6. All's Well That Ends Well, by William Shakespeare, pp. 125-144

Act V

[Scene I. -- Marseilles.]

Helena, Diana, and the widow have arrived in Marseilles, only to be informed by the gentleman they encounter, whom Helena recognizes from the Parisian court, that the king has already left and is on his way to Rossillion. When the widow expresses disappointment, the ever-patient Helena assures her once again that "All's well that ends well yet." When she learns that the gentleman is also on his way to Rossillion, she gives him the letter they plan to deliver to the king and says that they will follow him as swiftly as they can.

[Scene II. -- Rossillion. The Count's palace.] 

A bedraggled Parolles asks Lavatch (who is named here for the first time) to give Lafew a letter. When Parolles says he smells of Fortune's displeasure, Lavatch takes the metaphor literally and begins joking about the way Parolles smells. Lafew enters, and Parolles directs his appeal to him when Lavatch leaves. Parolles credits Lafew with being the first person to see him as he really is, but their conversation is interrupted by the trumpets announcing the king's arrival. Lafew tells Parolles that he has already heard about his unmasking and downfall: "though you are a fool and a knave you shall eat." 


[Scene III. -- The same.] 


The king enters, accompanied by the countess, Lafew, the Dumaine brothers, and the retinue. The king tells the countess of his sorrow for Helena's death and blames Bertram's "folly." The countess pleads for him to recognize it as "Natural rebellion done i' the blade of youth," and the king assures her that he has "forgiven and forgotten all." Lafew opines that Bertram did the most harm to himself:

                                      He lost a wife 

Whose beauty did astonish the survey 

Of richest eyes; whose words all ears took captive; 

Whose dear perfection hearts that scorn'd to serve 

Humbly called mistress. 

The king sends for Bertram, and asks Lafew if Bertram has accepted the offer to marry Lafew's daughter. Lafew says that Bertram will do whatever the king wishes. The king says, "Then shall we have a match," and notes that he has received letters, presumably from the duke of Florence, about Bertram's valor. 


Bertram enters and begs the king's pardon, which the king grants, saying they should look forward and not backward. He asks if Bertram knows Lafew's daughter, whose name is Maudlin. (Perhaps a variant spelling of Magdalen -- the Oxford college of that name is pronounced "Maudlin.") Bertram says that he does, and expresses his admiration of her, admitting that he has previously been too blind to see the virtues of women "whom all men prais'd" -- i.e., Helena. The king urges him to forget about Helena and to "Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin." 


Bertram gives Lafew a ring to deliver to Maudlin, but Lafew recognizes it as one he had seen Helena wearing. Bertram denies that it was Helena's, but when the king sees it he recognizes it as one he had given her, telling Helena that if she ever needed his help she should send it to him. Bertram persists in his denial: "The ring was never hers." But the countess also recognizes it: "Son, on my life, / I have seen her wear it, and she reckon'd it / At her life's rate." 


Bertram then claims that it had been thrown to him from a window in Florence by a noblewoman who thought that they would marry, but when he explained that he couldn't wed her she refused to take back the ring. The king doesn't believe this lie: Helena "call'd the saints to surety / That she would never put it from her finger / Unless she gave it to yourself in bed, / Where you have never come" or if she needed the king's help in some "great disaster." 


Bertram insists, "She never saw it," and even when the king orders him arrested says

                                          If you shall prove 

This ring was ever hers, you shall as easy 

Prove that I husbanded her bed in Florence, 

Where yet she never was.

He is led away by guards. 


The gentleman whom Helena met in Marseilles now enters, and delivers the letter she asked him to give the king. It is from Diana, and tells the king that Bertram left Florence without marrying her, as he promised. When Lafew hears this, he vows to "buy me a son-in-law in a fair, ... I'll none of him." The king agrees that the discovery is well-timed as far as the marriage between Bertram and Lafew's daughter is concerned. He orders that Bertram be brought back and Diana allowed to enter. 


Accompanied by the widow, Diana enters, and Bertram is forced to admit that he knows them. But when she claims the right to call him her husband he calls her "a fond and desp'rate creature / Whom sometime I have laugh'd with" and "a common gamester to the camp." Whereupon Diana produces his ring. The countess observes her son's blushes and attests to the ring's significance: "This is his wife; / That ring's a thousand proofs." Diana also asserts that she can produce a witness, "but loath am to produce / So bad an instrument; his name's Parolles." 


Bertram scoffs at the value of any testimony of a man like Parolles, "Whose nature sickens but to speak a truth." And he admits that he "boarded her i' th' wanton way of youth" and that she persuaded him to give her the ring: 

                              she got the ring, 

And I had that which any inferior might 

At market-price have bought. 

Diana tells Bertram that she'll return his ring if he returns hers. "I have it not," Bertram says. And when the king asks about hers, she says it was like the one the king has on his finger: Helena's ring. "This ring was his of late," the king says, and Diana replies, "And this was it I gave him, being abed." Bertram is forced to confess that the story about the ring's being tossed to him from a window is a lie. 


Parolles enters, and in his usual wordy way testifies that he acted as a go-between for Bertram and Diana. The king grows impatient with Parolles' testimony, but when he questions Diana about the ring she says is hers, her answers are so evasive that he says, "Unless thou tell'st me where thou hadst this ring / Thou diest within the hour." Diana stands her ground, and when the king orders her to prison, she sends her mother to fetch Helena. She says of Bertram, 

He knows himself my bed he hath defil'd; 
And at that time he got his wife with child. 
Dead though she be she feels her young one kick. 
So there's my riddle: one that's dead is quick, 
And now behold the meaning. 

The widow enters with Helena, and everyone is duly thunderstruck. 

When Helena proclaims, "'Tis but the shadow of a wife you see; / The name and not the thing," Bertram insists, "Both, both. O pardon!" She tells him, "when I was like this maid I found you wondrous kind," perhaps referring to a time anterior to the action of the play, because we have never seen Bertram being any kind of kind. She points out his ring, and shows him the letter in which he promises to call her his wife when she can get the ring and carry his child. "This is done; / Will you be mine now you are doubly won?" And in response Bertram vows to "love her dearly, ever, ever dearly." 


Lafew is so overcome with emotion that he asks Parolles to lend him a handkerchief. The king promises to pay Diana's dowry when she chooses a husband, and utters the tag line of the play: 

All yet seems well, and if it end so meet, 
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet. 

We are not supposed to think past the end of the play, of course. Bertram has been an insufferable git through the whole thing, and his "redemption" consists of a few lines after having lied for the better part of even the last act. Realistically, we can't expect much of a marriage to come out of this mess of contrivances. But that's the point: All's Well That Ends Well is in no way realistic. It's a concoction designed to point a moral about patience and virtue overcoming selfishness and deception. A fairy tale. Only because we expect more sophistication from Shakespeare do we have any right to be dissatisfied with what he has given us. 

_____

An excerpt from the final scene of the play in the 1981 BBC TV production. Celia Johnson as the countess, Ian Charleson as Bertram, Michael Hordern as Lafew, Angela Down as Helena, Peter Jeffrey as Parolles, Donald Sinden as the king, Rosemary Leach as the widow, Pippa Guard as Diana, and Valentine Dyall as the gentleman met in Marseilles: 

5. All's Well That Ends Well, by William Shakespeare, pp. 96-124

Act IV

[Scene I. -- Outside the Florentine camp.]

One of the French lords plots the prank on Parolles with some soldiers. The plan is for one of the soldiers to act as "interpreter" while the others speak gibberish, convincing Parolles that he has been captured by the enemy. They hide as Parolles enters, trying to come up with an excuse for his failure not to return with the recaptured drum. He decides that he has to inflict some wounds on himself, and reminds himself to hold his tongue in the future and not "prattle me into these perils." 

Listening to him, the French lord marvels that Parolles knows himself to be a fool and yet continues to be one: "Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that he is?" They launch the plot with the sound of a drum and a gabble of voices, then seize Parolles and blindfold him. Parolles takes the gibberish to be Russian, and asks for a translator so he can save himself by divulging the Florentines' secrets. 

The soldier who plays the interpreter steps forth and tells Parolles that his life will be spared if he gives them the information. The French lord dispatches a soldier to fetch his brother (the "Second Lord") and Bertram so they can hear what Parolles has to say. 

[Scene II. -- Florence. The Widow's house.]

Meanwhile, Bertram is wooing Diana, telling her that he was "compell'd" to marry Helena, "but I love thee." Diana expresses skepticism about his "oaths" that he loves her, and requests his ring as a token of his sincerity. Bertram protests 

Ber. It is an honour 'longing to our house, 

Bequeathed down from many ancestors,

Which were the greatest obloquy i' th' world 

In me to lose. 

So is her virtue, Diana retorts: 

Dia.               Mine honour's such a ring; 
My chastity's the jewel of our house, 
Bequeathed down from many ancestors, 
Which were the greatest obloquy i' th' world 
In me to lose.

Hoist on his own petard, Bertram gives her the ring. She then tells him to knock on the window of her room at midnight, and after he has "conquer'd my yet maiden bed" to stay there an hour and not speak to her. She'll tell him why when she returns the ring to him. She'll also put another ring on his finger while he's there. He leaves, and she remarks on how her mother had warned her that men are like that. She vows to remain a virgin, and assures herself that it's no sin to cheat a cheater: "I think't no sin / To cozen him that would unjustly win." 

[Scene III. -- The Florentine camp.] 

The second French lord tells his brother that he has given Bertram the letter from his mother, and that "there is something in't that stings his nature, for on the reading it he chang'd almost into another man." (The change doesn't seem to have been profound: Bertram remains his petulant self until almost the very end.) The two lords note that Bertram deserves to be blamed for his treatment of Helena and that "he hath incurred the everlasting displeasure of the king." And the second lord tells his brother that Bertram has now seduced "a young gentlewoman here in Florence" and given her his ring. 

Bertram will not be there to witness the trick played on Parolles until after midnight, the second lord tells his brother. (Would it have been too much trouble for Shakespeare to give these guys some names, especially since they deliver so much of the exposition? We find out that their family name is Dumaine, but that's not much help. Of course, their names don't matter on stage, where we can more easily identify them.) 

The second lord asks what Bertram is going to do now that peace seems to be achieved, and the first lord observes that his brother must not be very close to Bertram if he doesn't know. The second lord says that he's glad he isn't, because he might be drawn into Bertram's misdeeds. The first lord tells him, incorrectly, that Helena left Rossillion two months ago on her pilgrimage to Compostela and that she died there, a fact "confirm'd by the rector of the place." (Helena has apparently arranged to have this deception spread about, which also helps conceal the fact that she has gone to Florence, so far off the route between Rossillion and Compostela.) Bertram, he says, knows of her death -- presumably from the letter that has just been delivered to him, after he met with Diana to arrange their assignation. The second lord delivers yet another bitter shot at Bertram: "I am heartily sorry that he'll be glad of this.... The great dignity that his valour hath here acquir'd for him shall at home be encount'red with a shame as ample."

A messenger enters to tell them that Bertram is returning to France with letters of commendation from the duke of Florence to the king. Bertram himself enters and recounts "an abstract of success": meeting with the duke, burying and mourning for (or at least learning of the death of) Helena, writing his mother that he's returning, and "effect[ing] many nicer needs" -- i.e., sleeping with (he thinks) Diana. Though he's worried about hearing more from her -- a claim for his hand in marriage -- later. 

The second lord orders Parolles, who has been sitting in the stocks all night, brought in. Parolles, still blindfolded, enters with the soldier acting as his interpreter. The first lord says, "Portotararossa," and the interpreter tells Parolles that means he is to be tortured. Parolles assures him he'll talk without even being pinched, and the interpreter reads questions out of a list prepared for Parolles. The first is about the strength of the duke's cavalry, which Parolles allows to be "Five or six thousand; but very weak and unserviceable: the troops are all scattered and the commanders very poor rogues." He answers similarly to a question about the infantry. 

The first lord then instructs the "interpreter" to have Parolles talk about himself, Captain Dumaine, and is badmouthed so severely that Bertram has to restrain him: "Nay, by your leave, hold your hands." Dumaine cautions Bertram, who is evidently amused by what Parolles says, that his turn is coming: "Nay, look not so upon me; we shall hear of your lordship anon." Parolles claims that he has a letter from the duke denouncing Dumaine as a "poor officer" who should be dismissed, but when the interpreter offers to search his pocket for the letter he backs off. The interpreter, however, pulls another paper from Parolles' pocket that says, "Dian, the count's a fool, and full of gold." Parolles explains that this is his own letter to Diana "to take heed of the allurement of one Count Rossillion, a foolish idle boy, but for all that very ruttish." 

Bertram's turn to be slandered by Parolles has arrived. Parolles calls him "a dangerous and lascivious boy," and Bertram swears, "Damnable both-sides rogue!" The soldier pretending to be the interpreter then reads the verse letter from Parolles to Diana which reveals that not only is he badmouthing Bertram but also hopes to put his own moves on her. Bertram says that he hates cats "and now he's a cat to me." 

The interpreter then tells Parolles that the general is inclined to put him to death, which spurs Parolles to further denunciations, first of Captain Dumaine, and then, when prompted by the interpreter, of his brother. The second lord is startled to be brought into this: "Why does he ask him of me?" This probably elicits a laugh from the first lord, who must have put the interpreter up to the question. The interpreter now asks, "If your life be saved will you undertake to betray the Florentine?" Parolles vows, "Ay, and the captain of his horse, Count Rossillion." When the interpreter withdraws so he can "whisper with the general" and find out whether he still wants Parolles put to death, Parolles bemoans the fact that he went after the drum "to seem to deserve well, and to beguile the supposition of that lascivious young boy, the count." Since this speech is addressed to himself and not to the interpreter, it presumably reveals Parolles' true opinion of Bertram. 


The interpreter returns with the verdict: "There is no remedy, sir, but you must die." He calls for the executioner: "Come, headsman, off with his head." Parolles cries out, "O Lord, sir, let me live, or let me see my death!" -- i.e., at least take the blindfold off. The soldier-interpreter takes off the blindfold and reveals Bertram and the Dumaines, who greet him: 

Ber. Good morrow, noble captain. 


Second Lord. God bless you, Captain Parolles. 


First Lord. God save you, noble captain. 


Second Lord. Captain, what greeting will you to my Lord Lafew? I am for France. 


First Lord. Good captain, will you give me a copy of the sonnet you writ to Diana in behalf of the Count Rossillion. 

They exit, leaving Parolles and the soldier who played the intepreter, who bids him farewell: "I am for France too; we shall speak of you there." Parolles resigns himself to the mockery: "If my heart were great / 'Twould burst at this." But his heart is anything but great, so he gives up pretending to be a soldier and vows that, since he has been fooled, he will thrive on being a fool and follow them back to France. 


[Scene IV. -- Florence. The Widow's house.] 


Helena now proposes to Diana and the widow that they go to the court of the king of France who, she has been told, is now at Marseilles. She also tells them that she is thought to be dead. They agree to accompany her to play out the end of her stratagem, and she assures them, "All's well that ends well; still the fine's [i.e., "end's," from French fin] the crown. / Whate'er the course, the end is the renown." 


[Scene V. -- Rossillion. The Count's palace.] 


Lafew tells the countess that Bertram's misbehavior is all the result of his association with Parolles. The countess grieves for Helena, and even Lavatch speaks in her praise, though his expression of praise swiftly devolves into a game of wits with Lafew. After the clown exits, Lafew commends his wit to the countess, who says that he was a favorite of her late husband's, and that it is partly to honor his memory that she keeps Lavatch around, though his "sauciness" is unrestrained. "I like him well," Lafew replies; "'tis not amiss."


Lafew then tells the countess that he has spoken with the king about Bertram's marrying Lafew's daughter, and arrangement that would "stop up the displeasure he hath conceived against your son." The countess expresses her approval of the match. Lafew tells her that the king is on his way from Marseilles and will arrive tomorrow. She tells Lafew that Bertram is arriving tonight, and invites Lafew to stay. Lavatch enters to tell them that Bertram and his retinue have just arrived. 

_____

Act 4, scene 2, from the 1981 BBC TV production, with Ian Charleson as Bertram and Pippa Guard as Diana: 

4. All's Well That Ends Well, by William Shakespeare, pp. 73-95

Act III

[Scene I. -- Florence. The Duke's palace.]


The duke of Florence and two French lords discuss the course of the war, which the duke thinks is going well. One of the lords observes that justice seems to be on the side of the Florentines, which provokes the duke to wonder why the king of France is so reluctant to commit all of his troops to the cause. The other lord says that speculating on policy matters is above his pay grade. The first lord assures him that young Frenchmen who are getting tired of peace will soon come to his aid. 


[Scene II. -- Rossillion. The Count's palace.] 


Lavatch brings the countess a letter from Bertram informing his mother that he has married Helena but not consummated the union. Moreover, he has no intention of doing so, and has "run away." The countess calls him a "rash and unbridled boy," and is upset that Bertram should have angered the king by his actions. 


Helena enters with the two French lords who are on their way back to Paris after the meeting with the duke of Florence. The lords tell the countess that they met Bertram on his way to join the duke's armies. Helena shows the countess the letter Bertram has sent her: He tells Helena that he will never call himself her husband unless she can get the ring from his finger -- "which never shall come off" -- and present him with a child that he has fathered and she has given birth to. He's pretty sure that neither will ever happen. 


The countess disowns him: "He was my son, / But I do wash his name out of my blood / And thou art all my child," she tells Helena. This would seem to be okay with Bertram according to the next sentence that Helena reads from the letter: "Till I have no wife I have nothing in France." The countess asks who was with Bertram, and is told that he was accompanied by a servant and Parolles, whom she calls "A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness." She leaves with the lords to give them a letter to deliver to Bertram. 


Helena regrets that she is the cause of Bertram's departure from France, and hopes that she won't also be the cause of his death in battle. She decides that the only way to bring him home safely is for her to leave France: "My being here it is that holds thee hence." So she plans to "steal away" once it gets dark. 


[Scene III. -- Florence.]


The duke welcomes Bertram as "general of our horse" and expresses his faith in Bertram's "promising fortune." Bertram expresses modesty but asserts that he'll do his best. He calls on Mars to "Make me but like my thoughts and I shall prove / A lover of thy drum, hater of love." (The reference to Mars's drum is a bit of foreshadowing.) 


[Scene IV. -- Rossillion. The Count's palace.]


Helena has given the countess's steward a letter before she left. She has him re-read the letter, which says that Helena has gone on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James at Compostela, and urges the countess to write to Bertram that he can come home now that she has gone: "He is too good and fair for death and me; / Whom I myself embrace to set him free." The countess scolds the steward for letting Helena go, and tells him to write to Bertram about how upset she is about what Helena has done. Perhaps, she thinks, he'll come home and his return will bring Helena back too. 


[Scene V. -- Outside Florence.]  


A Florentine widow, her daughter Diana, and their friend Mariana are waiting for the parade of soldiers returning from battle. They talk about how valiant Bertram has been in the battle, but Mariana warns Diana not to let herself be seduced by him: Parolles has been trying to set up a meeting between Diana and Bertram. 


The widow provides lodgings for pilgrims to Compostela, and when she sees Helena approaching she greets her. (The fact that Florence is a long way in the wrong direction for a pilgrimage from Roussillon to Compostela didn't bother Shakespeare and shouldn't bother us.) The widow maintains lodgings for the pilgrims, and offers to show Helena to them once the troops have passed. On learning that Helena is French, she tells her that the troops were led by a countryman of hers. Diana identifies him as the Count Rossillion, and tells her the rumor is that he left France because "the king had married him / Against his liking." Helena confirms the rumor: "I know his lady." Diana says that "a gentleman that serves the count / Reports but coarsely of her." She identifies the gentleman as Parolles. Helena admits that the lady in question is "too mean" for "the great count," but that she possesses "a reserved honesty" -- i.e., she is chaste. Diana expresses her sympathy for "the wife / Of a detesting lord," and the widow hints that Diana has it in her power to do some mischief to him "if she pleas'd." Helena realizes that Diana has been the object of Bertram's attentions, but the widow assures her that "she is arm'd for him and keeps her guard / In honestest defence." 


The troops enter, and the widow points out various notable figures. Helena asks 

                          Which is the Frenchman? 

Dia.                                                                      He -- 

That with the plume; 'tis a most gallant fellow. 

I would that he lov'd his wife; if he were honester 

He were much goodlier. Is't not a handsome gentleman? 

Hel. I like him well. 

Dia. 'Tis pity he is not honest.

She then points out Parolles -- "That jackanapes with the scarfs" -- who seems to be upset about something. Apparently Parolles has lost the regimental drum, but then he spots Diana, the widow, and Mariana in the crowd, and they utter their contempt for him. 


The widow then offers to take Helena to her lodgings, and Helena invites Mariana and Diana to dine with her. 


[Scene VI. -- The Florentine camp.] 


Bertram enters with the French lords, who are trying to persuade him that Parolles is "a most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar." They propose a trick: They will capture Parolles, making him think that they are the enemy, and show Bertram that to save his life Parolles is willing to "betray you and deliver all the intelligence in his power against you." 


Parolles enters, still vexed at the loss of the regimental drum, which he proposes to recover. Bertram gives him leave to go recapture the drum, and Parolles leaves on the line "I love not many words," to which the first lord says, out of his earshot, "No more than a fish loves water." The lords assure Bertram that Parolles will return with "two or three probable lies" about his failure to retake the drum. 


The first lord leaves to set the trap for Parolles, and Bertram takes the second lord to show him Diana. He admits that she is virtuous -- "I spoke with her but once / And found her wondrous cold" and that she returned the "Tokens and letters" that he had Parolles deliver to her -- but he holds out hope. 


[Scene VII. -- Florence. The Widow's house.]


Helena has revealed her identity to the widow, and is enlisting her in a plan to entrap Bertram: Diana will encourage Bertram's attentions and ask him for the ring "That downward hath succeeded in his house / From son to son some four or five descents / Since the first father wore it." She will pretend to submit to his lust, but Helena will secretly take her place. Helena sweetens the deal with gold, and the widow agrees, and tells Helena to instruct Diana how to proceed with "this deceit so lawful." Helena agrees that the deception is lawful -- she is, after all, Bertram's legal wife, even if he thinks he's going to be sleeping with someone else -- but she also recognizes that the plot 

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. 

In other words, Bertram's adulterous intentions are "wicked" and "sinful," but the act itself, a husband having sexual relations with his wife, is wholly legal. 

3. All's Well That Ends Well, by William Shakespeare, pp. 34-72

Act II

[Scene I. -- Paris. The King's palace.]

The king is saying farewell to two groups of young noblemen leaving for the war: one group to fight for Florence, the other for Siena. One of them tells the king that they hope to find him in good health when they return, but the king assures him that there's no chance that he'll be cured. He also warns them to watch out for Italian girls.


As the king withdraws to talk to the other group, one of the departing lords tells Bertram of his regrets that Bertram won't be joining them. Bertram says he has been commanded to stay in Paris because he is too young; he is bitter about it, and bursts out, "By heaven, I'll steal away!" Parolles urges him to do so, and tells the lords to look out for "one Captain Spurio," who bears a scar on his left cheek from a wound Parolles claims to have given him.

When the lords depart, Parolles asks Bertram what he will do, and Bertram admits that he doesn't plan to "steal away" -- he's going to stay in Paris. They leave, and Lafew enters to talk to the king. He has met with Helena and tells him that she brings a promising medicine for his ailment. The king is, of course, dubious, but Lafew persuades him to see her and ushers her in. Helena explains that the medicine was devised by her father, Gerard de Narbon. The king is acquainted with her father, but he is still reluctant to try anything new after the learned physicians have given up on him. She insists that it "can do no hurt to try," and when he still holds out, she says she will let herself be tortured to death if the cure fails. And she asks that if she succeeds, the king will arrange for her to marry the man of her choosing, assuring him that she won't be so arrogant enough "To choose from forth the royal blood of France." He agrees to the bargain.

[Scene II. -- Rossillion. The Count's palace.] 

The countess and Lavatch have a little dialogue in which the clown shows his acquaintance with the affectations of the court, including the all-purpose interjection "O Lord, sir!" Then the countess sends Lavatch off to Paris with a message for Helena.

[Scene III. -- Paris. The King's palace.]

Lafew tells Bertram of the remarkable cure that Helena has just effected, though his account is continually interrupted by the blatherings of Parolles. The king then enters with Helena, exhibiting his restored vitality. He then summons several "noble bachelors" so she may choose her husband. Helena scrutinizes four of them and rejects them. (Lafew, apparently unable to hear what they're saying, mistakenly believes that the men are refusing her.) Finally she approaches Bertram and proclaims him her choice. But Bertram indignantly refuses: "A poor physician's daughter my wife!" The king insists that if the stumbling block is her lower birth, he has the power to grant her any title he chooses. But Bertram stubbornly continues to refuse, only making the king angrier. Helena interrupts to say that restoring his health is enough reward for her; the king doesn't need to try to force Bertram into marrying her. But the king is insulted by Bertram's defiance and threatens to banish him from the court. Bertram then acquiesces to his wishes.

"Take her by the hand / And tell her she is thine," the king orders. "I take her by the hand," Bertram replies, though he doesn't follow through on the rest of the king's command. This seems enough, however, to satisfy the king. He tells them the wedding will take place that night. The wedding feast will have to wait for the arrival of "absent friends."

Everyone exits except Parolles and Lafew, who quarrel when Parolles takes offense to Lafew's reference to Bertram as Parolles' "master." Annoyed at Parolles' foolishness, Lafew takes his leave. Parolles blusters a bit about the "scurvy, old, filthy, scurvy lord" and vows to beat the old man if they meet again. But just as he makes this vow, Lafew returns with the news that the wedding has taken place and that Parolles now has "a new mistress," which irritates Parolles but doesn't provoke him to violence. Lafew continues to mock Parolles: "You were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel out of a pomegranate. You are a vagabond and no true traveller." And once again he takes his leave of the fuming Parolles.

Bertram enters and tells Parolles that he has no intention of sleeping with his new wife: "I'll to the Tuscan wars and never bed her." He'll send Helena back to Rossillion to stay with his mother. "Tomorrow / I'll to the wars, she to her single sorrow." He and Parolles exit.

Helena enters with Lavatch, who has brought letters from the countess to her and to Bertram. Parolles enters and takes more abuse from the clown before telling Helena that Bertram has been called away on business tonight, but he assures her that the delay will only make the consummation of their marriage sweeter -- a sentiment probably of his own devising, since it's unlikely Bertram would have come up with something like that. They exit, and Bertram enters with Lafew, who is trying to tell Bertram what sort of fool Parolles is. Bertram insists, "he is very great in knowledge, and accordingly valiant." Lafew gives up, realizing that Bertram is beyond persuading of the contrary.

Parolles returns to take Bertram aside and tell him that Helena has been informed that he has been called away. Bertram says that everything is ready for their departure. He then asks Parolles if there are some hard feelings between him and Lafew. Parolles replies, "I know not how I have deserved to run into my lord's displeasure," to which Lafew says that Parolles ran "into't, boots and spurs and all, like him that leap'd into the custard" -- a reference to a jester's performance at the Lord Mayor's Feasts in London, the footnote explains. He leaves, advising Bertram once again not to take Parolles seriously: "there can be no kernel in this light nut; the soul of this man is in his clothes." Parolles calls Lafew "An idle lord," but Bertram dissents. "I do know him well; and common speech / Gives him a worthy pass." This is one of the few glimmers of intelligence that we have seen from Bertram so far.

Helena enters to say that the king wishes to speak with Bertram privately. Bertram tells her that she should return to Rossillion, and gives her a letter to give his mother. She asks his pardon, and he impatiently brushes her off. "Strangers and foes do sunder and not kiss," she points out, but he doesn't respond to the hint, so she bids him farewell. After she has left, he says contemptuously, "Go thou toward home, where I will never come / Whilst I can shake my sword or hear the drum," and departs with a flourish of bravado from Parolles.

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There are, not unexpectedly, very few videos of productions of the play available online. YouTube has some excerpts from amateur productions, as well as backstage interviews with performers and crew of the 2008 Stratford Festival production. The only professionally performed scenes I've been able to find are from the 1981 BBC-TV production, posted on YouTube by an admirer of the late actor Ian Charleson, who played Bertram. The cast also includes Angela Down as Helena, Michael Hordern as Lafew, Peter Jeffrey as Parolles, Donald Sinden as the King of France, and Paul Brooke as Lavatch. The following are Scenes III, IV, and V from Act II:

 

2. All's Well That Ends Well, by William Shakespeare, pp. 1-33

Act I

Scene I. -- [Rossillion. The Count's Palace.]

Bertram, the young count of Rossillion, bids his mother goodbye as he leaves for the court of the king of France. Because of his father's death, and because he is still a minor, he is a ward of the king. Lafew, a French lord who is to accompany Bertram to Paris, assures the countess that the king will treat Bertram as if he were his own son.

The countess asks Lafew about the king's health, and is told that the physicians have abandoned their attempts to find a cure for the king's illness, an abscess. The countess observes that her own ward, Helena, has lost her father, a noted physician named Gerard de Narbon, who might well have been able to find a cure for the king. Helena begins to cry, and the countess consoles her. Bertram interrupts to take his leave, and his mother gives him some parting words of advice, then leaves. Bertram tells Helena to look after his mother and departs with Lafew.

Left alone, Helena reveals that her tears are as much for her distress at Bertram's leaving as for her father, though she is conscious that her lower status prevents her from marrying Bertram. Parolles, who is to accompany Bertram to Paris, now enters. Helena knows Parolles is a fool and a coward, but talking with him lightens her mood. He brings up the topic of virginity, and she asks his advice as a soldier on defending hers. He argues that without the loss of virginity, no more virgins would be born, so she might as well surrender. She rejects his counsel, but turns the topic to Bertram, whom she imagines as flirting with the women at court in terms drawn from love poetry. She almost reveals her love for Bertram to Parolles, but catches herself in the nick of time.

A page comes to tell Parolles that Bertram is waiting for him. She jokes about Parolles' martial bravado, and he urges her to get a good husband and departs. She remains, ponders the difficulty of being in love with someone not her social equal, hints at her plan to follow Bertram to Paris and use one of her father's remedies to treat the king's illness, and exits.

_____

This scene is a good reminder that Shakespeare wrote for the stage and not for the page. The reader does have an advantage in having a few stage directions (usually supplied by an editor) and character identifications that the viewer of the play lacks, for example: "Enter  young BERTRAM, Count of Rossillion, his mother [the COUNTESS], and HELENA, LORD LAFEW, all in black." The viewer would have to listen attentively to pick up the names of Bertram and Helena, but Lafew is not named in the dialogue. The suspicion that the characters are in mourning, since they are dressed in black, is a clue supplied in both the interpolated stage direction and the actual costuming, and confirmed in the dialogue.

But what sort of characters are these? That's left up to the actor and the director to determine from the dialogue, and sometimes this is where the reader is let down. We will learn over the course of the play that Bertram is callow and petulant, but there's nothing in this scene to suggest that. Here's where the viewer gets an advantage over the reader. Actor and director will suggest this in staging, for example, line 55:

Ber. Madam, I desire your holy wishes. 

Bertram interrupts the Countess's and Lafew's attempts to console the tearful Helena. On the stage, he may do this rudely and impatiently, though there's nothing in the text itself to indicate that. While Helena is weeping, Bertram may have been tapping his foot impatiently. As for his attitude toward Helena, who loves him, that's left entirely up to the actors to convey. For example, lines 70-76:

Count. Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram. [Exit.]

Ber. The best wishes that can be forg'd in your thoughts be servants to you!
[To Helena] Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.

Laf. Farewell, pretty lady; you must hold the credit of your father. [Exeunt Bertram and Lafew.]

G.K. Hunter, the editor, observes that earlier editors took the entirety of Bertram's lines here to be addressed to Helena, but that he follows the lead of another editor in dividing the two lines, having Bertram speak the first to the departing countess, and the second to Helena. The line addressed to Helena would be delivered with the cool formality of a superior in rank -- notice, too, that Bertram, unlike Lafew, doesn't say farewell to Helena, but turns and departs, whereas Lafew even dresses his farewell with a complimentary "pretty lady." Helena's subsequent speech does indicate to the reader where things stand between her and Bertram, but most of these relationships that would be clear to the viewer are lost on the first-time reader.

Similarly, how are we to read Parolles' speeches? Helena tells us he is "a notorious liar, ... a great way fool, solely a coward," but the degree and nature of these characteristics is largely up to the actor -- and perhaps the costumer, who has the opportunity to make Parolles foppish or macho or ridiculous in some other way. Again, there are many ways to interpret lines 104-107. I imagine them something like this:

Par. (Swaggeringly) Save you, fair queen!

Hel. (Amused) And you, (pauses to come up with an appropriate response) monarch!

Par. (He is flattered, but affects humility, shaking his head and drawing out the demurral) No.

Hel. (Off-handedly, with a smile and a shrug) And no.

But there are many other ways those lines can be read. The point here is that one reason for the comparative inertness and obscurity of All's Well on the page is that, unlike the Shakespeare plays we are more familiar with, its unfamiliarity presents a problem for the reader trying to stage it in his or her head. 

_____

Scene II. -- Paris. The King's palace.

The king of France enters to report to his attendant lords that Florence and Siena (the "Senoys") are still at war, and that the Austrian monarch has written to tell him that Florence is going to ask him for aid and that he should deny it. He is inclined to agree as far as any official French alliance is concerned, but he won't stand in the way of any Frenchmen who want to join up on either side.

Bertram arrives, accompanied by Lafew and Parolles. The king observes how much Bertram looks like his father, and adds, "Thy father's moral parts / Mayest thou inherit too!" -- in other words, he can't tell whether the young count has achieved that kind of maturity yet. Speaking of Bertram's father, enumerating his many virtues, makes the king aware of his age and illness and the fact that he is standing in the way of ambitious younger men who seek action and advancement. He asks Bertram how long it has been since the death of Helena's father, "the physician at your father's," and Bertram says it has been six months. The king regrets his death because he thought Helena's father might have a cure for him. He takes Bertram's arm and they exit.

Scene III. -- Rossillion. The Count's palace. 

The countess enters with her steward, followed by the clown (i.e., Lavatch). The steward has something he wants to tell her about Helena, but is perhaps hesitant to talk about it in front of Lavatch, whom the countess now tries to get rid of. Lavatch persists, however, saying that he wants her permission to marry a woman named Isbel. The countess asks why he wants to get married -- she is obviously intrigued to hear what he has to say on the subject -- so he tells her that he wants to have children because he has heard that children are blessings. He also wants to sanctify his lusts: "I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh and blood are, and indeed I do marry that I may repent." The countess replies that he will repent his marriage rather than his wickedness. He also says he has no friends, and that his wife will attract some. When the countess suggests, "Such friends are thine enemies, knave," he replies that he doesn't mind being cuckolded: "for the knaves come to do that for me which I am aweary of" -- i.e., sleeping with his wife.

He that ears [plows] my land spares my team, and gives me leave to in the crop [i.e., reap what someone else has cultivated]; if I be his cuckold, he's my drudge. He that comforts my wife is the cherisher of my flesh and blood; he that cherishes my flesh and blood loves my flesh and blood; he that loves my flesh and blood is my friend; ergo, he that kisses my wife is my friend.

The countess calls him "foul-mouth'd and calumnious," but he says he's a prophet who speaks the truth, which is, after all, the task of the licensed fool.

The steward, no doubt getting impatient with all of this, asks the countess to send the fool for Helena, but it only provokes Lavatch to a ballad about Helen of Troy, suggesting that out of ten women only one is good, which which the countess protests is a reversal of proportions of good to bad in the original ballad. But finally she gets him to leave to fetch Helena.

The steward then reveals that he overheard Helena talking to herself, and that she revealed her love for Bertram. The countess isn't surprised; she had suspected as much, but lacked confirmation. She thanks him and tells him to keep it a secret. As Helena enters, the countess admits to herself that she understands what Helena is experiencing: "Even so it was with me when I was young." But when she says to Helena, "I am a mother to you," she notices that Helena reacts badly: "Methought you saw a serpent," she tells her. Helena protests that she can't be the countess' daughter. There are two things at work here: As Hunter tells us in the footnote, "mother" could also mean "mother-in-law," which Helena believes can never happen because of the disparity in her birth and Bertram's. But if Helena is the countess' daughter and Bertram the countess' son, that also implies that they are sister and brother -- an impediment to marriage. In any case, she points out the disparity of birth: "The Count Rossillion cannot be my brother, / I am from humble, he from honoured name."

But the countess makes light of this argument, and reveals that she knows the truth: "You love my son." Helena evades confirming the countess' statement, but finally she breaks down and admits it. She assures the countess, however, that she has no intention of pursuing him with an aim to marriage: "I follow him not / By any token of presumptuous suit."

                      Thus, Indian-like,
Religious in mine error, I adore
The sun that looks upon his worshipper
But knows of him no more. 

The countess, however, reveals something else she knows: that Helena had made plans to go to Paris. Helena tells the countess that her father had left her some information about medicines that she thinks might be capable of curing the king's illness. The fact that Bertram had recently left for Paris, Helena says, is what put her in mind of going there to see if she can cure the king. The countess warns that it's unlikely that the king's physicians would be willing to try a remedy offered by "A poor unlearned virgin" when they have failed to cure the king themselves. But Helena's faith in her father's abilities makes her willing to propose it, even on pain of death if she should fail:

But give me leave to try success, I'd venture
The well-lost life of mine on his grace's cure
By such a day, an hour.

Moved by Helena's courage, the countess gives her leave to go to Paris and supplies her with "Means and attendants, and my loving greetings / To those of mine at court."

1. All's Well That Ends Well, by William Shakespeare, pp. xi-lix

Illustration by Rockwell Kent. (Helena: But, O strange men! That can such sweet use make of what they hate. All's Well That Ends Well, Act 4, Scene 4) 

 

Introduction, by G.K. Hunter

_____

All's Well That Ends Well is one of the plays that we know only because it was among those collected for the First Folio -- no publications of it seem to have appeared during Shakespeare's life. There has been some debate about whether it was set from Shakespeare's original manuscript or from a prompt copy prepared for a performance. There are some inconsistencies in the names of characters and the abbreviations used for them that suggest the source is a manuscript: "It looks as if Shakespeare was finding out, in the course of composition, what to call these characters; if this inference is correct then the MS. behind F [the Folio text] must represent a stage at which the play was still being composed." Some of the abbreviations of character names also suggest that either Shakespeare or the compiler of the prompt copy used the names of the actors rather than those of the characters in the source manuscript.

There is no record of the play's existence before the publication of the Folio, so the date of the play remains unfixed. In 1764, it was suggested that All's Well That Ends Well is the lost play Love's Labour's Won that was referred to by Francis Meres in 1598. But most scholars reject this identification: "The play's affinities with Hamlet and with Measure for Measure, its sombre tone, the maturity of the character-drawing and of much of the verse place it clearly in the later part of Shakespeare's output." The character of the clown, Lavatch, is also more consistent with the clowns such as Touchstone and Feste that were played by Robert Armin than with the clowns such as Dogberry that were played by Will Kempe in earlier plays. Armin replaced Kempe in the company about 1599.

Among the play's affinities to Hamlet, "Laertes is in many ways a parallel figure to Bertram," in that both receive advice before departing for Paris. "J[ohn] L[ivingston] Lowes refers to 'lines which compress into half the space and embody in maturer phrase and rhythm Polonius' advice to Laertes', and the impression of the present writer is the same -- that we find in All's Well versions of these ideas which are likely to be later than those in Hamlet." The similarities with Measure for Measure run throughout the play, and could "be due to nothing more than the chance similarity of their sources; but it is not probable that plot, characterization, themes, vocabulary, even the tangles, perplexities, and perversities of treatment should be shared."

Measure for Measure is generally regarded as the better play, expressing "more easily and effectively what All's Well seems to be aiming at." But "this in itself would not, of course, make it later, since achievements disintegrate as well as build up.... If All's Well is earlier than Measure for Measure it cannot be later than 1604 -- the date normally assigned to Measure for Measure.... A tentative dating of All's Well 1603-4 is therefore the outcome of this inquiry."

The source of the main plot is a story told on the third day in Boccaccio's Decameron, which was translated by William Painter in Palace of Pleasure. There was also a French translation by Antoine le Maçon available to Shakespeare, but "it seems unlikely that Shakespeare would use a French rather than an English version." As usual, Shakespeare made many changes and additions to the story told in the source.

"All's Well That Ends Well is not a play that is often read or performed, and on the rare occasions when it is seen or heard it does not seem to give much general pleasure." Part of the problem is the uneasy imposition of Shakespeare's characteristic psychological realism upon material that has its roots in folk- and fairy-tales.

W.W. Lawrence ... points out that the plot is ... a combination of two traditional episodes: (1) "the healing of the king", (2) "the fulfilment of the tasks".  In folk-tales of the first type a poor or despised person gains a desired end by knowing the secret of a king's illness and by curing him. In tales of the second type a person (often a wife) is set a series of apparently impossible tasks to be performed before she can live happily; against all probability she performs these tasks and claims the reward, which is then granted.

The problem Shakespeare runs into in combining these two types of stories is keeping the characters consistent between them. This is especially true in the case of Helena, whose conduct in the second half of the play seems to many to be inconsistent with  her conduct in the first half. Hunter rejects the notion that Helena's character changes, however: "In the second half of All's Well, Helena is a 'clever wench' only in the sense in which Griselda is -- clever enough to be virtuous, pious, and patient till Destiny and Justice work things out for her."

Another block to the unity of the play is the subplot concerning Parolles: "the Bertram story could progress without the Parolles story; but in a more vitally organic sense they are interdependent -- the Bertram story would not mean the same without the Parolles story. There is continual parody of the one by the other. Parolles and Helena are arranged on either side of Bertram, placed rather like the Good and Evil Angels in a Morality." The introduction of the Parolles story echoes what happens throughout the play: the juxtaposition of "extreme romantic conventions with down-to-earth and critical realism.... The court is not merely the conventional court of Romance; it is far more real than that of Leontes or Theseus or the Duke of Milan, and recalls ... the world of Henry IV. Indeed it is too realistic politically for the magic Helena practices there."

The role of the clown, Lavatch, also serves as a realistic element:

Lavatch has obvious similarities to Touchstone; both undoubtedly play "wise fool" roles designed for Robert Armin, but the differences are just as important. The relationship between Touchstone and Rosalind makes it clear that the satiric wit of the clown is directed from much the same point as the joyous wit of the heroine. Lavatch is as contemptuous of Parolles as Touchstone is of Jaques, but his view does not ally itself in this play to the witty common-sense of the heroine; no central, acceptable, and unified viewpoint is left defined in the midst of the follies and excesses of the rest of the play. The pretensions of the good no less than those of the wicked or foolish are exposed here (as in Troilus and Cressida) to continuous criticism.... Lavatch ... sees courtliness as a verbal trick, war as a shirking of responsibility, greatness as an obedience to the devil.

Lavatch also reinforces the theological implications of the play, summed up by E.I. Fripp: "The King, the Countess, Lafeu, the brother Lords, Diana, and above all Helena, are unaffectedly pious" and Helena's role is to set Bertram's "foot on the path of Christian virtue."

In addition to good and evil, there are other antithetical forces at work in the play: "One of the most important of these ... is that of youth and age. In Paris and Rossillon we are in an old folk's world -- however gracious -- settled, confining, backward-looking to the courtesy and generosity of the dead and departed." And "Against France, the ailing kingdom of feudal courtoisie, is set Italy, the Renaissance land of opportunity, of opportunities which are ethically dubious it cannot be denied, but where the young can contrive a new relationship by a more naked and unprotected strife than is possible in France." In the last plays, such as The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, "youth redeems age; here youth has enough to do to find its own diminished world."

"Bertram and Helena, the two principals, are parallel figures, both being orphans and wards, so that a comparison between them is natural." Helena's education has instilled virtue in her. "Bertram, on the other hand, has the nobility of his inheritance stressed throughout the first two scenes at the expense of his achievement ... in such a way to suggest a real gap between them, and [a] failure to improve inheritance into virtue." "Nobility" is only a word if not backed up with virtue. The character of Parolles, whose name means "words," emphasizes the theme: "Words only acquire sanction when they are backed by actions or at least by faith in their meaning." Helena rescues Bertram by her action: "by saving the ring she can be said, in a symbolic sense at least, to save family honour, and by revealing the role she has played she restores meaning to the words that Bertram has sworn."

The words "virtue", "honour", "nature", "fortune", and their derivatives, appear continually in the play; more important than mere recurrence, however, is the variety of meaning that is wrung out of them; "virtue" is military virtus, the achievement of a virtuoso, chastity, as well as moral perfection; "honour" is military fame, it is blue blood it is chastity, it is civil reputation; "fortune" is the governor of social distinction no less than of individual fate; "nature" is the author of love as well as the destroyer of virginity, the preserver of social order as well as the prompter of revolt.

But making all these themes work within a drama is the problem. Hunter sums up the difficulties presented by the play: "Critical realism accompanies fairy-tale, satire shadows spirituality, complex moral perceptions deny us a simplicity of approach, complex intellectual interests demand an analytical and detached attitude toward the characters."

One of the major stumbling blocks, especially for today's readers and watchers of the play, is Helena's "bed-trick." Hunter asserts that it would have been less of a problem for Shakespeare's contemporaries who "saw matrimony as a matter of social convenience rather than personal emotion." In other words, what's love got to do with it? The same stratagem is used in Measure for Measure, and at least nineteen other plays of the period. "It is obvious that the trick is not one that would, ipso facto, shock an Elizabethan, but ... the fact is that elements in this play fight strongly against any facile acceptance of the bed-trick."

We are also more likely to condemn Bertram, who is required by the plot "to be high-spirited, but faulty, rash and hasty, but admirable." Our admiration is harder to earn: "Time has diminished the respect we feel for blue blood as a good in itself, and has diminished also our sense of soldiership as involving 'virtue' in its original meaning." We also tend to overlook the fact that he is immature, with the correlative implication that there's time for him to improve as he ages. Hunter compares him to Coriolanus, "another of Shakespeare's immature orphan heroes.... In both we see the same petulant wilfulness coupled to military prowess, the same scorn for unaristocratic virtues, and the same sense of duty to a noble mother." But Coriolanus is the central figure of a play which is about his "personal tragedy," whereas Bertram is not the central character of All's Well. "In such a context Bertram cannot be given the psychological depth of Coriolanus; what he is given is an extremely realistic surface, and at the level of Jonsonian caricature he is a brilliant success." On the other hand, Shakespeare is not Jonson, and when "the different kind of reality in Helena is juxtaposed against him, the superstructure of meaning becomes too heavy for the basis of character and the whole topples dangerously near incoherence."

Parolles is another figure who doesn't quite fit in the play, although Charles I wrote his name by the title of the play in his copy of the second folio. "Charles's view that Parolles is the central attraction of All's Well (and that Malvolio is the central attraction of Twelfth Night) is not unreasonable; such theatrical success as the play has enjoyed has largely depended on Parolles." That he has been "regarded as a watered-down Falstaff" has worked against him. "There is no temptation to feel for Parolles ... as we do for example for Falstaff or Shylock, a sense that Fate has been unjust, for there is no psychological depth to his follies; the follies are the character." Again, he is a Jonsonian figure who doesn't work in the context of Shakespearean realism.

Helena is the most "Shakespearean" character in the play, at the same time that she is "undoubtedly, in some ways, a fairy-tale heroine, with a background of spiritual or magical power.... Her roles is a complex one, but there is an absence of adequate external correlatives to justify this complexity." She is "an isolated complex individual" and the "disproportion" of her complexity in a fairy-tale plot "throws the play out of gear, as the Romantic view of Shylock throws The Merchant of Venice out of gear." Hunter concludes, "To reconcile the different levels of reality we can see in Helena, Bertram and Parolles, in Countess, King, and Lafew is perhaps impossible without too great a sacrifice of all that is worthwhile in the play." Shakespeare would juxtapose several levels of reality more successful in other plays, such as The Tempest and The Winter's Tale:

Certainly, if we compare the use of Trinculo and Autolycus and consider the relation of their realism to the fairy-tale princesses of their plays we can see a direction of advance, which achieves a reconciliation of the jarring elements of All's Well by presenting them in a new poetic dimension.

One way to unify the elements of All's Well might be to call it "a satire and consider it a satiric onslaught on the aristocratic vices of Bertram (shadowed by Parolles). On this reading the King, the Countess, and Lafew would be essentially normative characters, Lavatch a satiric commentator, and Helena the main agent in Bertram's exposure." But Helena can't be simplified to a mere functional role. "With her the detachment essential to Jonsonian comedy is not only not achieved; it is never attempted."

Any attempt to find a unifying intent behind the play has to deal with "the central dilemma -- why, when reconciliation is aimed at, Bertram is made so unpleasant." As in Measure for Measure, "Shakespeare seems to aim at emphasizing the virtue of forgiveness; the greater the crime to be forgiven, the virtue of the person forgiving." In this light, Shakespeare is stumbling in both plays toward something he finally mastered in The Winter's Tale.

Unfortunately, All's Well doesn't provide us even the compensatory virtue of Shakespearean verse. "This is not a play which is rewarding to those who look to Shakespeare for a luminous tissue of striking images.... There is a general failure in All's Well to establish a medium in verse which will convey effectively the whole tone of the play (as is done, for example, in Troilus and Cressida and Coriolanus)."