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Helen’s “Physic”
Upon his death, Helen’s father, who was a renowned physician, bequeathed to her his life’s work. His wide-ranging research and experimentation produced “some prescriptions / Of rare and proved effects” (1.3.232–33). Among these medicines is a particularly special “remedy” that she believes can “cure the desperate languishings whereof / The King is rendered lost” (1.3.242–43). It is this remedy—or “physic”—that Helen takes to court and presents to the King of France. The medicine works, and everyone at court views the King’s recovery as a miracle. However, as Helen has already insisted to the Countess, the cure is a product of science. In this way, her “physic” is a symbol of humans’ capacity to shape their own destinies. Yet the medicine is also symbolic in that it reveals Helen’s resourcefulness and ingenuity. Before she can administer the medicine, she must convince the King to let her—a lowborn and inexperienced young woman—treat him. She does so by forswearing her life should the medicine not work, after which the King declares, “Sweet practicer, thy physic I will try” (2.1.205). But it’s also crucial to note that Helen’s use of the medicine is part of a larger ploy to get the King to grant her Bertram’s hand in marriage.
Parolles’s Drum
In act 3, the First and Second Lords Dumaine formulate a plot to catch Parolles out on his cowardice. Their plot centers on a military drum that was lost in battle. They goad Parolles into attempting to retrieve the drum, then, pretending to be foreign soldiers, they capture and interrogate him. Though ostensibly only a lure that’s part of a larger play, the drum is a perfect symbol for the essential emptiness of Parolles’s character. Most obviously, a drum is an instrument whose sound quality is largely determined by its hollowness. Furthermore, Parolles’s inevitable failure to recover the regiment’s drum underscores the fact that he’s all talk and no action. Parolles frames the drum’s loss as a symbol of the army’s incompetence, and he insists on the necessity of retrieving it: “But that the merit of service is seldom attributed to the truth and exact performer, I would have that drum or another, or hic jacet [i.e., I’ll die trying]” (3.6.60–63). Of course, this noble sentiment immediately breaks down once Parolles is alone; he knows he won’t go through with recovering the instrument. Bertram is therefore spot on when he declares to Parolles: “This drum sticks sorely in your disposition” (3.6.44–45).
Rings
Two different rings figure prominently in the play, and they each bear their own unique significance. The first ring is given to Helen by the King of France after she’s cured his seemingly incurable illness. This ring is a sign of the King’s gratitude, but it also symbolizes Helen’s nobility of character. Despite being lowborn, she now bears a unique sign of the King’s friendship and trust. The second ring is the one Bertram has inherited from his father, and which has been passed down for generations. It is this ring that Bertram says Helen must get from him if she wishes him to act as her husband. In this way, Bertram’s ring symbolizes both his vanity and his cruelty. Later in the play, when he agrees to give Diana the ring in exchange for sex, the ring takes on yet more negative significance—this time as a symbol of his reckless lust. At the play’s end, the first ring becomes important again when the King notices it on Bertram’s finger and Bertram lies about where he got it. Soon enough, though, when the truth is out, it becomes that clear that this ring ultimately symbolizes Helen’s resourcefulness and ingenuity, since she used it to win Bertram once and for all.
