QUOTES FROM THE BARD

PLAY: All’s Well that Ends Well
ACT/SCENE: 4.4
SPEAKER: Helen
CONTEXT:
HELEN
Nor you, mistress,
Ever a friend whose thoughts more truly labour
To recompense your love: doubt not but heaven
Hath brought me up to be your daughter’s dower,
As it hath fated her to be my motive
And helper to a husband. But, O strange men!
That can such sweet use make of what they hate,
When saucy trusting of the cozened thoughts
Defiles the pitchy night: so lust doth play
With what it loathes for that which is away.
But more of this hereafter. You, Diana,
Under my poor instructions yet must suffer
Something in my behalf.
DIANA
Let death and honesty
Go with your impositions, I am yours
Upon your will to suffer.
HELEN
Yet, I pray you:
But with the word the time will bring on summer,
When briers shall have leaves as well as thorns,
And be as sweet as sharp. We must away;
Our wagon is prepared, and time revives us:
All’s well that ends well; still the fine’s the crown;
Whate’er the course, the end is the renown.

DUTCH:
Komt, wij moeten heen;
De wagen staat gereed; de tjd baart rozen;
Eind goed, al goed; aan ‘t einde hangt de kroon;
De loop zij zwaar, het einde brengt het loon.

MORE:
CITED IN US LAW:
In Re San Juan Dupont Plaza Hotel Fire Litigation, 907 F.2d 4, 6 (1st Cir. 1990)(per
curiam); Collett v. State, 133 Ga. App. 318, 211 S.E.2d 198 (Ga. Ct. App: 1974).

Proverb: All’s Well that Ends Well
Proverb: The end crowns (tries) all

Objective achieved; problems experienced along the way can be forgotten.
Shakespeare didn’t invent this; the earliest known version in print is from the 13th century, in The proverbs and idioms of Hendyng.
Fine=End, conclusion
Revive=To bring again to life, to reanimate
Compleat:
In fine=Eindelyk, ten laatsten
Revive=Herleeven, doen herleeven, weder bekomen, verquikken

Topics: cited in law, purpose, achievement, time, nature, proverbs and idioms, still in use