All's Well That Ends Well

“So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness

Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,

His equal had awaked them, and his honor,

Clock to itself, knew the true minute when

Exception bid him speak, and at this time

His tongue obeyed his hand. Who were below him

He used as creatures of another place

And bowed his eminent top to their low ranks,

Making them proud of his humility,

In their poor praise he humbled.”

The King’s memory of Bertram’s father, the Count of Rossillion, reflects his good manners and positive character. The key element in this quote is that the Count followed his words with actions and respected those of the lower classes. Explicitly, the King’s speech argues that Bertram may not avoid Helen because of her class. Implicitly, it establishes the morals that the noble Bertram should uphold but that, the play will show, he fails to. Bernard is obsessed with his father’s noble legacy but does not follow his noble example.

“One good woman in ten, madam, which is a purifying o’ th’ song. Would God would serve the world so all the year! We’d find no fault with the tithe-woman if I were the parson. One in ten, quoth he? An we might have a good woman born but or every blazing star or at an earthquake ‘twould mend the lottery well. A man may draw his heart ere he pluck one.”

Conventionally, Fools in drama communicate valid points shrouded in comedy, paradox, or epigram. Here, the Fool is claiming that “good” women are rare, referring to marriage as a kind of lottery, in which men are either lucky, marrying a “good woman,” or, implicitly, most men marry “bad” women. Combined with the Fool’s general assertion of the power of women in love, this passage serves to emphasize how the play portrays women as manipulative, but the Fool leaves room for women to manipulate men into love without doing harm. In short, a “good” woman might manipulate a man into marriage.

“Even so it was with me when I was young.

If ever we are nature’s, these are ours. This thorn

Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong.

Our blood to us, this to our blood is born.

It is the show and seal of nature’s truth,

Where love’s strong passion is impressed in youth.

By our remembrances of days foregone,

Such were our faults, or then we thought them none.

Her eye is sick on ‘t, I observe her now.”

The Countess implies that she was not a member of the nobility prior to marrying the Count, as she sees how Helen’s current situation mirrors her own in her youth. The assertion of the Countess’s aside is that love is part of an individual’s nature, meaning that she did not choose to love the Count, nor does Helen choose to love Bertram. This passage foreshadows how Bertram may not have love for Helen in his nature, and the remark on hindsight, that young people do not understand their faults, implies that events may not align with Helen’s desires.

“BERTRAM. I am commanded here and kept a coil

With ‘Too young,’ and ‘The next year,’ and ‘’Tis

too early.’

PAROLLES. An thy mind stand to ‘t, boy, steal away bravely.

BERTRAM. I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock,

Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry

Till honor be bought up, and no sword worn

But one to dance with. By heaven, I’ll steal away!”

Even before his marriage to Helen, Bertram is upset that the other lords are going to war in Florence. Parolles encourages Bertram to run away, setting the stage for Bertram’s later abandonment of Helen. This passage outlines the contrast the men see between two forms of honor: honor at court and honor on the battlefield. The battlefield is more glamorous, but, as Bertram notes, honor at court involves more recreation, like dancing. Between them, Parolles and Bertram feel the battlefield is more manly, and Bertram feels his masculinity is challenged by comments about his age and experience.

“HELEN. What I can do can do no hurt to try

Since you set up your rest ‘gainst remedy.

He that of greatest works is finisher

Oft does them by the weakest minister.

So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown

When judges have been babes. Great floods have

From simple sources, and great seas have dried

When miracles have by the great’st been denied.

Oft expectation fails, and most oft it hits

Where hope is coldest and despair most shifts.”

Helen’s proposal to the King makes the Biblical allusions of babies, floods, and droughts, emphasizing the tendency in Christian narratives to value the seemingly plain or inconsequential people involved in miraculous works. Her ultimate argument is that she is not the person helping the King, but an instrument of God sent to heal him. Her comments can also be taken to mean that miracles can happen, which might refer to her hope of marrying Bertram, which can be made possible through the King. Each of them desire a “miracle” that the other can make real.

“HELEN. I am a simple maid, and therein wealthiest

That I protest I simply am a maid.—

Please it your Majesty, I have done already.

The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me:

‘We blush that thou shouldst choose; but, be

refused,

Let the white death sit on thy cheek forever;

We’ll ne’er come there again.’

KING. Make choice and see.

Who shuns thy love shuns all his love in me.”

Helen acknowledges in this passage that her birth cannot be overwritten by the King’s order. Even though he can raise her to nobility, provide her with money, and force a lord to marry her, she still feels nervous that she will be rejected. None of the lords except Bertram are willing to reject her because of the King’s comment that rejecting Helen would be the same as rejecting the King’s love, which would amount to treason.

“BERTRAM. But follows it, my lord, to bring me down

Must answer for your raising? I know her well;

She had her breeding at my father’s charge.

A poor physician’s daughter my wife? Disdain

Rather corrupt me ever!

KING. ‘Tis only title thou disdain’st in her, the which

I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods,

Of color, weight, and heat, poured all together,

Would quite confound distinction, yet stands off

In differences so mighty. If she be

All that is virtuous, save what thou dislik’st—

‘A poor physician’s daughter’—thou dislik’st

Of virtue for the name. But do not so.”

Bertram here frames his marriage to Helen as a degradation and his language asks why he should be defiled because the King is healed, an allusion to his sense of innate “blood” superiority to Helen. The King’s response, recalling his comments on Bertram’s father, disregards the idea of class and social hierarchy, arguing that something as intrinsic as blood must be expressive of inner virtue, not social rank. The King describes Helen as an embodiment of virtue, which implies that Bertram is unvirtuous in rejecting her. Likewise, the King can “build up” Helen by granting her a title and wealth, which should, theoretically, assuage Bertram’s concern.

“BERTRAM. This drives me to entreat you

That presently you take your way for home,

And rather muse than ask why I entreat you;

For my respects are better than they seem,

Greater than shows itself at the first view

To you that know them not. [Giving her a paper]

This to my mother.

‘Twill be two days ere I shall see you, so

I leave you to your wisdom.

HELEN. Sir, I can nothing say

But that I am your most obedient servant—

BERTRAM. Come, come, no more of that.”

Bertram lies to Helen, here, telling her that he goes to Rossillion in two days, when his true intention is to stay in the Florentine wars indefinitely. The letter he hands her explains to the Countess that he hates Helen, but Helen does not know that she is being deceived. Her response to Bertram is an indication of her shift in agency, in which she is now essentially playing the role of a dutiful wife. Bertram’s rejection of her assurance of servitude could be taken as humility, but it is more likely an earnest rejection of her offer of marriage.

“FIRST LORD. Holy seems the quarrel

Upon your Grace’s part, black and fearful

On the opposer.

DUKE. Therefore we marvel much our cousin France

Would in so just a business shut his bosom

Against our borrowing prayers.

SECOND LORD. Good my lord,

The reasons of our state I cannot yield

But like a common and an outward man

That the great figure of a council frames

By self-unable therefore dare not

Say what I think of it, since I have found

Myself in my incertain grounds to fail

As often as I guessed.”

The humor is this passage is twofold. First, the Duke convinces the lords that the Florentines are on the correct side of the war, while the Sienese are in the wrong, which, of course, would likely be reversed if the lords were speaking with the Duke of Siena. Second, the Second Lord’s comment avoiding the issue of the King of France’s refusal to send aid mirrors the Fool’s assertion that men at court never say anything definite.

“HELEN. Better ‘twere

I met the ravin lion when he roared

With sharp constraint of hunger; better ‘twere

That all the miseries which nature owes

Were mine at once. No, come thou home, Rossillion,

Whence honor but of danger wins a scar,

As oft it loses all. I will be gone.

My being here it is that holds thee hence.

Shall I stay here to do ‘t? No, no, although

The air of paradise did fan the house

And angels officed all. I will be gone,

That pitiful rumor may report my flight

To consolate thine ear. Come, night; end, day;

For with the dark, poor thief, I’ll steal away.”

Taken literally, this passage is Helen’s lament that she has driven Bertram into the war. However, her conclusion is that if she leaves, he will return to Rossillion, and this supposition is countered by her trip to Florence. Since she goes directly to where Bertram is stationed, it is more likely that this soliloquy is dishonest, as her real plan is to intercept Bertram. Her lamentation, then, is likely designed to gain sympathy from the Countess, in the form of the letter she leaves, and from the audience.

“COUNTESS. What angel shall

Bless this unworthy husband? He cannot thrive

Unless her prayers, whom heaven delights to hear

And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wrath

Of greatest justice. Write, write, Rinaldo,

To this unworthy husband of his wife.

Let every word weigh heavy of her worth

That he does weigh too light. My greatest grief,

Though little he do feel it, set down sharply.

Dispatch the most convenient messenger.

When haply he shall hear that she is gone,

He will return; and hope I may that she,

Hearing so much, will speed her foot again,

Led hither by pure love.”

The Countess shows no sympathy for Bertram, her son, even though he explicitly does not want to marry Helen. To the Countess, Bertram is “unworthy,” and the idea of going to war is framed as a fun and exciting adventure, whereas Helen frames war as dangerous. This passage, then, shows how the Countess perceives Helen as acting out of love, while Bertram is effectively having a tantrum like a child.

“MARIANA. Beware of them, Diana. Their promises, enticements, oaths, tokens, and all these engines of lust are not the things they go under. Many a maid hath been seduced by them, and the misery is example that so terrible shows in the succession, but that they are limed with the twigs that threatens them. I hope I need not to advise you further, but I hope your own grace will keep you where you are, though there were no further danger known but the modesty which is so lost.”

Mariana’s passage recalls Helen’s earlier comments to Parolles regarding the ways in which virgins can protect themselves from men. Though Bertram has not shown any interest in Helen’s virginity, Mariana is clear in her advice to Diana that Bertram is only trying to assault Diana’s virginity. She describes Bertram’s advances as a trap of “limed twigs,” like those used to snare birds, noting how giving in to Bertram’s advances will likely leave Diana ashamed and alone.

“BERTRAM. Do you think I am so far deceived in him?

FIRST LORD. Believe it, my lord. In mine own direct knowledge, without any malice, but to speak of him as my kinsman, he’s a most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise-breaker, the owner of no one good quality worthy your Lordship’s entertainment.

SECOND LORD. It were fit you knew him, lest, reposing too far in his virtue, which he hath not, he might at some great and trusty business in a main danger fail you.

BERTRAM. I would I knew in what particular action to try him.”

This passage highlights the separation between honor and reputation. Though Parolles has a terrible reputation, as shown in the ways that both lords insult him to Bertram, honor is shown through action. Bertram, understanding this difference, wants to test Parolles in a “particular action,” to see if he acts honorably. Interestingly, Bertram only adheres to reputation regarding Helen, ignoring her honorable actions, which, in a way, leads Helen to act in ways that might be seen as dishonorable.

“WIDOW. Though my estate be fall’n, I was well born,

Nothing acquainted with these businesses,

And would not put my reputation now

In any staining act.

HELEN. Nor would I wish you.

First give me trust the Count he is my husband,

And what to your sworn counsel I have spoken

Is so from word to word; and then you cannot,

By the good aid that I of you shall borrow,

Err in bestowing it.

WIDOW. I should believe you,

For you have showed me that which well approves

You’re great in fortune.”

This exchange outlines how one can be nobility without being wealthy, as well as wealthy without being nobility. The Widow notes that her estate has “fall’n,” indicating that her family, though aristocratic, is poor, and Helen’s “proof” of worth is “fortune,” which could mean either nobility, wealth, or luck. Essentially, the Widow is agreeing to put her reputation as a noble at risk in exchange for the wealth that Helen can offer her. Money is more valuable to the Widow than status because she is an impoverished noble and her daughters cannot marry well without dowries, placing them in an impossible position.

“HELEN. You see it lawful, then. It is no more

But that your daughter, ere she seems as won,

Desires this ring, appoints him an encounter,

In fine, delivers me to fill the time,

Herself most chastely absent. After,

To marry her, I’ll add three thousand crowns

To what is passed already.

WIDOW. I have yielded.

Instruct my daughter how she shall persever

That time and place with this deceit so lawful

May prove coherent. Every night he comes

With musics of all sorts and songs composed

To her unworthiness. It nothing steads us

To chide him from our eaves, for her persists

As if his life lay on ‘t.

HELEN. Why then tonight

Let us assay our plot, which, if it speed,

Is wicked meaning in a lawful deed,

And lawful meaning in a lawful act,

Where both not sin, and yet a sinful fact.

But let’s about it.”

This is a particularly humorous passage that highlights how Helen’s plan is both unethical and lawful, noting the difference between the law and commonly understood morality. Modern audiences will likely feel that Helen’s plan to trick Bertram into having sex with her is immoral, but, because she is technically his wife, there was nothing illegal or sinful about the deceit at the time, leading to such oxymoronic language as “this deceit so lawful.” To historical audiences, this ambiguity probably lay more in her treatment of Bertram as a husband could treat his wife, i.e., as a person with no legal or moral right of sexual consent.

“PAROLLES. Ten o’clock. Within these three hours ‘twill be time enough to go home. What shall I say I have done? It must be a very plausive invention that carries it. They begin to smoke me, and disgraces have of late knocked too often at my door. I find my tongue is too foolhardy, but my heart hath the fear of Mars before it, and of his creatures, not daring the reports of my tongue.

LORD. [Aside] This is the first truth that e’er thine own tongue was guilty of.”

Parolles wonders how he can manage to obscure the fact that he did not accomplish the retrieval of the drum, which he promised he would while bragging about his prowess in war. He understands that his companions suspect him of being a coward, and his fear of Mars and Mars’s creatures is twofold, as he fears both actual combat and the disdain of his fellow soldiers if they discover that he is a coward. The lord’s aside emphasizes this dual meaning, as he is planning to ambush Parolles.

“BERTRAM. It is an honor ‘longing to our house,

Bequeathèd down from many ancestors,

Which were the greatest obloquy i’ th’ world

In me to lose.

DIANA. Mine honor’s such a ring.

My chastity’s the jewel of our house,

Bequeathèd down from many ancestors,

Which were the greatest obloquy i’ th’ world

In me to lose. Thus your own proper wisdom

Brings in the champion of Honor on my part

Against your vain assault.

BERTRAM. Here, take my ring.

My house, mine honor, yea, my life be thine,

And I’ll be bid by thee.”

Diana highlights, here, how Bertram’s perception of virginity, for women, is skewed by his lust as a man. For Bertram, virginity is not worth much except in his taking it, but he understands how his ring is representative of his family’s honor. He has no empathy for her situation as a woman; she is simply a conquest for him. Diana then reframes the discussion of virginity within that framework of honor, explaining how her virginity is like his ring in that both their family’s reputations hinge on it. Diana’s words are a warning that he ignores. He is keen for them to both act in a way which is dishonorable, certain that her reputation is collateral, not his own.

“BERTRAM. A heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee.

DIANA: For which live long to thank both heaven and me!

You may so in the end. [He exits]

My mother told me just how he would woo

As if she sat in ‘s heart. She says all men

Have the like oaths. He had sworn to marry me

When his wife’s dead. Therefore I’ll lie with him

When I am buried. Since Frenchmen are so braid,

Marry that will, I live and die a maid.

Only, in this disguise I think ‘t no sin

To cozen him that would unjustly win.”

Diana notes that the Widow predicted the conversation with Bertram almost verbatim, which affirms, for Diana, that all men are the same when trying to seduce women. This makes him ridiculous. Bertram’s pride in having wooed Diana is foolish, as he played precisely into the Widow and Helen’s hands. Diana asserts that she will never have sex, because this situation with Bertram has destroyed her faith in the honesty of men.

“FIRST SOLDIER. If you could find out a country where but women were that had received so much shame, you might begin an impudent nation. Fare you well, sir. I am for France too. We shall speak of you there. [He exits.]

PAROLLES. Yet I am thankful. If my heart were great,

‘Twould burst at this. Captain I’ll be no more,

But I will eat and drink, and sleep as soft

As captain shall. Simply the thing I am

Shall make me live. Who knows himself a braggart,

Let him fear this, for it will come to pass

That every braggart shall be found an ass.

Rust, sword; cool, blushes; and Parolles live

Safest in shame. Being fooled, by fool’ry thrive.

There’s place and means for every man alive.

I’ll after them.”

The solider, who acted as an interpreter in the farce, thinks he is insulting Parolles by telling him that he and the other soldiers will report Parolles’s betrayal in France. However, Parolles’s soliloquy asserts that Parolles does not care about his reputation so long as he can live well. By his own nature as a coward, Parolles is confident that he can avoid death and make for himself a sufficient living.

“HELEN. Yet, I pray you—

But with the word ‘The time will bring on the summer,’

When briers shall have leaves as well as thorns

And be as sweet as sharp. We must away.

Our wagon is prepared, and time revives us.

All’s well that ends well. Still the fine’s the crown.

Whate’er the course, the end is the renown.”

Helen states the name of the play, here, indicating that this is a crucial moment in the narrative. Helen is apologizing to Diana for essentially ruining her reputation, since Bertram is likely reporting that he slept with Diana. However, the “fine” that is the “crown” will be the conclusion of the play, in which, Helen promises, Bertram will be punished and exposed, while Diana will be restored.

“FOOL. O madam, yonder’s my lord your son with a patch of velvet on ‘s face. Whether there be a scar under ‘t or no, the velvet knows, but ‘tis a goodly patch of velvet. His left cheek is a cheek of two pile and a half, but his right cheek is worn bare.

LAFEW. A scar nobly got, or a noble scar, is a good liv’ry of honor. So belike is that.

FOOL. But it is your carbonadoed face.

LAFEW. Let us go see your son, I pray you. I long to talk with the young noble soldier.

FOOL. Faith, there’s a dozen of ‘em, with delicate fine hats, and most courteous feathers which bow the head and nod at every man.”

The Fool’s implication in the first portion of this passage is that Bertram may either have a wound from battle or a wound from a venereal disease, meaning that Bertram may have slept with multiple women in Florence. Turning this possibility on Lafew is humorous because it implies that Lafew may not be the soldier he claims, but he may be promiscuous. The final lines reiterate the Fool’s assertion that fine noblemen are often ill-suited to real battle.

“KING. You remember

The daughter of this lord?

BERTRAM. Admiringly, my liege. At first

I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart

Durst make too bold a herald of my tongue;

Where the impression of mine eye infixing,

Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me,

Which warped the line of every other favor,

Scorned a fair color or expressed it stol’n.

Extended or contracted all proportions

To a most hideous object. Thence it came

That she whom all men praised and whom myself,

Since I have lost, have loved, was in mine eye

The dust that did offend it.”

Bertram uses Lafew’s daughter as an excuse to overwrite his mistreatment of Helen. His claim, here, much like his oaths to Diana, is a lie intended to assert his honor while achieving a specific end. He wants to diminish his relationship and maintain his betrothal with Lafew’s daughter and his explanation, he thinks, achieves both. Bertram knows that the King and Countess each resent him for mistreating Helen, so he has accepted marriage with Lafew’s daughter. Lafew’s daughter is a more “suitable” marriage prospect than Helen (born a commoner) or Diana (a poor noblewoman), and he is unwilling to lose the match.

“DIANA. Because he’s guilty and he is not guilty.

He knows I am no maid, and he’ll swear to ‘t.

I’ll swear I am a maid, and he knows not.

Great king, I am no strumpet. By my life,

I am either maid or else this old man’s wife.

KING. She does abuse our ears. To prison with her.

DIANA. Good mother, fetch my bail. [Widow exits.] Stay,

royal sir.

The jeweler that owes the ring is sent for,

And he shall surety me. But for this lord

Who hath abused me as he knows himself,

Though yet he never harmed me, here I quit him.

He knows himself my bed he hath defiled,

And at that time he got his wife with child.

Dead though she be, she feels her young one kick.

So there’ my riddle: one that’s dead is quick,

And now behold the meaning.

Enter Helen and Widow.”

Diana’s riddles are intended to confuse the King, preparing the scene for Helen’s entry. Readers will understand Diana’s meaning as she comments on how Bertram “abused” her without harming her, but, to the King, Diana is being deliberately vague, which leads him to suggest her imprisonment. However, it is because Diana tells the truth that she ultimately earns her reward from the King.