Pete's Tattoo
I’ve been meaning to do some meta about Pete’s tattoo since the moment I saw it and just haven’t gotten around to it until now. Forgive me if someone else has already said what I’m about to.
I recognized Pete’s tattoo as a Shakespeare quote initially, though I didn’t have any context because all I knew was that it was a Shakespeare quote. I didn’t know from what. But the fact that it was intrigued me greatly. Why would Pete have that?
So I did some research. Again, apologies if this is well documented.
The quote is from a play called “All’s Well That Ends Well”. I did some research on interpretations of that quote and ended up reading the whole play, because I felt like many of the interpretations were somewhat lacking. And I’m glad I did read it, because honesty is a theme throughout the play, but in a subversive way.
The play is about a woman, Helena, who’s in love with a count, Bertram, who wants nothing to do with her, since she’s a commoner. However, the king is sick, and none of his physicians have been able to cure him. Helena is the daughter of a very talented deceased physician, and, with the help of Bertram’s mother(who essentially adopted her when she was younger, and is known only as the Countess), manages to obtain an audience with a king. He’s resistant to Helena's help, because he’s a classist, sexist shit, but she promises that should she fail to cure him, she’ll consent to the most excruciating death imaginable. But, should she succeed, he’ll grant her the hand of any man of her choosing. She succeeds, and picks Bertram, who’s an asshole to her and flees the country to Florence to participate in a war before consummating the marriage. Not that I blame him, really, because being forced into a marriage sucks. Though admittedly I rather dislike that the only complaint he levied against her was that she was low born. Before leaving, he gives her a letter which says he’ll only consent to be her husband if she can manage to get his family ring, which never leaves his hand, off of him, and becomes pregnant with his child, both of which are things she can’t do if she never sees him again, which is his plan. He writes “Till I have no wife I have nothing in France,” implying that he won’t return to France unless she annuls the marriage or dies. So she fakes her death and follows him to Florence, where he’s seducing every virgin he can find. She meets up with one that he’s trying to woo, Diana, who’s having none of his bullshit, and promises her and her mother a lot of gold if they’ll get the ring from Bertram, and somehow help Helena trick him into having sex with her and think it’s Diana. So Diana persuades Bertram to part with the ring, Helena rapes him(though how this is achieved is never explained), and becomes pregnant. Bertram returns to France, is pardoned by the king, but then there’s a very weird scene which involves a whole lot of deceit simply so Helena can have a dramatic reveal. Bertram randomly declares that he loves her now, and the play ends, somewhat abruptly.
There are a few references to honesty throughout the play. Helena’s father’s skill as a physician is described by the Countess as “almost as great as his honesty”. She then says that Helena’s “dispositions she inherits, which makes fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity—they are virtues and traitors too. In her they are the better for their simpleness. She derives her honesty and achieves her goodness.”
The next time honesty is mentioned is in the quote being discussed. The context of it is interesting. It’s in a conversation between Diana and her mother, in which they’re discussing the importance of virginity. The reason they’re doing that is because Bertram and his douchey friends keep promising to wed virgins so they can have sex with them. The full quote is “The honor of a maiden is her name, and no legacy is so rich as honesty.”
My basic interpretation of this quote is that the “name” being referred to is “maiden” AKA a virgin woman, and “no legacy is so rich as honesty” means that since your worth as an unmarried woman is tied to your virginity, calling yourself a maiden can’t be a lie. If it is, if you aren’t a virgin, it lowers the chances of you marrying someone wealthy, and thus your “legacy”, which I infer means children, won’t be rich.
Shortly after this conversation they meet Helena, disguised as a pilgrim, who wheedles information about Bertram out of them. They bring up the fact that Bertram was married against his will, and Helena badmouths herself, yet adds “All her deserving is a reserved honesty, and that I have not heard examined.” Given the conversation that just took place, I think the “honesty” being referred to may be virginity.
Then they see Bertram, and Diana talks shit about him, saying he isn’t honest. Twice.
Later, when Helena is apologizing to Diana for using her to get Bertram, Diana says “Let death and honesty go with your impositions. I am yours upon your will to suffer.”
Finally, towards the very end of the play, the king describes what Diana did for Helena as “honest aid”.
So honesty seems to have a few different meanings in this play. One, it refers to the actual definition of the word. Two, it refers to virginity. And three, as doing something which achieves ostensibly positive ends, regardless of if deceit is involved.
Which leads us to the title of the play itself. Helena says those words exactly twice during the play, both times in reference to everything she’s doing to get Bertram to finally agree to be her husband. All of this is basic utilitarian logic—the ends justify the means.
Which is why it makes perfect sense for Pete to want to have a quote from this play as a tattoo. In his conversation with Porsche, he justifies beating up a man at Kinn’s order by saying that there are no heroes or villains in reality, unlike what he thought as a child while playing with friends. Pete doesn’t want to be a villain. He doesn’t want to be evil. So he has to justify working for the mafia in his mind. I imagine that his grandmother likely has something to do with why he’s there in the first place—he wants to take care of her, just as Porsche came there initially to take care of Porchay.
But why specifically that quote? Why a quote whose original meaning is about how important it is for a woman to stay a virgin until marriage? What is it about that quote that does it so much for Pete?
We do have to keep in mind that English isn’t Pete’s first language. Hell, it’s mine and it still took me some time to parse the sentence because of the antiquated and poetic nature of it. So there’s the possibility that he didn’t understand the actual meaning of the line. And of course he might not even have read the play at all, simply saw the quote out of context and liked it. Which means that there are two ideas to consider.
If we operate under the assumption that he DIDN’T understand the original meaning of the quote for whatever reason, what is it about Pete that would make him like that quote so much that he’d get a tattoo of it(the only one we’ve seen on him thus far)? Given how obsessive the main family is about keeping their bodyguards on a tight leash, he probably got it before working for them. Perhaps before he even considered working for the mafia. When he still believed in the idea of heroes and villains. After all, heroes are usually shown as being honest. So maybe he valued honestly deeply, and wanted it to be what people remembered of him.
But what if he DID understand? If so, I think the timing of when we first saw it is actually crucial to understanding the meaning of it. The episode in which we see it is the same episode in which we see him start to enjoy being tortured and demeaned by Vegas. When his submissive and masochistic tendencies are revealed. Perhaps he was, on some level, always aware of his desires. And perhaps he hated them. It would make sense, given the way he was raised. So he read that quote, and got it as a tattoo to remind himself to never indulge in those desires, because if he did, he’d lose his worth.
What do y’all think?
