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All's Well That Ends Well -

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Last updated: Wed, Mar 14, 2018

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All's Well That Ends Well -

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Act and scene list

Characters in the Play
Entire Play In All’s Well That Ends Well, a woman is given in marriage to the man she longs for, but, because she is of lower rank, he refuses to accept the marriage. It becomes her challenge to win his acceptance.Helen, the daughter of a dead physician, secretly loves Bertram, the Count of Rosillion’s son. When the count dies, Bertram becomes a ward of the French king, who is dying of a fistula. Helen heals the ailing king, and he grants her wish to marry his ward. Bertram refuses to consummate the marriage and goes off to war, sending Helen a list of seemingly impossible conditions to be met before he will consider her his wife.To meet his conditions, Helen substitutes herself for a woman whom Bertram desires, and sleeps with him. When false news comes that Helen is dead, Bertram faces the charge that he has killed her. Helen, now pregnant, reappears, saving Bertram and demonstrating that she has met his conditions. Bertram then acknowledges her.
Act 1, scene 1 Bertram, having become a ward of the court upon his father’s death, departs from Rossillion. Helen, whose own physician-father has recently died, knows that her hidden love for Bertram can never be requited because of their difference in social rank, but decides that the King’s disease may offer her a chance to “show her merit.”
Act 1, scene 2 The King of France refuses to take sides in the war between Siena and Florence, giving his courtiers permission to fight on either side. He welcomes Bertram to court, lamenting his own failing strength.
Act 1, scene 3 Bertram’s mother, the Countess of Rossillion, learns of Helen’s love for Bertram and forces Helen to confess this secret. When Helen reveals her plan to try to cure the King with medicines left her by her father, the Countess gives Helen permission to go to court, promising to support her in her “attempt.”
Act 2, scene 1 The King bids farewell to the French courtiers going off to war, having commanded Bertram to remain behind. Helen arrives at court and, after promising to forfeit her own life should she fail, persuades the King to let her try to cure his fatal disease. She asks, as her reward should she succeed, the hand in marriage of whichever courtier she chooses.
Act 2, scene 2 The Countess sends the Fool to the court with a letter for Helen.
Act 2, scene 3 Having cured the King, Helen is given several courtiers from whom to choose a husband as her reward. When she selects Bertram, he objects strongly to marrying “a poor physician’s daughter,” but the King insists on the marriage. Bertram privately vows never to “bed” Helen and, immediately following the marriage ceremony, makes his plans to escape to the wars.
Act 2, scene 4 Parolles brings Helen word that Bertram is leaving for Tuscany and that she is to get permission from the King to return to Rossillion.
Act 2, scene 5 Bertram is warned that Parolles is an untrustworthy coward. Bertram gives Helen a letter and instructs her to go immediately to Rossillion to await him. He says privately that he has no intention of ever going there.
Act 3, scene 1 The Duke of Florence greets French courtiers who have come to fight on his side.
Act 3, scene 2 The Fool returns to Rossillion with a letter from Bertram that tells the Countess of his plan to run away from the French court and his determination never to “bed” Helen. Helen enters with her own letter from Bertram, which sets seemingly impossible obstacles in the way of Bertram’s ever being a husband to her. Helen decides to leave Rossillion since her presence there is keeping Bertram away and endangering his life in the war.
Act 3, scene 3 Bertram is put in command of the Duke of Florence’s cavalry.
Act 3, scene 4 The Countess is given the letter left for her by Helen, in which Helen sets out her intention to make amends for her overambitious love by going on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James.
Act 3, scene 5 Helen, on her pilgrimage, meets Diana, whom Bertram has been attempting to seduce.
Act 3, scene 6 The French lords in Florence decide that Parolles’ unhappiness about the loss of the troop’s drum can be used as a way to trick him into revealing his cowardice to Bertram. Bertram agrees to go along with the plot. He then goes to seek out Diana.
Act 3, scene 7 Helen enlists Diana’s mother in contriving to meet Bertram’s conditions. Diana will agree to sleep with Bertram on the condition that he give her his ancestral ring. Helen will then substitute herself for Diana in the darkness of Diana’s bedroom.
Act 4, scene 1 Parolles is captured and blindfolded by a French lord and soldiers pretending to be the enemy who can speak to him only through an interpreter. He offers to give away military secrets in exchange for his life.
Act 4, scene 2 Diana agrees to lie with Bertram after he reluctantly gives her his ancestral ring.
Act 4, scene 3 News comes to the Duke of Florence’s court that Bertram’s wife has died while on pilgrimage. When Bertram enters, he has received this news, he has made his plans to return to Rossillion, and he has (he thinks) lain with Diana. A blindfolded Parolles gives away military secrets and betrays Bertram and the other French lords, and is then himself abandoned by them.
Act 4, scene 4 Helen sets out with Diana and Diana’s mother to seek the King of France in Marseilles.
Act 4, scene 5 The Countess, who has learned of Helen’s death, receives word that the King of France is approaching Rossillion and then that Bertram himself has arrived. Lord Lafew proposes that Bertram marry Lafew’s daughter, to which the Countess agrees.
Act 5, scene 1 Helen finds herself unable to petition the King because he has already departed for Rossillion.
Act 5, scene 2 Parolles arrives at Rossillion and persuades Lafew to take him into his service.
Act 5, scene 3 The King forgives Bertram and agrees to a marriage between Bertram and Lafew’s daughter. Bertram gives Lafew a ring, which is then recognized by Lafew and the King as Helen’s. Bertram’s claim that it was thrown to him from a window leads to his arrest for Helen’s murder. Diana appears claiming Bertram for her husband, and her statements about Bertrams promises are supported by Parolles. Bertram claims, in turn, that Diana is a prostitute, but her possession of his ancestral ring invalidates that claim. As charges and countercharges mount, a pregnant Helen enters and tells Bertram that she has met his seemingly impossible demands.
Act 5, Epilogue

//tei:div1[@n='5-epilogue']: 0

Act 1, scene 1

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