Meaning
- If something has a good result or finally succeeds, previous problems are not important.
- If the outcome of a situation is happy, this compensates for any previous difficulty or unpleasantness.
- If something has a good result or finally succeeds, previous problems are not important.
- If the outcome of a situation is happy, this compensates for any previous difficulty or unpleasantness.
(long and interesting) Origin
It has to be one of the oldest of the well-known proverbs. And it’s older than Shakespeare, who did indeed use it for his ‘problem play’, All’s Well That Ends Well, in the early seventeenth century (although some scholars put the date of composition as early as 1598).
But the phrase was already established during Shakespeare’s lifetime. Indeed, if we go back some half a century, we find it in the writings of John Heywood (c. 1497 – c. 1580), who wrote plays for the royal court from the early 1530s onwards, some sixty years before Shakespeare made his way in the Elizabethan theatre.
But even Heywood shouldn’t get the credit for originating the phrase, although his is the first text to use the phrase with the precise wording ‘all’s well that ends well’. In 1381, in J. R. Lumby’s Chronicon Henrici Knighton, we find the line, ‘If the ende be wele, than is alle wele.’
And we can find an even earlier version of ‘all’s well that ends well’ in a poem from around the second half of the thirteenth century in which Hendyng, son of Marcolf, utters a series of proverbial stanzas rhymed aabccb.
Hendyng may have been a persona (the name is thought to mean ‘the clever one’), but we can confidently attribute the first written account of the phrase – or something approximating it – to ‘Hendyng’, whoever he actually was.
This poem offering proverbial wisdom contains the line, ‘Wel is him that wel ende mai’. Hendyng’s poem also has another claim to fame: it is the first written text to use a certain rude four-letter word beginning with c and rhyming with hunt.
But even Heywood shouldn’t get the credit for originating the phrase, although his is the first text to use the phrase with the precise wording ‘all’s well that ends well’. In 1381, in J. R. Lumby’s Chronicon Henrici Knighton, we find the line, ‘If the ende be wele, than is alle wele.’
And we can find an even earlier version of ‘all’s well that ends well’ in a poem from around the second half of the thirteenth century in which Hendyng, son of Marcolf, utters a series of proverbial stanzas rhymed aabccb.
Hendyng may have been a persona (the name is thought to mean ‘the clever one’), but we can confidently attribute the first written account of the phrase – or something approximating it – to ‘Hendyng’, whoever he actually was.
This poem offering proverbial wisdom contains the line, ‘Wel is him that wel ende mai’. Hendyng’s poem also has another claim to fame: it is the first written text to use a certain rude four-letter word beginning with c and rhyming with hunt.
Source: https://interestingliterature.com/2023/04/alls-well-that-ends-well-meaning-origin/#
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After learning the proverb, the first thought that came to my mind was the 2010 winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. It started with the tragedy of a Georgian luge athlete's death in pre-game training, then the funny and somewhat embarrassed image of hockey legend Wayne Gretzky standing in the back of a pickup truck and carrying the Olympic torch (see picture below), along with some other not smooth things. But the game went well afterwards. It was regarded by the Olympic Committee to be among the most successful Olympic games in history, in both attendance and coverage. Approximately 2,600 athletes from 82 nations participated in 86 events in fifteen disciplines. So All's well that indeed ends well.
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After learning the proverb, the first thought that came to my mind was the 2010 winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. It started with the tragedy of a Georgian luge athlete's death in pre-game training, then the funny and somewhat embarrassed image of hockey legend Wayne Gretzky standing in the back of a pickup truck and carrying the Olympic torch (see picture below), along with some other not smooth things. But the game went well afterwards. It was regarded by the Olympic Committee to be among the most successful Olympic games in history, in both attendance and coverage. Approximately 2,600 athletes from 82 nations participated in 86 events in fifteen disciplines. So All's well that indeed ends well.
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