Excerpt from All's Well That Ends Well - anthology. Helena, the orphaned daughter of a healer, cures the King of his illness and is rewarded with her choice of husband from among the nobles at court. She chooses Bertram--with whom she has been deeply in love for some time--the son of the Countess, in whose house she has been brought up. However, there is no fairytale ending for Helena. In Act 3, Scene ii, following the wedding ceremony, the two women receive letters from Bertram: horrified at the match into which he has been forced, he has run away to war, placing seemingly impossible constraints upon the validity of the marriage. All's Well That Ends Well has been termed, along with Measure for Measure, a "problem play." For many modern readers, both tales conclude in a troubling manner, seemingly unsatisfactorily resolved despite their adherence to the conventional pattern for comedy: that each separated couple should be reunited. The problem is created largely by the measures used to gain the ends, the most notable example being the device of the bed-trick, which is used in each play. Helena, like Mariana in Measure for Measure, later disguises herself as the mistress her husband desires in order to achieve the consummation of her marriage. Such alienation from the personal in an intimate act is disturbing, and difficult to reconcile with the modern Western conception of marriage as the fulfilment of romantic love. Thus to the modern reader or audience member, all may not end well. All's Well That Ends Well Act 3, Scene ii Enter the Countess and the Clown COUNTESS. It hath happened all as I would have had it, save that he comes not along with her. CLOWN. By my troth, I take my young lord to be a very melancholy man. COUNTESS. By what observance, I pray you? CLOWN. Why, he will look upon his boot and sing, mend the ruff and sing, ask questions and sing, pick his teeth and sing. I knew a man that had this trick of melancholy hold a goodly manor for a song. COUNTESS. Let me see what he writes, and when he means to come. She opens the letter CLOWN. I have no mind to Isbel since I was at court. Our old lings and our Isbels o'th'country are nothing like your old ling and your Isbels o'th'court. The brains of my Cupid's knocked out, and I begin to love as an old man loves money, with no stomach. COUNTESS. What have we here? CLOWN. E'en that you have there. Exit COUNTESS. (reading the letter aloud) "I have sent you a daughter-in-law; she hath recovered the King and undone me. I have wedded her, not bedded her, and sworn to make the 'not' eternal You shall hear I am run away; know it before the report come. If there be breadth enough in the world I will hold a long distance. My duty to you. Your unfortunate son, Bertram." This is not well, rash and unbridled boy, To fly the favours of so good a King, To pluck his indignation on thy head By the misprizing of a maid too virtuous For the contempt of empire. Enter Clown CLOWN. O madam, yonder is heavy news within, between two soldiers and my young lady. COUNTESS. What is the matter? CLOWN. Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some comfort: your son will not be killed so soon as I thought he would. COUNTESS. Why should he be killed? CLOWN. So say I, madam, if he run away, as I hear he does. The danger is in standing to't; that's the loss of men, though it be the getting of children. Here they come will tell you more. For my part, I only hear your son was run away. Exit Enter Helena and the two French Lords FIRST LORD. Save you, good madam. HELENA. Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone. SECOND LORD. Do not say so. COUNTESS. Think upon patience. Pray you, gentlemen I have felt so many quirks of joy and grief That the first face of neither on the start so Can woman meun to't. Where is my son, I pray you! SECOND LORD. Madam, he's gone to serve the Duke of Florence. We met him thitherward, for thence we came, And, after some dispatch in hand at court, Thither we bend again. HELENA. Look on his letter, madam: here's my passport. (She reads the letter aloud) "When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which n'er shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body that I am father to, then call me husband; but in such a 'then' I write a 'never'." This is a dreadful sentence. COUNTESS. Brought you this letter, gentlemen? FIRST LORD. Ay, madam, and for the contents' sake are sorry for our pains. COUNTESS. I prithee, lady, have a better cheer. If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine Thou robbest me of a moiety. He was my son, But I do wash his name out of my blood And thou art all my child. Towards Florence is he? SECOND LORD. Ay, madam. COUNTESS. And to be a soldier? SECOND LORD. Such is his noble purpose; and, befieve't, The Duke will lay upon him all the honour That good convenience claims. COUNTESS. Return you thither? FIRST LORD. Ay, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed. HELENA. (reading) "Till I have no wife I have nothing in France." 'Tis bitter. COUNTESS. Find you that there? HELENA. Ay, madam. FIRST LORD. 'Tis but the boldness of his hand, haply, which his heart was not consenting to. COUNTESS. Nothing in France until he have no wife! There's nothing here that is too good for him But only she, and she deserves a lord That twenty such rude boys might tend upon And call her, hourly, mistress. Who was with him? FIRST LORD. A servant only, and a gentleman which I have sometime known. COUNTESS. Parolles, was it not? FIRST LORD. Ay, my good lady, he. COUNTESS. A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness. My son corrupts a well-derivèd nature With his inducement. FIRST LORD. Indeed, good lady, The fellow has a deal of that too much Which holds him much to have. COUNTESS. Y'are welcome, gentlemen. I will entreat you, when you see my son, To tell him that his sword can never win The honour that he loses. More I'll entreat you Written to bear along. SECOND LORD. We serve you, madam, In that and all your worthiest affairs. COUNTESS. Not so, but as we change our courtesies. Will you draw near? Exeunt the Countess and the Lords HELENA. "Till I have no wife I have nothing in France." Nothing in France until he has no wife! Thou shalt have none, Rossillion, none in France, Then hast thou all again. Poor lord, is't I That chase thee from thy country, and expose Those tender limbs of thine to the event Of the none-sparing war? And is it I That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers. That ride upon the violent speed of fire, Fly with false aim, move the still-piecing air That sings with piercing, do not touch my lord. Whoever shoots at him, I set him there. Whoever charges on his forward breast, I am the caitiff that do hold him to't; And though I kill him not, I am the cause His death was so effected. 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 honour 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 rumour may report my flight To consolate thine ear. Come, night; end, day! For with the dark, poor thief, I'll steal away. Exit
