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Summary
In Paris, the King of France bids farewell to a party of lords bound for the war in Florence, declaring that he may well be dead by the time they return. Two brothers, the First Lord and Second Lord Dumaine, urge Bertram to come with them to the war, but he says regretfully that the King has commanded him to remain at court. Parolles, boasting of his own prowess in battle, suggests that Bertram sneak away. He then wishes the two Lords good luck and the blessings of Mars, the god of war.
The King, meanwhile, is in conversation with Lafew, an old lord who was recently visiting Rossillion and who tells his sovereign that a female doctor (Helen, of course) has recently arrived promising a cure for his ailment. Helen is ushered in, and she tells the King that on his deathbed her father gave her a powerful medicine, ordering her to keep it safe. She has brought the medicine to save the royal life. The King thanks her for her offer but says there is no point in trying, since his doctors insist that the disease is incurable. Helen responds that there is no harm in trying, and then she boldly promises that the medicine will restore his health within just two days. She goes further, saying that if the cure fails, her life should be forfeit. If it succeeds, however, she asks permission to choose whomever she desires as a husband. The King agrees to the bargain and promises to try the medicine immediately.
In the brief second scene, the Countess jests with her for a time before sending him to court with a message for Helen.
In Paris, meanwhile, Parolles and Lafew remark on the amazing success of Helen’s cure, which has restored the King to good health. True to his word, the King assembles five stalwart young noblemen as potential mates, but Helen passes over them all and selects Bertram. The young Count is taken aback and declares that she is too far beneath him for the marriage to work. The King rebukes him, saying that inner worth is more important that noble birth and promising to raise Helen to a higher rank. When Bertram still refuses the match, his monarch threatens to throw him out of royal favor. Faced with that threat, Bertram unhappily agrees, and the couple is immediately led to the altar. Left behind, Lafew and Parolles argue over the relative worth of the new husband and wife, with Lafew criticizing Bertram’s conduct and Parolles taking offense and trying to pick a fight. The old lord sees through the other man’s bluster, and calls Parolles a coward. Meanwhile, Bertram returns, newly married, and tells Parolles that he will never consummate the wedding: he plans to send Helen home to his mother and then run away to war.
Analysis
If All’s Well That Ends Well is indeed a “problem comedy,” then the play’s central problem presents itself in these opening scenes of act 2. Given that Bertram treats her terribly and humiliates her before the French court, why does Helen continue to love him and pursue him? Why is she so smitten with a man who is obviously unworthy of her? Although we don’t yet have enough information to speak to Helen’s motivations, scene 3 does give us cause to consider the matter from Bertram’s perspective.
In a strong sense, the young count has found himself trapped in someone else’s fantasy: a fair maid rushes in to save a dying king and receives her true love’s hand as a reward. Shakespeare highlights the fairytale quality of this sequence of events by having much of the dialogue—particularly in scene 1—flow in rhyming couplets. The transformation that occurs in the King further affirms the fantasy aspect, moving as he does from a disease-weakened cynic to an assertive believer. But whereas the entire court stands in awe of Helen’s apparent miracle, Bertram isn’t enchanted. Rather, he remains entirely focused on the difference in their class positions. His disgust is evident in his incredulous dismissal of the idea of marrying Helen: “A poor physician’s daughter my wife!” (2.3.126). In short, he is a snob, and a foolish one at that, since he can’t perceive what all the wiser characters know at once—namely, that Helen is a better woman than he deserves. The King puts the matter sharply: “If she be / All that is virtuous, save what thou dislik’st— / A poor physician’s daughter—thou dislik’st / Of virtue for the name” (2.3.132–35). But a noble name, more than virtue, is what matters to the callow Bertram.
Indeed, we should not be surprised that he fails to recognize Helen’s worth, given his ridiculously high estimation of Parolles’s character. His boastful companion is not a master of deceit, like the great Shakespearean villains such as Iago in Othello or Edmund in King Lear. Rather, Parolles is easily seen through, and every wise character in the play does so, beginning with Helen in the first act and continuing here with Lafew. Some critics have argued that Parolles leads Bertram astray, but this reading arguably gets things backward. The fact that Bertram is taken in by Parolles indicates a serious flaw in his character. Furthermore, Bertram is as much a fool as his cowardly and deceitful companion. Just as all the wise characters see through Parolles, so do all of them, beginning with Lafew, perceive that Bertram is committing a great wrong in his treatment of Helen. Shakespeare is not interested in shades of gray here: Bertram is condemned, and Helen universally favored.
The very brief second scene sheds further light on the folly of Bertram’s action, albeit in an indirect way. Much of the comedy in this scene derives from the Fool’s initial, dismissive attitude toward courtly life. Feigning offense, the Countess pursues the matter, and the Fool claims that at court there is a single “answer [that] will serve all men” (2.2.13–14), regardless of the question. The answer, he reveals after more comic delay, is the empty expression, “O Lord, sir!” Through example, the Fool demonstrates how this expression can be used in every situation, though the response means nothing. This comic critique of the emptiness of court civility offers an anticipatory critique of Bertram’s snobbishness in scene 3. If nobility is only a matter of wealth and status, then it is essentially empty, since neither wealth nor status can guarantee substance of character. As we will soon come to see, Bertram has the status but not the substance, whereas Helen lacks the status but has the substance. The fact that the King can simply bestow noble status on her further diminishes the perceived value of the nobility.
