Rose, Huntington Library and Gardens, Pasadena, California, USA (photo (c) Ulrike Boehm; all rights reserved)
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Not quite as complex as Rosalind, Beatrice, and Portia (the heroines of "As You Like It," "Much Ado About Nothing," and "The Merchant of Venice"), like the latter two, quirky Viola finds herself in a situation compelling her to dress in a man's clothes. Since this situation presents itself at the play's very beginning, she thus quickly comes to embody its central conflicts, which are the quintessential conflicts of a comedy of errors: appearances versus inner truth, and constancy of purpose (and of love) in the face of a plethora of challenges; both outwardly and inwardly. Thus, whereas all the play's other characters are indeed who they seem to be, those characters' affections merrily jump from one object to another; only Viola is constant in her love for Duke Orsino, even while she is disguised as his attendant Cesario and while, even beyond that, she in a way seems to be all things to all people; which almost undoes her when she is challenged to a duel, and then again in the final scene. (This way, at the same time, in the eyes of a 16th century audience she would also have come to exemplify the reasons why cross-dressing – like, say, same-sex relationships – were frowned on in the first place: Permit either women or men to leave behind their God-given roles, and the world goes topsy-turvy and turns into a chaos.) Viola is ultimately saved by her brother Sebastian, who assumes those aspects of her character that are only linked to her "Cesario" identity, and thus free to be herself again, she can finally reunite appearance and true inner self. Harmony is fully restored at last when all the play's couples are happily united in the end.
Once more, Cesario,
Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty:
Tell her my love, more noble than the world,
Prizes not quantity of dirty lands;
The parts that fortune hath bestow'd upon her,
Tell her, I hold as giddily as fortune;
But 'tis that miracle and queen of gems
That Nature pranks her in attracts my soul.
But if she cannot love you, sir?
I cannot be so answer'd.
'Sooth, but you must.
Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,
Hath for your love as great a pang of heart
As you have for Olivia: you cannot love her;
You tell her so. Must she not then be answer'd?
There is no woman's sides
Can bide the beating of so strong a passion
As love doth give my heart: no woman's heart
So big to hold so much; they lack retention.
Alas, their love may be called appetite, –
No motion of the liver, but the palate, –
That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt;
But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
And can digest as much: make no compare
Between that love a woman can bear me
And that I owe Olivia.
Ay, but I know, –
What dost thou know?
Too well what love women to men may owe.
In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
My father had a daughter loved a man,
As it might be perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship.
And what's her history?
A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought;
And with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love, indeed?
We men may say more, swear more; but indeed,
Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
Much in our vows, but little in our love.
But died thy sister of her love, my boy?
I am all the daughters of my father's house,
And all the brothers too; – and yet I know not. –
Sir, shall I to this lady?
Ay, that's the theme.
To her in haste: give her this jewel; say
My love can give no place, bide no denay.
Dear lady, –
Give me leave, beseech you: I did send,
After the last enchantment you did here,
A ring in chase of you; so did I abuse
Myself, my servant, and, I fear me, you:
Under your hard construction must I sit;
To force that on you, in a shameful cunning,
Which you knew none of yours. What might you think?
Have you not set mine honour at the stake,
And baited it with all the unmuzzl'd thoughts
That tyrannous heart can think? To one of your receiving
Enough is shown: a cypress, not a bosom,
Hides my heart: so let me hear you speak.
I Pity you.
That's a degree to love.
No, not a grise; for 'tis a vulgar proof
That very oft we pity enemies.
Why, then, methinks 'tis time to smile again:
O world, how apt the poor are to be proud!
If one should be a prey, how much the better
To fall before the lion than the wolf!
The clock upbraids me with the waste of time. –
Be not afraid, good youth, I will not have you:
And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest,
Your wife is like to reap a proper man.
There lies your way, due-west.
Then westward-ho:
Grace and good disposition 'tend your ladyship!
You'll nothing, madam, to my lord by me?
Stay:
I pr'ythee tell me what thou think'st of me.
That you do think you are not what you are.
If I think so, I think the same of you.
Then think you right; I am not what I am.
I would you were as I would have you be!
Would it be better, madam, than I am,
I wish it might; for now I am your fool.
O what a deal of scorn looks beautiful
In the contempt and anger of his lip!
A murd'rous guilt shows not itself more soon
Than love that would seem hid: love's night is noon.
Cesario, by the roses of the spring,
By maidhood, honour, truth, and everything,
I love thee so that, maugre all thy pride,
Nor wit, nor reason, can my passion hide.
Do not extort thy reasons from this clause,
For, that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause:
But rather reason thus with reason fetter:
Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.
By innocence I swear, and by my youth,
I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth,
And that no woman has; nor never none
Shall mistress be of it, save I alone.
And so adieu, good madam; never more
Will I my master's tears to you deplore.
Yet come again: for thou, perhaps, mayst move
That heart, which now abhors, to like his love.
There's no remedy, sir: he will fight with you for's oath sake:
marry, he hath better bethought him of his quarrel, and he finds
that now scarce to be worth talking of: therefore, draw for the
supportance of his vow; he protests he will not hurt you.
Pray God defend me! A little thing would make me
tell them how much I lack of a man.
Give ground if you see him furious.
Come, Sir Andrew, there's no remedy; the gentleman will,
for his honour's sake, have one bout with you: he cannot by the
duello avoid it; but he has promised me, as he is a gentleman and
a soldier, he will not hurt you. Come on: to't.
Pray God he keep his oath!
I do assure you 'tis against my will.
Put up your sword: – if this young gentleman
Have done offence, I take the fault on me;
If you offend him, I for him defy you.
You, sir! why, what are you?
One, sir, that for his love dares yet do more
Than you have heard him brag to you he will.
Nay, if you be an undertaker, I am for you.
O good Sir Toby, hold; here come the officers.
I'll be with you anon.
Pray, sir, put your sword up, if you please.
Marry, will I, sir; and for that I promised you, I'll be
as good as my word. He will bear you easily and reins well.
This is the man; do thy office.
Antonio, I arrest thee at the suit
Of Count Orsino.
You do mistake me, sir.
No, sir, no jot; I know your favour well,
Though now you have no sea-cap on your head. –
Take him away; he knows I know him well.
I Must obey. – This comes with seeking you;
But there's no remedy; I shall answer it.
What will you do? Now my necessity
Makes me to ask you for my purse. It grieves me
Much more for what I cannot do for you
Than what befalls myself. You stand amazed;
But be of comfort.
Come, sir, away.
I must entreat of you some of that money.
What money, sir?
For the fair kindness you have showed me here,
And part being prompted by your present trouble,
Out of my lean and low ability
I'll lend you something; my having is not much;
I'll make division of my present with you:
Hold, there is half my coffer.
Will you deny me now?
Is't possible that my deserts to you
Can lack persuasion? Do not tempt my misery,
Lest that it make me so unsound a man
As to upbraid you with those kindnesses
That I have done for you.
I know of none,
Nor know I you by voice or any feature:
I hate ingratitude more in a man
Than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness,
Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption
Inhabits our frail blood.
O heavens themselves!
Come, sir, I pray you go.
Let me speak a little. This youth that you see here
I snatched one half out of the jaws of death,
Relieved him with such sanctity of love, –
And to his image, which methought did promise
Most venerable worth, did I devotion.
What's that to us? The time goes by; away.
But O how vile an idol proves this god!
Thou hast, Sebastian, done good feature shame.
In nature there's no blemish but the mind;
None can be call'd deform'd but the unkind:
Virtue is beauty; but the beauteous-evil
Are empty trunks, o'erflourished by the devil.
The man grows mad; away with him. Come, come, sir.
Lead me on.
Methinks his words do from such passion fly
That he believes himself; so do not I.
Prove true, imagination; O prove true,
That I, dear brother, be now ta'en for you!
Here comes the man, sir, that did rescue me.
That face of his I do remember well:
Yet when I saw it last it was besmeared
As black as Vulcan in the smoke of war:
A bawbling vessel was he captain of,
For shallow draught and bulk unprizable;
With which such scathful grapple did he make
With the most noble bottom of our fleet
That very envy and the tongue of los
Cried fame and honour on him. – What's the matter?
Orsino, this is that Antonio
That took the Phoenix and her fraught from Candy:
And this is he that did the Tiger board
When your young nephew Titus lost his leg:
Here in the streets, desperate of shame and state,
In private brabble did we apprehend him.
He did me kindness, sir; drew on my side;
But, in conclusion, put strange speech upon me.
I know not what 'twas, but distraction.
Notable pirate! thou salt-water thief!
What foolish boldness brought thee to their mercies,
Whom thou, in terms so bloody and so dear,
Hast made thine enemies?
Orsino, noble sir,
Be pleased that I shake off these names you give me:
Antonio never yet was thief or pirate,
Though, I confess, on base and ground enough,
Orsino's enemy. A witchcraft drew me hither:
That most ingrateful boy there, by your side
From the rude sea's enraged and foamy mouth
Did I redeem; a wreck past hope he was:
His life I gave him, and did thereto add
My love, without retention or restraint,
All his in dedication: for his sake,
Did I expose myself, pure for his love,
Into the danger of this adverse town;
Drew to defend him when he was beset:
Where being apprehended, his false cunning, –
Not meaning to partake with me in danger, –
Taught him to face me out of his acquaintance,
And grew a twenty-years-removed thing
While one would wink; denied me mine own purse,
Which I had recommended to his use
Not half an hour before.
How can this be?
When came he to this town?
To-day, my lord; and for three months before, –
No interim, not a minute's vacancy, –
Both day and night did we keep company.
Here comes the countess; now heaven walks on earth. –
But for thee, fellow, fellow, thy words are madness:
Three months this youth hath tended upon me;
But more of that anon. – Take him aside.
What would my lord, but that he may not have,
Wherein Olivia may seem serviceable! –
Cesario, you do not keep promise with me.
Madam?
Gracious Olivia, –
What do you say, Cesario? – Good my lord, –
My lord would speak, my duty hushes me.
If it be aught to the old tune, my lord,
It is as fat and fulsome to mine ear
As howling after music.
Still so cruel?
Still so constant, lord.
What! to perverseness? you uncivil lady,
To whose ingrate and unauspicious altars
My soul the faithfull'st offerings hath breathed out
That e'er devotion tender'd! What shall I do?
Even what it please my lord, that shall become him.
Why should I not, had I the heart to do it.
Like to the Egyptian thief, at point of death,
Kill what I love; a savage jealousy
That sometime savours nobly. – But hear me this:
Since you to non-regardance cast my faith,
And that I partly know the instrument
That screws me from my true place in your favour,
Live you the marble-breasted tyrant still;
But this your minion, whom I know you love,
And whom, by heaven I swear, I tender dearly,
Him will I tear out of that cruel eye
Where he sits crowned in his master's sprite. –
Come, boy, with me; my thoughts are ripe in mischief:
I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love,
To spite a raven's heart within a dove.
And I, most jocund, apt, and willingly,
To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die.
Where goes Cesario?
After him I love
More than I love these eyes, more than my life,
More, by all mores, than e'er I shall love wife;
If I do feign, you witnesses above
Punish my life for tainting of my love!
Ah me, detested! how am I beguil'd!
Who does beguile you? who does do you wrong?
Hast thou forgot thyself? Is it so long? –
Call forth the holy father.
Come, away!
Whither, my lord? Cesario, husband, stay.
Husband?
Ay, husband, can he that deny?
Her husband, sirrah?
No, my lord, not I.
Alas, it is the baseness of thy fear
That makes thee strangle thy propriety:
Fear not, Cesario, take thy fortunes up;
Be that thou know'st thou art, and then thou art
As great as that thou fear'st – O, welcome, father!
Father, I charge thee, by thy reverence,
Here to unfold, – though lately we intended
To keep in darkness what occasion now
Reveals before 'tis ripe, – what thou dost know
Hath newly passed between this youth and me.
A contract of eternal bond of love,
Confirmed by mutual joinder of your hands,
Attested by the holy close of lips,
Strengthen'd by interchangement of your rings;
And all the ceremony of this compact
Sealed in my function, by my testimony:
Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave,
I have travelled but two hours.
O thou dissembling cub! What wilt thou be,
When time hath sowed a grizzle on thy case?
Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow
That thine own trip shall be thine overthrow?
Farewell, and take her; but direct thy feet
Where thou and I henceforth may never meet.
My lord, I do protest, –
O, do not swear;
Hold little faith, though thou has too much fear.
For the love of God, a surgeon; send one presently to Sir Toby.
What's the matter?
He has broke my head across, and has given Sir Toby a
bloody coxcomb too: for the love of God, your help: I had rather
than forty pound I were at home.
Who has done this, Sir Andrew?
The Count's gentleman, one Cesario: we took him for a
coward, but he's the very devil incardinate.
My gentleman, Cesario?
Od's lifelings, here he is: – You broke my head for
nothing; and that that I did, I was set on to do't by Sir Toby.
Why do you speak to me? I never hurt you:
You drew your sword upon me without cause;
But I bespake you fair and hurt you not.
If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me; I think
you set nothing by a bloody coxcomb.
Here comes Sir Toby halting; you shall hear more: but if he had
not been in drink he would have tickled you othergates than he
did.
How now, gentleman? how is't with you?
That's all one; he has hurt me, and there's the end on't. –
Sot, didst see Dick Surgeon, sot?
O, he's drunk, Sir Toby, an hour agone; his eyes were set at
eight i' the morning.
Then he's a rogue. After a passy-measure, or a pavin, I hate a
drunken rogue.
Away with him. Who hath made this havoc with them?
I'll help you, Sir Toby, because we'll be dressed together.
Will you help an ass-head, and a coxcomb, and a knave? a
thin-faced knave, a gull?
Get him to bed, and let his hurt be looked to.
I am sorry, madam, I have hurt your kinsman;
But, had it been the brother of my blood,
I must have done no less, with wit and safety.
You throw a strange regard upon me, and by that
I do perceive it hath offended you;
Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vows
We made each other but so late ago.
One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons;
A natural perspective, that is, and is not.
Antonio, O my dear Antonio!
How have the hours rack'd and tortur'd me
Since I have lost thee.
Sebastian are you?
Fear'st thou that, Antonio?
How have you made division of yourself? –
An apple, cleft in two, is not more twin
Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?
Most wonderful!
Do I stand there? I never had a brother:
Nor can there be that deity in my nature
Of here and everywhere. I had a sister
Whom the blind waves and surges have devoured: –
Of charity, what kin are you to me?
What countryman, what name, what parentage?
Of Messaline: Sebastian was my father;
Such a Sebastian was my brother too:
So went he suited to his watery tomb:
If spirits can assume both form and suit,
You come to fright us.
A spirit I am indeed:
But am in that dimension grossly clad,
Which from the womb I did participate.
Were you a woman, as the rest goes even,
I should my tears let fall upon your cheek,
And say – Thrice welcome, drowned Viola!
My father had a mole upon his brow.
And so had mine.
And died that day when Viola from her birth
Had numbered thirteen years.
O, that record is lively in my soul!
He finished, indeed, his mortal act
That day that made my sister thirteen years.
If nothing lets to make us happy both
But this my masculine usurp'd attire,
Do not embrace me till each circumstance
Of place, time, fortune, do cohere, and jump
That I am Viola: which to confirm,
I'll bring you to a captain in this town,
Where lie my maiden weeds; by whose gentle help
I was preserv'd to serve this noble count;
All the occurrence of my fortune since
Hath been between this lady and this lord.
So comes it, lady, you have been mistook:
But nature to her bias drew in that.
You would have been contracted to a maid;
Nor are you therein, by my life, deceived;
You are betroth'd both to a maid and man.
Be not amazed; right noble is his blood. –
If this be so, as yet the glass seems true,
I shall have share in this most happy wreck:
Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times,
Thou never shouldst love woman like to me.
And all those sayings will I over-swear;
And all those swearings keep as true in soul
As doth that orbed continent the fire
That severs day from night.
Give me thy hand;
And let me see thee in thy woman's weeds.
The captain that did bring me first on shore
Hath my maid's garments: he, upon some action,
Is now in durance, at Malvolio's suit;
A gentleman and follower of my lady's.
He shall enlarge him: – Fetch Malvolio hither: –
And yet, alas, now I remember me,
They say, poor gentleman, he's much distract.
A most extracting frenzy of mine own
From my remembrance clearly banished his. –
How does he, sirrah?
Truly, madam, he holds Belzebub at the stave's end as well
as a man in his case may do: he has here writ a letter to you; I
should have given it you to-day morning, but as a madman's
epistles are no gospels, so it skills not much when they are
delivered.
Open it, and read it.
Look then to be well edified when the fool delivers the
madman: – 'By the Lord, madam, – '
How now! art thou mad?
No, madam, I do but read madness: an your ladyship will have
it as it ought to be, you must allow vox.
Pr'ythee, read i' thy right wits.
So I do, madonna; but to read his right wits is to read
thus; therefore perpend, my princess, and give ear.
Read it you, sirrah.
'By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, and the world
shall know it: though you have put me into darkness and given
your drunken cousin rule over me, yet have I the benefit of my
senses as well as your ladyship. I have your own letter that
induced me to the semblance I put on; with the which I doubt not
but to do myself much right or you much shame. Think of me as you
please. I leave my duty a little unthought of, and speak out of
my injury.
The madly-used Malvolio'
Did he write this?
Ay, madam.
This savours not much of distraction.
See him delivered, Fabian: bring him hither.
My lord, so please you, these things further thought on,
To think me as well a sister as a wife,
One day shall crown the alliance on't, so please you,
Here at my house, and at my proper cost.
Madam, I am most apt to embrace your offer. –
Your master quits you; and, for your service done him,
So much against the mettle of your sex,
So far beneath your soft and tender breeding,
And since you called me master for so long,
Here is my hand; you shall from this time be
You master's mistress.
A sister? – you are she.
Is this the madman?
Ay, my lord, this same;
How now, Malvolio?
Madam, you have done me wrong,
Notorious wrong.
Have I, Malvolio? no.
Lady, you have. Pray you peruse that letter:
You must not now deny it is your hand,
Write from it, if you can, in hand or phrase;
Or say 'tis not your seal, not your invention:
You can say none of this. Well, grant it then,
And tell me, in the modesty of honour,
Why you have given me such clear lights of favour;
Bade me come smiling and cross-garter'd to you;
To put on yellow stockings, and to frown
Upon Sir Toby and the lighter people:
And, acting this in an obedient hope,
Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd,
Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,
And made the most notorious geck and gull
That e'er invention played on? tell me why.
Alas, Malvolio, this is not my writing,
Though, I confess, much like the character:
But out of question, 'tis Maria's hand.
And now I do bethink me, it was she
First told me thou wast mad; then cam'st in smiling,
And in such forms which here were presuppos'd
Upon thee in the letter. Pr'ythee, be content:
This practice hath most shrewdly pass'd upon thee:
But, when we know the grounds and authors of it,
Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge
Of thine own cause.
Good madam, hear me speak;
And let no quarrel, nor no brawl to come,
Taint the condition of this present hour,
Which I have wonder'd at. In hope it shall not,
Most freely I confess, myself and Toby
Set this device against Malvolio here,
Upon some stubborn and uncourteous parts
We had conceiv'd against him. Maria writ
The letter, at Sir Toby's great importance;
In recompense whereof he hath married her.
How with a sportful malice it was follow'd
May rather pluck on laughter than revenge,
If that the injuries be justly weigh'd
That have on both sides past.
Alas, poor fool! how have they baffled thee!
Why, 'some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some
have greatness thrown upon them.' I was one, sir, in this
interlude;: – one Sir Topas, sir; but that's all one: – 'By the
Lord, fool, I am not mad;' – But do you remember? 'Madam, why
laugh you at such a barren rascal? An you smile not, he's
gagged'? And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.
I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you.
He hath been most notoriously abus'd.
Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace: –
He hath not told us of the captain yet;
When that is known, and golden time convents,
A solemn combination shall be made
Of our dear souls. – Meantime, sweet sister,
We will not part from hence. – Cesario, come:
For so you shall be while you are a man;
But, when in other habits you are seen,
Orsino's mistress, and his fancy's queen.
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