All's Well That Ends Well

All's Well That Ends Well is a comedy by William Shakespeare, which is also considered one of his problem plays.

The play was probably written later in the middle of Shakespeare's career, between 1601 and 1608.

The five acts follow the action of Helena, a lowborn beauty, who pines for the son of her guardian, Count Bertram. She is granted his hand as a reward for curing the King. Bertram, however, is indignant at being forced to marry below his rank. After the wedding he decides he would rather face death in battle than be subjected to a mean marriage. While at war, he writes home to Helena:

When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body that I am father to, then call me husband.

Later, Helena, with the aid of a maiden who has taken Bertram's fancy, tricks him into giving her his family ring and sleeping with her as per the "conditions" in his letter. In the final act, Helena's cunning plot is revealed, and Bertram promises to be a faithful husband to her.

Shakespeare's source is most likely a story in William Painter's The Palace of Pleasure, which was in fact a translation of the ninth story from the third day of Boccaccio's Decameron.

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The works of William Shakespeare
Tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, King Lear, Hamlet, Othello, Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Troilus and Cressida, Timon of Athens
Comedies: A Midsummer Night's Dream, All's Well That Ends Well, As You Like It, Cardenio (lost), Cymbeline, Love's Labour's Lost, Love's Labour's Won (lost), Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing, Pericles Prince of Tyre, Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Two Noble Kinsmen, The Winter's Tale
Histories: Richard III, Richard II, Henry VI, part 1, Henry VI, part 2, Henry VI, part 3, Henry V, Henry IV, part 1, Henry IV, part 2, Henry VIII, King John, Edward III (attributed)
Other works: Sonnets, Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, The Passionate Pilgrim, The Phoenix and the Turtle

Categories: Shakespearean comedies | English Renaissance plays