payment page
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie
Which we ascribe to heaven. The fated sky
Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull
Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull. (1.1.222–25)
Helen speaks these words in a monologue that closes the play’s opening scene. Despite elsewhere lamenting how the low conditions of her birth make it so that she’ll never be able to marry her beloved Bertram, she says something different here. As if in a moment of perfect clarity, Helen realizes that the concept of fate may be little more than an excuse for a person’s lack of self-application. Only “when we ourselves are dull” is it the case that the heavens “doth backward pull.” Otherwise, “the fated sky / Gives us free scope.” By this logic, then, just as our personal frustrations may be a product of our own inaction, so too do “our remedies oft lie in ourselves.” With these words, Helen takes her first step toward a plot in which she’ll take her fate into her own hands.
Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put such difference betwixt their two estates; Love no god, that would not extend his might only where qualities were level; Dian no queen of virginity, that would suffer her poor knight surprised without rescue in the first assault or ransom afterward. (1.3.112–18)
Addressing the Countess, the Steward recounts words he recently overhead Helen speaking to herself. Helen’s words denounce the gods and goddesses who are most closely associated with love and marriage. Fortune, she says, isn’t worthy of the name, since this god has ensured that Helen and Bertram are fated never to marry. Likewise, Cupid (or “Love”) is unworthy since he has failed to ensure love between two people of equal worthiness. Finally, she denounces Diana, goddess of both chastity and fertility, for failing to rescue “her poor knight”—that is, Helen—in a moment in need. At first glance, Helen’s words sound like the typical lover’s pained laments about how the gods have bungled her fate. This is how the Steward has interpreted them. However, an alternative reading would emphasize that, in denouncing the gods and goddesses, Helen is implicitly asserting her own agency. Going forward, she will rely on her own resourcefulness to ensure a happy outcome.
Yet, I pray you—
But with the word “The time will bring on 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. (4.4.34–40)
Helen speaks these lines to the Widow and Diana, insisting that everything will be fine as they set out for Marseilles to seek an audience with the King. Helen’s invocation of summertime conjures the bright positivity of fairytales, and her personal affirmation that “all’s well that ends well” reflects a firm belief that she can make everything right. At the top of act 5, when these women arrive too late to speak with the King, Helen will repeat her aphorism, promising, “All’s well that ends well yet” (5.1.30). Ever the resourceful optimist, she convinces a gentleman who’s on his way to Rossillion on horseback to take a letter ahead to the King while they follow behind. As we learn later, the women nearly catch up with the King’s caravan several times, facing disappointment at each point. But with persistence, they eventually arrive—and just as Helen has promised, they get to their destination just in time for Helen to capture Bertram once and for all.
