put Thaisa's body into an airtight chest, which washes up in Ephesus, where Cerimon, a generous doctor, finds the casket, and discovers that Thaisa is in fact not dead, he manages to revive her.

Pericles lands in Tarsus and hands over his child, Marina, to Cleon and Dionyza, at Tarsus since he thinks it will not survive the journey to Tyre.

Sixteen years, passes; Pericles is king of Tyre, Thaisa becomes a votaress in a Temple of Diana, and Marina grows up. However, Dionyza is jealous of Marina, who takes all the attention away from her own daughter who is of a similar age. Dionyza plots to have Leonine murder Marina. Dionyza's servant, who she has entrusted with the job, is at the last moment, unable to complete her task, and can only watch as, pirates seize Dionyza, and take her to Myteline on Lesbos to sell as a prostitute. The servant reports that Marina is dead, and Cleon mournfully raises a monument to her memory.

Sold to a brothel run by Pander and Bawd, Marina refuses to give up her honour, despite the many men who come wanting to buy her virginity. She manages to convince the men who come to the brothel that her honour is sacred, and they leave seeking virtue in their own lives. Soon she is freed by the governor and gets work in a reputable house, educating girls. Meanwhile, Pericles goes on a trip to Tarsus to reunite with his daughter, but Cleon and Dionyza tell him that she has died, and show him the monument they have ordered built in order to erase their complicity in the matter. Pericles, distraught, once again sets to the seas.

Pericles and his crew arrive in Myteline, and Lysimachus goes out to meet the ships. Helicanus explains that still deeply depressed about the supposed loss of his daughter Pericles has not spoken in three months, and Lysimachus says he knows someone in his city that may be able to make him talk. Marina is brought to the ship, and she tells Pericles that her own sufferings must match his. He asks her about her birth, and she says her name is Marina. Startled, Pericles asks her to continue, and to his surprise finds that everything Marina says matches the story of his own lost Marina. They are reunited. Lysismachus, the governor, asks for Marina's hand, which Marina accepts. However, Pericles is exhausted, and in his sleep, the goddess Diana visits him, telling him to go to her temple in Ephesus and tell of his experiences. When he wakes, he promises Marina to Lysimachus, and they set off for Ephesus.

In Ephesus, Thaisa is a priestess at the temple where Pericles tells his story. When she realizes Pericles is her lost husband, she faints, and Cerimon explains that she is Thaisa. The whole family is reunited, and overjoyed.

Gower returns to offer a conclusion, noting that we have seen evil punished (Antiochus and his daughter have died, and when the people of Tarsus discovered Cleon's evil, they revolted and killed him and his wife in a palace fire), but that we have met a variety of good people along the way, such as loyal Helicanus and charitable Cerimon. Pericles and his family have endured the vagaries of fortune, and through it all remained virtuous, so in the end they were rewarded with the joy of being reunited.

The play is episodic, highly symbolic, and filled with imagery of the stormy seas. The most significant recurring theme is the proper relationship between parent and child, especially between father and daughter. Shakespeare returned to this theme often in his other late plays, but in Pericles he deliberately maintains the characters as two-dimensional emblems rather than showing them as fully developed people.

The first scenes of Pericles are often feeble in expression, frequently ungrammatical, and sometimes scarcely intelligible, while the second half is well written, in Shakespeare's mature style. It is now generally supposed that the inadequate parts of the play are the result of its being a reconstruction of the text from the actors' imperfect memories. For the second half of the play, either the printer had a manuscript of good quality or the actors' memories were more accurate.