The Library Annex

All’s well that ends well: still the fine’s the crown:
Whate’er the course, the end is the renown.

The ends justify the means. With contrasting characters ruled by sometimes fical state edicts and aspirational values, Shakespeare retells the story of Gilette in Baccacio’s The Decameron. Neifile, during the third day of storytelling wherein she acts as queen of the group, tells the ninth story of the day about a low-ranking woman who combines her virtue and wit to ensnare her love in marriage by compelling a royal command by curing the king.

Why would Shakespeare choose to adapt and stage this story?

As in many plays, Shakespeare explores the profit of deceipt over honesty and integrity. I wonder if his audience of commoners, cemented in their social position, loved stories of characters, like them, elevating themselves through ingenuity. The social order of the day left no other means for escape.

But Shakespeare adds layers to this theme within All’s Well That Ends Well by exploring deceptions from multiple characters. Ironically, each scheming deception reveals the true nature of the one performing the deception. Parolles, one who can only act the noble brave, reveals his propensity for cowardice. Bertram, when fooling Parolles out of a sense of superiority, discovers that the people who need to believe in his nobility only see the immoral devices employed to acheive it.

These deceptions bolster the centerpiece of the plot. Helena devises a scheme to force Bertram to love her and concede to the King’s command that they marry. Yet the audience must wonder how Helena could love such a man as Bertram? If she does not, then should we believe that Helena schemes for her own gains and inspire in the audience sympathy for Bertram? Perhaps Shakespeare simply deplores class hierarchy within English society and simply wants the audience to ask themselves, “Is this all worth it?” or “Make up your own mind.”

I respect the minor characters of the story; the widow and Diana who understand Bertram’s true nature and scoff at his pretense, the Countess’ embrace of Helena despite her station, the Clown’s freedom of mind and speech outside the restrictions of position, and the King’s wisdom displayed within his speech:

Strange is it that our bloods,
Of colour, weight, and heat, pour’d all together
Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off
In differences so mighty. If she be
All that is virtuous, – save what though dislik’st
Of virtue for the name: but do not so:
From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,
The place is dignified by the doer’s deed:
Where great additions swell’s and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honour: good alone
Is good without a name, vileness is so:
The property by what it is should go,
Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair;
In these to nature she’s immediate heir;
And these breed honour: that is honour’s scorn
Which challengers itself as honour’s born,
And is not like the sire: honours thrive,
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our fore-goers: the mere word’s a slave,
Debauch’d on every tomb; on every grave
A lying trophy; and as oft is dumb
Where dust and damn’d oblivion is the tomb
Of honour’d bones indeed. What should be said?
If thou canst like this creature as a maid,
I can create the rest: virtue and she
Is her own dower; honour and wealth from me.

The king understands the transient nature of the noble class merely because he knows he, as a selfsame man as others, can manipulate it through his power. Bertram suffers under the ailment of belief in such transience. The king looks beyond class in search of the naturally ordained essence of nobilty. So again I wonder, why would Helena love such a man as Bertram?

Do the ends truly justify the means if the ends do not bring about happiness? Helena may have won Bertram, but I do wonder if she will be happy with him as one who beat their opponent.