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CHAPTER FIVE
THE DARK COMEDIES
All's Well That Ends Well
and
Measure for Measure
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- - - I - - -
Adams has suggested that Edwards' Damon and Pithias (1564?) is 'Notable as the first tragi-comedy in England', 5.1 and it is referred to in its own prologue as a 'tragical comedy' (Damon and Pithias 38 and 46). For much of the play the action appears to be heading relentlessly to a tragic conclusion, despite the inclusion of a long comic episode in which Grim, the collier, is gulled. What makes Edwards' play a comedy despite its generally tragic tone is the happy ending, but there is no masterly blending of tragic and comic elements such as we find in Shakespeare's dark comedies. In 1896 Boas distinguished four 'problem plays' in the Shakespearean canon, those which he said 'contain painful studies of the weakness, levity, and unbridled passion of young men'. 5.2 The plays which Boas identified were All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida and Hamlet, of which Hamlet, being a tragedy, may be excluded from the plays I consider here. I have already discussed my reasons for omitting Troilus and Cressida from this study, 5.3 and the two plays that remain of the original list of four problem plays, All's Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure, are aptly described by Boas' general remarks:
... these dramas introduce us into highly artificial societies, whose civilization is ripe unto rottenness. Amidst such media abnormal condition of brain and emotion are generated, and intricate cases of conscience demand a solution by unprecedented methods. 5.4
All's Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure may be seen as a logical progression from Shakespeare's earlier experiments in tragi-comedy, such as The Comedy of Errors and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and, more obviously, The Merchant of Venice and Much Ado about Nothing. All of these earlier comedies have serious aspects which at times seem to be carrying the plays to unhappy, if not tragic, conclusions; nevertheless, it is only The Merchant of Venice which fails to convince us of an entirely happy denouement. The tragic proportions of Shylock and the brooding sadness of Antonio are undercurrents never quite dispelled, and our hopes for the future happiness of the couples married at the end are heavily qualified by our knowledge of the double standards by which they live. In this play Shakespeare chose to dwell on some of the less pleasant aspects of human nature, despite the essentially fairytale winning of Portia by the choice of three caskets which he used for his plot; and the same observation may be made of All's Well That Ends
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Well, which has a plot firmly based in folklore.
Critics have noted the derivation of the plot of All's Well That Ends Well from two popular tales, one concerning the healing of a king and the other the performance of impossible tasks, both usually by a young woman. 5.5 It is probable that the version of these tales from which Shakespeare's play derives is to be found in Boccaccio's Decameron (the ninth story of the third day), but how he came to know this work is not certain - he may have found it in the French translation of Antoine le Maçon or in William Painter's The Palace of Pleasure, 5.6 where it is found in English. Shakespeare's sources are of relevance to my study only where, by an examination of how he modified them, they are made to reveal his attitudes to important dramatic themes, thus highlighting his concept of disorder, conflict and violence within the play. Hunter has summarised the major changes and additions Shakespeare made when handling his source material for All's Well That Ends Well, 5.7 and many are of particular interest. What emerges from a study of these changes is that Shakespeare deliberately debased the character of Bertram, while emphasising the great virtues of Helena (they are Beltramo and Giletta in the source). Giletta promises to heal the King 'within eighte dayes', 5.8 which the King considers to be 'a litle space', 5.9 and although she achieves this in 'short space before her appointed time' 5.10 the miracle is unimportant and is passed over without much remark. Helena, on the other hand, promises her healing in a much shorter time, and this in a passage of great poetic beauty which, with its incantatory rhymes, enhances the sense of miracle and wonder inherent in the cure, particularly with its insistence on the short space of two days:
The greatest grace lending grace,
Ere twice the horses of the sunne shall bring
Their fiery torcher his diurnall ring,
Ere twice in murke and occidentall dampe
Moist Hesperus hath quench'd her sleepy Lampe:
Or foure and twenty times the Pylots glasse
Hath told the theeuish minutes, how they passe:
What is infirme, from your sound parts shall flie,
Health shall liue free, and sicknesse freely dye.
(II.i.159-167) 5.11
The virtues of Helena are emphasised by Shakespeare because they are important to his treatment of the concept of order within the play. Giletta was 'diligently lo[o]ked unto by her kinsfolke (because she was riche and fatherlesse)', 5.12 and she had 'refused manye husbandes with whom her kinsfolke woulde have matched her'; 5.13 she is depicted as a desirable
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match for one of her own rank and station in life. Despite this, the motive for Beltramo's attitude to Giletta is supplied: he, seeing she is not 'of a stocke convenable to his nobility, skornefully' rejects her. 5.14 The King's sympathies lie with Beltramo, for he is 'very loth to graunt him unto her', 5.15 and so we see that in Painter, discrepancy in social rank is a consideration in marriage. Giletta's fulfilment of the impossible tasks serves in this folklore account to prove her worthy of Beltramo, despite her social inferiority.
Turner has compared contemporary plays making use of the same plot material as All's Well That Ends Well - the prodigal husband and patient wife - and finds Shakespeare's treatment unique in that he emphasises the lower status of the bride, 5.16 something he derived from his source. His emphasis differs from that in the source in one important respect, however: degree is not seen as an obstacle to Helena's love of Bertram, except by Bertram himself. The King reminds him that Helena was responsible for his cure, and the reply makes Bertram's stand clear:
But followes it my Lord, to bring me downe
Must answer for your raising? I knowe her well:
Shee had her breeding at my father's charge:
A poore Physitians daughter my wife? Disdaine
Rather corrupt me euer.
(II.iii.112-116)
The King, however, makes the important point that it is not breeding or name that should be valued, but virtue, which Helena possesses; title and the honour that goes with it the King can bestow:
Tis onely title thou disdainst in her, the which
I can build vp: strange is it that our bloods
Of colour, waight, and heat, pour'd all together,
Would quite confound distinction: yet stands off
In differences so mightie.
(II.iii.117-121)
Helena is well aware of the impediment arising from the difference in degree:
'Twere all one,
That I should loue a bright particuler starre,
And think to wed it, he is so aboue me
In his bright radience and colaterall light,
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
(I.i.83-87)
In this, her first soliloquy, Helena declares her love for Bertram to be
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hopeless because of their different stations in life; nevertheless, in her second soliloquy her plan to follow Bertram to Paris and cure the King is formulated, but the precise relationship between the journey and her love is still unclear:
Our remedies oft in our selues do lye,
Which we ascribe to heauen ....
...
The mightiest space in fortune, Nature brings
To ioyne like, likes; and kiss like natiue things.
...
(The Kings disease) my proiect may deceiue me,
But my intents are fixt, and will not leaue me.
(I.i.212-213, 218-219 and 224-225)
We should not read into this more than we are given: Helena, when she departs for Paris, has no intention of trapping Bertram in marriage as has been suggested by Chambers; 5.17 she merely wishes to be where Bertram is, a natural enough desire for a young woman in love. When the opportunity of gaining Bertram's hand in marriage presents itself she takes it, believing that once she has publicly demonstrated her virtue, Bertram will overlook her lower rank. The idea of taking Bertram in exchange for the cure is her own, but it is based on the assumption that he will accept her as being worthy once she has proved her merit, which she does in curing the King. When Bertram rejects her, her acute embarrassment is brought out in an incomplete line of four monosyllables, expressive of her generous nature, and surely designed to win the sympathy of the audience:
That you are well restor'd my Lord, I'me glad:
Let the rest go.
(II.iii.147-148)
The point of this substantial reorientation of the idea of social rank and its implications, as found in The Palace of Pleasure and All's Well That Ends Well, has been observed by Hunter:
Shakespeare has altered his [source] story in a very basic way. Instead of a clever wench who must prove herself worthy of an aristocratic husband, we have an unworthy husband who must be made worthy of his wife. Shakespeare has chosen to transform his hero into an erring mortal in need of regeneration and forgiveness. 5.18
I have quoted several instances which highlight Shakespeare's concern for order in the first two acts of the play, establishing an attitude unique among the comedies dealt with so far: Helena's pursuit of Bertram (itself
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an inversion of order, being an assertion of female dominance) is crowned with success, confirming that a strict adherence to the order of social rank is not a prerequisite for happiness.
Of even greater importance than the theme of order in All's Well That Ends Well is Shakespeare's concern with birth, life, death and regeneration, something quite absent in the source material, imposed on it by the playwright himself. Throughout the play the conflict and contrast between birth, life and death are encountered, and these many references serve to highlight the movement of the action from decay and death in the opening scenes, through regeneration, to the ending with its promise of new life and order in the acceptance of Helena by Bertram. The first half of the opening scene is sombre, dwelling on disease and death, contrasting them with life, and the Countess introduces the theme at the outset:
Mother.
IN deliuering my sonne from me, I burie a second husband.
Ros.
And I in going Madam, weep ore my fathers death anew.
(I.i.1-4)
Hunter observes that the word 'deliuering' carries two senses, 5.19 that Bertram's being sent into the world is like a birth to him, but like a death to his mother, in that she will be losing him. The young hero of the play, starting out in life, is thus associated with birth and regeneration, and his mother has high hopes of him:
Be thou blest Bertrame, and succeed thy father
In manners as in shape: thy blood and vertue
Contend for Empire in thee, and thy goodnesse
Share with thy birth-right.
(I.i.57-60)
The words 'blood' and 'birth-right' are associated with Bertram's social rank, his nobility, while 'goodnesse' and 'vertue' are what he is expected to achieve. Alongside this portrait of the hero, we are given a similar picture of Helena, who 'deriues her honestie, and atcheeues her goodnesse' (I.i.42); she, however, does not have the noble blood of Bertram, but is associated with the life-force of her father, who 'was skilfull enough to haue liu'd stil, if knowledge could be set vp against mortallitie' (I.i.28-29). Bertram and Helena are seen as potential agents of regeneration, sorely needed in a kingdom ruled by one who has given up hope of life:
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He hath abandon'd his Phisitions ..., vnder whose practises he hath persecuted time with hope, and finds no other aduantage in the processe, but onely the loosing of hope by time.
(I.i.12-15)
The ailing king is closely associated in legend with a disordered, troubled state, as has been observed by Calderwood: 'the age and impotence, and often the incurable ailment, of the King are associated with the sterility of the land or with social sterility'. 5.20 One is reminded of the Wagnerian version of the legend of the Holy Grail, in which Amfortas, guardian of the Grail, suffers an incurable wound, an emblem of his sin; this threatens the existence of the order of the knights of the Grail, which falls into disarray, and can be redeemed only by one 'Durch Mitleid wissend ... der reine Thor' . 5.21 In All's Well That Ends Well it is Helena who fits this description, being both compassionate and guileless, and she is the principal agent of restoration in the play.
Shakespeare does not emphasise the disorder of the state associated with the King's disease, but we may note some pointers in this direction. The French youth have become idle and unproductive to such an extent that the Tuscan wars are viewed in the French court as 'A nursserie to our Gentrie, who are sicke | For breathing, and exploit' (I.ii.16-17). 5.22 The past is often viewed as a golden time, when present difficulties were absent, and one such reminiscence is particularly notable in its reference to order: the King, in talking to Bertram of the late Count Rossillion, says
Who were below him,
He vs'd as creatures of another place,
A[n]d bow'd his eminent top to their low rankes,
Making them proud of his humility,
In their poore praise he humbled: Such a man
Might be a copie to these younger times;
Which followed well, would demonstrate them now
But goers backward.
(I.ii.41-48) 5.23
Not only were earlier times more productive, but Bertram's nice regard for order and his scruples over the proposed marriage to Helena were foreign to his father. The King, being a survivor of the old world, values virtue above title or honour, a fact which explains his approval of Helena as a fit bride for Bertram and his subsequently forcing Bertram to marry Helena against his will. The point is that Bertram's scale of values is false and brings him into direct conflict with those older than
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himself - the King, his mother and Lafew, all of whom represent the true order of times past.
The King's disease is symptomatic of the disordered state, and its sterility and degeneration. This aspect is expressed in the sexual imagery which runs through the early scenes in which the King appears: he refers to his lack of 'corporall soundnesse' (I.ii.24), something he once shared with Bertram's father until 'on vs both did haggish Age steale on, | And wore vs out of act' (I.ii.29-30). Here 'act' specifically refers to exploits of bravery on the field of battle, but it also has sexual connotations, more explicitly revealed in the image of sterility which follows:
I after him, do after him wish too:
Since I nor wax nor honie can bring home,
I quickly were dissolued from my hiue
To giue some Labourers roome.
(I.ii.64-67)
This may be contrasted with the King's view of war, which, as I have noted, is seen as a means of making idle youth productive:
... see that you come
Not to wooe honour, but to wed it, when
The brauest questant shrinkes ....
(II.i.14-16)
This is a strange view of things: war is destructive, counter-productive, and yet it is associated here with marriage and generation (Fraser has noted in 'shrinkes' a 'pun on detumescence') 5.24 - a sure sign of disordered values in the court, and the results of following such values are seen in Bertram's fate. The glory and honour which he wins in the field of battle are highly valued, but prove of no worth when he is confronted with the real crises of life, 5.25 where he fails miserably, betraying his family honour in giving Diana his ring to satisfy his lust. The youth of France who go to the wars 'for Physicke' (III.i.19) are led there by false values, and the cure which Helena administers to the King does not influence this aspect of disorder. She has further work to do before true order is established in France.
The King's view of war as being salutary to the youth of France, and the sexual imagery associated with both the sterility accompanying the King's disease and the supposed productivity of war had been prefigured in the first scene of the play in Parolles' interview with Helena, where they discuss the merits of virginity. Parolles is Shakespeare's own
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creation, not found in Painter; the play gains much from his presence, most noticeably in its humour, but his principal function is to act as Bertram's evil angel, influencing him for the worse whenever the occasion arises. This aspect of his role has brought severe castigation of his character by sober-minded critics: Johnson said he was 'a boaster and a coward, such as has always been the sport of the stage', 5.26 while Rossiter calls him 'a pompous, pretentious military braggart and hanger-on', 5.27 a view expressed most distastefully by Charlton, who refers to him as 'that shapeless lump of cloacine excrement'; 5.28 and yet, Hunter reminds us, 'such theatrical success as the play has enjoyed has largely depended on Parolles', 5.29 an observation that is hinted at in Johnson's remark. He has a central function in the drama (apart from his influence on Bertram) in that he sets the plot in motion at his first appearance, and is also the means whereby Bertram ultimately has his eyes opened to his own folly.
Calderwood suggests that Parolles 'serves as a catalyst', 5.30 bringing about the change noted in Helena's outlook between her first soliloquy, where the hopelessness of her love for Bertram is the theme, and her second, where she determines to take positive action in following him to Paris. What happens between the two soliloquies is that Parolles brings Helena to an awareness of the worth of her own sexuality. The atmosphere of death and sterility with which the play opens is carried over into the discussion on virginity, where Parolles and Helena express conflicting views, made more forceful by the use of violent war imagery, recalling the men's tactics in Love's Labour's Lost. 5.31 Helena's view is that 'Man is enemie to virginitie' (I.i.110), and women must put up a 'warlike resistance' (I.i.114-115) in order to preserve it. There is a wealth of humorous quibble on being 'blown up', establishing a sound link between the idea of war, where the enemy may be blown up by mines, and the bawdy notions of being 'blown up' in sexual arousal, and by becoming pregnant. The association with war is apt, for if women are to fight for their virginity, men must fight to ensure they lose it to guarantee the continued survival of mankind:
It is not politicke, in the Common-wealth of Nature, to preserue virginity. Losse of Virginity, is rationall encrease, and there was neuer Virgin go[t], till virginitie was first lost.
(I.i.123-127) 5.32
Parolles' advice is
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'Tis a commodity wil lose the glosse with lying: The longer kept, the lesse worth: Off with't while 'tis vendible. Answer the time of request.
(I.i.149-151)
Helena, in a playful conflict of wits, maintains her resistance to these ideas while Parolles is present, but their profound influence on her is obvious once he leaves the stage and she announces her intention of going to Paris to heal the King, immediately after his parting shot, 'Get thee a good husband, and vse him as he vses thee' (I.i.210-211). That Helena is conscious of sacrificing her virginity in her pursuit of Bertram may be seen from her words just before she chooses her husband from among the lords in the French court: 'Now Dian from thy Altar do I fly' (II.iii.74).
Wilson Knight associates the conflict between Helena and Parolles in the first scene with 'a peculiar antagonism and interweaving of male and female values', 5.33 something which makes itself felt during much of the play. The conflict between Helena and Parolles places this antagonism on a fundamental sexual level, but the war imagery used in this context has a wider application. War is generally seen to be held in high esteem by the men in the play, while the women value love. The King actively encourages his young subjects to take to the wars in order to win honour, at the same time warning them to beware of the wiles of female charms, hostile to the winning of masculine honour:
Those girles of Italy, take heed of them,
They say our French, lacke language to deny
If they demand: beware of being Captiues
Before you serue.
(II.i.19-22)
For Parolles, Bertram's mentor in such matters, the demands of war are more important than those of matrimony (despite his earlier advice to Helena), and he encourages Bertram to go to war:
... too'th warrs my boy, too'th warres:
He weares his honor in a boxe vnseene,
That hugges his kickie wickie heare at home,
Spending his manlie marrow in her armes
Which should sustaine the bound and high curuet
Of Marses fierie steed ....
(II.iii.274-279)
Bertram does not need much encouraging to abandon his new wife, for he had made his affinity to the masculine pursuit of war and opposition to feminine values quite clear earlier, in his resentment at being detained
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in the court:
I shal stay here the for-horse to a smocke,
Creeking my shooes on the plaine Masonry,
Till honour be brought vp, and no sword worne
But one to dance with: by heauen, Ile steale away.
(II.i.30-33)
In Trevor Nunn's 1981 Stratford production, Bertram was depicted as 'an overgrown adolescent desperate to escape from home and mother, and to live in a world of men', 5.34 with Helena being 'one of the apron strings which he needed so urgently to sever'. 5.35 Such an interpretation brilliantly rationalises Bertram's flight from the court and fits in well with his petulance. His cruel dismissal of Helena, his 'clog' (II.v.53), 5.36 on their wedding night is an indication of how sharply he feels the restraints of feminine influence, and his hostility prevents him from giving her so much as a parting kiss. Wheeler recognises the sexual nature of the central conflict: 'War offers sexualized aggressive release, idealization through commitment to honor, and affectionate communion among men; heterosexual activity brings the threat of emasculation and is to be shunned or carefully subordinated to the masculine ideal'. 5.37
When Bertram parts from Helena his closing couplet emphasises the opposition of feminine and masculine values:
Go thou toward home, where I wil neuer come,
Whilst I can shake my sword, or heare the drumme.
(II.v.90-91)
Once he has entered the service of the Duke of Florence, he voices the same sentiments again, with greater clarity:
Great Mars I put my selfe into thy file,
Make me but like my thoughts, and I shall proue
A louer of thy drumme, hater of loue.
(III.iii.9-11)
This 'drumme' is, as Bertram's speech suggests, a 'symbolic drum'; 5.38 it stands for masculine honour achieved in war, and the next time we encounter it Parolles has lost it to the enemy. Its loss marks the turning point in Bertram's affairs, because it leads to the unmasking of Parolles, leaving Bertram without his principal support and confidant. The importance Bertram attaches to the friendship of Parolles may be gauged by how persistently he stands by him, firstly when Lafew speaks
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out against him, and then later when his companions do so as well. It seems, in fact, that nearly everyone can see through Parolles except Bertram: Helena introduced him to us as 'a notorious Liar' (I.i.98) and 'a great way foole, solie a coward' (I.i.99); the Countess later calls him 'A verie tainted fellow, and full of wickednesse' (III.ii.87) and Diana sees him as a 'vile Rascall' (III.v.84). Bertram's loyalty to Parolles brings him into conflict with all these people, and he is stubborn in his defence of his evil genius. Lafew is the first to take Bertram to task on the matter, and his opening gambit is to attack Parolles' masculinity, an aspect prized by Bertram: 'But I hope your Lordshippe thinkes not him a souldier' (II.v.1). Bertram replies that he finds him 'very great in knowledge, and accordinglie valiant' (II.v.7-8), but Lafew sees the conflict between appearance and reality - 'the soule of this man is his cloathes' (II.v.43-44). The Countess blames Parolles for Bertram's flight and Helena tacitly consents:
My sonne corrupts a well deriued nature
With his inducement,
(III.ii.88-89)
and Diana passes a similar verdict (III.v.82-83). Shakespeare has written the part of Parolles in such a way as to make it clear that the various damning assessments of him are correct, and that Bertram is deceived by appearance, thus creating dramatic tension: it is anticipated that Parolles will eventually be exposed, but the audience is anxious that he should not do too much damage to Bertram before then.
The exposing of Parolles is a highly significant feature of the plot, being the means whereby Bertram sees the folly of his friendship, and once this is revealed his reconciliation with Helena becomes possible. That Parolles' downfall is intended to be comic may be seen from the way the Lords Dumaine anticipate 'some sport with the Foxe' (III.vi.98), all 'for the loue of laughter' (III.vi.32); but, like the gulling of Malvolio, what starts in fun, when taken to its conclusion, has unpleasant undertones. The first of the two scenes in which Parolles is humiliated is full of humour, with its eavesdropping and accompanying comments reminiscent of Malvolio's letter reading: in both cases the folly of the gulled figure is made hilarious by the witty comments of the onlookers. Parolles reveals his cowardice in his reverie, by debating the merits of the possible lies he could tell to make his exploits seem valiant. Each of his suggestions, more absurd and comically violent than
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the last, is wittily dismissed by the eavesdropping lords in a mock conversation:
Par.
I would the cutting of my garments wold serue the turne, or the breaking of my Spanish sword.
Lo.E.
We cannot affoord you so.
Par.
Or the baring of my beard, and to say it was in stratagem.
Lo.E.
'Twould not do.
Par.
Or to drowne my cloathes, and say I was stript.
Lo.E.
Hardly serue.
Par.
Though I swore I leapt from the window of the Citadell.
Lo.E.
How deep?
Par.
Thirty fadome.
(IV.i.46-57)
This exposition of cowardice and fear of physical pain prepares us for Parolles' arrest, in which he shows not the least resistance in the face of threats of abuse from his captors. I do not believe Shakespeare intended any great show of violence in the second scene, in which Parolles is interrogated. He has 'sate i'th stockes all night' (IV.iii.99), and with his cowardice and fear of pain he would be a co-operative informer after this. The threats are all made to add humour to the interview, starting with 'Portotartarossa' (IV.iii.116), which, if the audience has not grasped its significance, is kindly translated, 'He calles for the tortures' (IV.iii.117): the effect on Parolles is instantaneous - 'I will confesse what I know without constraint, If ye pinch me like a Pasty, I can say no more' (IV.iii.119-120). This amusing simile, with its nervously alliterating plosives, conveys the idea of something tractable, but its humour betrays an attempt by Parolles to disguise his fears by appearing self-assured, and it is here that his name reveals its true significance - 'word', or as suggested by Fraser, 'equivocation'. 5.39
We should note that the two Lords Dumaine remain good humoured despite the scandalous lies told by Parolles; but by contrast Bertram becomes increasingly vexed, partly because he is being shown the true character of his friend, particularly embarrassing when he has been so vociferous in his defence, and partly because what Parolles says about him has an element of truth. Twice he is called a 'foole' (IV.iii.203 and 221), which is an irritating and non-specific accusation, but much closer to the manifest truth is that he is 'a dangerous and lasciuious boy, who is a whale to Virginity, and deuours vp all the fry it finds' (IV.iii.212-213). Bertram's violent response shows he has been touched on the quick: 'He shall be whipt through the Armie' (IV.iii.225). As we
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watch Parolles sinking lower and lower into degradation the humour becomes thinner and thinner. The prisoner is threatened with torture (IV.iii.116-117) and he fears for his life throughout the interview. 5.40 What diminishes our amusement as the scene proceeds is the unpleasant prospect of seeing a man so humiliated: he is prepared to say anything which will save his life or prevent physical pain. His captors enjoy his torment, and we are uncomfortable contemplating their sadism: they are fully aware of Parolles' fears, and play upon them in their manipulation of him, promising to reduce his suffering if he is co-operative, or increase it if he is not. 5.41 When the whole deception is finally brought to a close, the Lords' mocking greetings aptly express their distaste of Parolles, but at the same time leave the audience not entirely unsympathetic towards him. Part of this sympathy is engendered by the fact that we can identify our own weaknesses in Parolles' behaviour: as Boorman notes, what we see in him is 'that conflicting quality which makes mankind emotionally see the better and rationally follow the worse'. 5.42 His response to the trick played on him is almost defiant, 'Who cannot be crush'd with a plot?' (IV.iii.314), a comment which serves as an ironic reminder that Bertram himself has been caught in a plot by Helena. Despite his downfall, Parolles maintains 'There's a place and meanes for euery man aliue' (IV.iii.328), a maxim happily confirmed when his old enemy Lafew, after some hesitation, gives his judgement: 'though you are a foole and a knaue, you shall eate' (V.ii.50). The mention of eating here signifies the end of the conflict between the two, and at the close of the play Parolles is invited to Lafew's home, a better fate than Malvolio met.
I have already mentioned how Bertram is in conflict with all the major characters of the play except Parolles, and many of these conflicts may be traced to the influence of Parolles. Helena, on the other hand, creates much of the dramatic tension by avoiding potential conflicts, two of which arise in the first scene. The second is her interview with Parolles, whom she tolerates and even humours, despite her conviction of his corrupt nature. The first concerns her love for Bertram, which she should not indulge since he is above her social station. From the start Bertram seems oblivious of her infatuation; but his mother, on the other hand, shows herself more perceptive and sensitive to the feelings of others and guesses at Helena's love before her steward confirms it for her. When, in the third scene, the Countess confronts Helena with her knowledge of this love, we cannot be quite sure what the outcome of the
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interview will be: we might expect the Countess to oppose Helena's love on the grounds of her lowly status, but Shakespeare has already made it clear that she holds Helena in high regard. It seems likely that Helena will receive a sympathetic hearing, particularly when the Countess observes to herself 'Euen so it was with me when I was yong' (I.iii.123); and yet there is a sternness and antagonism about her approach which is disconcerting. Such exclamations as 'when I sed a mother | Me thought you saw a serpent'; 'God shield you meane it not'; and 'onely sinne | And hellish obstinacie tye thy tongue' (I.iii.135-136, 144-145, 163 and 174-175) - such exclamations are hardly calculated to put Helena, or the audience, at ease, and so generate tension. Even when the Countess reveals that she could help Helena, there is still a feeling of friction:
[Cou.]
... I charge thee,
As heauen shall worke in me for thine auaile
To tell me truelie.
Hell.
Good Madam pardon me.
Cou.
Do you loue my Sonne?.
Hell.
Doe not you loue him Madam?
Cou.
Go not about; my loue hath in't a bond
Whereof the world takes note: Come, come, disclose:
The state of your affection, your passions
Haue to the full appeach'd.
Hell.
Then I confess
Here on my knee, before high heauen and you,
That before you, and next vnto high heauen,
I loue your Sonne.
(I.iii.178-189)
I have quoted this passage at length because it illustrates perfectly one of Helena's important characteristics, her humble tenacity. At no stage does she become angry or defiant, despite the apparent vexation of the Countess, and her impassioned and solemn declaration, culminating in an incomplete line of great force, consisting of four monosyllables, gives her plea impressive dignity. In a few moments the conflict is over, with the Countess promising her support of Helena's venture in Paris. Thus, as Riemer has said, 'the usual conventions of love-comedy are turned upside-down': 5.43 the anticipated opposition from the Countess has not materialised.
The ability of Helena to avoid conflict or to resolve it when she encounters it is closely associated with her function as the regenerative influence in the play. The dying world of the Countess, the King and Lafew stands in need of a life-giving force. The Countess recognises this, and sees Helena as a fit match for her son in order to prevent the
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extinction of her family line with her son's death, and so she gives Helena her support, thus inverting the comic expectation of parental opposition. The King pins his hopes on the young men of his court in the sterile belief that the winning of honour in the field of battle will serve to regenerate the land; and like Wagner's Amfortas, he has reached the stage where he lives on hopelessly waiting for death, resisting all attempts to cure him. He thus comes into direct conflict with Helena when she insists that she has the power to make him well. The conflict is a muted one, for Helena, characteristically, is unwilling to force the issue, and the interview with the King only narrowly avoids termination before he has agreed to try Helena's art; and nor is the King unkind in his refusal, but he is persuaded to co-operate only when he realises the strength of Helena's convictions. The conditions agreed upon are reminiscent of the fairy tale source:
... thy Physicke I will try,
That ministers thine owne death if I die.
(II.i.184-185)
Helena, on her part, stands to gain the husband of her choice, with the provision made, to emphasise her regard for order, that she will not choose a man of royal blood, her 'low and humble name to propagate' (II.i.196).
This passing mention of propagation brings us once again to Helena's principal function, regeneration and the restoring of order in France. I have already referred to the sexual imagery of sterility connected with the King's disease; there is a corresponding series of sexual images associated with his cure, establishing the converse association, that if the King's fistula is healed, order and prosperity will return to the land. Lafew wishes the King 'could so stand vp' (II.i.64) and then refers to Helena's remedy in terms of sexual intercourse: her medicine's effect is said to be
... powerfull to arayse King Pippen, nay
To giue great Charlemaine a pen in's hand
And write to her a loue-line.
(II.i.75-77) 5.44
It is fitting that, for the curing of the King, Helena should receive a sexual reward, and this significance does not escape Bertram, who expresses his rejection of Helena in sexual terms:
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But followes it my Lord, to bring me downe
Must answer for your raising?
(II.i.112-113)
There is implicit in all this the conflict of masculine and feminine values which I mentioned earlier: the King's espousal of the masculine attributes of war to heal the land conflicts with Helena's reliance on feminine, spiritual means to cure the symbolic source of the state's malady, the King's fistula. Bertram rejects the feminine path to regeneration in procreation, offered by Helena, in favour of the sterile honour won on the field of battle. Like Armado in Love's Labour's Lost and Touchstone in As You Like It, it is the Clown in All's Well That Ends Well who sees the true means of reparation: Lavatch wishes to leave the sterile service of the Countess to marry Isbel:
... seruice is no heritage, and I thinke I shall neuer haue the blessing of God, till I haue issue a my bodie: for they say barnes are blessings.
(I.iii.21-24)
He then goes on to establish a connection between Helena and Helen of Troy by means of the song he sings. Calderwood suggests that Helena's name was 'nearly synonymous with "Love"', 5.45 and although the association with the Trojan Helen 'can hardly be complimentary', 5.46 it does at least confirm Helena's desirability, her sexuality, indicating her procreative, regenerative powers. The association with the story of Troy is made again when Lafew leaves Helena with the King: referring to himself, he says,
... I am Cresseds Vncle
That dare leaue two together, far you well.
(II.i.96-97)
Lafew sees himself as Pandarus, who brought Troilus and Cressida together; the comparison once again associates Helena's cure with sexual activity, as if Lafew were leaving Helena with the King for the purpose of procreation. In the scene which intervenes between the King making his bargain with Helena and the news of the healing, it is surely relevant that we have the most libidinous speech in the play, delivered by Lavatch, pointing the regeneration and prosperity anticipated as a result of the cure.
This speech should be interpreted in the light of the play's continuing concern with the conflict between male and female values. Lavatch is mocking the affectations of the young men at court, and
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maintains the fitness of his one saying, 'O Lord sir', 5.47 to every occasion: it is as fit
... as your French Crowne for your taffety punke, as Tibs rush for Toms fore-finger, as a pancake for Shroue-tuesday, a Morris for May-day, as the naile to his hole, the Cuckold to his horne, as a scolding queane to a wrangling knaue, as the Nuns lip to the Friers mouth, nay as the pudding to his skin.
(II.ii.20-26)
The abundance of fertility imagery is overwhelming; Lavatch implies that gentlemen at court prize their foppery more than the things in life truly to be valued - including the female concern for regeneration. It is significant that the masculine 'O Lord sir' proves less effective than the Clown had anticipated, and he runs into trouble over the proverbial threat of whipping administered to those of his class - a touch of comic violence highlighting the failure of masculine values: the feminine object of regeneration is confirmed to have ascendancy, in this case, over the courtly vanity followed by the young men. Parolles uses the same phrase, 'O Lord sir', when he thinks he is about to meet his death (IV.iii.299), and it proves of no more avail to him than it did to the Clown - although there is no real threat of death, and in other matters Parolles is past help anyway.
It is in the latter half of the play that the conflict of masculine and feminine values reaches its height. Fraser observes the lack of stage violence relating to war: 'the war as violent business does not engage Shakespeare'; 5.48 the war is the means whereby the young men hope to gain honour and the audience is left to judge for themselves the value of such honour, not being shown how, exactly, it was achieved. Shakespeare presents us with a one-sided picture to suit his dramatic ends, for it is the feminine values opposed to war which must be more highly esteemed, and a display of the valiant acts of war which win honour, such as are found in his histories, might have made the resulting honour seem more desirable than the opposed feminine goals of a happy marriage and the blessing of children. The closest we come to the violence of war is in Helena's speech blaming herself for being the cause of Bertram's flight, taking upon herself the responsibility for any harm he may receive:
O you leaden messengers,
That ride vpon the violent speed of fire,
Fly with false ayme, moue the still-peering aire
That sings with piercing, do not touch my Lord:
Who euer shoots at him, I set him there.
(III.ii.108-112)
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She sees the 'none-sparing warre' (III.ii.105) as too fickle, with death being as probable an outcome as the winning of honour:
Whence honor but of danger winnes a scarre,
As oft it looses all.
(III.ii.121-122)
This feminine fear for Bertram's safety contrasts with his own reckless masculine behaviour; it also induces Helena to leave Rossillion, and the next time we see her she is near Florence, watching the troops arrive. The stage direction, 'Drumme and Colours. Enter Count Rossillion, Parolles, and the whole Armie' (III.v.74), makes it likely that a fine military display is intended here. Its purpose would be to highlight the suffering the war has caused through the irresponsible sexual behaviour of the young men, for during the episode the women present discuss the affair of Bertram and Helena with the anonymous Helena, and in so doing reveal to her Bertram's wooing of Diana. This generates sympathy for Helena, and at the same time the men are made to look slightly ridiculous, despite their military grandeur, in the loss of their regimental drum, over which Parolles is 'shrewdly vext' (II.v.88).
The military honour which Bertram wins in his adventures on the battlefield does not improve his sense of honour, his moral rectitude; and this comes into direct conflict with the feminine concept of love advocated by Helena. Bertram, by isolating himself from his mother and the feminine influences of the court, has degraded his sense of values: to him women have become mere objects to satisfy his lust. His perversity in obeying the King's word, but not the spirit of his command, in his marriage to Helena, may have some justification (the difference in social rank; his own indifference to her); but his real motive is a yearning after the excitement and honour of war, something he professed even before being asked to marry her. His running away from Helena does not, therefore, represent an act of total moral irresponsibility such as we see him pursuing in Florence. He sees Diana's honesty as 'all the fault' (III.vi.108) with her; and he is prepared to compromise his family honour by parting with his ring in satisfying his lust:
Heere, take my Ring,
My house, mine honor, yea my life be thine,
And Ile be bid by thee.
(IV.ii.51-53)
Until this moment, Diana has resisted Bertram's advances, her aim being
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to win the ring from him, as instructed by Helena. The arguments put forward by Diana against an affair with Bertram represent the feminine view, and may be attributed as well to Helena. Diana maintains that all Bertram wants is to satisfy his lust, with no thought of any permanent relationship developing between them - and she cites his marriage vows as evidence of his fickleness. Helena rightly predicts that 'his important blood will naught denie' (III.vii.21), and he, driven on by lust, falls into their trap. The idea of the conflict between opposing sets of values is kept before us by the repeated war imagery: 'all these engines of lust' (III.v.19); 'she is arm'd for him, and keepes her guard | In honestest defence' (III.v.73-74); 'Layes downe his wanton siedge before her beauty, | Resolves to carry her' (F2 III.vii.19-20); 'she seemes as wonne' (III.vii.31); 'Brings in the Champion honor on my part, | Against your vaine assault' (IV.ii.50-51); 'When you haue conquer'd my yet maiden-bed' (IV.ii.57). When applied to Bertram, these associations with war are ironical, because it is only once he has established his honour and manhood on the field of battle that he can leave war and turn his thoughts to what he previously avoided, sexual relationships with women. The conflict between masculine and feminine values has not been resolved, however, for the relationship he seeks with Diana is one in which he will be able to assert his sexuality without coming under the feminine influence of his partner.
It is remarkable that Helena's love is sufficient to be able to accept the depths of degradation to which Bertram sinks, and that she should still strive to end the conflict between them. She does not profess to understand Bertram's actions, though she instinctively anticipates them:
But O strange men,
That can such sweet vse make of what they hate,
When sawcie trusting of the cosin'd thoughts
Defiles the pitchy night, so lust doth play
With what it loathes, for that which is away.
(IV.iv.21-25)
Once she has the ring and is carrying Bertram's child (an image of the regeneration she has brought to Rossillion and France), she is confident of a happy outcome, and from the darkness of her suffering and the 'pitchy night' of Bertram's lust, emerges the summer with its green leaves, tokens of fecundity and the restoration of order:
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... the time will bring on summer,
When Briars shall haue leaues as well as thornes,
And be as sweet as sharpe.
(IV.iv.31-33)
Greene's James IV resembles All's Well That Ends Well in its concern with the relationship between an ordered, fertile marriage and the prosperity of the state. Dorothea, the English Princess, is married to James, the Scottish King, and she, like Helena, is faithful in clinging to an unworthy, licentious husband. The disruption of their marriage by his affair with Ida results in war, and the Bishop of St Andrews is emphatic in his linking of the two evils: he advises the King,
Loue and with kindnesse take your wedlocke wife:
Or else, (which God forbid,) I feare a change:
Sinne cannot thriue in Courts without a plague.
(James IV II.ii.1023-1025)
Similarly in All's Well That Ends Well, order and prosperity will return to Rossillion only once Bertram accepts Helena, and his conflict with the King, potentially the most dangerous in the play, is an important factor in bringing this about.
Like the Countess and Lafew, the King sees in the young people the means of redemption, but he does not include Bertram in his scheme: young men are sent off to the wars to win honour, but Bertram is to be kept at court, something he resents intensely because it denies him access to masculine exploits, restricting him to the feminine influences of court life. This is Bertram's first point of conflict with his sovereign, and he demonstrates his immaturity in his angry, petulant reaction:
2.Lo.E.
Oh 'tis braue warres.
Parr.
Most admirable, I haue seene those warres.
Rossill.
I am commanded here, and kept a coyle with,
Too young, and the next yeere, and 'tis too early.
Parr.
And thy minde stand too't boy, Steale away brauely.
Rossill.
I shal stay here the for-horse to a smocke,
Creeking my shooes on the plaine Masonry,
Till honour be brought vp, and no sword worne
But one to dance with ....
(II.i.25-33)
When Helena chooses Bertram to be her husband, Bertram's horror at the thought of further restrictions on his masculinity prompts him to an immediate outburst of impertinence:
My wife my Leige? I shal beseech you highnes
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In such a busines, giue me leaue to vse
The helpe of mine owne eies.
(II.iii.106-108)
In the clash with authority which ensues, Bertram stubbornly refuses to comply with the King's request: 'I cannot loue her, nor will striue to doo't' (II.iii.145). Finally the King's patience is exhausted, and he erupts into violent anger:
Obey Our will, which trauailes in thy good:
...
Or I will throw thee from my care for euer
Into the staggers, and the carelesse lapse
Of youth and ignorance: both my reuenge and hate
Loosing vpon thee, in the name of iustice,
Without all termes of pittie.
(II.iii.158 and 162-166)
The immature and uncertain Bertram is cowed into submission by these angry threats, and his inability to cope with this conflict with authority manifests itself in his running away.
When Bertram finally returns to the court in the last scene of the play the King magnanimously brushes the disagreement aside:
I haue forgiuen and forgotten all,
Though my reuenges were high bent vpon him,
And watch'd the time to shoote.
(V.iii.9-11)
This peace is of short duration, however, and in the ensuing conflict centring on Bertram's marriage and the fate of Helena, we see Bertram reduced even further in our estimation, producing lie upon lie, shamelessly changing his story each time his falsehood is detected. Perhaps the ultimate degradation for him is the production of Parolles by Diana to testify against him: Parolles, a man, according to Bertram,
With all the spots a'th world, taxt and debosh'd,
Whose nature sickens: but to speake a truth.
(V.iii.205-206)
Given allowances for hyperbole, Bertram has described himself. At what point, exactly, he comes to self-realisation, the text does not make clear; what we do see is a man reduced to utter helplessness, caught in Helena's trap. Although our sympathy for Bertram is slight we are anxious to see Helena happy, and this will require a full revelation of the truth. Bertram's lies, therefore, generate tension, as we are never
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quite sure if they will succeed, or how they will be exposed. The King's patience is sorely tried by the many conflicting accounts he has heard, and when he threatens Diana with execution and arrests Bertram on suspicion of murder the prospect of harmony and order seems remote. At this point Helena makes her climactic entrance, prepared for by Diana's reminder of the regeneration she represents: 'she feeles her yong one kicke' (V.iii.296) - and within the brief space of thirty lines the play is over, still time enough for the match-making King to announce his third intended coupling, this time of Diana: 'Choose thou thy husband, and Ile pay thy dower' (V.iii.322). This adds to the other images of fecundity and regeneration brought in at the close of the play: the child Helena is carrying; Helena's apparent resurrection ('one that's dead is quicke' (V.iii.297)); and the restoration of the two rings to their rightful owners. The general reconciliation celebrated in this comic conclusion is not entirely unqualified: there is little doubt that Helena will be able to fulfil Bertram's latest condition, but the mere fact of his imposing it jars:
If she my Liege can make me know this clearly,
Ile loue her dearely, euer, euer dearly.
(V.iii.309-310)
Although we may object to Bertram's thinking he has any right to lay down conditions after the way he has behaved, the prospect of future happiness is, at least, put before us.
The whole of the final scene is a radical departure from the sources: Painter's version has Beltramo act as the judge in his own case, and he decides that Giletta has proved herself worthy of being his wife, 'and from that time forth hee loved and honoured her as his dere spouse and wyfe'. 5.49 Shakespeare's ending is more equivocal, and perhaps, therefore, truer to life. We are not told that all is well, and we are not told that it ends well:
All yet seemes well, and if it end so meete,
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.
(V.iii.327-328)
What is unequivocal about the ending of All's Well That Ends Well is that order has been restored. Bertram uses the discrepancy in social degree to justify his behaviour, which leads to a heightening of the state of disorder: his disobedience to the wishes of the King and his mother is disruptive, and his sexual promiscuity is also unacceptable in an ordered
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state. Furthermore, Bertram's esteeming his own nobility above Helena's virtue creates a conflict by the misplacing of values:
Where great addition swell's, and vertue none,
It is a dropsied honour.
(II.iii.127-128)
Roark finds that Bertram's marriage is unique in Shakespeare:
In none of his other comedies do we find a marriage that attempts to cross such wide social boundaries, and those characters who dream of such things, such as Malvolio, are rudely put in their place. 5.50
Bertram's resistance to Helena's inferior social position is understandable in the light of contemporary ideas on order and degree, and All's Well That Ends Well explores the relative merits of virtue and nobility. Bertram's behaviour is despicable, although he is nobly born, whereas the lowly Helena has both charm and insight, winning our approval at every move. Bertram's acceptance of Helena implies his correct assessment of the worth of virtue and nobility, and his willingness to live in an ordered society where masculine honour does not require the exclusion of feminine virtue.
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- - - NOTES: CHAPTER FIVE - - -
5.2 Frederick S. Boas, Shakspere and His Predecessors (London: John Murray, 1896), p.345. return
5.5 See, for example, Bullough, II, 376; William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well, ed. Russell Fraser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p.5; and Witherle Lawrence, Shakespeare's Problem Comedies (New York: Macmillan, 1931), p.32 et seq. return
5.6 Bullough, II, 376-377, and William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well, ed. G.K. Hunter (London: Methuen, 1982), pp.xxv-xxvi (hereafter cited as Hunter, All's Well). return
5.7 Ibid., pp.xxvi-xxix. return
5.8 Bullough, II, 390; quotations from Painter's The Palace of Pleasure are taken from this edition. return
5.11 The line numbers are taken from the edition by Hunter, cited above. return
5.12 Bullough, II, 389. return
5.16 Robert Y. Turner, 'Dramatic Conventions in All's Well That Ends Well', Publications of the Modern Language Association, 75 (1960), 498. return
5.17 Chambers, pp.202 and 205-206. return
5.18 Hunter, Comedy, p.112. return
5.19 Hunter, All's Well, p.3 n. return
5.20 James L. Calderwood, 'Styles of Knowing in All's Well', Modern Language Quarterly, 25 (1964), 286 (hereafter cited as Calderwood, Knowing). return
5.21 Richard Wagner, Parsifal: Ein Bühnenweihfestspiel (London: Ernst Eulenberg, n.d.), pp.63-64. return
5.22 The idea that war was necessary for a full development of manly qualities is found widely in Elizabethan writings: Clytus and Parmenio discuss it in Lyly's Campaspe:
Clytus, I mislike this new delicacie and pleasing peace. For what els do we se now then a kind of softnes in euery mans mind. ... Yea, such a feare and faintnes is growne in courte that they wish rather to heare the blowing of a horne to hunt then the sound of a trumpet to fight!
(Campaspe IV.iii.9-12 and 29-33)
(The edition cited it that of Adams.) Nashe notes the popularity of the theme in Pierce Penniless His Supplication to the Devil, 'The Use of Plays':
In plays, all cozenages, all cunning drifts over-gilded with outward holiness, all stratagems of war, all cankerworms that breed on the rust of peace, are most lively anatomised.
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(The edition cited is that of Steane, p.114.) Falstaff refers to his dreadful conscripts in 1 Henry IV as 'the Cankers of a calme World, and long Peace, tenne times more dis-honorable ragged, then an old-fac'd Ancient' (1 Henry IV IV.ii.29-31). [return to note 5.37] return
5.23 Folio has 'Aud' in line 43; F2 has 'And'. return
5.25 This is reminiscent of Claudio in Much Ado about Nothing: he, too, wins glory on the field of battle, but fails to deal adequately with the problems which he faces in Messina. [return to note 5.48] return
5.29 Hunter, All's Well, p.xlvii. return
5.30 James L. Calderwood, 'The Mingled Yarn of All's Well', Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 62 (1963), 63. return
5.32 Folio has 'goe' in line 126; F2 has 'got'. return
5.33 George Richard Wilson Knight, The Sovereign Flower: On Shakespeare as the Poet of Royalism together with Related Essays and Indexes to Earlier Volumes (London: Methuen, 1958), p.110. return
5.34 Nicholas Shrimpton, 'Shakespeare Performances in Stratford-Upon-Avon and London, 1981-2', Shakespeare Survey, 36 (1983), 149 (hereafter cited as Shrimpton, 1981-2). See p.391 for further comment. return
5.36 This is one of five instances where Shakespeare uses the word 'clog' (Spevack, p.206), and in only one of these does it refer to a wife (Winter's Tale IV.iv.679, where Autolycus humorously refers to Perdita). Bertram means more than that Helena is an encumbrance, as can be seen from the description of the shrewish Mistress Otter in Jonson's Epicoene; Or, The Silent Woman:
A wife is a sciruy clogdogdo; an vnlucky thing, a very foresaid beare-whelpe, without any good fashion or breeding: mala bestia.
(Epicoene IV.ii)
(The edition cited is the Folio of 1616.) return
5.37 Richard P. Wheeler, Shakespeare's Development and the Problem Comedies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), p.37. The conflict between war and love, to some extent associated with the idea that peace led to a degeneration of masculinity (see n. 5.22 above), was not uncommon in Elizabethan drama: it is important in Lyly's Campaspe, where Alexander, torn between his love for Campaspe and his military exploits, is chided by Hephaestion:
Is the warlike sound of drumme and trumpe turned to the soft noyse of lire and lute? the neighing of barbed steeds, whose loudnes filled the ayre with terrour, and whose breathes dimmed the sunne with smoak, conuerted to dilicate tunes and amorous glaunces?
(Campaspe II.ii.55-62)
It was also an important aspect of Troilus and Cressida, in which Troilus' love for Cressida interferes with his participation in the wars - themselves caused by the love and abduction of Helen by Paris. In addition, it was a source of humour in Much Ado about Nothing, in which Benedick mocks Claudio for his devotion to love
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rather than war, and then the positions are reversed when Benedick falls in love (see Much Ado II.iii.7-21). return
5.38 Thomas Whitfield Baldwin, Shakspere's Five-Act Structure: Shakspere's Early Plays on the Background of Renaissance Theories of Five Act Structure from 1470 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1947), p.732. return
5.40 IV.iii.125, 131, 156, 233-236 and 299. return
5.41 IV.iii.117-118, 231-232, 237-238, 283-284 and 293-298. return
5.42 S.C. Boorman, p.90. return
5.43 A.P. Riemer, Antic Fables: Patterns of Evasion in Shakespeare's Comedies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1980), p.43. return
5.44 The 'pen' here is an image of the phallus: see Partridge, p.163; the sexual image obviously derives from both the instrument itself, and the ink it uses: O.E.D., XI, 458-459: 'pen ... sb.2 ... II. ... 4.a. (a) ... an instrument for writing with ink ... a 1300'. return
5.45 Calderwood, Knowing, p.277. return
5.46 Hunter, All's Well, p.24 n. return
5.47 The expression was used as widely as Lavatch implies, and it is ridiculed by Jonson in Every Man out of His Humour: Cordatus remarks,
... 'tis as drie an ORANGE as euer grew: nothing but Salutation; and, O god, sir; and, It pleases you to say so, Sir ....
(Every Man out of His Humour III.i)
(The edition cited is the Folio of 1616.) The form 'O god, sir' was used as a variant for 'O lord, sir', which is found as a catch phrase throughout the play. return
5.48 Fraser, p.4. The same could be said of Much Ado about Nothing; see also n. 5.25 above. return
5.49 Bullough, II, p.396. return
5.50 Christopher Roark, 'Lavatch and Service in All's Well That Ends Well', Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, 28 (1988), 243. return
Proceed to Measure for Measure