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Be thou blessed, Bertram, and succeed thy father
In manners as in shape. Thy blood and virtue
Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness
Share with thy birthright. Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none. Be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend
Under thy own life’s key. Be checked for silence,
But never taxed for speech. What heaven more will,
That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck down,
Fall on thy head. (1.1.63–72)
All’s Well That Ends Well opens shortly after the count of Rossillion has died and bequeathed his title to his son Bertram. With a title that newly inaugurates him into the nobility, Bertram is preparing to leave Rossillion and go to court, where he will become a ward to the King of France. As he prepares to leave, his mother, the Countess, addresses these lines to him. She begins by expressing her hope that Bertram will shape up and become the shining image of his late father, who is well remembered by all. The Countess notes that Bertram has struggled to strike a balance between his “blood” and his “virtue,” which “contend for empire” within him. Even so, she affirms that Bertram’s “birthright” is one of nobility, and for this reason his “goodness” will no doubt bear out. She then concludes with several lines in which she offers sage advice that she has gathered from experience.
What’s significant about the advice the Countess gives Bertram is the unfortunate fact that her son will consistently fail to follow it. Her most general wisdom is to “love all, trust a few, / Do wrong to no one.” However, Bertram will show himself an enemy to love, he will be too trusting, and he will do wrong to nearly everyone he interacts with. He will likewise prove unprepared for his true enemies (e.g., Parolles and, initially, Helen), just as he’ll fail to keep his friends close (e.g., the Lords Dumaine increasingly note his bad behavior). Finally, in the play’s final scene, the King will catch Bertram in a lie, indicating his failure to take his mother’s warning against being “taxed for speech.” The Countess closes with a prayer that he should heed her advice. But her odd way of phrasing this prayer turns out to have a more ominous and literal meaning, when the King gives Bertram a public chastening that will “pluck [him] down” and make him “fall on [his] head.”
Nay, a mother.
Why not a mother? When I said “a mother,”
Methought you saw a serpent. What’s in “mother”
That you start at it? I say I am your mother
And put you in the catalogue of those
That were enwombèd mine. ’Tis often seen
Adoption strives with nature, and choice breeds
A native slip to us from foreign seeds.
You ne’er oppressed me with a mother’s groan,
Yet I express to you a mother’s care.
God’s mercy, maiden, does it curd thy blood
To say I am thy mother? (1.3.142–53)
In the play’s third scene, after learning that Helen is in love with her son, the Countess summons the young woman to speak with her. Helen, however, doesn’t yet know that the Countess knows about her crush. A lightly comic scene ensues in which the Countess tries to draw out a confession from Helen by emphasizing the maternal feelings she has for her. The Countess tells Helen, “I am a mother to you” (1.3.140), to which Helen responds by calling her “mine honorable mistress” (1.3.141). The Countess then replies with the lines quoted above, in which she insists on being addressed as mother. From the audience’s perspective, the Countess’s repetition of the word mother so many times in quick succession is conspicuous. Because Helen is in love with Bertram, she doesn’t want to call the Countess “mother,” since that would effectively make Bertram her brother and therefore off limits. The Countess knows this, and she seems to want to make Helen squirm to the point where she will finally admit her crush. In this way, the Countess proves as clever and resourceful as Helen will later turn out to be.
But though the Countess’s words are part of a ploy, it’s important to emphasize that they are at the same time a sincere display of her motherly affection for Helen. From the very beginning of the play, the Countess has expressed a genuine appreciation for Helen, whom she accepted into her home after the death of the young woman’s father. The Countess identifies Helen as someone whose clear virtue and honor mark an innate nobility of spirit, and therefore someone who’s worthy of being her child. Yet when the Countess learns that her ward loves Bertram, she sees an opportunity for Helen to become not just an adopted daughter but a daughter-in-law. The language of kinship relations is important elsewhere in the play too. In the previous scene, for instance, the King of France greeted Bertram at court using the language of paternal relations: “Welcome, count. / My son’s no dearer” (1.2.84–85). The King will likewise treat Helen like a beloved daughter. Maintaining strong kinship relations seems to be a key component of honor and virtue. Whereas Helen reciprocates affection with her adoptive parental figures, Bertram treats both his mother and the King reprehensibly, eventually causing the Countess to disown him.
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 flown
From simple sources, and great seas have dried
When miracles have by the great’st been denied.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises, and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest and despair most shifts. (2.1.152–62)
When Helen arrives at the King of France’s court, she must work hard to gain the King’s trust and convince him to try the medicine—or “physic”—she has brought to cure him. These lines form a key part of her argument for submitting to her treatment, and her logic is sound. Helen’s basic argument is that the King, having been diagnosed with a fatal ailment, has nothing to lose by trying her cure. But even more important is the reasoning she proposes for trusting her specifically. Appearing to take a note from biblical logic, Helen claims that it’s often the person who seems “weakest” who’s most capable of great achievement. She cites “holy writ” on the subject of innocent “babes” who “hath judgment shown.” She also offers the example of floods originating in “simple sources” and the desiccation of “great seas” under miraculous circumstances. Her point is that the King shouldn’t underestimate her abilities, since “oft expectation fails.”
Helen’s rhetorical sophistication is on full display in this passage, as are her formidable powers of persuasion. It’s quite remarkable that this inexperienced young woman could waltz into the King’s court and address him in such a confident manner. That she does in fact manage to convince him to submit to her treatment just goes to show how resourceful she is. Furthermore, her successful treatment of the King is presented as proof-positive of Helen’s honor and virtue. Yet there is also something of the romantic fairytale about this entire scene, in which a girl from the countryside saves a dying king’s life in exchange for marriage to a courtier of her choosing. The most obvious signal that we have entered the domain of the fairytale is Shakespeare’s use of rhyming couplets, which, by continuing to the end of the scene, give the scene a curious formality. The spell of this language will be broken two scenes later, when Helen chooses Bertram as her husband, and he refuses to have anything to do with her fantasy.
When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which never 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.” (3.2.58–62)
These lines make up the text of Bertram’s letter to Helen, which he sends to her in Rossillion just as he flees to Italy to join the Duke of Florence’s army. The audience is already aware that Bertram has no intentions of following through with the marriage to Helen. But when Bertram sent Helen away from court, he did so in a way that led her to believe that he would come back for her. Thus, the reading of the letter is a crushing moment for Helen, as she encounters Bertram’s cruelty for the first time. As she confesses to the Countess just a few lines later, Bertram’s letter is “bitter” (3.2.80). The ultimatum he outlines in his letter certainly is bitter, since it contains apparently impossible conditions that clearly communicate Bertram’s lack of desire for Helen. He explains that the only way he will agree to act as Helen’s husband is if she satisfies two prerequisites. First, she must acquire the ancestral ring that he inherited from his father and which he never takes off. And second, she must somehow find a way to get pregnant with his child, even though he vows “never” to consummate the marriage sexually.
Of course, despite how seemingly impossible these conditions are, the rest of the play will follow Helen as she endeavors to satisfy them against Bertram’s will and without his knowing. Bertram’s cruel ultimatum inspires Helen to maximize her resourcefulness, which will lead to the two-part plot of the bed trick. In the first part, the virgin Diana will agree to sleep with Bertram in exchange for his ancestral ring. In the second part, Helen will swap places with Diana in bed and thereby conceive a child with Bertram. Though generations of audiences have felt discomfited by the entrapment of Bertram through the bed trick, it’s important to remember that, in a way, his original letter to Helen is the true cause of his downfall. Shakespeare subtly enables this interpretation when, in the final scene, just before she reveals that Helen is alive, Diana offers a riddle to the court: “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’s my riddle: one that’s dead is quick” (5.3.341–44). The fairytale quality of this rhyming riddle may be read as a sly response to the cruel and prosaic language of Bertram’s letter.
Yet am I 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. (4.3.352–62)
These lines conclude the long third scene of act 4, in which Parolles’s companions enact their plot to expose his cowardice and treachery. Back in act 4, scene 1, the First and Second Lords Dumaine concocted a plan to disguise themselves as foreign soldiers and pretend to capture Parolles. Then, in scene 3, they blindfold Parolles and play at interrogating him. Of course, Parolles doesn’t realize he’s being duped, and in his terror, he proves willing to give up important information about each of his companions. In this way, Parolles demonstrates the depths of his cowardice as well as his capacity for betrayal. The entire interrogation is set up for the purpose of showing Bertram who Parolles really is, and when Bertram sees his longtime friend’s true colors, he’s quick to disown him. At the end of the scene, then, Parolles is left despised and friendless, and it is here that he speaks the lines quoted above.
For a man who has just been so thoroughly humiliated, it’s surprising how relieved Parolles seems to be. He starts by confessing just how “thankful” he feels now that he no longer needs to pretend to be other than who he really is. He has long known himself to be a coward, but having to keep up the charade has apparently weighed on him. Although he recognizes that he’ll no longer have a place in the army, he takes heart in the simple fact that he’s still alive and that, henceforth, “simply the thing I am / Shall make me live.” This moment marks the beginning of what will be Parolles’s minor redemption. Ordinarily, a figure like Parolles would disappear from the play once his villainy has been exposed, but in this case he sticks around. And, when Lafew takes him on as a servant in act 5, it will prove the truth of Parolles’s affirmation that “there’s place and means for every man alive.” Similarly, Parolles’s warning that “every braggart shall be found an ass” will also prove true in the play’s final scene, when the King gives Bertram a dressing down for daring to lie to him.
