SOURCE: "The Conclusion to All's Well That Ends Weir in Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, Vol. 23, No. 2, Spring, 1983, pp. 257-76.

[In the following essay, Gross analyzes the ending of All's Well That Ends Well, and addresses the debate abut whether the audience should receive the convention of a "happy ending" with regard to this play.]

The web of our life is a mingled yarn, good and ill together: Our virtues would be proud if our faults whipt them not, and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherish'd by our virtues.

First Lord

The title of All's Well That Ends Well, a title which epitomizes comic or romantic endings, invites us to pay special attention to the ending of this play, to examine it against the norm of comic ending. Some critics take the sense of the title at face value, and believe with Hazelton Spencer that all does indeed end well, that "the play's title clinches the argument against its detractors."¹ Others would see the meaning as wholly ironic, or would agree with the reviewer of a 1959 Tyrone Guthrie production that the play "raises a dozen issues, only to drop them all with a cynical, indifferent 'all's well that ends well'."² The intent of this study will be to examine not simply whether all ends well, for our reactions at the end of any play are often complex, but rather what factors in the play and its ending contribute to our total response to the ending. I hope in my analysis to emphasize effects which were intended by Shakespeare, and to be comprehensive enough to avoid the criticism Richard Levin raises against an ironic approach which "operates at such a high level of abstraction that it can easily pass over such concrete details as the dramatic rhythm and its emotional effect."³ I will be very much concerned with "dramatic" aspects of the play, not only with what is said, but with how it is said, with action, with characterization, and with rhythm or pacing in the ending.

Previous studies of the ending of All's Well have concentrated on some limited aspect of the ending. Roger Warren's analysis in 1969 emphasized the light which the sonnets shed on the characteristic of Helena's love and Bertram's reaction to it.⁴ More recently, Ian Donaldson has found throughout the play a concentration on endings and beginnings, on ends and the means to those ends.⁵ His article, though intimately concerned with the problem of "ending well," does not devote extensive detail to the final scene itself. I would look on my attempt to analyze the entire context of the ending of All's Well as a means of complementing and extending these previous analyses.

A close look at the title can help identify two separate, though related, aspects of comic ending which will play an important role in the discussion to follow, for the cliché, "all's well that ends well," can be taken in two distinct senses. First, comedies and romances usually entail a great many complications, reversals, and perils before a resolution and happy conclusion are reached. Where the pure spirit of comedy reigns, the ending generates a feeling that all that went before can be reckoned at naught as long as the story has ended happily. The trials and tribulations are worth it. It is the end that counts—the sense of Helena's statement midway through the play:

All's well that ends well! still the fine's the crown;
What e'er the course, the end is the renown.

(IV.iv.35-36)⁶

An emphasis on the "all" of "all's well that ends well" yields a second sense of the phrase, one close to the notion "they all lived happily ever after." In romances and fairy tales, and in comedies derived from these types, audiences are invited to believe that the marriage or reunion at the end is the panacea to all problems raised in the story, and that thereby future happiness is assured. Because the story ends well—in marriage or betrothal—all will be well. Beyond the end of the story lies a prospect of nothing but bliss. These two aspects of the title are related: the stronger the feeling that the final happiness has conquered any sadness or anxiety encountered during the story, the stronger will be our conviction that the happiness will endure. Conversely, if we are somehow led to suspect that the goal for which the hero or heroine has travailed so arduously has not been worth the effort—as E. K. Chambers reacts to Helena's conquest, "but after all it is a poor prize for which she has trailed her honour in the dust"⁷—we would also be inclined to have some doubts about the future happiness of that hero or heroine.

A question that may legitimately be raised is whether we are ever justified in speculating on the future happiness of the hero and heroine in a story such as All's Well. Thomas Marc Parrott voices a stricture against peering beyond the end of the play:

We may be fairly sure that Shakespeare's audience accepted the performance as an entertaining example of the old saying: 'all's well that ends well.' To ask whether the marriage of such an ill-matched pair was likely to be a happy one is to confuse drama with contemporary life, much in the fashion of a small boy at a performance of Hamlet who asked his father why Mr. Evans didn't marry Ophelia.

Yet, though it is undoubtedly over-naive to confuse drama and real life, it would also seem overly simplistic to rule out from drama or fiction any concern whatever for what happens beyond the end of a story. The writer of romance is generally not concerned about the psychological plausibility of events or of their consequences. If he tells us that the villain was suddenly converted, we believe him. And if he tells us that the couple lived happily ever after, we have no reason to doubt his word. But in a story where psychological plausibility has a legitimate place, where the motivation of characters is a clear concern of the author, and where the characters themselves examine or question their beliefs, feelings, or reasons for action, we have every reason to question the plausibility of the ending. This is not to say that we should speculate about some specific action of a character well beyond the conclusion of the plot. But if an author tries to tell us, "The marriage was a happy one," while the characters themselves, by their behavior or by what they tell us of themselves, preclude the possibility of that ever being so, we can well question the artistic integrity of the ending. As Barbara Smith points out in her study of poetic closure, marriage may not be an effective theme of closure when all that follows after marriage is not felt by the reader to be predictable.⁹

These distinctions suggest that our response to the ending of All's Well depends to a large extent on what kind of play it is. For the most part, critics who see no real problems with the ending are those who are satisfied with a limited interpretation of the play, usually with an emphasis on romantic fable, or those who would emphasize the difference between the expectations of Elizabethan audiences and of modern audiences. Thus, for Hazelton Spencer, "it was in a later age, when the old romances were no longer human nature's daily food, that it occurred to anyone to question whether the ending is really a happy one."¹⁰ There is a danger, however, of underestimating both the sophistication of Elizabethan audiences and of Shakespeare's intentions in the drama. Joseph Price, in his thorough review of critical reaction to All's Well, has identified six categories of interpretations of the play: "farcical comedy, sentimental romance, romantic fable, serious drama, cynical satire, and a thematic dramatization."¹¹ After presenting capsule summaries of the play as it might be acted with each of the six major interpretations dominant, Price concludes as follows:

Such constricted interpretations of All's Well have achieved at times a unity of form, but only at the expense of Shakespeare's intention, only by distortion of his play. For, the very recurrence of six major approaches throughout its history suggests a complexity which cannot legitimately be reduced to a single focus Criticism generally has insisted that these elements jar, that only by the elimination of several can an artistic unity be imposed. But the very essence of Shakespearean comedy is variety, a blending of seemingly jarring worlds.¹²

I would agree, with Price, on the valid existence in All's Well of all the elements identified here. There may even be a certain unity or artistic coherence in the very juxtaposition of romance and realism in the play, in the tension between these aspects. G. B. Harrison has stated of All's Well that Shakespeare "has asked himself the question: if this story had really happened, what sort of people would these characters have been?"¹³ As I hope to show, not only in character portrayal, but in other aspects of romance, particularly that of the typical happy ending, Shakespeare seems to be holding the conventions up to the scrutiny of realism.

In examining the aspects of romance and realism, it is particularly important to recognize the difference between the play itself and the romance narrative from which the plot is drawn. If we look specifically at the ending of All's Well, in terms of simple plot line we recognize the conclusion of a traditional "fulfillment of the tasks" episode, of which Boccaccio's tale of "Giletta of Narbona" is the nearest source. A nobleman, forced to marry a woman beneath him in rank, imposes on her what he thinks are impossible conditions before he will accept her love. The woman cleverly and resourcefully fulfills the conditions, and the nobleman, faced with her presentation of the fait accompli, is moved to a change of heart, agrees to love her, and they live happily ever after. At the level of Boccaccio's tale we are not inclined to inquire about the motivation of either person in loving or not loving, about the worthiness or unworthiness of either person for the other's love, or about whether we have a right to suppose that they really did live happily ever after. If the ending of the story, including the hero's change of heart, occurs abruptly, our attention is not attracted to it in the fable because of the pace of the entire fable. But if we attend with some degree of sensitivity to the play All's Well, I would maintain that on all the accounts mentioned above we have, at least potentially, some cause to pause and wonder. Because the characters have come alive for us, have involved us in their motivations throughout the play, and because the play seriously addresses such themes as the problem of birth versus merit, the role of the woman as pursuer, and the differing male and female perspectives on honor, we find ourselves, with justification, concerned at the end of the play with how believable Bertram's conversion is, how believable Helena's and Bertram's love for each other is, and whether we are meant to feel that their lives will be happy ever after. And if events seem to conclude abruptly, we are warranted in asking why, or to what effect, since the rest of the play has been developed at a comparatively sophisticated level of psychological and motivational detail.

The potential problems with the ending, then, cluster around the two distinct, yet closely related aspects of the conclusion: the effect of the actions of both Bertram and Helena near the end on their relationship with one another, and the brevity or abruptness of the conclusion, especially the thirty lines after Helena's final entry. Since Bertram, but not Helena, is on stage in the last scene before the final thirty lines, it is natural to start with his part in the scene.

Bertram has been castigated by numerous critics, beginning with Samuel Johnson,¹⁴ and has been defended by others as an acceptable romantic hero, even as "almost a model youth."¹⁵ One way of getting close to Shakespeare's intentions in establishing Bertram as a romantic hero is by comparing his treatment of Bertram with that of Beltramo in the source story by Boccaccio, retold by William Painter. The final episode of "Giletta of Narbona" is the aspect of the tale most modified by Shakespeare. In the original tale, after Giletta has obtained the ring and conceived twin sons, Beltramo hears that she has left Rossiglione, and he returns there, taking his place as rightful lord, and presumably ruling in prosperity for several years. Giletta, after having borne twin sons, returns to Rossiglione, arriving at an All Saints Day feast, at which are present many ladies and knights. Falling prostrate at the count's feet, Giletta begs to be received as his wife, and tells the whole story of how she fulfilled the conditions. (Though her dialogue is not repeated in the tale, we can imagine this retelling taking a long time, and the count gradually responding with greater and greater admiration.) Beltramo reacts in a way that in no way diminishes his stature, but rather raises him in our esteem at the end:

For which cause the Counte knowing the thinges she had spoken, to be true (and perceiving her constant minde, and good witte, and the twoo faire young boyes to kepe his promise made, and to please his subjectes, & the Ladies that made sute unto him, to accept her from that tyme foorth, as his lawefull wife, and to honour her) abjected his obstinate rigour: causing her to rise up, and imbraced and kissed her, acknowledging her againe for his lawefull wyfe. And after he had apparelled her, according to her estate, to the great pleasure and contentation of those that were there, & of al his other frendes not onely that daye, but many others, he kept great chere, and from that time forth, hee loved and honoured her, as his dere spouse and wyfe.¹⁶

Shakespeare, however, instead of allowing Helena simply to appear before Bertram and beg to be received by him, as in the original tale, devises the entire episode where Diana confronts Bertram with the evidence of their supposed affair. By so doing, Shakespeare, instead of heightening Bertram's stature as "romantic hero," permits him to sink lower and lower in our estimation and in that of the characters of the play who are present. Even more significant, Bertram's exposure occurs just at that point in the play where he is beginning to rise in esteem. At the opening of Act V, the King is ready to allow Bertram a new start:

My honor'd lady,
I have forgiven and forgotten all,
Though my revenges were high bent upon him,
And watch 'd the time to shoot.

(V.iii.8-11)

The Countess and Lafew argue that Bertram's deeds were "done i' th' blade of youth" (V.iii.6) and are ready to give him the chance to prove himself wiser and more virtuous. We are at that stage in the plot where a typical romance might show the hero reformed, reconciled to the heroine, and where we would, with reason, expect him from that time forth to love and honor her as his dear spouse and wife. If Helena entered at this moment, we would have a typical happy ending with little to complain about other than its being somewhat expected and lacking in suspense.

But Shakespeare consciously (since it required considerable change from the original plot) chose not to end the play at this point. First Lafew, then the King, then the Countess notice that Bertram has Helena's ring, and Bertram tells a half-truth to explain his way out. Then Diana enters, and Bertram lies, then lies again in futile attempts to defend himself. His stature diminishes perilously from the promise shown at the beginning of the scene. It is obvious that Bertram has lost his composure and is thoroughly rattled: "Countess. He blushes, and 'tis hit" (V.iii.195). "King. You boggle shrewdly, every feather starts you" (V.iii.232). What sort of candidate is this lying, shaken creature for the "happily ever after" romantic ending? Bertram bears little resemblance to Beltramo, and seems to have gone far beyond the "few mistakes before he straightens out and settles down" posited for the romantic hero by Spencer.¹⁷

We might sense in Bertram's degradation a degree of burlesque of romantic heroes and plots, a deliberate inversion of the expected progress of a romantic hero. Viewed against the ideal image of a romantic hero, Bertram's actions have a comic cast. One can imagine a performance in which the actor, taking a cue from the King's "You boggle shrewdly," stutters and overplays his responses in an obvious, desperate attempt to fabricate a story. Yet the comic aspect can be carried too far. The more we laugh at Bertram, the less believable he is as a beloved of Helena. A totally comic, over-acted Bertram would destroy any sense of romantic reconciliation between Helena and Bertram in their final reunion.

The question of how Bertram can be what he is, and still be attractive to Helena is, indeed, one of the knottiest in the play, and it is a problem demanding the utmost sense of balance in the actor playing the part of Bertram. Bertram has so many faults that it would be easy to play him at the opposite extreme, not as a comic figure, but as a totally unsympathetic character—an arrogant, conceited, headstrong, lecherous, deceitful, shallow cad. Such a characterization would likewise make Helena's love for Bertram look absurd. There are, however, clear indications in the text that Bertram possesses attractive qualities. A key scene is Helena's arrival in Florence. We learn immediately from Diana that Bertram has indeed shown the bravery, won the "honor," which he had dreamed of. Perhaps most significant is Diana's spontaneous exclamation at Bertram's appearance as the French soldiers march by (even though she has been warned of his dishonest solicitations):

'tis a most gallant fellow.
I would he lov'd his wife. If he were honester
He were much goodlier. Is't not a handsome gentleman?

(III.v.78-80)

This is in one sense a variation upon the statement of the First Lord, "The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together" (IV.iii.71-72). But its principal effect is to emphasize the credibility of Bertram as an object of Helena's love. Throughout the play, despite Bertram's dishonorable acts, there must be that flair, that presence—and it must show through in the acting of the part—that elicits the response, "'tis a most gallant fellow."

If Bertram is, at least to some degree, credible as a person whom Helena might love, what can be said of the course of that love throughout the play? It is crucial for an understanding of the conclusion of the play to have some sense of the progress of the love between Bertram and Helena. I would like to turn, therefore, to a closer look at Helena, first at her love for Bertram, and then at her as a possible object of Bertram's love.

In Helena's meditation on Bertram in the first scene she appears the typical young romantic heroine, perhaps slightly self-consciously so, and concerned perhaps too much with appearance:

'Twas pretty, though a plague
To see him every hour, to sit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls.

(I.i.92-94)

She is at once idealistic and adolescent in her adoration, and also aware of her excesses. If Bertram is unseasoned, Helena is also, in matters of love. Both will mature; their romantic ideals will be tempered in the course of the play.

After Bertram's shameful treatment of Helena following the marriage, we may have difficulty understanding her unswerving adulation for him, expressed immediately after reading his disdainful letter to her at Rossilion:

Poor Lord, is't I
That chase thee from thy country, and expose
Those tender limbs of thine to the event
Of the none-sparing war?

(III.ii.102-105)

Helena here lapses into romantic sentiment similar to that expressed in the first scene, and we may find that the dichotomy between what we know of Bertram and how Helena responds to him makes this one of the most difficult moments of the play. However, this soliloquy again reinforces the feeling that Bertram possesses some quality which inspires such devotion.

In the bed-trick episode, Bertram reaches a low in honor, which contrasts with his "honorable service" on the battlefield, when he parts with the family ring in exchange for an expected night with Diana. We do not, of course, witness the bed scene with Helena, but we are allowed as close an approach as possible to the event, one which pushes Elizabethan decorum to the limit, in Helena's reflections after lying with Bertram. Her comments in IV.iv are significant in two ways. They serve to emphasize the distance of this play from pure romantic fable, a story told for story's sake. The play is at this point perhaps farthest removed in spirit from its source tale. Can we imagine any heroine in a romance reflecting and expressing her thoughts in terms such as these?

But O, strange men,
That can such sweet use make of what they hate,
When saucy trusting of the cozen'd thoughts
Defiles the pitchy night; so lust doth play
With what it loathes for that which is away—
But more of this hereafter.

(IV.iv.21-26)

Here Helena, aware that Bertram's sexual advances were made to one he thought to be Diana, most vividly reveals herself capable of feelings, reflections, and changes of mood. It is this change of mood that is the second important aspect of this speech. There is present an unmistakable sense of disillusion which contrasts sharply with Helena's earlier idolatry of Bertram. She has heard talk, from the women of Florence, of Bertram's lust; now she has experienced it herself. What a contrast this first union of Helena and Bertram is to the typical romantic meeting of lovers, and what a contrast to the union she would have idealized in her daydreams at Rossilion. It has been a union from which their child will be born, but on Bertram's part there has been no love in it, only lust. Helena, it is true, takes up the pursuit with her customary zeal—"All's well that ends well yet" (V.i.25)—but I would claim that from this point on some doubt has been cast, in Helena's mind, on whether the prize will, in fine, be worth the effort of the chase.

The words "prize" and "chase" underscore the fact that in this play it is definitely the woman who takes the initiative in seeking a mate. This active role of Helena has, however, been overplayed by some analysts. One strain of criticism sees her as relentlessly pursuing Bertram by a plan carefully thought out and consciously executed at every point in the play. Thus, for E. K. Chambers, Shakespeare has turned "man's tender helpmate, like Mr. Bernard Shaw's Anne Whitefield, into the keen and unswerving huntress of man."¹⁸ Bertrand Evans has espoused this view of Helena (though her pursuit is seen as ultimately for the good of Bertram),¹⁹ and a recent article by Richard A. Levin carries the interpretation of Helena as deceptive schemer to even greater extremes.²⁰ Such an interpretation, however, though supportable at certain points in the play, strains for credibility at other points, and even posits a kind of perversion of theatrical conventions.²¹ Moreover, this view of Helena as huntress does little to make her a plausible object of Bertram's love at the end of the play.

Granted that Helena is the initiator of the "romance" with Bertram, her dominant qualities appear to be vitality (we have seen the like in Bertram), shown both in her actions and her speech, and a remarkable resourcefulness—an ability to spot and take advantage of circumstances to further her ends. An important example of this is the scene of Helena's first arrival in Florence. After some discussion of a countryman of Helena's, it is the widow, and not Helena, who first suggests the possibility of Diana's aiding Bertram's wife to regain her husband: "This young maid might do her / A shrewd turn, if she pleas'd" (III.v. 67-68). The story of what unfolds after Helena's meeting with the women of Florence is much more plausible, as well as more fascinating and appealing, if seen as an instance of Helena's exceptional ability to seize the occasion and respond to opportunities as they arise, rather than as a plot preplanned in every detail. Up to at least this point in the play the evidence suggests that Shakespeare intended Helena as an engaging, sympathetic character, whose love includes a strong concern for the good and happiness of Bertram.

With the information from the widow that Bertram is soliciting Diana's favors, Helena's ready wit conceives the plan of having Diana agree to a meeting, and then substituting herself for Diana in the dark. At this point there is no doubt that the sudden prospect of fulfilling Bertram's seemingly impossible conditions is a strong motive for Helena. The conditions were stated as a cruel, cynical jest by Bertram; but since they were set down in writing, she will hold him to them, if she can. Yet even here, motives of Bertram's better welfare are not entirely absent. Bertram is, after all, bent on committing adultery. Conveniently, Helena can save Bertram from sin in deed, if not in intent, while at the same time fulfilling his conditions. By this time she is clearly bent on helping herself to win a husband. However, the progress of her pursuit has not manifested the stealthy, predatory quality that many commentators find so unlikeable.

The final scene of the play, when Bertram is confronted with his misdeeds, contains the instance where Helena's scheming is the most deliberate and calculating. We can ask, now, what effect the actions of this final scene have on Helena's character and on the possibility of Bertram's loving her. Whatever her motivation, Helena has placed Bertram in an extremely tight spot in the moments before the conclusion of the play. It has been observed that Helena's absence from the stage till the final moments, with Diana managing the exposure of Bertram (after the careful instructions of Helena, of course), keeps our sympathies from being turned too strongly from Helena. This piece of plotting is theatrically effective in keeping our attention from Helena; yet she is the person directly responsible for planning Bertram's confrontation with his own misdeeds.

Helena's actions are explained by some critics on the basis that Bertram must reach some extreme limit of psychological or moral shock before he can be "converted" by the virtuous or providential Helena. Her motives are mainly a redemption of Bertram. As Harold Wilson says,

Helena in All's Well is not seeking justice of the King but Bertram's love. In Boccaccio's tale, the heroine's fulfillment of the tasks is enough to win her happy union with the hero. In Shakespeare, Helena's efforts would go for nothing did not Bertram experience a change of heart. In the climax, everything is directed toward this end; and this is the abundant psychological justification of the means used, for Bertram is still far from penitent as we see him in the opening of the last scene.²²

And according to Bertrand Evans, "Helena's subtly designed torture inexorably compels him to indulge in an orgy, a last wild spree of falsehood, so violent that it must purge his system of vileness for ever."²³ This view makes of Helena an admirable confessor or spiritual advisor, but says little of her role as a lover. Though repentance does not exclude love, love does not follow as a necessary consequence. Bertram, who is in danger of the direst penalties from the King, may be exceedingly relieved to see Helena alive; he may devoutly repent his past lies and lechery; he may be eternally grateful to Helena for extricating him from the predicament he was in (though it may later dawn on him that it was Helena herself who placed him in it); but it does not follow, solely on the basis of Helena's actions towards Bertram, that he should love her.

Yet there is evidence that Bertram has come to love Helena, evidence that occurs well before Bertram is faced with Helena's reappearance. At the beginning of the last scene, when Bertram first meets the King, under no prompting or pressure, in the course of explaining a previous affection for Lafew's daughter, he refers to Helena:

Thence it came
That she whom all men prais'd, and whom myself,
Since I have lost, have lov'd.

(V.iii.52-54)

Though the reference is made obliquely, Shakespeare seems to have intended the audience to advert to it, for he has the King repeat the reference to Bertram's love for Helena, and so reinforce the impression:

Well excus'd.
That thou didst love her, strikes some scores away
From the great compt.

(V.iii.55-57)

Shakespeare, then, seems to have fashioned the latter part of the play as it relates to Bertram's love for Helena with the following effects. The audience is told that Bertram has finally come to love Helena—and this in conditions in which they would have no strong reasons to suspect the statement. Then Bertram undergoes the unexpected reversals, some schemed by Helena, that lead up to her sudden appearance. At this point, Bertram has lied himself into a position from which he cannot escape without help. He is, independent of what Helena's intentions are, trapped. There is nothing in what immediately preceded, or in what Helena has contrived, to motivate Bertram's love or to support our belief that he means his later claim to love her "ever dearly." Yet we know from his previous statement that he did profess to love her. He is at one and the same time in a state of having previously inclined towards love of Helena, yet forced to submit by actions which have not served to reinforce that love, but if anything, to undermine it. Bertram could not be blamed if he went back on his statement at the beginning of this scene and turned a cold heart towards Helena.

Furthermore, Bertram has lied so much that he is in danger of being in the position where no one will believe anything he says thereafter, much like the shepherd in the fable who cried "Wolf! Wolf!" On Helena's part, though Bertram had shown qualities that made her love for him believable, most recently he has behaved so despicably that we are entitled to serious doubts about how Helena or anyone could now accept and cherish such a creature. She has already expressed signs of disillusionment after her midnight tryst with Bertram. The possibility of a "happily ever after" ending may still be within reach, but considerable dialogue and action would seem to be needed to present such a happy ending convincingly to an audience. Yet, as presented by Shakespeare, what do we have? Thirty lines of compressed dialogue, much of it stated in negative or conditional language. A close analysis of the final section of the dialogue will help identify some of the effects it produces.

First, I have noted an apparent change in Helena's attitude towards Bertram with her earlier words, "But O, strange men." I would maintain that this same bitter-sweet mood, tinged with melancholy, is manifested in the final scene. Helena's entry is not triumphant, jubilant. Her opening words, spoken to the King, are

No, my good lord,
'Tis but the shadow of a wife you see,
The name, and not the thing.

(V.iii.306-308)

Though the sense refers directly to the fact that her marriage (in Bertram's and the world's eyes) was never consummated, is there not some connotation that she will never now quite attain "the thing" of wifehood, the ideal of love she had sought so earnestly? The words imply that her love is now but a shadow of what it once was. Her words to Bertram,

O my good lord, when I was like this maid,
I found you wondrous kind,

(V.iii.309-10)

do not overtly claim that he is not "wondrous kind" now, but the implication is there. Helena has fulfilled the conditions, reached her goal—

There is your ring,
And look you, here's your letter. This it says:
"When from my finger you can get this ring,
And are by me with child, etc." This is done.

(V.iii.310-13)

But missing is the sense of victory we may have earlier been led to expect from her words, "the fine's the crown .. . the end is the renown." One senses a hint of weariness at so long and arduous a chase after an object of ever diminishing brightness and value.

As for Bertram, we might ask what effects in his final words lend credibility to his professions of repentance and love. One way in which a character caught in falsehood might convince his hearers that what he now says should be believed is by lengthy explanations, giving reasons for his past conduct and emphatic assurance of reform in the future. But the very opposite strikes us in the concluding lines of the play. The extreme brevity of both Bertram's and Helena's speeches contrasts with the duration of dialogue we might expect, given the seriousness of the complications to be resolved. Some critics have seen this brevity as a defect on Shakespeare's part. For example, Kenneth Muir would have preferred more explanation by Bertram—"If the clown were given better jokes and Bertram a better speech at the end, the play would leave us with feelings of greater satisfaction."²⁴ On the positive side, it must be conceded that seeing and hearing the actor express repentance can make the scene more effective on the stage than in reading. Also on the side of believability for Bertram, his speech patterns, despite the brevity, have a ring of sincerity. The repetitions—"Both, both. O, pardon!" and "I'll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly"—seem intended by Shakespeare as an earnest mode of speech. A similar example might be Cordelia's "No cause, no cause"( Lear, IV.vii.74).

Yet, in spite of these positive aspects, there is still a sense of something missing from Bertram's protestations. They lack weight: three lines in all to accomplish repentance, reconciliation, and assurance of love.²⁵ Also countering the earnestness given the lines by the repetition of words is the curious fact that Bertram's expression of love is stated as a condition:

If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly,
I'll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.

(V.iii.315-16)

Even more curious, these words are spoken not to Helena, the one he is professing to love, but to the king. Bertram's only statement directly to Helena is the brief "Both, both. O, pardon!" Despite the desirability of not allowing the audience to dwell too much on Bertram's faults, it would have been easy for Shakespeare, if he had wanted, to have given Bertram more words, if not of explanation, at least of positive profession of his love.

If Bertram's dialogue is brief, Helena's is somewhat fuller. There exists, however, the same shortage of direct address to Bertram, and the same conditional tone. Her first words, on entering, are addressed not to Bertram, but to the King, which may be natural enough, since the King raises the question, "Is't real that I see?" (V.iii.306). But then, in response to Bertram's conditional statement of love, her reply is phrased not only as a condition, but also in strongly negative words:

If it appear not plain and prove untrue,
Deadly divorce step between me and you!

(V.iii.317-18)

The conditional phrasing may be meant, in part, with the rhyming couplets, to balance Bertram's statement. But if the balance and repetition have any effect of emphasis, what they call attention to is the very conditional nature of the statements.²⁶ Then, after Helena's statement, "Deadly divorce step between me and you," almost in the same breath it would seem, Helena turns to the Countess and exclaims, "O my dear mother, do I see you living?" (V.iii.319). The Countess's love for Helena must, of course, be acknowledged; but the quickness with which Helena turns from Bertram to the Countess says little for the capability of Bertram to hold her attention.

Finally, Helena's attention to the Countess raises the interesting question of when, if at all, Helena and Bertram might be expected to embrace. If the words of the conclusion are abrupt, but the playwright intended a fully genuine feeling that all is well, we could expect this to be shown by a kiss and embrace between Bertram and Helena. But if one reads the final lines beginning from Helena's "No, my good lord, / 'Tis but the shadow of a wife you see," to the end, and tries to imagine plausible stage action, there is no moment when Helena and Bertram might reasonably embrace without doing violence to the dialogue or interrupting it awkwardly with stage action. Bertram might fall on his knees with "Both, both. O, pardon!" but it is difficult to imagine them kissing at this point.²⁷ The last plausible moment when they might embrace is at Helena's final words to Bertram, "Deadly divorce step between me and you!" Fine words on which to hug and kiss. We can imagine Helena falling on the Countess's neck at the words, "O my dear mother, do I see you living?," but not upon Bertram's neck.

The inescapable impression from the final thirty lines is one of a deliberate holding back of effects which could easily have produced a much more convincing, resounding ring of all being well than we now have in the play. One feels that Shakespeare has taken the standard romantic happy ending, and if not stood it on its head, has at least abbreviated it and diluted its impact so much that we are forced to question whether the simple fact that hero and heroine are united at the end is any guarantee of their achievement of happiness. If such is the effect of the ending, is it to be seen as entirely skeptical on Shakespeare's part? An example of Northrop Frye's category of irony; a cynical demonstration of the impossibility of all ending well? Thus far in this analysis I have discussed solely the main plot, and have said nothing of the subplot of Parolles. I believe, however, that this subplot has an important role in the play, not only thematically, but also in determining how the ending works.

Though Parolles is undoubtedly a secondary character, he is in some ways the most memorable in All's Well.²⁸ Whatever else may be said of Parolles, he is not lacking in faults. He is boastful, vain, ostentatious, untruthful, lecherous, and under all that, cowardly. Do we like him? Well, yes. Our sympathies turn more towards him after his exposure; but even at his worst he has a quality that attracts us to him. As Helena remarks early in the play,

Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him
That they take place when virtue's steely bones
Looks bleak F th' cold wind.

(I.i.102-104)

But what primarily maintains our liking for Parolles is his vitality of spirit. Parolles is enthusiastic; he lives. He may be eager about the wrong things—the latest clothes; the latest words; the esteem of the court; the esteem of his fellow soldiers—but he is constantly eager. His vitality virtually bursts its bonds when he senses the chance of accompanying Bertram to the Tuscan wars: "To th' wars, my boy, to th' wars!" (II.iii.278). Perhaps Parolles's vitality shows forth most prominently in his language. Though he is an aspirer after the status of courtier, and though being fashionable is of highest concern, he is no Witwoud, no mere imitator of the fashionable wit of others. Even when being held blindfolded at the hands of his supposed captors, the inventiveness of his language is irrepressible. Descriptions such as his claim of the first Captain Dumaine's corruptibility—"Sir, for a cardecue he will sell the fee-simple of his salvation, the inheritance of it, and cut th' entail from all remainders, and a perpetual succession for it perpetually" (IV.iii.278-81)—elicit the admiration of his captors: "He hath outvillain'd villainy so far, that the rarity redeems him" (IV.iii.273-74). Finally, and most important, when Parolles has been beaten as low as anyone can be, it is his supreme vitality that sparks his recovery.

Up to the beginning of Act IV we had seen much of Parolles the braggart. Now, in the first scene of Act IV, with Parolles on his solitary foray at night near enemy lines, we are allowed to peer a little into his soul. We find out that Parolles realizes he is a braggart and a coward: "I find my tongue is too foolhardy, but my heart hath the fear of Mars before it, and of his creatures, not daring the reports of my tongue. . . .

What the devil should move me to undertake the recovery of this drum, being not ignorant of the impossibility, and knowing I had no such purpose?" (IV.i.28-36). With his overhearers we respond in amazement, "Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that he is?" (IV.i.44-45), and we may begin to have some compassion for Parolles.

The double-talk scenes are some of the funniest in Shakespeare, not only because of Parolles's wit in his responses, but because of the ironies and the asides of his captors. But when Parolles shows his abject cowardice, and when his blindfold is removed and he is completely humiliated by the revelation that his captors are his friends, the humor changes. We have an instance, common in Shakespeare, of a baiting where the edge is allowed to become too sharp. The departure first of Bertram and the Lords, and then of the Interpreter and Soldiers, becomes cruel. Parolles, left alone on stage to face his humiliation, is a pathetic sight. It would not be surprising if he were to remain crushed, completely undone. But there are still remnants of his irrepressible esprit. In his touching speech of self-knowledge and acceptance, he resolves to make the best of what he has:

Yet am I thankful. If my heart were great,
Twould burst at this. Captain I'll be no more.
But I will eat and drink, and sleep as soft
As captain shall. Simply the thing I am
Shall make me live.

.....

Rust sword, cool blushes, and, Parolles, live
Safest in shame! Being fool'd, by fool'ry thrive!
There's place and means for every man alive.
I'll after them.

(IV.iii.330-40)

Parolles not only achieves self-acceptance; he is also accepted by Lafew, previously his sharpest critic. Though Lafew still teases Parolles, he concludes their meeting after Parolles's return affectionately and encouragingly: "Sirrah, inquire further after me. I had talk of you last night; though you are a fool and a knave you shall eat. Go to; follow" (V.ii.52-54). As E. M. Blistein observes of Parolles, "from artificial captain he has become a nobleman's genuine fool, and he does not mind. He is, in fact, grateful. The audience has laughed at him for pretending to be something he was not. Lafew henceforth will laugh with him for being what he is."²⁹

The parallel between Parolles's exposure and humiliation at the hands of his comrades and Bertram's later exposure at the hands of Diana has often been commented upon. Both are liars, and both are confronted directly with the evidence of their lies. There is stark irony in Bertram's disavowal of Parolles's testimony at the very moment when Bertram is speaking lies of much more serious consequences:

He's quoted for a most perfidious slave,
With all the spots a'th' world tax'd and debosh'd.
Whose nature sickens but to speak a truth.
Am I that or this for what he'll utter,
That will speak any thing?

(V.iii.205-209)

The fact that Bertram has been blind enough to be "misled with a snipt-taffeta fellow" (IV.v.1-2) may lessen his stature in our eyes; yet it contributes to making his blindness to Helena's worth more believable. One might expect that being made aware of the possibility of deception by Parolles might open Bertram's eyes to his lack of perception elsewhere, specifically to the meanness of his behavior towards Helena. In fact, the failure of Bertram to profit from the lesson of Parolles has been seen by some critics as a flaw in the play. G. K. Hunter, for example, states that Parolles, as well as Helena, the Countess, the King, and Diana, all have to face an "acceptance of death leading to fuller life," a point of reconciliation "reached only by self-sacrifice, by an acceptance of oneself as outcast and despised." Hunter concludes, "that the pattern is not fully achieved by Bertram is the major thematic failure of the play."³⁰ Shakespeare, however, chose not to complete the parallel in such a neat fashion as this.

Though a relationship between the lesson learned by Parolles in the sub-plot and the concluding action of the main plot is not made explicit by Shakespeare, the episode of Parolles is intended to affect the way the ending works for us. What the unmasking of Parolles and his conversion to foolery adds is a badly needed note of optimism. We have seen that Bertram and Helena have achieved, at the conclusion of the play, a state of outward, but not entirely convincing, reconciliation. The conclusion lacks the weight and positiveness required to assure us that all indeed will be well, given the obstacles that seem to exist to a happy union between Bertram and Helena. But this uncertainty is relieved by Parolles—by his presence and by the memory of his previous scenes.

Parolles does not have a part in the dialogue at the very conclusion of the play, the last thirty lines. Yet he is not only present, but definitely a part of the concluding action of the play. Shakespeare's technique here, though used with less emphasis, is reminiscent of his ending Much Ado with the conclusion of the Benedick-Beatrice story. He turns the audience's attention from potential problems to a more satisfying emotional resolution. Parolles, accepting himself as he is, had earlier been received into the graces of Lafew. Now our attention is again directed toward this part of the plot, though it is a sub-plot.

Lafew's final speech aids the conclusion in several ways. His emotional reaction, "Mine eyes smell onions, I shall weep anon" (V.iii.320), though comic, convinces us, as neither Bertrams's nor Helena's words have, that there is something genuine in this reunion. His request of a handkerchief from Parolles (rather than from someone else) is not without purpose: "Good Tom Drum, lend me a handkercher. So, I thank thee; wait on me home, I'll make sport with thee. Let thy curtsies alone, they are scurvy ones" (V.iii.321-24). The reference to "Good Tom Drum" is a brief reminder of the scenes where Parolles was humiliated because he offered to recapture his drum. The sight of Parolles dressed in smelly, muddy clothes is an additional reminder of his disgrace, and also of his self-acceptance. In the simple gesture of asking for a handkerchief, Lafew indicates his complete acceptance of Parolles. His scorn at the end is entirely good-humored, and his invitation to "make sport" is an invitation to laugh with him and not at him.

Parolles's "conversion" has helped establish the spirit of this comedy, and his presence in the last scene, a symbol of self-knowledge and self-acceptance, cannot but help influencing the audience's reaction to the scene. Even though Helena and Bertram do not make explicit application of Parolles's dictum, "There's place and means for every man alive," the audience should be in such a frame of mind. Bertram may have proved that Parolles's earlier description of him, "a foolish idle boy, but for all that very ruttish" (IV.iii.215-16), was all too true, and he may now, in Helena's eyes, be far from the romantic hero she had doted on. Helena, for all the fine qualities the Countess had admired in her, may have become too persistent in her pursuit in the end. "The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together." But, if there's place and means for such as Parolles, there can well be place and means for such as Bertram and Helena to find happiness, in spite of their shortcomings.

In the ending of All 's Well, Shakespeare seems to have directly confronted the traditional romantic ending, where the marriage or reunion of hero and heroine is assumed to guarantee that all problems are resolved and that bliss will ensue for ever after. The ending of All's Well is constructed so that we cannot possibly project for Bertram and Helena the ecstatic happiness of the traditional romance—the happiness that was perhaps naively expected by Helena at the start of the play. But neither is the play entirely cynical about any possibility of happiness. Helena has matured, and Bertram may at least be at the threshold of maturity. We may expect happiness, but a much more subdued happiness than posited by romance—neither mate will be a perfect person. The happiness foreshadowed for Bertram and Helena may be similar to that expected by Parolles. He has not now the esteem he'd had; his goals and expectations are greatly reduced. But he has also not the constant pressure to seem a courtier nor the fear of being found out. He can live at peace with himself. "Though you are a fool and a knave, you shall eat." So with Bertram and Helena, their goals and expectations may be modified. But within these limitations, why not expect that they will be happy? All may be well at the end of the play, but on very different terms from what was projected earlier in the play and from what romantic convention would tell us.

Notes

¹ Hazelton Spencer, The Art and Life of William Shakespeare (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1940), p. 298.

²Leamington Spa Courier, vol. 24, April, 1959.

³ Richard Levin, "Refuting Shakespeare's Endings," MP 72 (May 1975):346.

⁴ Roger Warren, "Why Does It End Well? Helena, Bertram, and the Sonnets," Shakespeare Survey 22 (1969):79-92.

⁵ Ian Donaldson, "All's Well That Ends Well: Shakespeare's Play of Endings," EIC 27, 1 (January 1977):34-55.

⁶ All quotations from Shakespeare's plays are taken from The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974).

⁷ E. K. Chambers, Shakespeare: A Survey (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1925), p. 207.

⁸ Thomas Marc Parrott, Shakespearean Comedy (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1949), pp. 351-52.

⁹ Barbara H. Smith, Poetic Closure (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 35, 121.

¹⁰ Spencer, p. 293.

¹¹ Joseph G. Price, The Unfortunate Comedy (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1968), p. 133.

¹² Ibid., p. 136.

¹³ G. B. Harrison, Introduction to All's Well in Shakespeare: The Complete Works (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1948), p. 1019.

¹⁴ "I cannot reconcile my heart to Bertram, a man noble without generosity, and young without truth, who marries Helena as a coward, and leaves her as a profligate; when she is dead by his unkindness, sneaks home to a second marriage, is accused by a woman whom he has wronged, defends himself by falsehood, and is dismissed to happiness." Samuel Johnson, Notes to Shakespeare, 3 vols., the Augustan Reprint Society, vol. 1, no. 59-60, Comedies (Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, Univ. of California, 1956), p. 121.

¹⁵ Spencer, p. 298. A slightly more recent, though more qualified case for Bertram is made by Albert H. Carter, "In Defence of Bertram," SQ 7 (Winter 1965): 21-31.

¹⁶ Painter's version of the tale is reprinted in the Arden edition of All's Well, ed. G. K. Hunter (London: Methuen, 1959), pp. 145-52.

¹⁷ Spencer, p. 298.

¹⁸ Chambers, p. 203.

¹⁹ Bertrand Evans, Shakespeare's Comedies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), pp. 153-66.

²⁰ Richard A. Levin, "All's Well That Ends Well, and 'All Seems Well'," Shakespeare Studies 13 (1980): 131-44.

²¹ As an example, Bertrand Evans believes Helena's plan to be so stealthy that even in her soliloquies she is hiding her true motives from the audience (pp. 153-54). Such an assumption seems unwarranted; when a character voices a thought on stage with no other characters present to hear it, we typically interpret the soliloquy as a true expression of that person's state of mind. Thus, when Helena says, alone on stage,

No, come thou home, Rossilion,
Whence honor but of danger wins a scar,
As oft it loses all. I will be gone.
My being here it is that holds thee hence,

(III..ii. 120-23)

we can safely assume that she is not trying to hide from us a cunning plan to chase Bertram in Florence. Richard A. Levin asks, "does she cross paths with Bertram in Florence by chance or design?" (p. 137). I would claim that her going there in the hope of catching some glimpse of her beloved, but not necessarily with a preconceived plan of entrapment, is a sufficient motive, and also in character with her earlier-expressed spirit of adulation for Bertram.

²² Harold S. Wilson, "Dramatic Emphasis in All's Well That Ends Well," HLQ 13 (May 1950):236.

²³ Evans, p. 166.

²⁴ Kenneth Muir, Shakespeare's Sources (London: Methuen, 1957), p. 101.

²⁵ Michael Shapiro dissects the line, "Both, both. O Pardon!" which he admits is "so short that most critics overlook it," claiming that it is "nothing less than the climax of the play." In the first two words he sees Bertram's full acceptance of Helena as his wife, both the name and the thing, and an implicit forgiveness of any wrongs of Helena; and in the second two words a request for forgiveness of all his former perversity. Granted the potential for meaning all these things, this seems a large burden for four words to bear when not pored over in the study, but heard spoken on the stage, no matter how gifted the actor. "The Web of Our Life: Human Frailty and Mutual Redemption in All's Well That Ends Well" JEGP 71 (October 1972): 522.

²⁶ It may still be argued that the conditional phrasing of Bertram's and Helena's speeches was coincidental on Shakespeare's part. However, a close reading reveals other conditional statements at the close. The King's final words are strongly conditional: "All yet seems well, and if it end so meet, / The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet" (V.iii.33-34, emphasis mine). In the 1981 BBC production of All's Well, the King did emphasize "seems." And then, in the Epilogue, the King still speaks in the conditional: "All is well ended if this suit be won" (Epilogue, line 2).

²⁷ Conceivably Helena could raise Bertram at this moment, and they could then embrace, as has been done in modern productions. But I would maintain that then the confrontation of Bertram by Helena with the evidence of her fulfillment of the conditions, ending with her question, "Will you be mine now you are doubly won?" (V.iii.314), would seem out of place and anti-climactic. In the 1981 BBC production, they embraced after Bertram's "ever, ever dearly." Such an action, however, interrupts Helena's balancing statement, "If it appear."

²⁸ That Charles I found him the most memorable is indicated by the words "Monsieur Parolles" written opposite the title in his copy of the second folio.

²⁹ E. M. Blistein, "The Object of Scorn: An Aspect of the Comic Antagonist," WER 14 (Spring 1960):212.

³⁰ Hunter, pp. xxxvii-xxxviii.