All's Well That Ends Well

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1. ACT I.

   Bertram leaves Rousillon for the King's court; Helena's hopeless love for him is revealed, and she resolves to follow with her father's cure for the dying King.

   1. Scene 1 — Rousillon. A room in the COUNTESS'S palace.

      At Rousillon the widowed Countess sends her son Bertram to the court of the sick King of France, commending him to the old lord Lafew. Left alone, Helena confesses she loves Bertram and despairs of one so far above her — then, prompted by talk of the King's incurable illness, conceives the idea of curing him with a remedy her late physician father left her. The braggart Parolles trades a long, cynical debate on virginity with her.

   2. Scene 2 — Paris. A room in the King's palace.

      In Paris the King welcomes Bertram, praising his dead father, and grants leave to those young French lords who wish to fight in the war between Florence and Siena.

   3. Scene 3 — Rousillon. A Room in the Palace.

      At Rousillon the Countess learns from her steward, Rinaldo, that Helena loves Bertram, and questions Helena gently, drawing out the confession. When Helena reveals her plan to go to Paris and cure the King, the Countess blesses the attempt.

2. ACT II.

   Helena cures the King and is granted her choice of husband; she chooses Bertram, who is forced to marry her but secretly resolves to flee to the wars unconsummated.

   1. Scene 1 — Paris. A room in the King's palace.

      As the young lords depart for Florence, Lafew brings the despairing King word of a physician who can cure him. Helena offers her father's remedy, staking her life on it; in return the King promises that, if she succeeds, she may name any husband in his gift. He agrees.

   2. Scene 2 — Rousillon. A room in the COUNTESS'S palace.

      At Rousillon the Countess sends the Clown, Lavatch, to court with a message, bantering with him about a courtier's all-purpose answer.

   3. Scene 3 — Paris. The KING'S palace.

      The King, miraculously cured, makes good his promise: Helena passes over several lords and chooses Bertram. He protests against marrying 'a poor physician's daughter,' but the King, defending virtue over birth, compels the match. Apart, Lafew and the unmasked braggart Parolles quarrel.

   4. Scene 4 — The same. Another room in the same.

      Parolles brings Helena word that Bertram, pleading urgent business, will not take her to bed but sends her home to Rousillon. The Clown jests with her.

   5. Scene 5 — Another room in the same.

      Bertram, confirmed in his contempt for Parolles by Lafew's warnings, sends Helena home with a sealed letter for his mother and departs for the Florentine wars without a husband's farewell.

3. ACT III.

   Bertram wins honor at Florence and sends Helena his impossible conditions; she leaves Rousillon as a pilgrim, and in Florence devises the bed-trick with Diana and her mother.

   1. Scene 1 — Florence. A room in the DUKE's palace.

      At Florence the Duke receives the French lords who have come to fight for him.

   2. Scene 2 — Rousillon. A room in the COUNTESS'S palace.

      At Rousillon the Countess reads Bertram's letter announcing he has fled his marriage, and is ashamed of him. Helena reads his crueller message — that he will be her husband only when she wins the ring from his finger and shows a child of his body, 'which never shall be' — and resolves to leave so that he may safely come home.

   3. Scene 3 — Florence. Before the DUKE's palace.

      At Florence the Duke makes Bertram general of his cavalry.

   4. Scene 4 — Rousillon. A room in the COUNTESS'S palace.

      At Rousillon the steward reads aloud Helena's farewell sonnet: she has gone as a barefoot pilgrim to Saint Jaques le Grand, blaming herself for driving Bertram into danger. The grieving Countess sends word recalling her son.

   5. Scene 5 — Without the walls of Florence.

      Outside the walls of Florence, Helena, in pilgrim's dress, lodges with a widow and her daughter Diana. She learns that Bertram is wooing the chaste Diana, who (warned by the neighbour Mariana) means to resist him.

   6. Scene 6 — Camp before Florence.

      In the camp the two French lords persuade Bertram to test his follower Parolles by letting him try to recover a lost drum, planning to ambush and unmask him as a coward.

   7. Scene 7 — Florence. A room in the WIDOW'S house.

      Helena reveals to the Widow that she is Bertram's abandoned wife and proposes a plan: Diana shall agree to Bertram's suit, demand his ancestral ring, and appoint a midnight meeting — at which Helena will secretly take her place.

4. ACT IV.

   Parolles is exposed in a mock ambush; the bed-trick is accomplished; word comes that Helena has died, and the principals make for France.

   1. Scene 1 — Without the Florentine camp.

      The French lords ambush Parolles as he ventures out for the drum; blindfolded and convinced he has been taken by the enemy, he babbles for his life.

   2. Scene 2 — Florence. A room in the WIDOW'S house.

      Bertram woos Diana, who extracts his ancestral ring as a pledge and appoints a silent midnight assignation — the meeting Helena will keep in her place.

   3. Scene 3 — The Florentine camp.

      The lords discuss Bertram's conduct and report that Helena is said to have died on her pilgrimage. The blindfolded Parolles, interrogated by a mock 'interpreter,' betrays every military secret and slanders the very lords questioning him; unmasked, he resolves to live on shamelessly as the thing he is.

   4. Scene 4 — Florence. A room in the Widow's house.

      Helena, with the Widow and Diana, prepares to travel to Marseilles and on to the King, confident the deception will be vindicated.

   5. Scene 5 — Rousillon. A room in the COUNTESS'S palace.

      At Rousillon, Lafew, the Countess, and the Clown mourn Helena; Lafew proposes that Bertram, now a widower in all men's eyes, marry his own daughter, and they await the King's coming.

5. ACT V.

   At Rousillon the King's reckoning exposes Bertram's lies through the rings and Diana's riddles, until Helena appears alive and pregnant, fulfilling the impossible conditions.

   1. Scene 1 — Marseilles. A street.

      At Marseilles Helena meets a gentleman of the court (a falconer) and sends by him her petition to the King, who has gone on to Rousillon.

   2. Scene 2 — Rousillon. The inner court of the COUNTESS'S palace.

      The ruined Parolles, reduced to beggary, begs Lafew's help and is taken into his service as a fool.

   3. Scene 3 — The same. A room in the COUNTESS'S palace.

      At Rousillon the King pardons Bertram and betroths him to Lafew's daughter — until a ring Bertram gives is recognized as the one the King gave Helena. Diana then appears and, with riddling testimony, accuses Bertram of seduction, snaring him in his own lies, before Helena enters alive and pregnant: she has won his ring and conceived his child, and Bertram submits and accepts her. The King offers Diana her own choice of husband, and 'all's well that ends well.'

Characters

• Helena protagonist

  A poor physician's daughter, orphaned and raised under the protection of the Countess of Rousillon, who loves the Countess's son Bertram far above her station. With the medical secrets her late father left her she cures the dying King of France and, as her reward, claims Bertram in marriage; when he flees the match and sets her two 'impossible' conditions, she fulfils them by the bed-trick and a feigned death to win him at last. Resourceful, single-minded, and morally ambiguous, she drives the whole plot. (A different character from the Helena of A Midsummer Night's Dream.)

• Bertram deuteragonist

  The young Count of Rousillon, made a royal ward at his father's death. Handsome, proud, and class-conscious, he is forced by the King to marry Helena and recoils — fleeing to the Florentine wars rather than consummate the match and setting her conditions he believes impossible. In Florence he tries to seduce the chaste Diana, is gulled by the bed-trick, and is exposed and shamed in the final scene before grudgingly accepting Helena. Critics debate whether his closing 'I'll love her dearly' redeems him.

• Parolles major

  Bertram's swaggering follower, a braggart soldier and coward whose name means 'words' in French — all talk and no substance, a descendant of the Plautine miles gloriosus. He eggs Bertram on in folly. The French lords expose him in a mock ambush: blindfolded and convinced he is a prisoner, he betrays every secret and slanders his own friends. Unmasked, he resolves to live on as the thing he is: 'Simply the thing I am shall make me live.'

• King of France major

  The ailing King of France, dying of a fistula his physicians have given up on, until Helena cures him with her father's remedy. In gratitude he grants her the husband of her choice and compels the reluctant Bertram to wed her, defending her worth against Bertram's snobbery with a famous speech on virtue as the only true nobility ('From lowest place when virtuous things proceed, / The place is dignified by the doer's deed'). He presides over the reckoning of the final scene.

• Countess of Rousillon major

  Bertram's widowed mother, an aging noblewoman of great warmth and wisdom (a part Shaw praised as 'the most beautiful old woman's part ever written'). She loves Helena as her own child, blesses her love for Bertram, and is ashamed of her son's cruelty to his wife. She anchors the play's older, gentler generation against the rashness of the young.

• Lafew supporting

  An old French lord and royal counsellor (spelled 'Lafeu' in this text), shrewd, blunt, and humane. He introduces Helena's cure to the King, sees through the braggart Parolles from the first, and at the close offers his own daughter Maudlin to Bertram. A voice of seasoned good sense.

• Lavatch the Clown supporting

  The Countess's household clown (his speeches are prefixed CLOWN.), a bitter, bawdy fool who jests about marriage, cuckoldry, and court manners. He sings the snatch 'Was this fair face the cause' on Helen of Troy, begs leave to marry Isbel, and carries messages between Rousillon and the court. His sour wit colours the play's darker comedy.

• Diana supporting

  The chaste daughter of a Florentine widow, courted by Bertram while he is at the wars. She agrees to Helena's plan: she leads Bertram on, extracts his ancestral ring as a love-pledge, and then yields her assignation to Helena, who takes her place in the dark. In the final scene she confronts Bertram with riddling testimony that breaks his lies open. Her name (the virgin goddess) marks her as the play's emblem of guarded chastity.

• The Widow supporting

  A poor but honest widow of Florence, Diana's mother, who takes in Helena (disguised as a pilgrim) as a lodger. For a dowry promise she consents to the bed-trick that will secure Diana's honour and Helena's marriage, and travels to France to see justice done.

• First Lord (Dumaine) supporting

  One of the two French lords (the brothers Dumaine) who serve with Bertram in the Florentine war and devise the mock-capture that exposes Parolles as a coward. The prefix FIRST LORD. also covers one of the eligible bachelors the King parades before Helena in 2.3. (Editions differ on whether the war-lords and the court-bachelors are the same men.)

• Second Lord (Dumaine) supporting

  The other French lord (the second of the brothers Dumaine), Bertram's companion in the Florentine wars and co-author of the plot to unmask Parolles. The prefix SECOND LORD. also covers a court bachelor in 2.3. He brings the Countess word of her son's flight and conduct.

• Fourth Lord minor

  One of the eligible young lords the King presents to Helena in 2.3 so that she may choose a husband; he speaks a single line as she passes him over for Bertram.

• Duke of Florence minor

  The Duke of Florence, in whose war against Siena Bertram and the French lords win honour. He welcomes the French volunteers and makes Bertram general of his horse.

• Rinaldo the Steward minor

  Rinaldo, the Countess's steward, who overhears Helena confessing her love for Bertram and reports it to his mistress, setting the Countess's blessing in motion; later he reads aloud Helena's farewell sonnet.

• Mariana minor

  A neighbour and friend of the Florentine widow who warns Diana against the wiles of Bertram and Parolles. (A different character from the Mariana of Measure for Measure.)

• First Soldier minor

  A French soldier who, in the drum-plot, plays the 'interpreter' speaking nonsense to the blindfolded Parolles and reading out his treacherous confessions, driving the unmasking of the coward.

• Second Soldier minor

  A French soldier who assists in the ambush and interrogation of Parolles.

• First Gentleman minor

  One of two French gentlemen who, in 3.2, bring the Countess and Helena word of Bertram's flight to the wars and his refusal of his wife. (Often identified with the French lords.)

• Second Gentleman minor

  The second of the two French gentlemen who report Bertram's conduct to the household at Rousillon in 3.2.

• Gentleman (Astringer) minor

  A gentleman of the French court (a 'gentle astringer,' or keeper of goshawks) whom Helena meets at Marseilles and who carries her petition to the King, helping her reach him for the final reckoning.

• Page minor

  A page in the Countess's household who summons Parolles.

• Servant minor

  A serving-man who attends the action and carries word among the principals.

• All ensemble

  A unison speech-prefix for the assembled lords and courtiers speaking together.

• Both ensemble

  A unison speech-prefix for two lords answering the King together.

Cross-references

• Folger Shakespeare
• MIT plain text
• Wikipedia