All's Well That Ends Well

William Shakespeare

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780486157276
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Shakespeare Drama
• Index: Literature

Virtuous maidens, vulgar soldiers, and witty fools populate this extraordinary play, a lively romp that ranges from low farce to moments of great insight. Although the play is a romantic comedy, Shakespeare offers some serious and thought-provoking dramatic fare before fulfilling the promise of the title.
In the fine tradition of the Bard's plucky heroines, All's Well That Ends Well concerns Helena, the daughter of a renowned physician, and her dauntless passion for the elusive Bertram, Count of Rousillon. Risking her very life for the opportunity to choose Bertram as her husband, Helena's bid for Bertram's hand turns out to be only the beginning of a series of trials and tribulations. Finally, at the end of a comic maze of mistaken identities, betrayals, repentance, and dramatic revelations, Helena's efforts to corral her unwilling lover achieve joyful fulfillment.
An ambiguous work in which mirthful entertainment is interwoven with a powerful subtext condemning class prejudice, this play possesses a singular combination of amusement and profundity that has intrigued scholars and theatergoers for four centuries.

EPILOGUE

KING. The king’s a beggar, now the play is done:
All is well ended, if this suit be won,
That you express content; which we will pay,
With strife to please you, day exceeding day:
Ours be your patience then, and yours our parts;^hj
Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.

[Exeunt.

^a “All’s Well” was printed for the first time in the Folio of 1623. There the text is divided into acts, but not into scenes, although the play opens with the words Actus Primus, Scæna Prima. Rowe first supplied scenic divisions, as well as a list of “dramatis personæ,” in his edition of 1709.

^b in ward] In feudal and Elizabethan England heirs of great fortunes were invariably made wards of the king; he acted as their guardian.

^c he that so generally . . . abundance] he that is so invariably kind must needs extend his (virtue of) kindness towards you, whose worth would be more likely to excite kindly feelings in those who are without them than to alienate them in one who is so richly endowed with them.

^d persecuted time with hope] The general meaning is: Hope of recovery, fostered by his physicians, has hampered the action of (time in developing) the disease. But the only real effect (since the disease is not arrested) is to lose hope, as time goes on.

^e virtuous qualities] qualities of good breeding, grace, erudition, the fruits of education: not here qualities of moral virtue.

^f go with pity] are to be regretted, are to be deprecated: virtues and traitors; excellences which mislead as to the true character of their possessors..

^g simpleness] singleness, integrity, freedom from deceit or uncleanness.

^h livelihood] life, liveliness.

ⁱ excess . . . mortal] excessive indulgence in grief puts an end to it.

^j ’grace his remembrance . . . shed for him] are mere ornamental tributes to his memory rather than outpourings of past affection.

^k take place] hold their own.

^l Cold wisdom . . . folly] cheerless wisdom holding a place of inferiority to folly, which has no call to exist.

^m ten] The First Folio reads two. Ten, which is Hanmer’s emendation, is obviously correct.

ⁿ wear not now] are now out of fashion.

^o date] a pun on the word in its two senses of “fruit” and “time of life.”

^p adoptious . . . gossips] assumed Christian names, for which purblind Love is sponsor.

^q composition . . . wing] valour, which causes you to run (backward, as you say, to get up impetus), and fear, which also impels you to run (away), make up your being, of which the power of flight is consequently the main characteristic.

^r The mightiest space . . . cannot be] The widest difference of fortune is bridged by nature, which brings together like objects, however far apart they may happen to be, and makes things of inherent similitude kiss or unite, whatever distance separates them. Impossible are unusual attempts to those who judge their efforts by normal experience and suppose that an exceptional occurrence can never recur. Hanmer’s generally accepted change of What hath been into What hath not been scarcely improves the sense and injures the metre.

^s Senoys] This is Painter’s rendering, in The Palace of Pleasure of Boccaccio’s “Sanesi,” i.e. the people of Sienna.

^t arm’d] made ready, or confirmed.

^u they may jest. . . awaked them] they may go on jesting till they wear all point out of their gibes before they can cover their petty follies with meritorious achievement. He was so courtierlike, so urbane, that there was nothing of contempt in his dignified bearing nor aught of bitterness in his keenness of wit. If bitterness or scorn ever appeared, it was a man of his own rank who evoked them.

^v Exception] Blame, disapproval, the duty to take exception.

^w creatures of another place] of another and of superior rank to that which they really occupied.

^x In their poor praise he] At their simple praises of him he showed signs of modesty or humility.

^y So in approof. . . royal speech] His epitaph does not supply such confirmation of his merits as does the speech of the King.

^z the snuff. . . disdain] used-up wick, useless cinders, in the sight of younger spirits, whose alert minds disdain all but new things.

^aa dissolved] separated, cut off, discharged.

^ab to even your content] to do precisely what you wish.

^ac calendar] record.

^ad make foul . . . publish them] obscure the grounds of our deserts.

^ae to go to the world] to get married: a common phrase.

^af Service is no heritage] A common proverb, with which the speaker associates a reminiscence, of Ps. cxxvii, 3: “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord.”

^ag Charbon . . . Poysam] It has been ingeniously conjectured that these names are formed from the F...