This play begins with the main characters thinking about the deaths of two important people in their lives: Bertram's father and Helena's father. Helena is upset because these deaths have disrupted their lives, and Bertram, her love, must go to Paris to serve the king. She is not of high enough social status to go with him, but in this second soliloquy, she says that it is not a matter of fate; she will take matters into her own hands and go after Bertram despite the odds.

Helena returns the joke by referring to him as a king: "monarch."

The new Count of Rousillon; he inherited the title at the time of his father's death.

Her intentions shall not fade, weaken, "leave" her; she will persevere and see her project and "strange attempt" through to what if may be; she shall see whether or not what "hath been cannot be" something different from what it was.

Yet what her object, project, end and hope are, we still do not know.

Nonetheless her intentions to attempt her project and "strange attempt" are firmly determined and unshakable in their firmness.

Following Shakespeare's thematic pattern of delayed delivery of meaning following a pregnant pause, at this point, we do not know what Helena means. Shakespeare drives the audience/reader to ask, "What project?"

What we do know is that Helena realizes that her "project," whatever it is and howsoever it may be related to the King of France, may be a false one: her project "may deceive" her in that it may be misguided, impossible to fulfill, like "Impossible be strange attempts," or a failure in its hoped for result, like what "cannot be."

Referring back to the earlier conversation about the "fistula" that is ailing the King of France: "The king's disease."

With more of the double-meaning pattern, Helena, finishing the the preceding phrase, is saying:

1. who failed to reach her beloved and win his love?

2. who felt his absence and his rejection of her love.

These down-to-earth persons who rely on common sense suppose (i.e., believe, think) something about the nature of existence [the phrasing here follows Shakespeare's pattern of double (or multiple) meanings]:

1. What is past cannot reoccur in the present (i.e., past events cannot be repeated; they are past).

2. What has historically been one thing cannot be something different (historically, a physician's daughter was unworthy of a Count thus cannot now be worthy).

3. What someone has always been is what they must always be: once a ward and daughter, always a ward and daughter, never a trailblazer and innovator.

Following the preceding phrase about thinking equalizing of divided people is thought to be impossible by down-to-earth persons who rely on common sense, Helena describes such down-to-earth nonbelievers in "strange attempts" (unusual equalizings) as those that evaluate their suffering (as in love) and choose their course of action by common sense: who "weigh their pains in sense."

These fortunes and mighty people that are drawn together by nature then kiss like things that are "native" to each other or related to each other do kiss.

Carrying on from the previous phrase, "mightiest space in fortune," the first meaning pertains to wealth: Nature--the natural order of the world--brings fortunes (degrees of wealth) to the same level by increasing the wealth of some while destroying the wealth of other, so that wealth (fortune) is then joined, common, just like all similar things, "like likes."

The second meaning pertains to mighty people who govern their own fates: The mightiest, most personally powerful--notwithstanding (regardless of) differences in fortunes--nature, the natural order of things, draws to together through affinity so they are united, just like all similar things, "like likes."

Similar things here might be thought of as flocks of birds or groups of stars in constellations, things that are grouped as "likes" because of the laws of nature.

Helena has been talking about how high above her Bertram is in social status, which we understand to include wealth: he is vastly more wealthy than she and her fortune is scant, insignificant. In light of this, we can paraphrase this phrase as being related to differences in wealth:

Paraphrase: The most enormous differences or gaps between levels of wealth...

Additionally, we see there is a double meaning. Shakespeare continues a pattern he established in "mounts my love so high," that employs double meaning that must be deduced from the logical flow of conversation and from the logical flow of the speaker's argument. A paraphrase of the double meaning is:

Paraphrase: Those who are mightiest in power over their lives, with a wide gap between their fortunes and others ...

Critics agree that Shakespeare takes "poetic license" in the following speech and that therefore some of the following lines are all but impossible to understand. Yet understand them we must because Helena's speeches in I.i do a great deal to sculpt what is to come. By understanding what she says, we enhance our ability to follow the suspense as it builds and to fathom the theme(s) of the play.

Thus while critics debate and disagree about lines, like "What hath been cannot be" versus "What hath not been can't be," it will do us well to settle upon the meaning of controversial lines in context of the patterns Shakespeare is building and the meanings of preceding speeches.

Paraphrase: Impossible seem the things that are strange or uncommon.

Helena is still musing over how nature may superseded the will of humans and make equal and united things that are divided. While musing, she thinks that such unusual events (equalization of widely separated persons) are though to be be impossible by level-headed, down-to-earth people described in the next phrase.

Paraphrase: What power is it that prevents me from attaining what my sees?

Paraphrase: What power is it that makes me behold Bertram ...

Paraphrase: which makes my love so intense -- or -- which makes me love so high above my social station.

Since this is Shakespeare, both meanings are subsumed in the one phrase: intensity and social status. 

After musing over what seems to be the way to avoid the overwhelming power of fate, Helena asks what power it is that makes her love Bertram so intensely; she asks because she knows that, according to the rules of society, a love and marriage between a count and a physician's daughter is not possible.

In other words, she feels that there is a power that seems to be dominating her because a love like she feels for someone socially so high above her is not something a rationally thinking physician's daughter would indulge.

... when ... we are too slow to act, slow to think, slow to choose, slow to see, slow to do ... then the "fated sky" dominates over human absence of strength of will and determines life's course.

In other words, Helena says that if we are decisive and knowledgeable and quick to act in our own behalves, then the constellations can play no material role in shaping our lives and futures. Yet if we are "dull" and only stumble around in our lives, having no knowledge, no ambition, no plan, no strength of will, no motivation to attain and achieve, then the power exerted by the constellations is felt and becomes the directing energy of our lives.

In short, Helena muses that it seems to be decisive initiative that overcomes the power of astrological fate.

Paraphrase: Our plodding efforts in life; our reluctance to act on our own behaves.

"The fated sky" only exerts power conflicting with our free actions and choices ... when ...

Helena reinterprets the common belief about the power exerted by astrological dominance: she says the constellations allow free choice and free initiative in independent actions, which contradicts the common idea of constellations being determiners of life actions.

What Helena means in these two lines is that sometimes the power, initiative, insight, inspiration to resolve a problem comes from our own genius and strength of will even though it may be the convention among some groups to attribute the solution to intervention by Fate as written in the stars and planets.

Helena is harkening back to her recent conversation with Parolles about his astrological birth configuration being dominated by Mars.

noun: a useful thing; a thing of advantage or value to the possessor

Even though Parolles is angry, he follows the convention of giving a blessing to friends and loved ones when departing from them. This ritual and convention was very important during this part of Christian Church history because to do this meant to leave quarrels forgiven and love dominating between family and friends.

This is meant as a warning for Helena to recant, i.e., renounce and take back, her opinion and to repent of her wrong against him: insulting someone was considered a great sin during this part of the Church's history.

This is best understood in the idiomatic and figurative sense of "make to disappear" as in from my thought, from my life, as an important person to me.

Recall that Parolles had affectionately called Helena "Little Helen" just before she accused him of being fearful and a coward who flees in battle. Not only is Parolles surprised and angered, he is also a little shocked: he had a higher opinion of her than she of him and didn't realize she thought so poorly of him.

As a result, he will try when he returns from the King's court to instruct her in her error and give her one chance to make things right but, if she will not, he is prepared to shut her off from his association entirely.

Unthankfulness, i.e., ingratitude, for the instruction that Parolles will bestow upon her when he returns a proven courtier and champion of the King and reprimands her for saying something so wrong.

Paraphrase: And be prepared to understand the things I tell and the advice I give you for making amends for this injury of insult; be prepared to compensate me according to my instructions for this insulting injury.

Paraphrase: Therefore be prepared to receive a reprimand from a courtier to the King (an important and knowledgeable and not cowardly person).

Paraphrase: And when I return, I shall give such an acute response to your accusations of cowardice that I shall completely "neutralize" or defeat your unjust charge.

Paraphrase: When I return back here from the King's court, I will be perfectly in command of myself, including my busy thoughts (and wounded emotions).

acutely, adjective: sharply, penetratingly; with perception and intelligent insight; in a critically sharp and severe manner

Yes, Parolles is angry. He is so agitated by Helena's accusation of cowardice that he is at a loss for words, which is ironic since his *name *is the Latin for speech.

He cannot form a penetrating and appropriately sever rebuttal to her remark and blames his speechlessness on the great matters he is giving thought to, although these great matters did not prevent from verbal gymnastics upon the nature of virginity and the value of assaults against it. Parolles is saving face (making excuses) by blaming something else. 

business, noun: matters that have to be attended to; things that have to be done; concerns that need attention

Parolles suggests that his mind is whirling on great and important matters that need his undivided attention.

It is safe to say that Helena has surprised and insulted him and that he--while actually controlling himself admirably--is rather angry.

Paraphrase: Running away occurs when fear suggests the best route to safety.

Helena essentially says to Parolles that he is a coward, suggesting that it is who runs away in battle, thus herein giving her reason for thinking Mars was retrograde.

Retreating with your forces to gain a tactical advantage on the field of battle.

Helena again uses double definitions for a play on the word "backwards."

1. On the one hand, "backwards" could signify a tactical retreat to gain an advantage on the field of battle (as Parolles says next).

2. On the other hand, "backwards" could signify the coward who turns and runs away from battle. Recall that when Helena originally characterized Parolles, she said he was a "coward."

Parolles is perhaps miffed or perhaps continuing in a spirit of good humored joking. Either way, he asks Helena to explain why she thinks Mars was retrograde (weakened) in his astrological birth configuration.

Helena is suggesting that Mars was in a retrograde (weakened) position, which could leave Parolles with less favorable qualities than if Mars had been dominant.

In astrology, planets (i.e., "stars") can be in a dominant position or a *retrograde *position. If dominant, they exert a favorably powerful influence. If retrograde, they exert a weak influence.

Parolles is boasting that Mars was in a dominant position in the astrological configuration under which he was born.

Helena says that Parolles is "under" so many wars that it is only logical that Mars, the war god and war planet, is astrologically and spiritually governing his life.

Helena employs double definitions to establish a play on the word "under."

1. Mars is the god of war. A man can be kept "under" wars by being continually engaged in wars as a valiant soldier.

2. On the other hand, a man can be kept "under" wars by being defeated in them and oppressed by them.

In astrology, a birth configuration governed by the planet (and god) Mars is dominated by military power and assertive sexuality.

Parolles is boasting of being a warrior and a virile sexual man.

Helena hears the veiled insult in "If I can think of thee," and returns the remark with sarcastic irony of her own. She continues her earlier astrology allusion by saying the astrological star configurations Parolles was born under make him charitable, which is kind and loving.

Paraphrase: Don't do me any favors; your "charitable," i.e., loving, gesture is as empty as your reputation for honesty.

While he is away with Bertram at the court of the King of France.

Parolles holds out no promise of--or even the ability to be--thinking of Helena.

A term of endearment and sympathy, with a sobriquet (shortened) form of her name: "Helen."

It seems Parolles has a higher opinion of Helena than she has of him. It also seems, due to the sympathetic tone and sobriquet, that perhaps Parolles understood Helena's meaning, or at least understood it in part.

This is a question that will follow the motif of meaning delivered after a pregnant pause and have a deferred answer: Does Parolles now understand that Helena speaks of Bertram?

A person employed in the service of a person of high social station who performs various tasks and errands, such as delivering messages and summonsing people.

As a result, Bertram can never return her thanks.

Helena implies here a further wish for Bertram's thanks to be love and--the other side of a double-sided coin--marriage.

If a wish with a physical presence were possible, she could show Bertram the import of her good wishes, when now, with wishes that are only wishes, she cannot show him her meaning but can only think about it.

She says, yet, if wishes contained a physical presence [like an astral presence], then she might, though the effect of the physical presence, follow Bertram.

She says that her lesser stars confine her to wishes that cannot be expressed physically.

She says she has "baser stars" in an astrology allusion that signifies the belief that those born to power and prestige are guided by powerful astrological star configurations while those born to lesser social stations are guided by weaker, lesser, astrological star configurations.

She calls herself "poorer born," which alludes, not to poverty, for she is not poor, but to her lower social class, for she is not a noble woman but only a gentlewoman, as Lafeu called her.

In this speech, Helena is lamenting that her good wishes for Bertram are only good wishes and that they cannot convey her physical presence to him.

It is a pity that wishes can't contain bodily impressions that can be felt.

Helena again breaks off her thought. We do not know what she thinks is a pity. We might **guess **that she thinks it is a pity that Bertram has to leave Rousillon.

Helena haltingly completes her thought, saying, "he is one,--that I wish well," though we suspect that was not her original thought.

Notice the punctuation (a comma followed by an em-dash) and you realize that Helena has stopped speaking in mid-sentence.

Parolles notices that she has left off in mid-sentence and, in his next line, encourages her to continue.

The court of the King of France at the King's palace.

[This kind of royal court is not associated with what we think of as a judicial court of justice or a legal court where criminal or civil cases are tried and punishments given.]

Helena utters a blessing that God will give Bertram good things.

Helena despairingly declares that she does not know what to expect of Bertram nor does she know what opportunities and choices he will be offered at the King's court.

Helena has listed some of the "thousand loves" and identifies them as the promises of love that the god of love, Cupid, gives whispered (gossiped) promises of when he punctures a heart with his love arrows.

The Roman god of love, Cupid (Greek forerunner, Eros), was often shown with wings (also often as an infant, but not always) carrying a hunter's quiver of arrows and a bow. He is said to have shot arrows the wounds of which inspired either love or passion in his hapless victims. One might think of sonneteers as victims of Cupid's arrows.

There are a couple of things to note in this line. First, while Parolles does notice that Helena stopped speaking without finishing her thought, he does not understand that she speaks of Bertram. His question is only a prompt to encourage her to continue speaking.

[As a socio-cultural aside, the conversation convention, which Shakespeare accurately reflects in general if not in particular, is that speakers were listened to throughout their whole expression of a thought without interruption and encouraged to continued if stopped.]

Second, Parolles did not pick up on the meaning of Helena's opening comment "your master" so innocently asks what man "he is one" refers to when encouraging her to continue.

This is an interesting line because Helena all but names Bertram as the one she is in love with by saying "your master" since Parolles is a courtier and friend of Bertram.

Helena goes on to list the "thousand loves," which she means symbolically for every sort of love known to humankind from a friend's love to a sweetheart's love.

Paraphrase: You are not describing the state of my virginity.

Helena is young therefore cannot be compared to anything that is old and withered and unpalatable.

Will you have anything to do with an unpleasant withered pear?

Setting: France, though Rousillon resisted French incorporation that King Louis XIV tried to consolidate; Rousillon continually resisted complete absorption.

Parolles continues the food metaphor begun with dates by including "French withered pears." This is an interesting reference because it has more than one meaning and significance.

All European pear varieties originated in France with wild pears, thus "our French ...." It is probable Parolles means any old, withered pear, "it was formerly better," but it is possible the "withered pear" referred to might be the French Sekel pear, which is very tiny and unpleasant to eat unless fully ripe. They might be described as "withered" because of their small size compared to other ample French pears such as the d'Anjou or Bosc.

The primary meaning is the overt food-virginity metaphor that compares virginity kept too long to unpalatable food: unappealing and unwanted.

"Pears" is a homonym for the French word "pères" meaning fathers. One other meaning, suggested by literary critic Jean-Christophe Mayer, is that Parolles is alluding to the dead, withered and buried Count Rousillon and Doctor Narbon. This would introduced a deeper suggested metaphor underlying the food metaphor, which would compare virginity held too long to death and shriveling decay.

A date is much less delicious when merely stuffed and saved in your cheek.

A date is more delicious when it is baked in a pie or used as a garnish in porridge (we might say hot cereal).

An exotic fruit gathered from the date palm tree grown in tropical climates.

Toothpicks, now made of wood, were once made of precious metal or ivory.

Toothpicks, then, like brooches made of precious metal and jewels, did not wear out; they only became out-of-date and out of fashion: no longer suitable to impress people.

This is still part of the extended metaphor comparing virginity in a woman as she grows older to court clothing or accessories that are no longer fashionable.

The courtier's cap may be beautifully adorned with jewels and lace but it out of fashion therefore not suitable to be worn.

This is an extended metaphor for virginity that is held too long by a woman who resists all assaults (i.e., uninvited aggressive attack) of men: it comes to be out of fashion and unsuitable.

The female courtier's cap mentioned above, is richly ornamented and decorated.

courtier, noun: a noble who attends upon royalty at the majesty's court; a male or female noble who stays at the court of a count, duke or king

Virginity becomes unfashionable and unsuitable in a woman as she grows older.

Paraphrase: Give in to man when man "requests" an assault.

This suggests a "now or never" quality to man's attraction to woman, or, in the reverse, woman's attraction for man: man won't be attracted as woman grows old.

This sentiment is echoed in Shakespeare's sonnets also though the sonnets dispel and contradict the notion.

Paraphrase: Get rid of virginity while men are still attracted by it and by the woman.

Parolles made it clear that when men are attracted to virginity is when women are young.

Parolles means that virginity hoarded by the woman, defended for many years, loses attraction to men; they become less and less attracted to virgins as the virgin grows older and older. Thus, the longer virginity is kept intact and successfully defended by the woman, the less worth and value it and she have in a man's estimation. Parolles is making a big point of the attraction the sate of virginhood have for men.

Paraphrase: A woman will fare ill, or poorly, if she likes a man who is not interested in despoiling her virginity; if she likes a man who is not first interested in assaulting her.

According to Parolles' logic (which is ill logic, illogical), a woman has no recourse but to yield to man's assault.

Paraphrase: What advantage might a woman gain to give her virginity away to the man she chooses rather than to the man who assaults?

Indicating that all are in mourning, having recently buried loved ones.

The Countess and Bertram have buried the Count (now Bertram is the new Count of Rousillon). Helena has buried her father, Doctor Gerard de Narbon.

The Countess mourns with Helena since Narbon was her close personal friend. Lord Lafeu mourns with the Countess and Bertram; he has only just met Helena.

To continue with the monetary motif, Parolles is saying that very little of lost from the woman who yields to the attack against her virginity in the same way that monetary principal has very little lost if a tiny bit of it is spent.

This clarifies a monetary motif that began with "increase."

The "principal" is the mother whose virginity was undefended.

In the monetary motif, the "principal" is the chief sum of money upon which interest is built up (accrued) and which is paid out to the owner while the principal is preserved, undiminished, so that more interest can accrue.

Parolles is comparing a woman who has given birth to monetary principal in an interest bearing investment.

Parolles is reiterating the tenet that virginity lost will give an increase of more virginity: lost virginity leads to births, and births [may] result in daughters, thus the mother's lost virginity replicates itself ten times over during a ten year span.

"Out with it."

Get rid of virginity. Give in to the assaults. Do not defend virginity.

Do not hold on to virginity. Do not defend your virginity against the assaults of men.

The most prohibited, forbidden, sin in the Church doctrine and in Scripture.

Dies by devouring itself to feed itself.

Parolles is going to some pains to make virginity that withstands the attacks of assaulting men (outside of marriage) sound disgusting and like a **self-consuming obsession **rather than the wise self-preservation that it is.

Eats itself up to the outer skin (paring: outer peel or skin).

The idea held in earlier history was that foods could spontaneously produce foul insects like mites or maggots (it was not known then about role played by larger insects like flies).

Tiny, parasitic, tick-like insects that are noted for causing allergy related illnesses.

Away from all sanctified and hallowed graves.

sanctified*, adjective:* purified

hallowed, adjective: sacred

Parolles is carrying logic to illogical conclusions, continuing in his jest, by equating defending virginity against assault with suicide. Suicide, in Catholic Church doctrine, is an unforgivable sin (an "infallible disobedience") resulting in excommunication from the Church and burial in unsanctified, unhallowed ground (not in the churchyard graveyard).

Carrying on from his earlier jesting assertion that if virginity is defended, then there will no longer be any virginity, i.e., daughters will not be born to mothers, Parolles takes a giant leap in logic and foolishly claims that, then, virginity commits suicide, thus the defense of virginity is an unforgivable sin.

Undeniable, in all circumstances, disobedience.

Christian belief requires that children obey their parents [it is less noted, but Christian parents are also required not to be unreasonable and not to provoke their children to anger (Ephesians 6:4)].

Parolles reflects her use of "little" and "'it" but uses them to refer to her idea, her assertion of continued defense.

He implies that her idea is a poor one with "little" that can be said in its favor.

She will defend her rights to not be "blown up" even if by doing so she dies a virgin.

Here Helena marks a distinction between what they are talking about and the legitimate relinquishing of virginity in marriage: she marks a distinction between the assault they've been speaking of and marital agreement.

Helena understands his complicated, half-joking reply, and says that she will continue to defend "'t" ("it"), meaning her "city" or her virginity and, thus, her life.

Virginity is a cold companion, thus all women should yield to the attack and be rid of virginity.

We see that Parolles' answer to Helena is that the one way to "blow up" an attacking man is for the woman to be "blown up" herself thereby ridding the man of the need for future attack against her: when she is blown up, he is blown down and his assault ends because her defenses are breached (broken in to) and her "city" is in his control.

In other words, when woman's virginity has been defeated and she is impregnated, there is no further need of defense, the barrier wall being breached (a gap made in it), then man is defeated because the need for attack is removed: he owns the castle.

On tends not to think too highly of Parolles.

By women effectively defending their virginity, all future virgins can not come to be thus virginity is lost forever since no daughters can be born.

Once a woman stops defending her virginity, she may give birth to ten more virgin girls.

The flesh women are made of is the material from which more virgins are to be made by impregnation and birth.

No virgin girls were ever born until a virgin became impregnated and thus became a mother. [In other words, cloning wasn't a Renaissance option.]

Impregnation leads to birth, which has always been considered an increase of all good things as well as an increase in natural population.

For a woman to remain a virgin.

Parolles is saying that it is against the laws of nature, against the order of nature, for a woman to remain a virgin because the natural order is for the female to bear children.

The world of natural law; the state of nature. Nature itself.

Parolles has introduced a new political/law motif.

Continuing the military motif, Parolles compares a woman's life to a city.

He is saying that if a woman rejects a man after she has been "blown up" or impregnated, she loses everything.

Remember, he is still on his way to answering Helena's question of how a woman may blow up or defeat a man. So far, we have the slightly contradictory yielding virginity to defeat defeats a man: "Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up."

In this usage, "breach" is best understood as the breaking or violation of a promise or an obligation.

breach 1, noun: the condition of a broken or violated promise or obligation

In the sexual innuendo that Parolles is pursuing, this, in a double definition of one word, refers to the "breach" or breaking of the female Hymen sheath that signifies virginity.

breach 2, verb: to make a gap in or to break through a barrier, i.e., the Hymen sheath

Women; womankind.

Parolles is responding to Helena's earlier "us" by speaking of "yourselves," women in the plural.

Double play on words. "Blown down" means defeated: "Virginity being blown down."

Man "blown down" is defeated. "Again" is man being rejected after an initial impregnation of a woman.

Helena is dropping the innuendo while keeping the military motif and asking if there is no secret military means by which women can defeat men.

Continuing the motif started earlier of war, warrior, military defense and actions.

Helena understands the sexual innuendo and in mock, though earnest, prayer asks God's protection form "underminers" and those who "blow up" woman's virginity.

There is a colloquial trend that uses "virginity" for female and male, making "virginity" equivalent to nothing more than initial sexual encounter, but the conversation between Helena and Parolles points out at least two distinctions to virginity that show it cannot apply to males. These are both contained in the idea that women can be impregnated [(1) entry of the path to the womb and (2) impregnation] and cannot apply to males thus disarming the application of "virginity" to males.

There is sexual innuendo in Parolles' answer. He is suggesting that a man whose intention is set will always find a way have the victory over a woman: "undermine" is to defeat her purposes and, in innuendo, attain a sexual position; "blow you up" is military conquest from explosions and, in innuendo, suggestive of the outcome of impregnation.

innuendo, noun: indirect suggestion of something that may be disparaging, derogatory or, at times, sexual in nature

Parolles, either jokingly or sincerely, admits there is no defense that women have against men.

An effective defense against man's sudden and violent assaults that men might know because they are warriors but that women wouldn't know.

The formal equivalent of "me."

Helena is keeping some sio-cultural distance from Parolles by using a formal pronoun for herself, even while bantering jokingly with him, because she neither likes nor trusts him: he is a "notorious liar" and "soley a coward."

Helena is saying that while women may with valorous courage withstand the assault of men, who think less of woman's virtue than of physiological impulses, women are nonetheless generally weaker than men (recall that men in her ear were most often warriors or physical laborers with the physical strength built up to its maximum) who willfully and suddenly assault.

valorous, adjective: courage in the face of danger

adjective: excellent in courage and bold bravery; worthy in stout-hearted valor

verb: to intentionally strenuously attack; to suddenly violently attack

Latin for "barricade."

Helena asks how women may defend themselves against men who are known to assault, or attack, virginity: "Man is enemy to virginity."

Trace. Parolles has some trace in his deportment of having been or still being a soldier.

Helena accepts the joking assault by saying that, yes, she was thinking about virginity, the state in which a woman is a virgin.

Continuing in the joking spirit, Parolles turns the joke on Helena's womanhood and maidenhood: she is a woman and an unmarried one, so a virgin (having had her female organs sexually entered by no man before).

Helena's "And no" can be taken two ways: she rejects both being saved by him and being queen to his monarch, thus ending the joking with a moment of true speech.

This single word is also confusing. Is Parolles rejecting being saved in response to Helena's reciprocal "save you" or is he rejecting being monarch (ruler, king)?

"Save you ... And [save] you."

Joking with Helena; he knows she is a queen. This also infers the plot element of Helena's love for Bertram.

It is Parolles of whom Helena has been speaking: he is the liar, coward and fool.

Parolles is taken form the Old French expression parole d'honneur meaning "word of honor," which is itself taken from the Late Latin word parabola meaning speech (etymology from Collins Dictionary).

The name Parolles, then, introduces two things: (1) an irony in his name since Helena has already characterized him as not being a man of honor, and (2) a dual theme of speech and honor.

Unyielding virtues (goodness, courage etc) taking second place to the charm and easiness of wasteful self-indulgent errors and lack of good sense.

Helena is saying that charming fools can seem more inviting than cool-headed wise men. 

[When virtue] looks stark, rigid, uncompromising in the cold winds of life's troubles.

They seem to have precedence, or greater importance, next to the hard, unyielding nature of virtuous qualities.

Helena is saying that this person's failings sometimes look more appealing than the unyielding demands of goodness, courage and other virtues.

His faults seem so charming with his personality ...

Helena is implying that his personality overpowers the reality of his lying, foolishness, and cowardliness.

An impediment to the extension of this friendship is that Helena knows that this as yet unidentified person is a liar and one who is well known to be a liar (it's not her opinion; it is the proven collective opinion).

Another instance of the motif in which meaning is delivered after the suspense of a pregnant pause: Who is this person?

Helena is willing to bestow friendship upon this person for the sake of her love for Bertram.

Paraphrase: Bertram's friend shall be my friend.

It is someone who is a friend of Bertram's and who is traveling to the King of France's court with him.

Helena's soliloquy is interrupted by the sound of approaching steps.

Carrying on the implied metaphor begun with "idolatrous" that implicitly compares Bertram to a god and Helena to a worshiper, she says she must make holy the few things he has left behind, probably only things left behind in her memory.

She loves him so intently that it borders on the irreligious act of making a worshiped idol out of him, a god out of him.

Of every line and expression of Bertram's features: she has his "sweet favour" of a face memorized as well as all his mannerisms and expressions.

trick: a person's particular mannerisms and expressions

Her "heart's table" (as in "tablet") upon which she "drew" his image, which is her imagination and her mental images, has perfect recall.

At the Court of Rousillon, Helena reveals, they were together, in mixed company centering around the Countess, virtually all day long.

Different species, like a deer (hind) and a lion, cannot mate, so a deer in love with a lion will die without fulfilled love.

This implied metaphor casts Helena as the hind (deer) and Bertram as the lion.

Torments, defeats itself.

Her ambition to marry Bertram can never come about, so it is her ambition that causes her pain.

This is setting up a plot question ("What will be the result of her love?") and the *foreshadowing *the direction of plot development.

Helena has to *console *herself with being around Bertram because she cannot socially be direct friends with him, or a woman he can woo, because of the differences in social class.

Paraphrase: I must find my comfort in being near him because I cannot be with him.

Another instance of meaning delivered after a pregnant pause: her drawing of Bertram is done in her "heart" or mind, not on paper.

Used as an adjective as in "hawk-like" meaning sharp, keenly observing, intelligent, alert.

From this we infer that Bertram is a man of keen mind, intelligence and observational powers.

She draws sketches of Bertram, but we will later learn that "draw" is a metaphor for musing and memorizing. Her true meaning will be delivered after a pregnant pause.

Continuing the star metaphor, Helena refers to the secondary light that stars provide on Earth.

[Starlight is "secondary" light because sunlight is primary light and very much brighter.]

Helena's first star *analogy *is being carried out as a metaphor comparing Bertram to a star with light that radiates out through the heavens: "radiant light."

The reason Helena cannot have success in her love for Bertram is that they are different social levels: her father was the court physician and she a physicians daughter, but Bertram is the Count of Rousillon. He is intended to marry a woman with a noble title. (We saw this play out in our own day with the marriage between Prince William and Kate Middleton of England who are now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.)

Paraphrase: It would be equally impossible if I were to love ...

Helena has confessed that she is ruined because she loves Bertram. Now she begins her *explanation *of this. She is introducing an analogy that *compares *the impossibility of a happy outcome of her love for Bertram to the equal impossibility of a happy outcome of a hypothetical love for something else absurd, like loving and wanting to marry a star in heaven, as she goes on to say ("particular star").

Helena says she undone (ruined, devastated) because Bertram is away.

undone: something causes the downfall or ruin, the reversal of good fortune or a setback of someone

Helena is lamenting that she is ruined by her psychological and emotional captivation with Bertram. [This raise the question of why she feels she is undone.]

Ah. The revelation. Bertram is the one she is thinking of: (paraphrase) my imagination carries no image but Bertram's.

[It's interesting that Shakespeare delayed the subject of Helena's inexplicable remark for so long yet did not delay the revelation of "Bertram" in Helena's soliloquy longer: for parallelism in dramatic effect, it feels like the revelation of "Bertram" would be longer in coming by another line or two.]

hyperbole, literary device of literary **exaggeration **to make a point: Helena surely does remember what her father looks like since he was so recently buried. She is employing dramatic hyperbole to dramatize the revelation in her soliloquy of whom she does in reality shed her tears for.

Paraphrase: The large tears I weep now--that are not for my father because I am not thinking of my father--give more great honor to his memory than the tears I actually did weep for him when he died and when we buried him.

Helena is elaborating upon her confession that she is not at present weeping for her father and revealing that when she did think of him and weep for his death, she didn't weep nearly as much as she is weeping now.

This delayed revelation of the subject of discussion adds suspense and requires we ask who? what? how? or why? This doubles our engagement with the play because we immediately have mysteries to puzzle us and to solve.

Helena confesses that her weeping, so much the topic of concern between the Countess and Lafeu, is not for her father.

Helena is lamenting the other thoughts or feelings that weigh upon her mind. In other words, if her only tasks were to honor her new mistress and guardian and to honor her late father, it would be better for her than if she had some as yet unspoken concern to weigh her down.

In this play, Shakespeare has started a motif of having characters say things that are only explained later. As on instance of this, the Countess's opening remark about a "second husband" is clarified in the later discussion about Helena's father ("O, that 'had'! how sad a passage 'tis!"), which indicates it was he whom the Countess thought of as a second husband.

Similarly, Helena here is revealing the meaning behind her earlier inexplicable remark about both pretending to have a grief and having a sincere grief: "I do affect a sorrow indeed; but I have it too."

Carry on with your father's good name and honored reputation. In other words, Helena is admonished to deport herself honorably, virtuously and with good repute.

Give her much attention; pay her a great deal of heed; always attend on and to her.

Helena is the Countess's ward, so the Countess is her overseer and guardian, or "mistress."

Shall keep love in his heart and give love freely from his heart.

Lafeu is saying that the best advice for a young "unseasoned" courtier is to make filial, platonic, and dutiful love his first object, his first aim and goal in his career and life.

Lafeu is not speaking here of romantic love.

Cannot have a lock of the qualities that are the best.

want: (archaic verb usage) to have a lack of something that is beneficial, desirable or good

Teach Bertram to be a good man, courtier to the King and Count.

New, novice attendant to the King's Court.

Bertram is both a newly made Count as a result of the death of the Count, his father, and a new "courtier" or attendant to the Court of the King of France, for where he is about to depart. Thus, Bertram is "unseasoned" because he is new to the ways of the court.

unseasoned: *metaphor *comparing the inexperienced Count with newly chopped wood that is "unseasoned" and too fresh to build a fire with; he is ill-prepared for what awaits him as freshly cut wood is ill-suited to a roaring fire

Be bestowed upon your and your whole being.

head: synecdoche, literary device, the specific representing the whole, in this case, the head (specific) representing the whole and entire being, or person

The Countess continues her blessing by saying that she petitions God to give to Bertram other good things that she cannot herself think of but that might be enabled by Bertram's skills or that might be realized through her prayers. She requests that all such might be fulfilled in Bertram's life.

And that my prayers, i.e., supplications, petitions, on your behalf may bring to fruition, or may bring into being.

Paraphrase: Whatever else God in Heaven may have in store for you that is good and beneficent.

Paraphrase 1: Never have to be begged to express your thoughts; be forthcoming with your true, sincere, well-cosidered thoughts.

taxed: (1) to have heavy demands made; (2) confronted with a wrongdoing; faulted with wrongdoing

Paraphrase 2: Never speak rashly and then be correctly blamed or faulted for misspeaking or speaking wrongly.

Checked: stopped.

Paraphrase: Be wise by being silent.

Keep your friend as dear to you and as safe as you keep yourself.

Paraphrase: Your friends are as dear to you as your own life; keep them close; keep them safe.

Battle, conflict.

The Countess is advising that Bertram avoid conflicts with his enemies, i.e., not to do battle, and instead use his power as a count to negotiate with his enemies: "rather in power than in use."

Paraphrase: rather in reputation and negotiations than in battles and conflicts.

A concluding reiteration of the foregoing: let virtue have equal superiority with the power and strength of a ruler.

The crown and power of a Count are Bertram's birthright. The Countess is earnest is asking that he not forget the one, i.e., "goodness" or virtue, and not abuse the other, i.e., authority and power.

Dominance; superiority.

The Countess asks Bertram to allow his birthright, since he himself is now the Count of Rousillon following his father's death, and heritage of power to have equal weight with his virtuous qualities, with his inner character of goodness, kindness, compassion and sympathy, truth, honesty and justice (i.e, virtues).

The reason this is a concern is that a ruler, such as a Count is, without virtue is a tyrant while virtue without the strength and courage suitable to a ruler is powerless weakness. Strength and courage coupled with virtue are equally needed.

Ancestry and good virtuous inner qualities (i.e., inner character).

The Countess alludes to a great physical similarity between deceased father and living son: Bertram has the same physical characteristics as his father.

Follow after; follow in the footsteps of. Be like your father.

Without any preamble or delay, the Countess abruptly launches into an elaborate and beneficent blessing upon Bertram.

This indicates that Bertram's interruption (above) has recalled her thoughts from Helena's grief back to her own double grief and to the imminent departure of her deeply, sincerely loved son. That this is indeed the explanation of her abrupt speech is confirmed by her immediate exit at the end of this speech: she leaves because emotionally overwhelmed.

One less supportable reading suggests she abruptly begins her blessing and sharply exits because she is piqued (miffed, slightly angered) by Bertram's interruption and his impolite haste to leave. Nothing in the earlier characterization of the Countess supports this sort of "Jekyl and Hyde" change in her demeanor, traits, personality, or verbalizations.

Lafeu is asking the reason for Bertram's interruption in the conversation between the Countessa, Lafeu and Helena.

Paraphrase: How shall we understand the meaning of this interruption?

In another controversial line, Bertram asks for his mother's blessings upon his departure and new status as King's ward.

The *controversy *is in whether Bertram interrupts discourteously in a manner disparaging to Helena thus undercutting the feminist theme of the play or whether Bertram interrupts for another reason. In view of his earlier lines, it is probable that his unwished for departure ("in going ...I weep ... anew") is making him uneasy so he interrupts so discomfort is not further prolonged.

Also considering the lines Bertram will momentarily speak to Helena ("The best wishes that can be forg'd in your thoughts be servants to you!") and the tone in which he speaks to her (emotionally warm and kindly), it is most likely that he interrupts without reflection on Helena but only with reflection on his own uncomfortable feelings relevant to his departure.

In this confusing follow-up to Lafeu's statement encouraging moderation in grief (i.e., the right amount at the right time but don't risk health and sanity by overdoing it), the Countess is backing up Lafeu's words by suggesting that if the wise around Helena think that an excess of tears is not in her best interest, then she will jeopardize her happiness even further by disregarding their counsel.

The Countess's remark is confusing because it can also be read by modern audiences to mean that if people around a mourner are unsympathetic, it may drive a weeping mourner to greater unhappiness. Yet this reading contradicts what the Countess has already said ("--go to, no more, lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow than to have") thus makes little logical sense, which places the above interpretation in the preferred position.

Causes illness and disquietude in those who survive and prevents them from carrying on with life's duties and requirements.

Grief and weeping that goes too far and goes too long and that cannot be moderated by restraint or control.

Grief and weeping for a due season, for a correct and expected time, that is reasonable and not given over to hysteria or exaggeration.

This is a mysterious opening line for Helena. We seem caught in a reversed dramatic irony in which a character knows what neither the audience nor the other characters know.

What is the pretended sorrow and what is the real sorrow?

This is another instance of the woman-delivery motif in which the meaning of the line is delivered after a pregnant pause: we must wait for her later soliloquy to know what she means here.

[rather] than have one: pretend to have a sorrow rather than really have a sorrow.

The Countess is saying that Helena continues to cry so much it will to others like she is faking the tears and sorrow rather than shedding real tears and feeling real sorrow. A social norm was to grieve for a reasonable time and then be brave and carry on despite continuing sorrow.

Leave off. Come now. Move on from doing this.

The Countess is encouraging Helena to stop weeping since Helena's tears probably increased as soon as Lafeu called attention to them.

Brine is a preservative and a seasoning. The Countess is suggesting that Helena's tears reveal the quality of her heart and are no shame but an embellishment to her good qualities.

A salt and water solution once used extensively to season and to preserve meats for transport or to last over long periods of time.

Used here as a metaphor to suggest that tears of grief have the same qualities as brine.

Lafeu is confirming the Countess's opening commendation of Helena's inner qualities by saying that the tears she is silently weeping for her father in her grief show the truth of her inner beauty.

Then such a woman may express true honesty and, in not being a walking deception, she also arrives at virtue, because goodness through honesty is a virtue.

It is better is she looks as plain as her mind and virtues are.

In such a case, with no inner beauty, a woman's outer beauty is a virtue but it is also a traitor that mocks the truth of womanhood, which has equal strength in inner and external qualities.

A woman with a mean, cruel, uneducated mind having no inner beauty or strength but with a beautiful body and face can only be praised if that praise is mixed with pity and regret for her empty mind and virtueless inner being.

Her inner qualities make her external beauties more beautiful and of greater value: her inner being enhances her external being. She is beloved for her mind as much as for her beauty.

Temperament, characteristics, personality traits, talents inherited, it is implied, specifically from her father.

Helena is educated. This contradicts stereotypical ideas that no women were educated during this epoch of time.

Helena was made the ward of the Countess just in the same way as Bertram was made the ward of the King of France.

bequeathed: to be left to someone as a condition of stewardship or ownership in a will

Lafeu is expressing sympathy and saying that he would be glad that not many people knew anything about it indicating the seriousness and the fatal nature of the condition.

According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, a "fistula" is a connection between organs or an organ and a blood vessel, etc, that should not exist. These "abnormal" connections are caused by injury or as the side effect of surgery.

To grow weak and feeble, as in sudden severe or prolonged, illness.

This is a reiteration of a prevalent Renaissance and Shakespearean theme: skill at something, especially skill with words, lives on and defeats mortality, giving immortality to the one holding the skill. Though here, there is some doubt expressed that skill can defeat mortality while there is never any doubt that words (e.g., in sonnets) can defeat immortality.

In another of several word plays, the Countess means that if the doctor could have treated the King, then the King's disease would "die" and the King himself would live.

This makes one wonder why the King didn't summon the doctor or why the Count hadn't sent the doctor to the King. Presumably, the doctor was so busy attending to the Count and then to his own death (since both deaths came close together) that he couldn't be spared while living to go to the King.

The Countess exclaims that for the sake of the King's recovery, she wishes that Helena's father were still alive since he was such a skillful doctor.

Had the doctor had a chance to cure Nature of all death, then Death would have had to play because there would be no dead souls to snatch away: there would be no deaths for Death to gather up.

This hyperbolic (exaggerated) remark is made to praise the doctor's skill by saying that, had he had the opportunity, he would have cured all Nature and eliminated death from all the natural world.

Helena's father was a great doctor and an even more greatly honest man. He was someone who would be painfully missed after his death.

Helena's father was the court physician and was named Gerard de Narbon. He was famous and renowned.

The Countess laments the sadness of the death of Helena's father.

"Had" denotes the passing of Helena's in death. The Countess is emphatically lamenting his death and may have considered him like her "second husband" since he was so important to the Court (to the Count and Countess both).

Referring to Helena, who has entered with the others at the beginning of the scene.

As time moves on and wears away, the King realizes there is indeed no hope of recovery.

His doctors continued to tell him to hope for improvement but the only thing they did was to make empty promises as time continued to speed by: they tormented or "persecuted" passing time with false hope of recovery for the King.

The King has stopped seeing his doctors. He has sent them away.

As Lafeu clarifies in the next line, the Countess is asking about the King's health: Is there hope that his majesty the King will be better and well again?

The "worthiness" (value, goodness, need) of the Countess and Bertram will make the King more good and kindly than usual instead of making him withhold goodness and kindness from them.

This exchange raises questions and suspense related to the King's goodness, his future behavior toward the Countess and Bertram and related to the "worthiness" of the Countess and Bertram. Are they each what Lafeu says they are?

Extension of the same metaphor to say that the King of France will fill the emotional and psychological void left by the loss of Bertram's father.

Metaphoric comment to say that the King of France will be as good to the Countess as her husband was. In other words, the entrance of the King into her life will fill the emotional and psychological void left by her husband's death.

The King will therefore without question extend that goodness and kindness to the widowed mother of his ward and to his newly bereaved ward.

bereaved: having suffered loss of a loved one, most often through their death

The King of France is good and kind by nature and as a matter of habit.

Being a legal ward puts one in a position of expected obedience to the guardian. When the guardian is also the King, "subjection," or required obedience, is two-fold: subjection of the will to the King coupled with subjection of the will to the guardian so that one is perpetually in subjection ("evermore in subjection").

The use of "evermore" is the use of the literary device of hyperbole, which here introduces mild exaggeration.

A legal dependent, though not adopted, who must do as the guardian requires.

Bertram, in departing from his mother the Countess, again ("anew") sheds a mourner's tears for his father's death. The implied meaning of Bertram's remarks is that had his father not died, he would not have to leave home and go to the King.

The situation Shakespeare is setting up is one in which, though several characters are in the same situation, they each weep for, feel for, and think of very different things or aspects of the situation, and this will be further complicated when Helen enters the dialog later in the scene.

The Countess: weeps for her son's departure and the death of Helena's father who is newly buried.
Bertram: weeps for himself that he has to depart because his father died.

The Countess has buried her husband and her son has been adopted the ward of the King of France, thus he is to delivered up to the King and, at the same time, delivered away from her, on the same occasion as that upon which she also buries Helena's father. She is lamenting the irony of her situation.

This is a controversial opening line. While there are disagreements, what is agreed upon is that this line highlights the importance of women in delivering life to the world and, as events come about, in continuing to deliver rescue and salvation.

It may be understood that the Countess refers to Helena's father, who has just recently died, when she says "a second husband" since Helena's father was so important in the Count's court and since the Countess laments "had" in her upcoming speech about Helena's dead father. This is the first of the thematic delivery motifs in which the meaning of what is said is delivered only after a pregnant pause (many lines later).