Isaac Asimov - Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1

The King is naturally grateful to Helena and offers her, as a reward, marriage with any of the noblemen at court. She chooses Bertram, who starts back in revulsion and horror at the thought of marrying a lowborn girl.

The King insists, however, and Bertram is forced into marriage. As soon as that is done, however, the young man determines to make it a dead letter. He orders Helena back to Rousillon without taking her to bed or even kissing her.

She goes submissively, and when she arrives, she has only a letter to show Bertram's mother, the Countess. He says he is off to the Tuscan wars and will never return as long as he is burdened with a wife he cannot accept. Nor will he ever accept her until she can produce his ring, which he will not give her, and show him a child begotten by him, for which he will give her no opportunity.

The old Countess is horrified. She is all on Helena's side, as is everyone else in the play (and in the audience) except for Parolles and, of course, Bertram himself.

But Helena begins to put into action a plan of her own. She departs from Rousillon in secret, leaving behind a letter that starts:

—Act III, scene iv, line 4

St. Jaques is James the Apostle, the son of Zebedee. According to a tradition which has no biblical backing whatever, he visited Spain and preached the gospel there. As a result, he is accepted now as the patron saint of Spain. He must, however, have returned to Judea, for the Bible records his death there at the order of Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:1-2).

Tradition then takes over again and has his dead body miraculously whisked to Spain, where it finally came to rest in a shrine at Compostela, a city in the northwestern corner of Spain, about six hundred miles west of Perpignan. If Helena goes there she is traveling in the direction opposite to that Bertram has taken. She is going west into farthest Spain, he east to Tuscany.

"James" is the English version of a Hebrew name of which "Jacob" is the Old Testament version. In Spanish it is Iago, and St. James is Santiago. The city in which the bones were thought to rest is Santiago de Compostela.

Helena asks the Countess to write and tell Bertram she is gone so that he can come safely home from the wars. She scolds herself, saying:

—Act III, scene iv, lines 12-14

Hercules, who was Jupiter's son by a mortal woman, naturally incurred the wrath of Juno (Hera), who was Jupiter's lawful wife. It was her enmity that visited him with periodic bouts of madness and condemned him to perform twelve labors for an unworthy cousin. Analogously, Helena considers the mere fact of her own existence to be condemning Bertram to warlike labors.

As a matter of fact, though, Helena is not quite as unselfish as she is presenting herself to be. She does not go to the shrine at all but sneaks off to Florence in disguise as a pilgrim, hoping that she may yet win her reluctant husband. There she stops to ask:

—Act III, scene v, line 35

A pilgrim who had visited the Holy Land was privileged to wear palm leaves as a token he had done so (it is a plant native to Palestine) and was therefore called a "palmer."

Helena asks the question of an old Widow, who offers her lodgings. The Widow has a beautiful and virtuous daughter, Diana, and it quickly turns out that Bertram (who is doing very well in Florence and is now a cavalry officer) is busily engaged in trying to seduce the girl.

Helena reveals her identity and persuades the two women to let her take Diana's place so that Bertram will sleep with her unknowingly, thinking she is Diana.

Diana agrees and cajoles Bertram into giving her his ring (the one he wrote in his letter that Helena would have to display before he would accept her as wife) and offers him an assignation provided he promises to stay only an hour and to refrain from speaking to her during that time. She promises to give him another ring in exchange for his after he has slept with her. So eager is he to win her that he agrees.

Helena then arranges to have herself reported as having reached Santiago de Compostela and to have died there.

Parolles, meanwhile, has won the contempt of all the officers, and they scheme to maneuver him into betraying his real character. Parolles has been sent out on a dangerous mission for which, out of sheer stupid braggadocio, he has volunteered. He is captured by his own colleagues and is blindfolded.

Pretending to be foreigners of strange speech, they question him through a mock interpreter. At the merest hint of torture, he tells everything he knows and reviles the very men who (unknown to him) are holding him prisoner. He even defames Bertram.

Thus, of one officer, he says:

—Act IV, scene iii, line 264

Nessus was the centaur who tried to rape Hercules' wife, Deianeira (see page I-380).

When he has completely unmasked himself for the coward he is, his blindfold is removed and he realizes that he is ruined. He decides to make the best of it, however, and later, in fact, he enters the service of the kindly Lafew and does well enough.

With Helena's reported death, Bertram can return to Rousillon, but first he wants to go through with the seduction of Diana. This takes place offstage, but we gather that Helena has safely substituted herself. Bertram has kept the bargain, stayed an hour, refrained from speaking, and accepted the ring (Helena's ring, which she, in turn, had received from the King of France). And Helena has the ring Bertram gave Diana.

Helena is therefore also ready to return, taking the Widow and Diana with her. She intends to see the King and says to her companions:

—Act IV, scene iv, lines 8-10

Marseilles is the great French port on the Mediterranean, about 280 miles west of Florence and 140 miles northeast of Roussillon. If Helena goes to Marseilles, she is two thirds of the way home.

She is counting on the King's continuing gratitude, for she says her services were such that

—Act IV, scene iv, lines 6-8

In the thirteenth century Mongol tribes from central Asia swept westward and penetrated deep into Europe, reaching almost to the Adriatic in 1240. This gave Europe a scare from which it didn't recover for a long time.

The Mongols called themselves Tatars, but to the Europeans this became Tartars (from Tartarus, see page I-40). The Tatars, considered as creatures from hell, were naturally considered the epitome of heartlessness, and Helena felt that even they would feel gratitude for services such as hers.

Helena has gone through a great deal and there is more yet to go through, but she keeps up her spirits with a stouthearted:

—Act IV, scene iv, line 35

The word "fine," from the French fin, means "end" here. Helena is saying that the nature of the end crowns the work, making it success or failure. This so summarizes the play-which, from Helena's point of view, is nothing but misery all the way to very nearly the end-that it has become the title of the play.