Act 5, Scene 3

The same. A room in the COUNTESS'S palace.

[Flourish. Enter KING, COUNTESS, LAFEU, Lords, Gentlemen, Guards, &c.]
King of France
2393 We lost a jewel of her; and our esteem
2394 Was made much poorer by it: but your son,
2395 As mad in folly, lack'd the sense to know
2396 Her estimation home.
Countess of Rousillon
2397 'Tis past, my liege:
2398 And I beseech your majesty to make it
2399 Natural rebellion, done i' the blaze of youth,
2400 When oil and fire, too strong for reason's force,
2401 O'erbears it and burns on.
King of France
2402 My honour'd lady,
2403 I have forgiven and forgotten all;
2404 Though my revenges were high bent upon him,
2405 And watch'd the time to shoot.
Lafew
2406 This I must say,—
2407 But first, I beg my pardon,—the young lord
2408 Did to his majesty, his mother, and his lady,
2409 Offence of mighty note; but to himself
2410 The greatest wrong of all: he lost a wife
2411 Whose beauty did astonish the survey
2412 Of richest eyes; whose words all ears took captive;
2413 Whose dear perfection hearts that scorn'd to serve
2414 Humbly call'd mistress.
King of France
2415 Praising what is lost
2416 Makes the remembrance dear.—Well, call him hither;—
2417 We are reconcil'd, and the first view shall kill
2418 All repetition:—let him not ask our pardon;
2419 The nature of his great offence is dead,
2420 And deeper than oblivion do we bury
2421 Th' incensing relics of it; let him approach,
2422 A stranger, no offender; and inform him,
2423 So 'tis our will he should.
Gentleman (Astringer)
2424 I shall, my liege.
[Exit Gentleman.]
King of France
2425 What says he to your daughter? have you spoke?
Lafew
2426 All that he is hath reference to your highness.
King of France
2427 Then shall we have a match. I have letters sent me
2428 That sets him high in fame.
[Enter BERTRAM.]
Lafew
2429 He looks well on 't.
King of France
2430 I am not a day of season,
2431 For thou mayst see a sunshine and a hail
2432 In me at once: but to the brightest beams
2433 Distracted clouds give way; so stand thou forth;
2434 The time is fair again.
Bertram
2435 My high-repented blames,
2436 Dear sovereign, pardon to me.
King of France
2437 All is whole;
2438 Not one word more of the consumed time.
2439 Let's take the instant by the forward top;
2440 For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees
2441 The inaudible and noiseless foot of time
2442 Steals ere we can effect them. You remember
2443 The daughter of this lord?
Bertram
2444 Admiringly, my liege: at first
2445 I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart
2446 Durst make too bold herald of my tongue:
2447 Where the impression of mine eye infixing,
2448 Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me,
2449 Which warp'd the line of every other favour;
2450 Scorned a fair colour, or express'd it stolen;
2451 Extended or contracted all proportions
2452 To a most hideous object: thence it came
2453 That she whom all men prais'd, and whom myself,
2454 Since I have lost, have lov'd, was in mine eye
2455 The dust that did offend it.
King of France
2456 Well excus'd:
2457 That thou didst love her, strikes some scores away
2458 From the great compt: but love that comes too late,
2459 Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried,
2460 To the great sender turns a sour offence,
2461 Crying, That's good that's gone. Our rash faults
2462 Make trivial price of serious things we have,
2463 Not knowing them until we know their grave:
2464 Oft our displeasures, to ourselves unjust,
2465 Destroy our friends, and after weep their dust:
2466 Our own love waking cries to see what's done,
2467 While shameful hate sleeps out the afternoon.
2468 Be this sweet Helen's knell, and now forget her.
2469 Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin:
2470 The main consents are had; and here we'll stay
2471 To see our widower's second marriage-day.
Countess of Rousillon
2472 Which better than the first, O dear heaven, bless!
2473 Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cesse!
Lafew
2474 Come on, my son, in whom my house's name
2475 Must be digested, give a favour from you,
2476 To sparkle in the spirits of my daughter,
2477 That she may quickly come.—
[BERTRAM gives a ring to Lafeu.]
Lafew
2478 By my old beard,
2479 And every hair that's on 't, Helen, that's dead,
2480 Was a sweet creature: such a ring as this,
2481 The last that e'er I took her leave at court,
2482 I saw upon her finger.
Bertram
2483 Hers it was not.
King of France
2484 Now, pray you, let me see it; for mine eye,
2485 While I was speaking, oft was fasten'd to it.—
2486 This ring was mine; and when I gave it Helen
2487 I bade her, if her fortunes ever stood
2488 Necessitied to help, that by this token
2489 I would relieve her. Had you that craft to 'reave her
2490 Of what should stead her most?
Bertram
2491 My gracious sovereign,
2492 Howe'er it pleases you to take it so,
2493 The ring was never hers.
Countess of Rousillon
2494 Son, on my life,
2495 I have seen her wear it; and she reckon'd it
2496 At her life's rate.
Lafew
2497 I am sure I saw her wear it.
Bertram
2498 You are deceiv'd, my lord; she never saw it:
2499 In Florence was it from a casement thrown me,
2500 Wrapp'd in a paper, which contain'd the name
2501 Of her that threw it: noble she was, and thought
2502 I stood engag'd: but when I had subscrib'd
2503 To mine own fortune, and inform'd her fully
2504 I could not answer in that course of honour
2505 As she had made the overture, she ceas'd,
2506 In heavy satisfaction, and would never
2507 Receive the ring again.
King of France
2508 Plutus himself,
2509 That knows the tinct and multiplying medicine,
2510 Hath not in nature's mystery more science
2511 Than I have in this ring: 'twas mine, 'twas Helen's,
2512 Whoever gave it you. Then, if you know
2513 That you are well acquainted with yourself,
2514 Confess 'twas hers, and by what rough enforcement
2515 You got it from her: she call'd the saints to surety
2516 That she would never put it from her finger
2517 Unless she gave it to yourself in bed,—
2518 Where you have never come,—or sent it us
2519 Upon her great disaster.
Bertram
2520 She never saw it.
King of France
2521 Thou speak'st it falsely, as I love mine honour;
2522 And mak'st conjectural fears to come into me
2523 Which I would fain shut out. If it should prove
2524 That thou art so inhuman,—'twill not prove so:—
2525 And yet I know not:—thou didst hate her deadly.
2526 And she is dead; which nothing, but to close
2527 Her eyes myself, could win me to believe
2528 More than to see this ring.—Take him away.
[Guards seize BERTRAM.]
King of France
2529 My fore-past proofs, howe'er the matter fall,
2530 Shall tax my fears of little vanity,
2531 Having vainly fear'd too little.—Away with him;—
2532 We'll sift this matter further.
Bertram
2533 If you shall prove
2534 This ring was ever hers, you shall as easy
2535 Prove that I husbanded her bed in Florence,
2536 Where she yet never was.
[Exit, guarded.]
King of France
2537 I am wrapp'd in dismal thinkings.
[Enter a Gentleman.]
Gentleman (Astringer)
2538 Gracious sovereign,
2539 Whether I have been to blame or no, I know not:
2540 Here's a petition from a Florentine,
2541 Who hath, for four or five removes, come short
2542 To tender it herself. I undertook it,
2543 Vanquish'd thereto by the fair grace and speech
2544 Of the poor suppliant, who by this, I know,
2545 Is here attending: her business looks in her
2546 With an importing visage; and she told me
2547 In a sweet verbal brief, it did concern
2548 Your highness with herself.
[Reads.]
King of France
2549 'Upon his many protestations to marry me, when his wife
2550 was dead, I blush to say it, he won me. Now is the count
2551 Rousillon a widower; his vows are forfeited to me, and my
2552 honour's paid to him. He stole from Florence, taking no leave,
2553 and I follow him to his country for justice: grant it me, O king;
2554 in you it best lies; otherwise a seducer flourishes, and a poor
2555 maid is undone.
2556 DIANA CAPULET.'
Lafew
2557 I will buy me a son-in-law in a fair, and toll this: I'll none of
2558 him.
King of France
2559 The heavens have thought well on thee, Lafeu,
2560 To bring forth this discovery.—Seek these suitors:—
2561 Go speedily, and bring again the count.
[Exeunt Gentleman, and some Attendants.]
King of France
2562 I am afeard the life of Helen, lady,
2563 Was foully snatch'd.
Countess of Rousillon
2564 Now, justice on the doers!
[Enter BERTRAM, guarded.]
King of France
2565 I wonder, sir, since wives are monsters to you.
2566 And that you fly them as you swear them lordship,
2567 Yet you desire to marry.—What woman's that?
[Re-enter Widow and DIANA.]
Diana
2568 I am, my lord, a wretched Florentine,
2569 Derived from the ancient Capulet;
2570 My suit, as I do understand, you know,
2571 And therefore know how far I may be pitied.
The Widow
2572 I am her mother, sir, whose age and honour
2573 Both suffer under this complaint we bring,
2574 And both shall cease, without your remedy.
King of France
2575 Come hither, count; do you know these women?
Bertram
2576 My lord, I neither can nor will deny
2577 But that I know them: do they charge me further?
Diana
2578 Why do you look so strange upon your wife?
Bertram
2579 She's none of mine, my lord.
Diana
2580 If you shall marry,
2581 You give away this hand, and that is mine;
2582 You give away heaven's vows, and those are mine;
2583 You give away myself, which is known mine;
2584 For I by vow am so embodied yours
2585 That she which marries you must marry me,
2586 Either both or none.
[To BERTRAM]
Lafew
2587 Your reputation comes too short for
2588 my daughter; you are no husband for her.
Bertram
2589 My lord, this is a fond and desperate creature
2590 Whom sometime I have laugh'd with: let your highness
2591 Lay a more noble thought upon mine honour
2592 Than for to think that I would sink it here.
King of France
2593 Sir, for my thoughts, you have them ill to friend
2594 Till your deeds gain them: fairer prove your honour
2595 Than in my thought it lies!
Diana
2596 Good my lord,
2597 Ask him upon his oath, if he does think
2598 He had not my virginity.
King of France
2599 What say'st thou to her?
Bertram
2600 She's impudent, my lord;
2601 And was a common gamester to the camp.
Diana
2602 He does me wrong, my lord; if I were so
2603 He might have bought me at a common price:
2604 Do not believe him. O, behold this ring,
2605 Whose high respect and rich validity
2606 Did lack a parallel; yet, for all that,
2607 He gave it to a commoner o' the camp,
2608 If I be one.
Countess of Rousillon
2609 He blushes, and 'tis it:
2610 Of six preceding ancestors, that gem,
2611 Conferr'd by testament to the sequent issue,
2612 Hath it been ow'd and worn. This is his wife;
2613 That ring's a thousand proofs.
King of France
2614 Methought you said
2615 You saw one here in court could witness it.
Diana
2616 I did, my lord, but loath am to produce
2617 So bad an instrument; his name's Parolles.
Lafew
2618 I saw the man to-day, if man he be.
King of France
2619 Find him, and bring him hither.
[Exit an Attendant.]
Bertram
2620 What of him?
2621 He's quoted for a most perfidious slave,
2622 With all the spots o' the world tax'd and debauch'd:
2623 Whose nature sickens but to speak a truth:
2624 Am I or that or this for what he'll utter,
2625 That will speak anything?
King of France
2626 She hath that ring of yours.
Bertram
2627 I think she has: certain it is I lik'd her,
2628 And boarded her i' the wanton way of youth:
2629 She knew her distance, and did angle for me,
2630 Madding my eagerness with her restraint,
2631 As all impediments in fancy's course
2632 Are motives of more fancy; and, in fine,
2633 Her infinite cunning with her modern grace,
2634 Subdu'd me to her rate: she got the ring;
2635 And I had that which any inferior might
2636 At market-price have bought.
Diana
2637 I must be patient:
2638 You that have turn'd off a first so noble wife
2639 May justly diet me. I pray you yet,—
2640 Since you lack virtue, I will lose a husband,—
2641 Send for your ring, I will return it home,
2642 And give me mine again.
Bertram
2643 I have it not.
King of France
2644 What ring was yours, I pray you?
Diana
2645 Sir, much like
2646 The same upon your finger.
King of France
2647 Know you this ring? this ring was his of late.
Diana
2648 And this was it I gave him, being a-bed.
King of France
2649 The story, then, goes false you threw it him
2650 Out of a casement.
Diana
2651 I have spoke the truth.
Bertram
2652 My lord, I do confess the ring was hers.
King of France
2653 You boggle shrewdly; every feather starts you.—
[Re-enter Attendant, with PAROLLES.]
King of France
2654 Is this the man you speak of?
Diana
2655 Ay, my lord.
King of France
2656 Tell me, sirrah, but tell me true I charge you,
2657 Not fearing the displeasure of your master,—
2658 Which, on your just proceeding, I'll keep off,—
2659 By him and by this woman here what know you?
Parolles
2660 So please your majesty, my master hath been an honourable
2661 gentleman; tricks he hath had in him, which gentlemen have.
King of France
2662 Come, come, to the purpose: did he love this woman?
Parolles
2663 Faith, sir, he did love her; but how?
King of France
2664 How, I pray you?
Parolles
2665 He did love her, sir, as a gentleman loves a woman.
King of France
2666 How is that?
Parolles
2667 He loved her, sir, and loved her not.
King of France
2668 As thou art a knave and no knave.—
2669 What an equivocal companion is this!
Parolles
2670 I am a poor man, and at your majesty's command.
Lafew
2671 He's a good drum, my lord, but a naughty orator.
Diana
2672 Do you know he promised me marriage?
Parolles
2673 Faith, I know more than I'll speak.
King of France
2674 But wilt thou not speak all thou know'st?
Parolles
2675 Yes, so please your majesty; I did go between them, as I
2676 said; but more than that, he loved her,—for indeed he was mad
2677 for her, and talked of Satan, and of limbo, and of furies, and I
2678 know not what: yet I was in that credit with them at that time
2679 that I knew of their going to bed; and of other motions, as
2680 promising her marriage, and things which would derive me ill-will
2681 to speak of; therefore I will not speak what I know.
King of France
2682 Thou hast spoken all already, unless thou canst say they are
2683 married: but thou art too fine in thy evidence; therefore stand
2684 aside.—This ring, you say, was yours?
Diana
2685 Ay, my good lord.
King of France
2686 Where did you buy it? or who gave it you?
Diana
2687 It was not given me, nor I did not buy it.
King of France
2688 Who lent it you?
Diana
2689 It was not lent me neither.
King of France
2690 Where did you find it then?
Diana
2691 I found it not.
King of France
2692 If it were yours by none of all these ways,
2693 How could you give it him?
Diana
2694 I never gave it him.
Lafew
2695 This woman's an easy glove, my lord; she goes off and on at
2696 pleasure.
King of France
2697 This ring was mine, I gave it his first wife.
Diana
2698 It might be yours or hers, for aught I know.
King of France
2699 Take her away, I do not like her now;
2700 To prison with her: and away with him.—
2701 Unless thou tell'st me where thou hadst this ring,
2702 Thou diest within this hour.
Diana
2703 I'll never tell you.
King of France
2704 Take her away.
Diana
2705 I'll put in bail, my liege.
King of France
2706 I think thee now some common customer.
Diana
2707 By Jove, if ever I knew man, 'twas you.
King of France
2708 Wherefore hast thou accus'd him all this while?
Diana
2709 Because he's guilty, and he is not guilty:
2710 He knows I am no maid, and he'll swear to't:
2711 I'll swear I am a maid, and he knows not.
2712 Great King, I am no strumpet, by my life;
2713 I am either maid, or else this old man's wife.
[Pointing to LAFEU.]
King of France
2714 She does abuse our ears; to prison with her.
Diana
2715 Good mother, fetch my bail.—Stay, royal sir;
[Exit WIDOW.]
Diana
2716 The jeweller that owes the ring is sent for,
2717 And he shall surety me. But for this lord
2718 Who hath abus'd me as he knows himself,
2719 Though yet he never harm'd me, here I quit him:
2720 He knows himself my bed he hath defil'd;
2721 And at that time he got his wife with child.
2722 Dead though she be, she feels her young one kick;
2723 So there's my riddle:—One that's dead is quick;
2724 And now behold the meaning.
[Re-enter Widow with HELENA.]
King of France
2725 Is there no exorcist
2726 Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?
2727 Is't real that I see?
Helena
2728 No, my good lord;
2729 'Tis but the shadow of a wife you see—
2730 The name, and not the thing.
Bertram
2731 Both, both; O, pardon!
Helena
2732 O, my good lord, when I was like this maid;
2733 I found you wondrous kind. There is your ring,
2734 And, look you, here's your letter. This it says,
2735 'When from my finger you can get this ring,
2736 And are by me with child, &c.'— This is done:
2737 Will you be mine now you are doubly won?
Bertram
2738 If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly,
2739 I'll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.
Helena
2740 If it appear not plain, and prove untrue,
2741 Deadly divorce step between me and you!—
2742 O my dear mother, do I see you living?
Lafew
2743 Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep anon:—
2744 Good Tom Drum
[to PAROLLES]
Lafew
2745 , lend me a handkercher: so, I
2746 thank thee; wait on me home, I'll make sport with thee:
2747 let thy courtesies alone, they are scurvy ones.
King of France
2748 Let us from point to point this story know,
2749 To make the even truth in pleasure flow:—
2750 If thou beest yet a fresh uncropped flower,
[To DIANA.]
King of France
2751 Choose thou thy husband, and I'll pay thy dower;
2752 For I can guess that, by thy honest aid,
2753 Thou kept'st a wife herself, thyself a maid.
2754 Of that and all the progress, more and less,
2755 Resolvedly more leisure shall express:
2756 All yet seems well; and if it end so meet,
2757 The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.
[Flourish.]
King of France
2758 The king's a beggar, now the play is done;
2759 All is well-ended if this suit be won,
2760 That you express content; which we will pay
2761 With strife to please you, day exceeding day:
2762 Ours be your patience then, and yours our parts;
2763 Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.
[Exeunt.]
King of France
2764 THE END

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Notes

TLN 2393rhetorical device
“We lost a jewel of her”
The King describes Helena as a 'jewel' the court lost by Bertram's folly. The metaphor casts a woman as a precious object whose worth her husband failed to recognise — standard Elizabethan idiom for female value measured in terms of rarity and possession. 'Her estimation home' means 'the full extent of her worth.'
TLN 2400rhetorical device
“oil and fire, too strong for reason's force”
The Countess asks the King to treat Bertram's offences as 'natural rebellion' — the inevitable outbreak of youthful passion against reason. Oil poured on fire intensifies rather than quenches it, so her image maps young desire as something that by its very nature overwhelms rational control. She is asking for mercy by framing Bertram's behaviour as physiology, not moral failure.
TLN 2404archaic vocab
“my revenges were high bent upon him”
'High bent' is an archery metaphor: the King's desire for revenge was drawn back taut, like a bow at full draw, aimed directly at Bertram. He is saying he was primed and ready to punish him severely — but has now relaxed that tension. 'Watch'd the time to shoot' extends the image: he waited for the right moment to release.
TLN 2415rhetorical device
“Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear”
The King delivers a sententious maxim — a short, quotable moral statement — that the act of praising what we have lost increases our sense of loss itself. He uses it to cut off Lafew's eulogy for Helena and move forward: dwelling on loss deepens it, so better to act than to mourn. The gnome-like quality of the line was noted by early editors as characteristic of Shakespeare's problem-play style.
TLN 2420archaic vocab
“deeper than oblivion do we bury”
'Oblivion' means complete forgetting — the state of having ceased to exist in anyone's memory. The King says Bertram's offence will be buried deeper than that already total erasure: he is pardoning not just the act but the very memory of it. 'The incensing relics of it' means the anger-stirring remains or traces of the offence.
TLN 2439archaic vocab
“take the instant by the forward top”
This is an allusion to the classical emblem of Opportunity (Latin Occasio or Kairos): the figure was depicted with a thick forelock of hair at the front of his head and bald at the back, so that you had to seize him as he approached — once he had passed, there was nothing to grip. 'Take the instant by the forward top' means seize the moment while it is still in front of you.
TLN 2445syntax grammar
“I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart durst make too bold”
Bertram claims he admired Maudlin before he dared tell her so openly ('ere my heart durst make too bold herald of my tongue'), but that once Helena's image fixed itself in his eye, it distorted his perception of every other woman — as if his eye were a warped glass that made all other faces ugly. This is a tortured explanation of why he ignored Maudlin while married to Helena, now offered to smooth his path to a new match.
TLN 2457archaic vocab
“strikes some scores away from the great compt”
'Compt' is an archaic spelling of 'account' — the final reckoning of debts. 'Score' originally meant a notch cut on a tally stick to record a debt. The King is saying that Bertram's belated love for Helena erases some — not all — of the charges against him from his ledger of offences. The metaphor is from commercial accounting, imaging sin as debt.
TLN 2458rhetorical device
“love that comes too late, like a remorseful pardon slowly carried”
The King uses a simile: late-arriving love is like a royal pardon that travels too slowly to save the condemned man. A 'remorseful pardon' is one born of regret — the sender is genuinely sorry — but it arrives after the execution and therefore turns to grief for the one who sent it. Applied to Bertram's newly discovered love for Helena after her supposed death, the comparison is mordant.
TLN 2469cultural context
“Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin”
The King orders Bertram to send Maudlin — Lafew's daughter — a 'token,' meaning a love-gift or keepsake to signal his intentions. Exchanging tokens was a recognised form of betrothal or romantic pledge in Elizabethan culture; a ring was the most charged such object. The dramatic irony is immediate: Bertram has just been asked to hand Lafew a ring, and the ring he produces will set the whole plot of deception in motion.
TLN 2474archaic vocab
“my house's name must be digested”
Lafew says his family name must be 'digested' — absorbed or taken in — through Bertram, who will become his son-in-law and continue the Lafew lineage by marrying Maudlin. 'Give a favour from you' means send her a love-token (a ring, glove, or similar keepsake) to hurry her arrival to court. 'Sparkle in the spirits' means animate her excitement.
TLN 2486cultural context
“This ring was mine; and when I gave it Helen I bade her”
The King explains that this ring was his royal gift to Helena: a token she was to send him if she ever 'stood necessitied to help' — if she were ever in desperate need. A ring given by a monarch carried enormous symbolic weight as a pledge of royal protection. The King's question — did Bertram steal ('reave') it from her? — implies he suspects foul play in Helena's reported death.
TLN 2499cultural context
“In Florence was it from a casement thrown me”
Bertram's story — that an anonymous Florentine lady threw the ring from a window ('casement') wrapped in a paper giving her name, as a love-gift to a soldier she admired — was a recognisable romantic scenario in Elizabethan writing. A 'casement' is a hinged window that opens outward. He claims he told her he was not free to pursue her and she let him keep the ring. The audience knows this account is false.
TLN 2508classical allusion
“Plutus himself, that knows the tinct and multiplying medicine”
Plutus was the classical god of wealth, whose domain was knowledge of what things were truly worth. 'The tinct and multiplying medicine' refers to the Philosopher's Stone of alchemy — a legendary substance that could transmute base metals to gold and multiply wealth. The King says he knows this ring's history more intimately than even Plutus knows the deepest secrets of material value.
TLN 2515cultural context
“she call'd the saints to surety that she would never put it from her finger”
To 'call the saints to surety' means to invoke the saints as witnesses or guarantors of a sworn oath — the equivalent of swearing on a Bible. Helena reportedly swore by the saints that she would never remove the ring from her finger except in the two circumstances the King then describes (giving it to Bertram in bed, or returning it to the King in extremity). Invoking saints as oath-witnesses was a familiar Catholic practice in a Mediterranean setting.
TLN 2529syntax grammar
“My fore-past proofs, howe'er the matter fall, shall tax my fears of little vanity”
This is compressed syntax: the King says that his 'fore-past proofs' (past evidence, i.e. the ring and Bertram's lying) will show ('tax') that his fears were not empty and vain ('of little vanity'), even if how the affair turns out ('howe'er the matter fall') remains uncertain. He is justifying having Bertram arrested — he had good grounds to suspect the worst, and past evidence backs him up.
TLN 2541archaic vocab
“for four or five removes, come short to tender it herself”
A 'remove' was a stage of a royal journey — each time the court moved on to a new stopping-place. Diana tried to catch up with the King at four or five of these stopping-points but kept arriving after he had already departed ('come short'). 'Tender it herself' means present the petition herself. This detail explains why Diana needed the Gentleman to carry her letter.
TLN 2556cultural context
“DIANA CAPULET”
Diana signs her petition 'DIANA CAPULET,' identifying herself by family name. The surname Capulet would ring familiar to Shakespeare's audience from Romeo and Juliet. Here it simply identifies a Florentine family; there is no connection to the Veronese Capulets of that play. The name Diana marks her as the play's emblem of guarded chastity: Diana was the virgin goddess of the hunt.
TLN 2557wordplay
“I will buy me a son-in-law in a fair, and toll this”
Lafew says he will get a son-in-law at a country market ('fair') and 'toll' the present one — i.e., send him away with a toll, a fee for passing through, as if returning defective goods. 'Toll' puns on both the market sense (a toll exacted for use of the fair) and the sense of discarding something. He is disowning Bertram as a prospective match for his daughter on hearing Diana's accusation.
TLN 2565rhetorical device
“since wives are monsters to you, and that you fly them as you swear them lordship”
The King delivers a biting ironic observation: Bertram treats wives as terrifying monsters to be fled the moment he has sworn them 'lordship' — i.e., the marriage vow to be their lord and protect them. Yet at the same time (the next line) he still wishes to marry. The King is exposing the contradiction between Bertram's flight from Helena and his current eagerness to wed Maudlin.
TLN 2569cultural context
“Derived from the ancient Capulet”
Diana asserts she comes from 'the ancient Capulet,' establishing her as a member of a respectable, long-established Florentine family — not a common woman of no account. The claim of ancient lineage is part of her appeal to the King: she is not a nobody making false accusations but a gentlewoman whose family honour has been injured by a nobleman.
TLN 2581rhetorical device
“You give away this hand, and that is mine; you give away heaven's vows”
Diana deploys a rhetorical series — the figure of anaphora (repeating 'You give away...') — to enumerate what Bertram cannot give Maudlin because he has already pledged it to Diana: his hand, his oaths to heaven, and herself. The riddling quality ('herself' is embodied in his vows to her) is deliberate: Diana is withholding the key fact of the bed-trick while making clear Bertram's promises were real.
historical The bed-trick
TLN 2589archaic vocab
“this is a fond and desperate creature”
'Fond' here does not mean 'affectionate' but 'foolish, stupid' — the primary Elizabethan meaning. 'Desperate' means reckless, without hope or shame. Bertram is dismissing Diana as a foolish, shameless woman making wild claims — a standard strategy of men denying seduction in this period. His use of 'laugh'd with' (TLN 2590) is similarly belittling: she is just someone he joked around with, not a serious person.
TLN 2610cultural context
“Of six preceding ancestors, that gem, conferr'd by testament to the sequent issue”
The Countess identifies the ring Bertram gave Diana as the Rousillon family heirloom, passed down by will ('testament') from one generation ('issue') to the next across six ancestors. In Elizabethan law and custom, a ring 'conferr'd by testament to the sequent issue' was entailed property — it was meant to stay in the family, not be given to a woman in exchange for sex. The Countess's identification makes Bertram's lie untenable and her legal point powerful.
TLN 2621archaic vocab
“He's quoted for a most perfidious slave, with all the spots o' the world tax'd and debauch'd”
'Quoted' means noted or marked down — Bertram is saying Parolles is on record as a notorious traitor and liar. 'Tax'd' means charged with, accused of. Bertram is trying to disqualify Parolles as a witness by reminding the court of his unmasking as a coward who betrayed military secrets — the drum-plot of earlier scenes.
classical The miles gloriosus (the braggart soldier)
TLN 2638archaic vocab
“You that have turn'd off a first so noble wife may justly diet me”
'Turn'd off' means dismissed, sent away — used of a servant or a wife put away from the house. 'Diet me' means give me a reason to be cautious or moderate my expectations, to ration out my trust. Diana is being bitterly sarcastic: a man who could reject so noble a wife as Helena is perfectly entitled to stint Diana of trust. She is also protecting Helena's reputation in the same breath.
TLN 2653archaic vocab
“You boggle shrewdly; every feather starts you”
'Boggle' means to start back in fear or confusion, like a horse shying at a sudden sight or sound. 'Every feather starts you' extends the image: Bertram is so panicked that even the smallest thing — a feather drifting past — makes him flinch. The King is observing that Bertram keeps changing his story with every new piece of evidence, betraying guilt by the very quickness of his evasions.
TLN 2677cultural context
“talked of Satan, and of limbo, and of furies”
Parolles recalls that Bertram, when infatuated with Diana, ranted about Satan, Limbo, and the Furies — the classical hell-spirits of punishment. 'Limbo' was the borderland of hell (in Catholic theology, the waiting-place of unbaptised souls and the Old Testament righteous), here used loosely for the torments of love. The Furies (Greek Erinyes) were goddesses of vengeance who drove the guilty mad. Bertram's lovesick rhetoric mixed Christian and classical terms for the underworld — a typical Elizabethan fusion.
TLN 2695wordplay
“This woman's an easy glove, my lord; she goes off and on at pleasure”
Lafew compares Diana to a loose, well-worn glove that slides easily on and off the hand — meaning she slips in and out of contradictions effortlessly and without scruple. It is a contemptuous comparison, but it also shows that Lafew (like the King) is genuinely confused by Diana's deliberate riddles, not yet understanding that she is withholding information to protect Helena's secret.
TLN 2706archaic vocab
“I think thee now some common customer”
A 'customer' in Elizabethan slang was a prostitute — a woman who serves customers for pay. The King, exasperated by Diana's riddles and her offer to 'put in bail,' now suspects she may be what Bertram claimed: a common prostitute trying to extort money from a nobleman. The accusation is the low point of Diana's ordeal before Helena's entrance resolves everything.
TLN 2709wordplay
“Because he's guilty, and he is not guilty: he knows I am no maid, and he'll swear to't”
Diana's riddling speech works on multiple true-and-false levels. Bertram is 'guilty' of seduction and 'not guilty' of seducing the woman he thinks he seduced (it was Helena). He 'knows' Diana is no maid (because he slept with someone in her place) and yet he does not 'know' it was Diana — he knows nothing about Diana's body. She is no 'strumpet,' but she is also 'not a maid' in the technical Elizabethan sense if married women are counted — since she is, at the play's end, effectively Helena's agent in the consummation of Helena's marriage.
historical The bed-trickhistorical A woman's honour: chastity and the double standard
TLN 2722wordplay
“Dead though she be, she feels her young one kick; so there's my riddle: one that's dead is quick”
Diana's final riddle pivots on 'quick,' which in Elizabethan English had two distinct meanings: 'alive' and 'pregnant, quickened with child' (the moment when a pregnant woman first felt the foetus move was called 'quickening'). The dead Helena 'feels her young one kick' — she is pregnant — and therefore 'one that's dead is quick': apparently dead yet alive with new life. The riddle announces Helena's re-entry. 'Quick' as 'alive' survives in the phrase 'the quick and the dead.'
TLN 2725archaic vocab
“Is there no exorcist beguiles the truer office of mine eyes”
An 'exorcist' in Renaissance usage was not just a caster-out of demons but anyone who summoned and controlled spirits — including the spirits or shades of the dead. The King asks whether some conjurer is deceiving ('beguiles') his eyes into thinking they see a ghost. He means: can he really be seeing Helena, whom he believed dead, or is an illusionist tricking his sight? The question registers the almost supernatural quality of Helena's return.
TLN 2729rhetorical device
“'Tis but the shadow of a wife you see, the name, and not the thing”
Helena's first words on her reappearance are a riddle of her own: she is only a 'shadow' and a 'name,' not the 'thing' itself — meaning she has been a wife in name only (never consummated the marriage with Bertram's knowledge or consent) and is still only a shadow of a wife until Bertram fully and freely accepts her. The distinction between the name and the thing echoes legal and theological debates about what constitutes a true marriage.
TLN 2731cultural context
“Both, both; O, pardon!”
Bertram's two-word recognition — 'Both, both' — answers Helena's claim to be only shadow and name by insisting she is both the reality and the shadow, name and thing together. His 'O, pardon!' is the play's nearest approach to a direct apology. Critics have long debated whether this brief exclamation is adequate acknowledgement of his treatment of Helena, or whether its abruptness represents the play's refusal to provide the emotional resolution romance would normally demand.
historical Giletta of Narbonne (the source story)
TLN 2732stage direction note
“when I was like this maid I found you wondrous kind”
Helena reveals the bed-trick to Bertram: 'when I was like this maid' — disguised as, or substituting for, Diana — he was 'wondrous kind,' i.e., sexually tender or generous. The phrase compresses the entire mechanism of the bed-trick into a single semi-euphemistic line. She immediately produces the material proof: Bertram's ancestral ring and the letter containing his conditions ('When from my finger you can get this ring / And are by me with child').
historical The bed-trickhistorical Giletta of Narbonne (the source story)
TLN 2743archaic vocab
“Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep anon”
Lafew's comic admission that he is about to cry uses the common proverbial joke that onions make the eyes water. He is deflecting sentiment with humour, as old men do in Shakespeare when moved. 'Anon' means 'soon, in a moment.' He immediately turns to Parolles ('Good Tom Drum') with a practical request for a handkerchief, returning Parolles to his role as a figure of pathos-tinged comedy: the exposed coward now employed as a kind of comic servant.
TLN 2744cultural context
“Good Tom Drum, lend me a handkercher”
Lafew nicknames Parolles 'Tom Drum' — calling him a drum, i.e., all noise and no substance, as he said earlier (TLN 2671: 'a good drum, my lord, but a naughty orator'). A 'Tom' was a common name for a nobody or a fool. The nickname encapsulates Parolles's character: he was exposed as all sound, no courage. Lafew's offer to 'make sport with thee' and 'let thy courtesies alone, they are scurvy ones' (TLN 2746-2747) suggests he will take Parolles on as an entertainer or fool-figure, which is the one role the humiliated man has left.
classical The miles gloriosus (the braggart soldier)
TLN 2756rhetorical device
“All yet seems well; and if it end so meet, the bitter past, more welcome is the sweet”
The King's closing couplet on the main action is notably tentative: 'All yet seems well' — only 'seems,' not 'is.' The conditional 'if it end so meet' (if it concludes fittingly) hedges the happy ending further. Critics have pointed to this as evidence that Shakespeare deliberately undercuts the proverbial title ('All's well that ends well') even in the King's own verdict: well-seeming is not the same as well-being.
TLN 2758stage direction note
“The king's a beggar, now the play is done”
The King steps outside the fiction to deliver an Epilogue, speaking as an actor appealing directly to the audience for applause. 'The king's a beggar' inverts the play's social world: the most powerful character becomes a supplicant ('beggar') to the spectators, whose 'patient' silence and 'gentle hands' (applause) are the only payment the players seek. This is a conventional Elizabethan Epilogue device, asking the audience to 'express content' — show their approval.