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Summary
Helen, the daughter of a famous doctor, has been the ward of the Countess of Rossillion, a wise and kindly old noblewoman, since her father’s death. The Countess’s husband has also recently died, and her son, Count Bertram, who is a brave, handsome, but callow young man, is sent to serve the King of France, his liege lord. (The King, we learn, is dying). Helen is in love with Bertram, but hopelessly, since he is a nobleman and she a commoner. As he departs for the King’s court, she banters with Parolles, an unsavory character who has managed to gain Bertram’s ear despite being a liar and a coward. They discuss chastity in coarse terms, with Parolles recommending that she find a husband and lose her virginity quickly. As they speak, Helen conceives a plan that she hopes will gain her the hand of Bertram.
Bertram arrives at the King of France’s court, where the cautious monarch has recently decided to stay out of a war involving Austria and the Duke of Florence—with the caveat that any French noblemen who wish to involve themselves in the conflict are free to go. Greeting Bertram, the King laments the loss of the young man’s father. He then remarks that he wishes Helen’s father were still living, because only such a great doctor could now save his life.
Meanwhile, in Rossillion, the Countess walks about and chats with the bawdy Fool (sometimes referred to as a “Clown”) who once served her husband. Her Steward joins them and informs the Countess that he overheard Helen declaring her love for Bertram. The noblewoman sends for her ward immediately. After much dissembling, Helen admits to loving the Countess’s son. She then declares her plan to go to the King’s palace and offer her services as a doctor, using the medical knowledge that her father taught her. The Countess, while expressing her doubts that the King and the royal doctors will accept the help of an inexperienced young woman, gives her blessing and sends Helen on her way.
Analysis
The play opens on a dark and somber note. As Bertram departs, his mother recalls her husband’s passing, and Bertram comments, “I in going, madam, weep o’er my father’s death anew” (1.1.2–3). Lafew, the wise old nobleman, tries to comfort them by saying that the King will act as a husband and father to the family. However, this only leads into a discussion of the King’s illness, and how he has abandoned all hope of a cure—which, in turn, leads them to speak of the recent death of Helen’s father. Though useful for the way it gives the audience context, this conversation about illness and death casts a pall over the action. The gloominess that presides over the play’s opening scene also introduces a generational gap between the fading elders and the vital youths. The King, the Countess, and Lafew are all wise in their way, offering sage advice to the headstrong young, but they are also figures in decline. The Countess and Lafew speak repeatedly of their own feebleness and impending deaths. Likewise, the King lacks all energy and ambition, as made clear by his refusal to take part in the war that so many of his young courtiers are anxious to join.
The shadow that mortality casts on the action is one reason why this play has often been termed a “problem comedy,” or “dark comedy.” Another reason is the nature of the younger generation, who are poised to inherit from their wiser, aging elders. Bertram, the presumed romantic hero, possesses most of the attributes required by such a figure. Everyone admits that he is handsome, dashing, and brave. Helen’s affection also emphasizes his desirability, as in her description of his “bright radiance and collateral light[,] / . . . His archèd brows, his hawking eye, his curls” (1.1.93–99). She clearly speaks in the glowing terms of a would-be lover. And yet, she only mentions—and we only observe—the superficial qualities of the man. The same can be said of the King of France’s speech in scene 2, where he praises Bertram for the superficial likeness he bears to his father, whom the monarch praises lavishly for his honor and humility. However, when Bertram shows his true colors later, his image will be tarnished significantly.
Helen, meanwhile, is more appealing. Her worth is evident despite her low birth, and already her resourcefulness is on display as she assumes the conventionally male role of physician and plans a journey to Paris. But her fixation on Bertram, while determined, will come to seem almost monomaniacal; it is, in the end, her defining character trait. Her love, she admits, is a kind of “idolatrous fancy” (1.1.102), but she refuses to release her hold on it. There is a bitter edge to her humor, too, a coarseness that other Shakespearean heroines lack. Her conversation with the talkative Parolles, filled as it is with sexual innuendo, displays a cynicism about relations between the sexes that seems jarring coming from a romantic heroine. Yet even as she spars verbally with Parolles, she’s equally capable of pining poetically over a love she initially deems unobtainable. Indeed, her speech in act 1 often falls easily into the conventions of love poetry. And it is precisely Helen’s erstwhile attachment to love’s possibility that the Countess draws out and encourages in scene 3. Nurturing love as if to dispel the opening act’s pall of illness and death, the conspiratorial Countess sends Helen off on her romantic quest.
