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Twelfth Night First Folio (1623) Facsimile of first page
Music pervades the play
Shakespeare was a natural born song-writer and brought as much brightness to his songs as to his poetry contained. His plays are no less a repository for his poetry than the sonnets and long poems. In Twelfth Night we witness songs in many moods all written for Feste, the fool or jester who undertook to entertain the people and was employed by Olivia for the express purpose. One of the songs, O Mistress mine, is about a lover longing for the lady of his heart, and was the subject of a reading by Devika, and taken up for singing by Talitha.
These songs were motivated, in part, by the player, Robert Armin, who acted the part in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which was the troupe organised and owned in part by Shakespeare ca.1594, which later became The King’s Men in 1603 after James I ascended to the throne. Armin’s singing talent could have inspired Shakespeare to write these songs, knowing how much entertainment they would yield to the theatre-goers.
Comedy for misplaced identity
The comedy of misplaced identity in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is the driving force of the play, rooted in intentional disguise, the arrival of identical twins, and the resulting romantic chaos. The audience knows the truth, heightening the humour, while characters navigate absurd situations based on false perceptions.
Shipwrecked Viola disguises herself as a man, Cesario, to navigate Illyria safely. This immediately sets up a comedic situation where she becomes a ‘male’ servant to Duke Orsino while being a female in reality. Olivia whom Orsino professes to love adoringly falls in love with Viola (disguised as Cesario), leading to the absurdity of a woman wooing another woman disguised as a man, while Viola herself has fallen in love with her master, Orsino. Orsino shares his lover’s thoughts with ‘Cesario,’ creating dramatic irony, as he is pouring his heart out to the person he will eventually love, while totally unaware of her gender.
The arrival of Sebastian, Viola’s identical twin brother, presumed by her as lost in the shipwreck, turns the confusion into chaos. Characters mistake Sebastian for Cesario/Viola. Olivia, believing Sebastian to be the witty and charming ‘Cesario’ (who was actually Viola), proposes to him. Sebastian, shocked but enchanted by Olivia’s beauty, accepts, creating a truly misplaced – yet ultimately happy – marriage.
The role of the fool
Feste, the fool (or jester) in Twelfth Night, serves as the play’s emotional and intellectual anchor, using wit to expose the follies and emotional absurdities of noble characters like Olivia and Orsino. He functions as a truth-teller, musical entertainer, and bridge between the play's romantic and comic subplots.
In the role of Wise Fool Feste exposes folly, for example, when he proves Olivia is a fool for excessively mourning her brother, saying:
The more fool, Madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul in heaven
Fools in Shakespeare’s plays have the latitude of speaking the brutal truth to their master or others, without penalty. That is often a feature of Twelfth Night as Feste goes about his work criticising noble characters like Orsino for their inconstancy.
Feste, played by Robert Armin in Shakespeare’s company, was so musically inclined that Shakespeare expressly wrote moving songs that whose lyrics would have been set to a tuneful melody by the actor and sung. Songs such as Come away, death and The wind and the rain, highlight the play's melancholy, and the theme of fleeting time.
The authorship question
The authorship question regarding Shakespeare's plays stems from a perceived mismatch between the relatively modest, provincial life of William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon (not a college man, not blessed with learning in Latin and Greek), and the profundity and depth of the characters he presented on stage, not to mention, the stirring language, ranging between prose and verse, that he could summon to carry the drama.
This perceived lack of high-level education, and the paucity of personal documentation (letters, manuscripts) from Shakespeare, prompted suggestions that the plays were written by a more aristocratic, educated figure. Edward de Vere has been suggested as a candidate; others think it could have been Sir Francis Bacon, or even Christopher Marlowe his rival dramatist of those times.
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Shakespeare Candidates – clockwise from top left, Edward de Vere (Earl of Oxford), Sir Francis Bacon, William Stancley (earl of Derby), Christopher Marlowe
Skeptics argue that a country actor from Stratford without university education could not have possessed the deep knowledge of law, court life, foreign languages, and classical literature evident in the plays. In modern times Mark Rylance and Derek Jacobi are among those who have at minimum urged scholars to subscribe to a Declaration of Reasonable Doubt. This is an internet petition and document created by the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition in 2007, aiming to promote open academic inquiry into whether William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was the true author of the works attributed to him.
Actors Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance authors of the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt
Mainstream scholars, or ‘Stratfordians,’ reject these theories, arguing that Shakespeare’s inborn genius, combined with his experience in the London theatre scene as a shareholder and actor, account for his insights. They hold that the documentary evidence—title pages, contemporary praise, and legal documents—affirms his authorship, and that authorship studies based on biography are fundamentally unreliable.
The paucity of primary documents concerning the author
Shakespeare has left few primary documents underpinning his biography. No diaries or personal writings whatsoever record his thoughts, opinions, or personal recounting of the events of his life. For the first 28 years of his life, only five or six records mention William by name.
The Folger Shakespeare Library has an extensive list of records stored digitally pertaining to the author’s life as seen by Stratfordians relating to his Family, Legal and Property. See
Here are some statements from a 2015 PhD thesis by Kevin Gilvary submitted to Brunel University in London which examined in depth the historical evidence and commentaries by various persons who attempted to write biographies of William Shakespeare:
“A proper biography of Shakespeare, that is to say a narrative account of his life based on primary sources, is not possible on existing material.
“This very lack of biographical materials allows the biographer to indulge narrative flair and imaginative insight within an established framework,
“Many academics present their own work as biography rather than as fiction.
“Those who wish to adopt a biographical approach to Shakespeare should beware the biographical fallacy of deducing details about a writer’s life from the works; instead, the investigator should only undertake sceptical examination of topics for which there are primary sources.
The document that has acquired the greatest notoriety is page 3 of his last will and testament that contains the words I gyve unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture:
Page 3 of Shakespeare's will with the intercalatory line (pointed by the red arrow) 'Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture' (click to enlarge)
Anne Hathaway
by Carol Ann Duffy from The World's Wife
'Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed ...'
(from Shakespeare's will)
The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas
where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme
to his, now echo, assonance; his touch
a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.
Some nights, I dreamed he'd written me, the bed
a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love -
I hold him in the casket of my widow's head
as he held me upon that next best bed.
Carol Ann Duffy
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Portraits of Shakespeare, from left to right – The Cobbe portrait (1610), The Chandos portrait (early 1600s) and the Droeshout portrait (1622) - three most prominent among the reputed portraits of William Shakespeare
Full Account and Record of the Reading
Joe started with a short bio of our author of the day, Shakespeare.
He recently read a 2015 PhD thesis titled Shakespeare Biografiction by Kevin Gilvary which can be downloaded in pdf from https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/13806
Mr Gilvary argues that no conventional biography of Shakespeare is possible for lack of material, and most of what is written about Shakespeare cannot be verified from primary sources. The thesis is devoted to showing how few are the documentary facts that we know for certain about Shakespeare. He analyses the contrasting descriptions of Shakespeare’s relationships with the Earl of Southampton (to whom the Sonnets were dedicated), and Ben Jonson the dramatist who wrote the commendatory eulogy in the preface to the First Folio. The very limited biographical material can only be expanded through pure speculation and inference, he says, and that is the fate of most Shakespearean so-called biographies. They are fictional speculation. No faithful account of his life can be given as one attempts in a conventional biography, and absolutely nothing is known about him as a person and his opinions about matters and thoughts about his the times in which he lived or the personalities he must have encountered.
There is very little witness of other people who have written about him during his lifetime, or immediately after his lifetime.
And it's no wonder that there is an entire school of thought that Shakespeare was not really this lad from Stratford-on-Avon who went to school there and got married early. And then after some years migrated to London and started writing plays, poems, etc. And later on became wealthy enough to buy properties back in his hometown of Stratford. According to this contrarian thinking which has adherents among prominent actors like Mark Rylance and Derek Jacobi, the author of Shakespeare’s plays was was really Francis Bacon, or Edward de Vere, or perhaps Christopher Marlowe a rival dramatist. In this video they raise the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt which has been signed by a number of scholars.
Here is a conventional biography of Shakespeare based on the little that is known about him. The life of William Shakespeare is a fascinating puzzle. While he is arguably the most influential writer in the English language, his personal life is documented primarily through legal records, church registers, and property deeds rather than intimate letters or diaries. To construct a biography based strictly on known facts – avoiding the romanticised “lost years” myths – we must look to the archives of Stratford-upon-Avon and the theatrical records of London.
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Portraits of Shakespeare, from left to right – The Cobbe portrait (1610), The Chandos portrait (early 1600s) and the Droeshout portrait (1622) - three most prominent among the reputed portraits of William Shakespeare
Early Life and Family (1564–1582)
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, a market town in Warwickshire. While his exact birth date was not recorded, his baptism was entered in the parish register of Holy Trinity Church on April 26, 1564. Since it was customary to baptise infants three days after birth, tradition places his birthday on April 23.
He was the eldest surviving son of John Shakespeare, a successful glover and leather worker who eventually rose to the position of "high bailiff" (mayor) of Stratford, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer.
While no attendance records exist for the local school, it is a historical near-certainty that as the son of a prominent town official, William would have attended King’s New School in Stratford. The curriculum of a 16th-century grammar school was rigorous, focusing heavily on Latin grammar, rhetoric, and classical literature, including the works of Ovid, Terence, and Plautus. This education provided the foundational "small Latin and less Greek" that would later permeate his plays.
Marriage and the Stratford Years (1582–1585)
The next major factual milestone occurs in November 1582. At age 18, William married Anne Hathaway, an 26-year-old woman from the nearby village of Shottery. The marriage was expedited by a bond issued by the consistory court of the diocese of Worcester, likely because Anne was already pregnant.
The couple had three children:
• Susanna, baptized in May 1583.
• Hamnet and Judith (twins), baptised in February 1585.
Tragically, Hamnet, Shakespeare's only son, died at the age of 11 and was buried in Stratford on August 11, 1596. The cause of his death is unrecorded.
The London Years and the Rise of the Playwright (1592–1603)
Between 1585 and 1592, the historical record goes silent – a period often called the “Lost Years.” However, by 1592, Shakespeare had surfaced in London’s competitive theatrical scene.
Evidence of his presence comes from a scathing pamphlet by dramatist Robert Greene, who referred (presumably to Shakespeare) as an “upstart Crow” who “supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you.” This confirms that by 1592, Shakespeare was established enough as both an actor and a playwright to provoke professional jealousy.
In 1594, the record shows Shakespeare became a founding member and shareholder of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a theatrical playing company. Unlike most playwrights of his era who sold their plays for a flat fee, Shakespeare’s status as a “sharer” meant he earned a portion of the company’s profits. This financial arrangement made him a wealthy man.
Professional Success
During the 1590s, he published two narrative poems, Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594), both dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton. During the plague outbreaks of 1592–1594, when theatres were frequently closed, Shakespeare likely pivoted to these poems and his 154-sonnet cycle.
By the late 1590s, the company moved to the south bank of the Thames. In 1599, they built the Globe Theatre, where Shakespeare held a 10% interest.
The King’s Man and Commercial Success (1603–1613)
Upon the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, her successor, King James I, granted the Lord Chamberlain’s Men a royal patent. The company was renamed The King’s Men. This was a period of immense productivity and prestige. Shakespeare performed at court more than any other dramatist and continued to produce his greatest tragedies, including Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth.
Records show Shakespeare was a shrewd businessman. In 1597, he purchased New Place, the second-largest house in Stratford. He also invested heavily in local tithes and land, ensuring his family's status as gentry.
In London, legal records place him as a lodger in the house of Christopher Mountjoy, a French Huguenot tire-maker, in 1604. This is one of the few instances where we see Shakespeare's "everyday" life – he later testified in a court case regarding a dowry dispute for the Mountjoys' daughter.
A recent find in a London archive identifies Shakespeare's London house in the Blackfriars district on the north side of the Thames opposite the Globe Theatre on the other bank.
A historical document found in the London Archives reveals the precise location of The Bard's only property in the capital
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The Bard's property at Gatehouse Blackfriars covered what is now the eastern end of Ireland Yard, the bottom of Burgon Street and parts of the late-nineteenth-century buildings at 5 Burgon Street and 5 St Andrew’s Hill (pictured)
Final Years and Death (1613–1616)
Shakespeare appears to have spent more time in Stratford after 1610, gradually retiring from the frantic pace of London life. His final plays, such as The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale, reflect a shift toward themes of reconciliation and homecoming. His final collaborative works, including Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen, were written around 1613 with John Fletcher.
In early 1616, Shakespeare summoned his lawyer to draft his will. This document is a primary source of biographical information, detailing his property, bequests to his daughters, and famously, the “second best bed” left to his wife, Anne. While often interpreted as a slight, in 17th-century law, the “best” bed was often an heirloom for the house, while the “second best” was likely the couple's actual marital bed.
William Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616, at the age of 52. He was buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford. His grave is marked by a stone bearing an epitaph – attributed to him – cursing anyone who moves his bones.
The First Folio (1623)
Perhaps the most significant factual event after his death was the publication of Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies in 1623. Compiled by his colleagues John Heminges and Henry Condell, this “First Folio” contained 36 of his plays. Without this effort, half of his plays – including Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and The Tempest – might have been lost to history.
While we lack the intimate details of his personality, the paper trail of his life reveals a man of significant discipline: a professional who balanced the volatile world of the theatre with the steady accumulation of wealth and respectability in his hometown. Shakespeare was not a mysterious hermit, but a prominent public figure whose life was deeply anchored in the legal and social structures of Jacobean England.
Coming to the final point, there is absolutely nothing known about his opinions on anything. There is no diary, no personal recollection that setd down anything, no confessional writings, nothing, absolutely nothing.
This is magnificent, thought Joe. For an author like Shakespeare, who will be remembered always as the dramatist who brought to life the most varied assortment of human characters thrown into all kinds of circumstances, exhibiting the entire range of human emotions and actions – such an extinction of self is the best outcome. He lives through his characters, entertaining the playgoers of his era but leaving them and us with eternal lines of poetry and drama. Was he writing about his own works in the concluding couplet of Sonnet 18:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
In simple terms, the words are the man. The writing is what he is. One need look no further.
His views on politics, about war, about God, religion, Protestantism and Catholicism – are beside the point. It's his words, it's his poetry, his characters, his endless play on words, his bawdy that often escapes our notice, his exciting choice of words, his inventiveness, the words that he crafted, the expressions he coined, the challenge in his repartees, … one could go on.
We must always remember his words were not meant to be read but declaimed by actors on stage and it is those actors who bring life to the plays. He was a dramatist, and therefore you have to hear his words on the stage by actors who actually enter into the lives of the people whom he imagined.
Readers should have no regrets at all that they know nothing about his private thoughts.
Pamela
Pamela often heard people speak this line at normal dinner parties – “If music be the food of love, play on.” Orsino expresses the idea of love as excessive, self-indulgent, and fundamentally unstable.
Pamela liked these lines:
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
… so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.
When people fall in love they're at such a high point that love is just pouring out. The same feeling is not there after two years after marriage! There was general merriment at this comment. Pamela has seen this fading of love happening.
Joe suggested the couple have to return to romp on their ‘second-best bed’ again., to regain the freshness.
Pamela knows of guys who have written beautiful love letters and poetry during the courting period, and they don't remember a word of it after five years.
In this connection, Joe recounted two phrases. The other day he confessed to the person sitting next to him, “I love you very much.” Her answer was, “I am not a bad girl.” (laughter)
So he imagined the conversation of amour continuing thus:
J: You remember how we sat by one of those tanks surrounded by canna flowerbeds in Victoria Memorial?
K: Yeah. You were a bit forward in public with me and that provoked a morality policeman to move in
J: Do you remember my reciting Sonnet 18?
K: Goodness, in Calcutta, comparing me to a ‘summer’s day’! By the way it was December – you could have discreetly changed the phrase to a ‘winter’s day’
J: Never mind. We took a walk later by what Calcuttans call Lovers’ Lane, the short walk along the racecourse lined with casuarina trees
K: That spooked me. What were you thinking?
J: Love was on my mind but needs more physical wracked me
K: Always knew boys were bad. It took many years for my views to soften
J: How do you feel now?
K: You are not a bad boy.
The opening speech of the play sets the emotional tone of Twelfth Night. It presents Orsino’s idea of love as excessive, self-indulgent, and fundamentally unstable – more about his own feelings than about any real relationship with Olivia.
Orsino begins with the famous metaphor: if music feeds love, he wants so much of it that his appetite becomes sick and dies. That sounds like a desire to end his passion, but in reality it reveals the opposite – he is relishing the experience of being in love, even its suffering. He treats love almost like a sensual luxury to be consumed.
As the speech develops, we see how fickle and self-dramatising his love is. The same music that just moved him deeply quickly loses its charm (“Tis not so sweet now as it was before”). This rapid shift mirrors his emotional changeability. His love is not steady or grounded; it depends on mood and imagination.
The sea metaphor deepens this idea. Love, he says, can take in anything (“receiveth as the sea”), but whatever enters quickly loses value. This suggests that nothing real can satisfy him for long – his feelings constantly diminish and renew themselves. Love becomes a cycle of appetite and disappointment.
Finally, he concludes that love is “so full of shapes… high fantastical.” In other words, love is driven by fancy (imagination), not reality. This is crucial: Orsino is in love not with Olivia as a person, but with an idea of love and of her.
The passage establishes:
• Orsino as a romantic narcissist, absorbed in his own emotional performance
• Love as changeable, excessive, and rooted in imagination
• A contrast with later, more genuine forms of love in the play
In short, Shakespeare is quietly undercutting Orsino: what sounds like elevated poetry actually reveals a man who is in love with being in love, not with another human being. This point was emphasised by Talitha, who said you can’t take Orsino’s pronouncements as profound statements on love.
KumKum
Duke Orsino is hinting Viola is Sebastian's twin sister. Viola is dressed like a man, Cesario. Orsino considers him a bit effeminate, but in a complimentary manner, paving the way for Viola later as a consort. One can imagine Shakespeare writing this in a tongue-in-cheek kind of humour.
Orsino comments on Viola’s voice:
Diana's lip
Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe
Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound,
This scene establishes the emotional triangle that drives the play – Orsino loves Olivia, Viola (disguised as Cesario) serves Orsino, and Viola secretly loves Orsino.
On the surface, the scene is simple: Orsino sends Cesario (Viola) to court Olivia on his behalf. But beneath that, several important ideas are at work.
1. Dramatic irony intensifies
Orsino confides deeply in Cesario, saying he has “unclasp’d… the book… of my secret soul.” The audience knows Cesario is actually Viola, a woman who is in love with him. So every instruction he gives – to plead his love, to “act [his] woes” – is painfully ironic. Viola must express Orsino’s love for another woman while concealing her own.
2. Orsino’s self-absorbed love continues
He is concerned less with Olivia’s feelings than with the performance of his passion. He urges Cesario to be “clamorous,” to ignore social boundaries, and to “surprise her” with his declarations. Love, again, is theatrical and excessive – something to be staged rather than mutually felt.
3. The importance of appearance and gender ambiguity
Orsino explicitly comments on Cesario’s androgynous beauty – “Diana’s lip,” “maiden’s organ.” He recognises that Cesario resembles a woman and believes this will make him more persuasive. This is crucial:
• It explains why Olivia will later fall for Cesario.
• It highlights one of the play’s core themes – the fluidity of gender and attraction.
4. Viola’s inner conflict
Her final line – “I’ll do my best / To woo your lady” – is charged with double meaning. Outwardly, she agrees to serve Orsino. Inwardly, it’s an emotional compromise: she must help the man she loves win someone else.
In essence:
This scene sets the machinery of the plot in motion. It deepens the irony,
Joe
It's the scene from Act 1, Scene 5 which establishes the Fool (Feste) as the wisest character in the play while gently exposing Olivia’s misplaced grief and the theme of appearance versus reality.
Feste was the clown in this acting troupe of the King's Men. Shakespeare actually wrote a lot of pieces for him. In this play, there are many songs that he sings which are part of the entertainment and the wit. They go on to the end when he sings the soulful tune with the refrain
For the rain it raineth every day.
And ends the play on the note
our play is done,
And we'll strive to please you every day.
All of his interjections are truly witty, so wit is being employed here as a tool of truth. Olivia's mourning is gently criticised by the fool. The theme is wisdom in folly and folly in wisdom. That's the sort of thing that this passage is about.
KumKum said this was the most difficult passage she read in the play and thanked Joe for reading it.
Geetha and Thomo
The next passage is the central comic complication of the play – Olivia falling in love with Viola (as Cesario) – while deepening the themes of love’s irrationality, disguise, and emotional authenticity. It is from the same scene.
Geetha was Olivia and Thomo was Viola (as Cesario) in the reading.
Orsino is in love with Olivia. He has not seen her for she is in mourning for her brother. He sends Viola. Viola was shipwrecked and thinks her twin brother Sebastian died in the accident. Orsino asked Viola as Cesario to plead his case with Olivia. But as we later know, when Sebastian appears, he did not die but survived the shipwreck like her and got separated.
When Sebastain comes in, he meets Olivia and Olivia thinking this is Viola (Cesario), falls in love with him headlong. Viola meanwhile has fallen in love with Orsino, so the whole play is going to resolve to a happy outcome.
But this is where they first meet Viola and Olivia in the play. So it's ironic.
Olivia falls for a woman in disguise, while the woman she falls for is in love with the man who sent her. It's a crazy triangle. And both of them are mourning their brothers.
Viola (Cesario) has appealed to Olivia’s affection. She has fallen in love already. Or she's at least rethinking her vow to not marry for seven years.
Devika
Devika confessed she’s had a really busy time and thought she could not participate because there was absolutely no time to read or sit and focus on anything. But then Joe sent her a passage and said, “Why don't you do this?”
She took him up without actually reading the whole thing. It’s a song ("O Mistress Mine”), the first of several Feste the Fool sings in Twelfth Night. He performs this at the request of Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, featuring lyrics about seizing the opportunity for love while young. The song expresses one of the central themes of Twelfth Night – look for love and joy in the present because time and youth are fleeting.
The song is lovely, ending on,
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
The last line resonated and when Joe thought of writing a sonnet for his daughter’s wedding anniversary he ended with a couplet in iambic pentameter:
What is to come beyond is still unsure
For youth is rainbow stuff that won’t endure.
You can listen to an explanation of the song, if such be needed, at
Talitha remembered the tune from her being a student in Women’s Christian College, Madras, instructed by her choir mistress who also taught English. Talitha sang it for us:
“It's so beautiful, Talitha,” exclaimed Devika. Everyone agreed!
It is a tune set by Thomas Morley in 1600 as you can hear in the version below
O Mistress mine sung by a jester
Talitha said there are a couple of different tunes.
From the opening to the end there are so many songs in Twelfth Night that we may consider it to be a musical on love and its aching complications. The play opens with a paean to love in verse by Orsino and when Toby and Aguecheek request a song, Feste sings this lovely tune O Mistress Mine. The next song sung by Feste, Come Away, Come Away, Death (Act 2, Scene 4) is haunting and seems to echo the Duke’s fruitless love for Olivia and Viola’s equally hopeless love for the duke. The closing of the play is announced in another song by Feste, The Wind And The Rain.
Prof. Sahinur Rahaman of Saheed Nurul Islam Mahavidyalaya opines in a short piece:
The recurrent use of music in the play Twelfth Night may well have been due to the presence of Robert Armin in the company of actors to which Shakespeare belonged. Armin was an excellent musician, and Shakespeare may have deliberately maximised the element of song to give him ample opportunity to show his paces. But music is also an integral part of action and atmosphere. The ultra-romantic scenes, especially those involving Orsino, would not be as luxurious and languid as they are without the help of music and song; and music also contributes something to that enrichment of atmosphere which, as we have seen, is created by references to dreams, madness and the sea . It is a play both penetrated and surrounded with music, which helps to give it its distinctively generous feeling.
Here is a fuller analysis of the song. The purport is to express one of the central themes of Twelfth Night: seize love and joy in the present, because time and youth are fleeting.
On the surface, it’s just a pleasant song entertaining Sir Toby and Sir Andrew. But like much of Feste’s music, it carries a deeper meaning that comments on the whole play.
1. Carpe diem (“seize the day”) philosophy
Lines like “Journeys end in lovers meeting” and “present mirth hath present laughter” emphasise that fulfilment comes now, not in some distant future. The future is uncertain (“What’s to come is still unsure”), so delaying love is foolish.
2. A contrast to Orsino and Olivia
The song quietly critiques the main characters:
• Orsino indulges in prolonged, theatrical longing.
• Olivia delays life through excessive mourning.
Feste’s message cuts against both: stop postponing life – love should be lived, not brooded over.
3. Love as natural and inevitable
“Journeys end in lovers meeting” suggests that love is the natural destination of human experience. It frames love not as something to resist or overthink, but as something to accept.
4. The fleeting nature of youth
“Youth’s a stuff will not endure” introduces a slightly sobering note. Beneath the light melody is a reminder: time passes quickly, and opportunities – especially for love – do not last forever.
In essence:
The song serves as a lyrical statement of the play’s philosophy: embrace love and joy while you can, instead of delaying, overthinking, or resisting them. It’s both festive and gently admonitory, reinforcing the comic world’s movement toward union, pleasure, and immediacy.
Saras
Saras read from Act 2, Scene 4, where Orsino and Viola (disguised as Cesario) converse about love. Orsino says that men's love is much more passionate and much stronger than a woman's love. Viola refutes that.
Viola, disguised as Cesario, as good as tells Orsino that she is a woman, but he hasn't caught on when she says
I am all the daughters of my father's house,
A fuller analysis is below:
This scene challenges Orsino’s inflated, self-centred idea of love and asserts – through Viola – the depth, constancy, and often unspoken nature of women’s love.
On the surface, Orsino is continuing his role as the grand lover, claiming that no woman can feel love as deeply as he does. He describes women’s love as mere “appetite” – something shallow, changeable, and easily satisfied – while presenting his own as vast and enduring “as the sea.” This reveals, again, that his love is rooted in ego and performance rather than understanding.
Viola’s response quietly undermines him.
1. A direct challenge to Orsino’s assumptions
She asserts that women are “as true of heart” as men – contradicting his claim. But she does so gently, without openly confronting him, because of her position as his servant.
2. The “sister” story as disguised truth
Her story about “my father had a daughter” is actually about herself. This is one of the most poignant moments in the play:
• She describes a love that is hidden, patient, and consuming.
• The imagery – “worm i’ the bud,” “green and yellow melancholy,” “patience on a monument” – captures the quiet suffering of unexpressed love.
This contrasts sharply with Orsino’s loud declarations. Her love is real but silent, while his is eloquent but shallow.
3. Critique of male expressions of love
Viola’s line – “We men may say more… but little in our love” – is ironic (since she is a woman disguised as a man). It suggests that:
• Men often overstate their feelings.
• True love may be deeper than it appears, especially when unspoken.
4. Dramatic irony and emotional tension
Orsino fails to understand her. He treats her story as hypothetical and moves on, sending her again to Olivia. The audience, however, sees the truth: Viola is confessing her love to him, though he is obtuse and oblivious.
Her line “I am all the daughters… and all the brothers too” momentarily gestures toward her true identity, but it passes unnoticed.
In essence:
The scene exposes the gap between appearance and reality in love. Orsino’s grand rhetoric is undercut, while Viola embodies a deeper, more authentic love that cannot be openly expressed. It reinforces a central idea of the play: true feeling is often hidden, misunderstood, or misdirected.
Talitha
The central comic conflict in Act 3, Scene 1, comes into the open where Olivia openly declares her love for Viola (Cesario), while Viola firmly but painfully rejects her, deepening the play's emotional and ironic tension.
I love thee so, that, maugre all thy pride,
Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide.
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.
Joe said it's all confused now. Yes, said Talitha, a lot of wordplay takes place.
Satish Mathew appeared momentarily on the screen to say,
“Joe, the only line I remember from Shakespeare is
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”
Juliet is wondering why she had the ill-luck of the man she loves being a Montague!
Kavita
She read from Act 3, scene 2 where Toby and Fabian exploit Sir Andrew’s foolishness for their own amusement and advantage.
This scene is essentially a comic conspiracy of manipulation – and it shows how Sir Toby and Fabian exploit Sir Andrew’s foolishness for their own amusement and advantage.
Sir Andrew wants to leave because he thinks Olivia prefers Cesario (Viola in disguise). That part is sincere: he’s jealous and discouraged. But Toby and Fabian immediately reinterpret reality to deceive him. They claim Olivia showed favour to Cesario only to provoke Andrew, to stir his “dormouse valour.” This is absurd, but Andrew is gullible enough to half-believe it.
From there, the scene unfolds in a few layers:
1. Exposure of Sir Andrew’s folly
Andrew is vain, cowardly, and easily led. He doesn’t understand Olivia, love, or even basic social cues. His line “will you make an ass o’ me?” is ironic – because that’s exactly what is happening, and he lacks the wit to see it.
2. Sir Toby’s parasitic manipulation
Toby’s aside reveals the truth: Andrew has been “dear” to him for “two thousand strong” (i.e., he’s spent a lot of money). Toby wants to keep him around as a source of entertainment and funds. So he pushes Andrew into writing a duel challenge – not because he expects a real fight, but because it will prolong the game.
3. Comedy through exaggerated language and mock-heroics
The instructions for the letter – “be curst and brief,” “taunt him with the licence of ink,” fill it with lies – parody the idea of honour and duelling. Shakespeare mocks the inflated rhetoric of masculinity and “valour,” turning it into farce.
4. Dramatic irony and setup for further confusion
The audience knows Cesario is actually Viola, and that neither Andrew nor Cesario is truly dangerous. Toby even admits privately that Andrew is a complete coward (“if he were opened… not so much blood… as will clog the foot of a flea”). This sets up the later duel scene, where fear and misunderstanding will peak.
In short:
The scene shows how illusion, self-deception, and manipulation drive the comedy. Toby and Fabian manufacture a false narrative to keep Andrew hooked, while Shakespeare satirises empty notions of honour and bravery. It also advances the plot toward the absurd duel, deepening the play’s central theme: people consistently misread reality – especially in matters of love and identity.
Arundhaty
It's a conversation where the clown uses all his wit and play of words. He's very intelligent, although he's a clown. He's lower in hierarchy but not in intellectual capacity.
The Clown is super intelligent, said Arundhaty. He plays with the words. Shakespeare’s ingenuity with words is on display and this makes a close understanding of Twelfth Night more difficult to achieve than his other plays.
The instability of words and social subversion is demonstrated by Feste, who uses wit to dominate the conversation, proving that intellectual hierarchy doesn't match social hierarchy.
This exchange between Viola (disguised as Cesario) and Feste (the Clown) is one of the most dense moments in Twelfth Night. While it seems like a series of “dad jokes” and puns, it actually serves as a meta-commentary on the instability of language and the true nature of wisdom.
Here are some core themes:
1. The Corruption and Elasticity of Language
Feste begins by manipulating the word “by” – shifting it from a metaphorical sense (earning a living by the church) to a literal, spatial sense (living next to the house of God).
• The Cheveril Glove: Feste compares a sentence to a "cheveril" (kid-leather) glove. Just as a soft leather glove can be easily stretched or turned inside out, a sentence can be manipulated by a “good wit” to mean the exact opposite of its intent.
• The “Wantonness” of Words: Both Viola and Feste agree that words have become “rascals.” Because words are so easily twisted, they can no longer be trusted to convey truth. Feste’s refusal to "prove reason" with words is a witty paradox: he uses words to tell us that words are useless. The dramatist is setting out the inherently unstable nature of his art with words in the mouth of Feste.
2. The Philosophy of the “Allowed Fool”
The passage clarifies the professional role of the Clown. Feste rejects the title of “Fool,” calling himself instead a “corrupter of words.” Feste notes that “Foolery... walks about the orb like the sun," implying that madness and stupidity are universal. He subtly insults Viola/Cesario by suggesting that “your wisdom” (meaning Viola herself) is just another form of foolery.
• Viola’s Realisation: After Feste exits, Viola delivers a crucial soliloquy. She recognises that being a professional fool requires more intelligence than being a “wise” man. To “play the fool well,” one must be a keen observer of:
◦ The mood of the audience.
◦ The quality (social status) of the persons.
◦ The time (the right moment).
◦ The various meanings of words
3. Dramatic Irony and Foreshadowing
The scene is laced with irony regarding Viola’s hidden identity:
• The Beard: When Feste prays for Jove to send Viola a beard, she replies that she is “almost sick for one,” but “would not have it grow on my chin.” The audience knows she wants a beard for kissing (Orsino’s), not to wear one.
• The Pandarus Allusion: Feste offers to play “Lord Pandarus” (a famous pander or pimp) to bring “Cressida to this Troilus.” This is a cynical take on the romantic plot: he is helping Cesario (Troilus) get to Olivia (Cressida) for money, highlighting the transactional nature of the characters' interactions.
Shoba
In this scene from Act 2, Sc 5 Malvolio is the housekeeper at the home of Lady Olivia. This is actually a subplot. Later on, Maria, Toby Belch and Andrew Aguecheek trick him with a forged letter from Lady Olivia saying she is in love with him. He is gullible enough to believe it.
This passage shows what he is like, his vanity and his character. It’s one of the best passages in the play. Lots of humour in it.
KumKum said if you see the play on Prime video this little plot was so beautifully, beautifully enacted. The film is directed by Trevor Nunn with Helena Bonham Carter as Olivia. Devika said if you have the BBC membership, you can get it free.
You realise what it means and how far the tricksters go in teasing this old man Malvolio who ends up in a dungeon.
Priya was glad Shobha read this piece because what her passage continues from there. In Twelfth Night Priya found the subplots more interesting than the main plot. They really make the comedy come alive, and this particular subplot is high fantasy. You see it better when you see it enacted in front of you.
Priya
Malvolio is the head servant of the staff. Because of the fake letter contrived by Maria he fancies himself as vying for the hand of Olivia.
Sir Toby, Andrew Aguecheek and Maria concoct a plot in which Malvolio finds a letter in Olivia’s handwriting to him. The letter convinces him that his mistress, Olivia, is in love with him. The letter tells him that while she must officially hide her affection, she desires him, and wants to elevate him from steward to husband, and commands him to perform absurd actions (wear yellow stockings held with crossed garters) to prove his love.
This is the famous passage where Malvolio declares
Some are born great, – Some achieve greatness, – And some have greatness thrust upon them.
Interestingly, there are two lines from Priya's passage that appear in the novel A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth:
OLIVIA
Wilt thou go to bed, Malvolio?
MALVOLIO
To bed! ay, sweet-heart, and I'll come to thee.
In the novel, during the Brahmpur University production of Twelfth Night, Lata plays the role of Olivia, and her current flame, Kabir Durrani, plays the role of Malvolio. The discomfort Mrs. Rupa Mehra feels throughout the performance – watching her daughter interact on stage with the ‘unsuitable’ Muslim student Kabir – reaches a fever pitch during that specific scene, where Malvolio, under the delusion that Olivia loves him, interprets her lines as a romantic summons. Here is the interaction as it appears in the novel:
"Wilt thou go to bed, Malvolio?" asked Olivia.
"To bed! ay, sweet-heart, and I'll come to thee," replied Malvolio.
Mrs. Rupa Mehra is mortified. Seth captures her reaction perfectly: she “gasped at Malvolio's odious brazen reply.” For her, the “brazen” nature of the line is amplified by the fact that it is Kabir speaking those words to her daughter, turning what is intended as a comedic misunderstanding in Shakespeare’s play into a deeply personal source of maternal anxiety and social outrage.
There's a 2-minute YouTube video , which really brings out the high comedy, where Stephen Fry acts as Malvolio, and Mark Rylance is dressed as Olivia.
Stephen Fry as Malvolio cross-gartered in yellow stockings
Malvolio acts fresh with Olivia
Mark Rylance, the American actor, plays the part of Olivia beautifully. Incidentally he is one of those who supposes it was not the Stratford man who wrote the Shakespeare’s plays; he proposes other authors like Francis Bacon or Edward de Vere, the Earl of Southampton.
An AI program, Gemini 3, has been used in elaborating on the reading passages above.
The Reading Passages
1. Pamela Act 1, Sc 1 – Orsino expresses his idea of love as excessive, self-indulgent, and fundamentally unstable
DUKE ORSINO
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.
2. KumKum Act 1, Scene 4 The central dramatic irony is the play establishes the emotional triangle
Orsino —> Olivia —>Viola as Caesario loves Orsino but serves as Orsino’s go-between to Olivia
I thank you. Here comes the count.
Enter DUKE ORSINO, CURIO, and Attendants
DUKE ORSINO
Who saw Cesario, ho?
VIOLA
On your attendance, my lord; here.
DUKE ORSINO
Stand you a while aloof, Cesario,
Thou know'st no less but all; I have unclasp'd
To thee the book even of my secret soul:
Therefore, good youth, address thy gait unto her;
Be not denied access, stand at her doors,
And tell them, there thy fixed foot shall grow
Till thou have audience.
VIOLA
Sure, my noble lord,
If she be so abandon'd to her sorrow
As it is spoke, she never will admit me.
DUKE ORSINO
Be clamorous and leap all civil bounds
Rather than make unprofited return.
VIOLA
Say I do speak with her, my lord, what then?
DUKE ORSINO
O, then unfold the passion of my love,
Surprise her with discourse of my dear faith:
It shall become thee well to act my woes;
She will attend it better in thy youth
Than in a nuncio's of more grave aspect.
VIOLA
I think not so, my lord.
DUKE ORSINO
Dear lad, believe it;
For they shall yet belie thy happy years,
That say thou art a man: Diana's lip
Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe
Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound,
And all is semblative a woman's part.
I know thy constellation is right apt
For this affair. Some four or five attend him;
All, if you will; for I myself am best
When least in company. Prosper well in this,
And thou shalt live as freely as thy lord,
To call his fortunes thine.
VIOLA
I'll do my best
To woo your lady:
3. Joe Act 1, Sc 5 – The Scene establishes the Fool (Feste) as the wisest character in the play while gently exposing Olivia’s misplaced grief and the theme of appearance versus reality
MARIA
… my lady will hang thee for thy absence.
CLOWN
Let her hang me: he that is well hanged in this
world needs to fear no colours.
MARIA
Make that good.
CLOWN
He shall see none to fear.
MARIA
A good lenten answer: I can tell thee where that
saying was born, of 'I fear no colours.'
CLOWN
Where, good Mistress Mary?
MARIA
In the wars; and that may you be bold to say in your foolery.
CLOWN
Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those
that are fools, let them use their talents.
MARIA
Yet you will be hanged for being so long absent; or,
to be turned away, is not that as good as a hanging to you?
CLOWN
Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage; and,
for turning away, let summer bear it out.
MARIA
You are resolute, then?
CLOWN
Not so, neither; but I am resolved on two points.
MARIA
That if one break, the other will hold; or, if both
break, your gaskins fall.
CLOWN
Apt, in good faith; very apt. Well, go thy way; if
Sir Toby would leave drinking, thou wert as witty a
piece of Eve's flesh as any in Illyria.
MARIA
Peace, you rogue, no more o' that. Here comes my
lady: make your excuse wisely, you were best.
Exit
CLOWN
Wit, an't be thy will, put me into good fooling!
Those wits, that think they have thee, do very oft
prove fools; and I, that am sure I lack thee, may
pass for a wise man: for what says Quinapalus?
'Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.'
Enter OLIVIA with MALVOLIO
God bless thee, lady!
OLIVIA
Take the fool away.
CLOWN
Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady.
OLIVIA
Go to, you're a dry fool; I'll no more of you:
besides, you grow dishonest.
CLOWN
Two faults, madonna, that drink and good counsel
will amend: for give the dry fool drink, then is
the fool not dry: bid the dishonest man mend
himself; if he mend, he is no longer dishonest; if
he cannot, let the botcher mend him. Any thing
that's mended is but patched: virtue that
transgresses is but patched with sin; and sin that
amends is but patched with virtue. If that this
simple syllogism will serve, so; if it will not,
what remedy? As there is no true cuckold but
calamity, so beauty's a flower. The lady bade take
away the fool; therefore, I say again, take her away.
OLIVIA
Sir, I bade them take away you.
CLOWN
Misprision in the highest degree! Lady, cucullus non
facit monachum; that's as much to say as I wear not
motley in my brain. Good madonna, give me leave to
prove you a fool.
OLIVIA
Can you do it?
CLOWN
Dexterously, good madonna.
OLIVIA
Make your proof.
CLOWN
I must catechise you for it, madonna: good my mouse
of virtue, answer me.
OLIVIA
Well, sir, for want of other idleness, I'll bide your proof.
CLOWN
Good madonna, why mournest thou?
OLIVIA
Good fool, for my brother's death.
CLOWN
I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
OLIVIA
I know his soul is in heaven, fool.
CLOWN
The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's
soul being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen.
4. Geetha-Thomo Act 1, Sc 5 – The central comic complication of the play – Olivia falling in love with Viola (as Cesario) – while deepening the themes of love’s irrationality, disguise, and emotional authenticity.
OLIVIA
Give us the place alone: we will hear this divinity.
Exeunt MARIA and Attendants
Now, sir, what is your text?
VIOLA
Most sweet lady,--
OLIVIA
A comfortable doctrine, and much may be said of it.
Where lies your text?
VIOLA
In Orsino's bosom.
OLIVIA
In his bosom! In what chapter of his bosom?
VIOLA
To answer by the method, in the first of his heart.
OLIVIA
O, I have read it: it is heresy. Have you no more to say?
VIOLA
Good madam, let me see your face.
OLIVIA
Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate
with my face? You are now out of your text: but
we will draw the curtain and show you the picture.
Look you, sir, such a one I was this present: is't
not well done?
Unveiling
VIOLA
Excellently done, if God did all.
OLIVIA
'Tis in grain, sir; 'twill endure wind and weather.
VIOLA
'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on:
Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive,
If you will lead these graces to the grave
And leave the world no copy.
OLIVIA
O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted; I will give
out divers schedules of my beauty: it shall be
inventoried, and every particle and utensil
labelled to my will: as, item, two lips,
indifferent red; item, two grey eyes, with lids to
them; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth. Were
you sent hither to praise me?
VIOLA
I see you what you are, you are too proud;
But, if you were the devil, you are fair.
My lord and master loves you: O, such love
Could be but recompensed, though you were crown'd
The nonpareil of beauty!
OLIVIA
How does he love me?
VIOLA
With adorations, fertile tears,
With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.
OLIVIA
Your lord does know my mind; I cannot love him:
Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble,
Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth;
In voices well divulged, free, learn'd and valiant;
And in dimension and the shape of nature
A gracious person: but yet I cannot love him;
He might have took his answer long ago.
VIOLA
If I did love you in my master's flame,
With such a suffering, such a deadly life,
In your denial I would find no sense;
I would not understand it.
OLIVIA
Why, what would you?
VIOLA
Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons of contemned love
And sing them loud even in the dead of night;
Halloo your name to the reverberate hills
And make the babbling gossip of the air
Cry out 'Olivia!' O, You should not rest
Between the elements of air and earth,
But you should pity me!
OLIVIA
You might do much.
What is your parentage?
VIOLA
Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:
I am a gentleman.
OLIVIA
Get you to your lord;
I cannot love him: let him send no more;
Unless, perchance, you come to me again,
To tell me how he takes it. Fare you well:
I thank you for your pains: spend this for me.
VIOLA
I am no fee'd post, lady; keep your purse:
My master, not myself, lacks recompense.
Love make his heart of flint that you shall love;
And let your fervor, like my master's, be
Placed in contempt! Farewell, fair cruelty.
Exit
OLIVIA
'What is your parentage?'
'Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:
I am a gentleman.' I'll be sworn thou art;
Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit,
Do give thee five-fold blazon: not too fast:
soft, soft!
Unless the master were the man. How now!
Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
Methinks I feel this youth's perfections
With an invisible and subtle stealth
To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.
What ho, Malvolio!
Re-enter MALVOLIO
5. Devika Act 2, Sc 3 – The song expresses one of the central themes of Twelfth Night: seize love and joy in the present, because time and youth are fleeting.
Clown
[Sings]
O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.
SIR ANDREW
Excellent good, i' faith.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Good, good.
Clown
[Sings]
What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
6. Saras Act 2, Sc 4 – The scene challenges Orsino’s inflated, self-centred idea of love and asserts – through Viola – the depth, constancy, and often unspoken nature of women’s love.
DUKE ORSINO
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 call'd 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.
VIOLA
Ay, but I know--
DUKE ORSINO
What dost thou know?
VIOLA
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.
DUKE ORSINO
And what's her history?
VIOLA
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.
DUKE ORSINO
But died thy sister of her love, my boy?
VIOLA
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?
DUKE ORSINO
Ay, that's the theme.
To her in haste; give her this jewel; say,
My love can give no place, bide no delay.
Exeunt
7. Shoba Act 2, Sc 5 – The scene exposes Malvolio’s vanity and social ambition, while preparing the audience for the cruel trick that Maria and others conceive
MALVOLIO
'Tis but fortune; all is fortune. Maria once told
me she did affect me: and I have heard herself come
thus near, that, should she fancy, it should be one
of my complexion. Besides, she uses me with a more
exalted respect than any one else that follows her.
What should I think on't?
SIR TOBY BELCH
Here's an overweening rogue!
FABIAN
O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock
of him: how he jets under his advanced plumes!
SIR ANDREW
'Slight, I could so beat the rogue!
SIR TOBY BELCH
Peace, I say.
MALVOLIO
To be Count Malvolio!
SIR TOBY BELCH
Ah, rogue!
SIR ANDREW
Pistol him, pistol him.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Peace, peace!
MALVOLIO
There is example for't; the lady of the Strachy
married the yeoman of the wardrobe.
SIR ANDREW
Fie on him, Jezebel!
FABIAN
O, peace! now he's deeply in: look how
imagination blows him.
MALVOLIO
Having been three months married to her, sitting in
my state,--
SIR TOBY BELCH
O, for a stone-bow, to hit him in the eye!
MALVOLIO
Calling my officers about me, in my branched velvet
gown; having come from a day-bed, where I have left
Olivia sleeping,--
SIR TOBY BELCH
Fire and brimstone!
FABIAN
O, peace, peace!
MALVOLIO
And then to have the humour of state; and after a
demure travel of regard, telling them I know my
place as I would they should do theirs, to for my
kinsman Toby,--
SIR TOBY BELCH
Bolts and shackles!
FABIAN
O peace, peace, peace! now, now.
MALVOLIO
Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make
out for him: I frown the while; and perchance wind
up watch, or play with my--some rich jewel. Toby
approaches; courtesies there to me,--
SIR TOBY BELCH
Shall this fellow live?
FABIAN
Though our silence be drawn from us with cars, yet peace.
MALVOLIO
I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar
smile with an austere regard of control,--
SIR TOBY BELCH
And does not Toby take you a blow o' the lips then?
MALVOLIO
Saying, 'Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me on
your niece give me this prerogative of speech,'--
SIR TOBY BELCH
What, what?
MALVOLIO
'You must amend your drunkenness.'
8. Arundhaty Act 3, Scene 1 – The instability of words and social subversion by Feste, a clown who uses wit to dominate the conversation, proving that social hierarchy is not a match for intellectual hierarchy.
ACT III SCENE I. OLIVIA's garden.
Enter VIOLA, and Clown with a tabour
VIOLA
Save thee, friend, and thy music: dost thou live by
thy tabour?
Clown
No, sir, I live by the church.
VIOLA
Art thou a churchman?
Clown
No such matter, sir: I do live by the church; for
I do live at my house, and my house doth stand by
the church.
VIOLA
So thou mayst say, the king lies by a beggar, if a
beggar dwell near him; or, the church stands by thy
tabour, if thy tabour stand by the church.
Clown
You have said, sir. To see this age! A sentence is
but a cheveril glove to a good wit: how quickly the
wrong side may be turned outward!
VIOLA
Nay, that's certain; they that dally nicely with
words may quickly make them wanton.
Clown
I would, therefore, my sister had had no name, sir.
VIOLA
Why, man?
Clown
Why, sir, her name's a word; and to dally with that
word might make my sister wanton. But indeed words
are very rascals since bonds disgraced them.
VIOLA
Thy reason, man?
Clown
Troth, sir, I can yield you none without words; and
words are grown so false, I am loath to prove
reason with them.
VIOLA
I warrant thou art a merry fellow and carest for nothing.
Clown
Not so, sir, I do care for something; but in my
conscience, sir, I do not care for you: if that be
to care for nothing, sir, I would it would make you invisible.
VIOLA
Art not thou the Lady Olivia's fool?
Clown
No, indeed, sir; the Lady Olivia has no folly: she
will keep no fool, sir, till she be married; and
fools are as like husbands as pilchards are to
herrings; the husband's the bigger: I am indeed not
her fool, but her corrupter of words.
VIOLA
I saw thee late at the Count Orsino's.
Clown
Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun,
it shines every where. I would be sorry, sir, but
the fool should be as oft with your master as with
my mistress: I think I saw your wisdom there.
VIOLA
Nay, an thou pass upon me, I'll no more with thee.
Hold, there's expenses for thee.
Clown
Now Jove, in his next commodity of hair, send thee a beard!
VIOLA
By my troth, I'll tell thee, I am almost sick for
one;
Aside
though I would not have it grow on my chin. Is thy
lady within?
Clown
Would not a pair of these have bred, sir?
VIOLA
Yes, being kept together and put to use.
Clown
I would play Lord Pandarus of Phrygia, sir, to bring
a Cressida to this Troilus.
VIOLA
I understand you, sir; 'tis well begged.
Clown
The matter, I hope, is not great, sir, begging but
a beggar: Cressida was a beggar. My lady is
within, sir. I will construe to them whence you
come; who you are and what you would are out of my
welkin, I might say 'element,' but the word is over-worn.
Exit
VIOLA
This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;
And to do that well craves a kind of wit:
He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons, and the time,
And, like the haggard, cheque at every feather
That comes before his eye. This is a practise
As full of labour as a wise man's art
For folly that he wisely shows is fit;
But wise men, folly-fall'n, quite taint their wit.
9. Talitha Act 3, Sc 1 – The central comic conflict comes into the open: Olivia openly declares her love for Cesario (Viola), while Viola must firmly, but painfully, reject her, deepening the play’s emotional and ironic tension.
Clock strikes
OLIVIA
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 were is alike to reap a proper man:
There lies your way, due west.
VIOLA
Then westward-ho! Grace and good disposition
Attend your ladyship!
You'll nothing, madam, to my lord by me?
OLIVIA
Stay:
I prithee, tell me what thou thinkest of me.
VIOLA
That you do think you are not what you are.
OLIVIA
If I think so, I think the same of you.
VIOLA
Then think you right: I am not what I am.
OLIVIA
I would you were as I would have you be!
VIOLA
Would it be better, madam, than I am?
I wish it might, for now I am your fool.
OLIVIA
O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful
In the contempt and anger of his lip!
A murderous 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 every thing,
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 better.
VIOLA
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.
OLIVIA
Yet come again; for thou perhaps mayst move
That heart, which now abhors, to like his love.
10. Kavita Act 3, scene 2 Toby and Fabian exploit Sir Andrew’s foolishness for their own amusement and advantage.
SIR ANDREW
No, faith, I'll not stay a jot longer.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Thy reason, dear venom, give thy reason.
FABIAN
You must needs yield your reason, Sir Andrew.
SIR ANDREW
Marry, I saw your niece do more favours to the
count's serving-man than ever she bestowed upon me;
I saw't i' the orchard.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Did she see thee the while, old boy? tell me that.
SIR ANDREW
As plain as I see you now.
FABIAN
This was a great argument of love in her toward you.
SIR ANDREW
'Slight, will you make an ass o' me?
FABIAN
I will prove it legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of
judgment and reason.
SIR TOBY BELCH
And they have been grand-jury-men since before Noah
was a sailor.
FABIAN
She did show favour to the youth in your sight only
to exasperate you, to awake your dormouse valour, to
put fire in your heart and brimstone in your liver.
You should then have accosted her; and with some
excellent jests, fire-new from the mint, you should
have banged the youth into dumbness. This was
looked for at your hand, and this was balked: the
double gilt of this opportunity you let time wash
off, and you are now sailed into the north of my
lady's opinion; where you will hang like an icicle
on a Dutchman's beard, unless you do redeem it by
some laudable attempt either of valour or policy.
SIR ANDREW
An't be any way, it must be with valour; for policy
I hate: I had as lief be a Brownist as a
politician.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Why, then, build me thy fortunes upon the basis of
valour. Challenge me the count's youth to fight
with him; hurt him in eleven places: my niece shall
take note of it; and assure thyself, there is no
love-broker in the world can more prevail in man's
commendation with woman than report of valour.
FABIAN
There is no way but this, Sir Andrew.
SIR ANDREW
Will either of you bear me a challenge to him?
SIR TOBY BELCH
Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief;
it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and fun
of invention: taunt him with the licence of ink:
if thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be
amiss; and as many lies as will lie in thy sheet of
paper, although the sheet were big enough for the
bed of Ware in England, set 'em down: go, about it.
Let there be gall enough in thy ink, though thou
write with a goose-pen, no matter: about it.
SIR ANDREW
Where shall I find you?
SIR TOBY BELCH
We'll call thee at the cubiculo: go.
Exit SIR ANDREW
FABIAN
This is a dear manikin to you, Sir Toby.
SIR TOBY BELCH
I have been dear to him, lad, some two thousand
strong, or so.
FABIAN
We shall have a rare letter from him: but you'll
not deliver't?
SIR TOBY BELCH
Never trust me, then; and by all means stir on the
youth to an answer. I think oxen and wainropes
cannot hale them together. For Andrew, if he were
opened, and you find so much blood in his liver as
will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the rest of
the anatomy.
FABIAN
And his opposite, the youth, bears in his visage no
great presage of cruelty.
Enter MARIA
11. Priya Act 3, Sc 4 – The scene of Malvolio courting Olivia cross-gartered in yellow, tricked by a fake letter of Maria
OLIVIA
How now, Malvolio!
MALVOLIO
Sweet lady, ho, ho.
OLIVIA
Smilest thou?
I sent for thee upon a sad occasion.
MALVOLIO
Sad, lady! I could be sad: this does make some
obstruction in the blood, this cross-gartering; but
what of that? if it please the eye of one, it is
with me as the very true sonnet is, 'Please one, and
please all.'
OLIVIA
Why, how dost thou, man? what is the matter with thee?
MALVOLIO
Not black in my mind, though yellow in my legs. It
did come to his hands, and commands shall be
executed: I think we do know the sweet Roman hand.
OLIVIA
Wilt thou go to bed, Malvolio?
MALVOLIO
To bed! ay, sweet-heart, and I'll come to thee.
OLIVIA
God comfort thee! Why dost thou smile so and kiss
thy hand so oft?
MARIA
How do you, Malvolio?
MALVOLIO
At your request! yes; nightingales answer daws.
MARIA
Why appear you with this ridiculous boldness before my lady?
MALVOLIO
'Be not afraid of greatness:' 'twas well writ.
OLIVIA
What meanest thou by that, Malvolio?
MALVOLIO
'Some are born great,'--
OLIVIA
Ha!
MALVOLIO
'Some achieve greatness,'--
OLIVIA
What sayest thou?
MALVOLIO
'And some have greatness thrust upon them.'
OLIVIA
Heaven restore thee!
MALVOLIO
'Remember who commended thy yellow stocking s,'--
OLIVIA
Thy yellow stockings!
MALVOLIO
'And wished to see thee cross-gartered.'
OLIVIA
Cross-gartered!
MALVOLIO
'Go to thou art made, if thou desirest to be so;'--
OLIVIA
Am I made?
MALVOLIO
'If not, let me see thee a servant still.'
OLIVIA
Why, this is very midsummer madness.
Enter Servant
Servant
Madam, the young gentleman of the Count Orsino's is
returned: I could hardly entreat him back: he
attends your ladyship's pleasure.
OLIVIA
I'll come to him.
Exit Servant
Good Maria, let this fellow be looked to. Where's
my cousin Toby? Let some of my people have a special
care of him: I would not have him miscarry for the
half of my dowry.
Exeunt OLIVIA and MARIA
MALVOLIO
O, ho! do you come near me now? no worse man than
Sir Toby to look to me! This concurs directly with
the letter: she sends him on purpose, that I may
appear stubborn to him; for she incites me to that
in the letter. 'Cast thy humble slough,' says she;
'be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants;
let thy tongue tang with arguments of state; put
thyself into the trick of singularity;' and
consequently sets down the manner how; as, a sad
face, a reverend carriage, a slow tongue, in the
habit of some sir of note, and so forth. I have
limed her; but it is Jove's doing, and Jove make me
thankful! And when she went away now, 'Let this
fellow be looked to:' fellow! not Malvolio, nor
after my degree, but fellow. Why, every thing
adheres together, that no dram of a scruple, no
scruple of a scruple, no obstacle, no incredulous
or unsafe circumstance--What can be said? Nothing
that can be can come between me and the full
prospect of my hopes. Well, Jove, not I, is the
doer of this, and he is to be thanked.
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