All’s Well That Ends Well

When Helena heals the king of a grave illness, he allows her to choose her own husband. Helena chooses military man Bertram, who wants none of it, ostensibly because she’s poor. But as we later find out, Bertram is a prolific deflowerer of virgins, so you have to wonder if that figures into it. Bertram heads off to fight in Italy, telling Helena that he’ll only marry her if she bears his child (which will be pretty hard with him off at war pricking maidenheads and all that.) In Italy, B-Boy is in a state of veritable priapism over a virgin named Diana, and they arrange to do it. But, not so fast – Helena, clearly feeling that she’s chosen a winner in old hymen-busting Bertram, comes to Italy and manages to be in the (presumably very dark) bed where Diana is supposed to be. Thus, she gets with Bertram’s child, cinching her end of the bet so to speak. When Bertram finds out what has happened, he immediately realizes that his manipulative baby mama is just the woman he’s always wanted. Out of this impenetrable farrago, the simplest thing I could find to hold onto was a sub-plot about a soldier named Parolles who gets embroiled in a completely different deception when he has to return to a battlefield to retrieve his lost drum – does this make any sense?