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Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries & Replies From Everyone Else 3.15.97: Top | Help
In AWW, we have two rings, and their sequence is the following:
First: Bertram has a ring, his family ring, which is the ring that he orders Helena to get from his finger to be considered his wife (as he said in his letter in Act III, scene 2). Second, In act V, scene 3, the King said that when Helena was at the Court in Paris and saved him from death, he gave her a ring, which she never would take off from her finger, unless she gave it to Bertram in bed, or send it back to the King in case of danger. In Florence (Act IV, scene 2), Diana, instructed by Helena, asked Bertram for his family ring, as a condition to the nocturnal meeting. He gave it to her, and she obviously delivered it to Helena. During the "bed-trick", which is a scene that for obviuos reasons Shakespeare could not put it on the stage, Helena, disguised as Diana, gave her ring (the one the King gave her) to Bertram. When all they left Florence and arrived in Roussillon, Bertram has Helena's ring and Diana, instructed again by Helena, has Bertram's ring. Without knowing, Bertram gave his ring, actually, to Helena, and without knowing, he slept with her, got her pregnant, and doing so, gave her the conditions he had stipulated to recognize her as his wife.
The theory of one ring that you mentioned is impossible, because Helena didn't have any opportunity to give Bertram the ring that she got from the King before the bed-trick.Posted by Cristina on March 23, 1997 at 20:47:18
In Reply to "Ring(s) in All's Well that Ends Well" posted by Paul DeWitt on March 23, 1997 at 10:49:52
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