It is believed that Twelfth Night is the thirty-fourth and last written of Shakespeare’s Plays. We may reasonably therefore look therein for evidence of the maturity of his genius: nor shall we look in vain. It has not indeed the terrible energy of Lear, Othello, and others of his greatest works—for supposing it to have been composed for a new Twelfth Night piece, such as was usually represented before the Court in the reigns of Elizabeth and of James, anything more grave would have been out of place: but the master hand is well discernible in this play, in its freedom from blemishes, its finish, the compactness of the plot, the smooth, swift dialogue, the good stage effects, and, above all, in the bright, but calm and comprehensive wisdom with which the main subject—which is love—is viewed. The serene yet warm light shed over this drama may be likened to the golden summer afternoon sunshine,



whose beams lie wide on the green sward of some far extending common, slope upward on the trunks and foliage of the oaks with which it is here and there bestudded, glance on the tall, feathery ferns, glow on the foxgloves and heath, nor forget to penetrate with pure light the transparent cup of the delicate, slightly trembling bluebell. This serenity, power, and warmth we may conceive to have been attributes of the mind of Shakespeare at this period of his life—if, as is thought, the play was written at Stratford on Avon, after he had retired from stage management and London, in 1614, and only two years before his death, at the age of fifty-two. It cannot be uninteresting to see what were the final conclusions of this mighty and gentle mind regarding that passion which plays so large a part in the World’s Drama; and we shall proceed therefore to search out Shakespeare’s Principles of Love as shown to us in this his latter, if indeed it be not his last writing. ^*

There can be gathered from these sentences no good augury for the happy issue of the passion of which they are the exponent. Yet Orsino at once wins our interest, nor does he fail altogether to command respect.

The words,

• “O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,
• Methought, she purged the air of pestilence,”

are not those of a voluptuary: they express, very exquisitely, a high poetical passion, sprung from a momentary impression. The use, in our poet’s day, of the word “fancy,” in many cases where we now should say “love,” proves the general recognition, formerly, of the fact that love, most often, does arise from the impression of a moment; of some moment in which the fancy is struck, perhaps inexplicably so, and the sense is awakened in the breast that a certain object possesses a beauty such as is owned by no other creature. But, what shall come of that impression—whether it shall fade like the ripple made by a pebble thrown upon the water, or,

• “Keep as true in soul



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• As doth that orbed continent the fire
• That severs day and night,”

must depend on subtle sympathies, the existence or non-existence of which is left to time to prove.

There is no indication in the passages above quoted of any such sympathy: on the contrary, everything we hear betrays the uncongeniality of the two persons. That Orsino should obtrude his suit on Olivia’s profound grief, shows how little he understands her; nor does her own account of her state of mind awaken in him one touch of sympathy. From her pathetic message he gathers this only—food for admiration, and for hope;—he does not sorrow that she is in sorrow: but, whilst she is bathed in tears, and will not let the air itself “behold her face at ample view,” he withdraws, not to mourn in spirit with her, but to seek those delicious scenes of nature most suggestive to the poet and the lover of the “love thoughts” with which he be-decks the idol of his imagination. Just as Romeo loves not Rosalind, but has a mental image of beauty for which Rosalind stands, till Juliet, the true impersonation of it appears, so does Orsino love, love—but not Olivia.

Well does she read him. We find her in an after scene discoursing thus with one who has come to plead his cause:

• “ Olivia. Where lies your text?
• Viola. In Orsino’s bosom.
• Oli. In his bosom? In what chapter of his bosom?
• Vio. To answer by the method, in the first of his heart.
• Oli. O, I have read it; it is heresy.

And, with the same discrimination, she will not let the envoy speak the speech Orsino has written, though told

• “ Vio. Alas! I took great pains to study it, and it is poetical.
• Oli. It is the more like to be feigned. I pray you keep it in.”— Act i. scene 5.

The fate of this love both to its subject and object is foreboded by the Clown, who thus quaintly observes, on the Duke’s restless change of amusements:

“ Clo. Now, the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffata, for thy mind is a very opal.—I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business might be everything, and their intent everywhere; for that’s it, that always makes a good voyage of nothing.”— Act ii. scene 3.

It is not that the passion has sprung from a vivid momentary impression that we despair of it; nor yet that it meets with no reciprocation; but that it lacks every symptom of true love, and abounds in every symptom of the spurious kind; inasmuch as it inspires not the man with sympathy, even for the beloved object, nor breathes into his life noble energy and purpose, or yet nobler self-denial—but on the contrary, to the exclusion of all these, fills him with an insatiable thirst for its own indulgence, as well as (and the Clown is right in arguing as he does from the circumstance), with an incredible caprice in the whims which constitute that indulgence. This “spirit of love” may indeed “fall into abatement and low price, even in a minute,” and we shall see, later, that the Duke himself has ever and anon an uneasy consciousness, against which he struggles, of the insecurity of his feeling, notwithstanding its violence.

In spite of all that is disparaging, however, we trace in Orsino, even in this first scene, a man of a most pure nature, of highly poetical and artistic temperament; a man of heart too, and of a reflective, philosophical cast of mind. Subsequently we find also that (though the aspect under which he first presents himself to us is such as we have seen under those bowery canopies where he, like Jacques’s

• “ Poor sequester’d stag
• That from the hunter’s aim had ta’en a hurt,
• Did come to languish,)”

his life previously had been sterner



and more heroic. His fame had reached to other lands: and apparently he was one of those whose warlike enterprises were usefully directed to clear the seas of the fierce and terrific pirates who from the time of the Romans downwards had infested the Mediterranean and Adriatic. There is a rougher music in the words in which, in the fifth Act, he relates one of these adventures than in the liquid verse in which he “tunes his distresses and records his woes” in the opening scene. Speaking of one whom he supposes to be a pirate, he says:

• “That face of his I do remember well;
• Yet when I saw it last it was besmear’d
• As black as Vulcan in the smoke of war:
• A bawbling vessel was he master 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 loss
• Cry’d fame and honour on him.”

And addressing the same individual, he adds:

• “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?”
  
  Act v. scene1.

In these spirited words heroic delight in martial enterprise is clearly indicated, as well as the awful power and wrath of the supreme and ruling prince, about to exercise his high prerogative of dealing justice to the enemy of the country. But so different is he from his best self when first we see him, that we must coincide in the remark in which a speaker, who knew him well, glances at him in a subsequent scene, when she says, in her own gentle way, that

• “ Wise men folly-fallen quite taint their wit.”

We must now turn to the second scene of this drama, which has altogether a different tone from the first. Here, in contrast with that Orsino, who, in the capital, indulges in “rich love thoughts” amongst “sweet beds of flowers;” in contrast too with the Countess Olivia, who, immured in her princely mansion, nourishes her regret, the shipwrecked stranger, Viola, wanders along the shore, struggling as she may with grief and danger. Nobly born and rich, very young and most beautiful, cast by the storm on a country not deemed safe even for a brave man to traverse alone, her position is one of peril; but it is not her own danger that weighs, in the first instance, on her mind; another more grievous anxiety oppresses her, and it is not until relieved in some degree of this that her own difficulties and dangers occur to her mind. The dialogue which we proceed to quote is between herself and the captain and sailors saved with her.

• “ Viola. What country, friends, is this?
• Cap. Illyria, lady.
• Viola. And what should I do in Illyria?
• My brother he is in Elysium.
• Perchance he is not drown’d:—What think you, sailors?
• Cap. It is perchance that you yourself were saved.
• Viola. O my poor brother! and so perchance may he be.
• Cap. True, madam; and, to comfort you with chance,
• Assure yourself, after our ship did split,
• 10 When you, and that poor number saved with you,
• Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,
• Most provident in peril, bind himself
• (Courage and hope both teaching him the practice)
• To a strong mast, that lived upon the sea,
• Where, like Arion on the dolphin’s back,
• I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves,
• So long as I could see.
• Vio. For saying so, there’s gold:
• Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope,
• 20Whereto thy speech serves for authority,
• The like of him.” Act i. scene 2.

After the first impassioned exclamation, “And what should I do in Illyria?” we see that Viola recoils from the idea of her loss, and three times in these few lines reiterates the hope of her brother’s safety. It is not simply



the habitual generosity of the highborn lady that prompts her answer, “For saying so, there’s gold,” but the tenderness of the sister wishes “to pay this debt of love” “to a brother,” as if by that very action she rendered more secure in reality, as she does to her own imagination, the fact of his existence.

The words of Viola seem like an echo rising up from the far-off shore to Orsino’s enthusiastic eulogy on sisterly love, which we have just heard. We see that she possessed that “fine frame of heart” which (by the rule that he propounds, and which is strictly true) does, in its deep sisterly affection, imply capacity for love itself. Nor are we long in learning who is the object of that love.

Her anxiety for her brother now mitigated by hope, she turns her attention to her own safety, and, with a view to securing that, continues her dialogue with the captain. He having replied to her question, “Know’st thou this country?” in the affirmative, she asks:

• “ Vio. Who governs here?
• Cap. A noble duke, in nature
• As in name.
• Vio. What is his name?
• Cap. Orsino.
• Vio. Orsino! I have heard my father name him.
• He was a bachelor then.”

Viola has heard of Orsino, perhaps has seen him; at all events loves him. The quick “he was a bachelor then,” betrays the uppermost thought. Spenser, in his “Fairy Queen,” tells how Britomartis wandered into her father’s study, and looking in a magic mirror, beheld the image of a knight with whom she fell in love, and whom she spent years in seeking. Just such a mirror to Viola has been her father’s conversation. Thus, in her case, has been awakened that first idea of love of which we have spoken, and the image already dwells in her soul, to which each thought is a homage.

The varying emotions with which she listens to the Captain’s replies to her subsequent interrogations are not difficult to imagine. After her observation, “he was a bachelor then,” the dialogue continues thus:

• “ Cap. And so is now,
• Or was so very late: for but a month
• Ago I went from hence; and then ’twas fresh
• In murmur (as you know, what great ones do
• The less will prattle of,) that he did seek
• The love of fair Olivia.
• Vio. What’s she?
• Cap. A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count
• That died some twelvemonth since; then leaving her
• 10In the protection of his son, her brother,
• Who shortly also died: for whose dear love
• They say she hath abjured the company
• And sight of men.
• Vio. O that I served that lady;
• And might not be deliver’d to the world,
• Till I had made mine own occasion mellow,
• What my estate is.
• Cap. That were hard to compass,
• Because she will admit no kind of suit,
• 20No, not the duke’s.”

Very natural is the hurried, anxious “What’s she?” Then we see, that, as the Captain proceeds, her heart warms to Olivia, in whose sisterly love and sorrow she finds a point of sympathy, and the sense of safety in a house exempt from “the company and sight of men” makes her wish to seek the protection of the Countess; but this wish is as instantaneously as silently renounced on hearing that Olivia “will admit no kind of suit.” Viola is too high born to sue, and too delicate to intrude on privacy, and above all on a mourner’s grief.

Baffled then in her desire to enter this safe and decorous asylum, she adopts a resolution which shows equal spirit, delicacy, and judgment; and, having formed her plan, there is both wisdom and nobleness in the manner in which, by confiding in the Captain, and appealing to his best feelings, she endeavours to secure his aid, as the first condition of its successful execution. She says:

• “ Vio. There is a fair behaviour in thee, Captain;
• And though that nature with a beauteous wall
• Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee
• I will believe thou hast a mind that suits
• With this thy fair and outward character.
• I pray thee, and I’ll pay thee bounteously,
• Conceal me what I am; and be my aid
• For such disguise, as, haply, shall become
• The form of my intent. I’ll serve this Duke:
• 10Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him,
• It may be worth thy pains; for I can sing,
• And speak to him in many sorts of music,
• That will allow me very worth his service:
• What else may hap to time I will commit,
• Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.”
  
  Act i. scene 2.

If, as she fondly believes, her brother is saved, Viola knows he is sure to betake himself to Orsino’s court, Orsino being well acquainted with her family. She has, therefore, this motive to proceed thither; but there is, besides, another attraction which draws her. Never indeed would Viola’s foot have sought that city had Orsino’s love for “the fair Olivia” been reciprocated; or, at all events, her object in undertaking the pilgrimage would have been quite other than that which now leads her on, and which she obscurely hints at in the lines,

• “I can sing,
• And speak to him in many sorts of music,
• That will allow me very worth his service:
• What else may hap to time I will commit.”

When to the information that Olivia “will admit no kind of suit,” the Captain adds, “No, not the Duke’s,” those four little words light the soft fire of hope, fix Viola’s resolves, and decide her destiny. Trusting thenceforth to her own resources, she turns with aching yet not despairing heart from the sea whose green billows she will not believe enfold her brother, to seek the city of Orsino—who loves Olivia.

The impression that Viola produced at the court, where we next see her in male attire, and under the name of Cesario, appears from the following dialogue:

• “ Valentine. If the Duke continue these favours towards you, Cesario, you are like to be much advanced; he hath known you but three days, and already you are no stranger.
• Viola. You either fear his humour or my negligence, that you call in question the continuance of his love. Is he inconstant, sir, in his favours?
• Val. No, believe me.
• Viola. I thank you. Here comes the Count.”— Act i. scene 4.

Apparently she was at once established as the friend rather than the attendant of Orsino. She never sings to him in the play, but that, in another sense, she “speaks to him in many sorts of music,” is evident from the delight he takes in her society; and the question, “Is he inconstant, sir, in his favours,” as well as the gentle “I thank you,” which follows Valentine’s answer in the negative, mark how precious to her was this confidence, which was not only the proof of his appreciation, but which gave her the opportunity of being in his society, of watching his emotions, of thoroughly understanding his character, and of ministering to his mind such solace as she could give.

The short dialogue between Valentine and Viola is evidence also of the facility and tact with which she at once performed duties that must indeed have been strange to one always, hitherto, accustomed to command services, instead of rendering them. The power of adapting itself to circumstances is a mark of a fine mind; it results from clearness of intellect and delicacy of moral perception. This characteristic propriety (to use the word in its highest sense, of beauty and fitness combined) is conspicuous in Viola throughout, and is felt even in her language. Cymbeline, on hearing his daughter speak, exclaims, “the tune of Imogen!” Now, applying to the expression of the speaker that phrase which Cymbeline applied to the voice, we may say that we are distinctly conscious in reading this play of “the tune” of Viola. It differs from that of



every one in the piece, and from that of any of Shakespeare’s other heroines. To contrast it with those who, like herself, assumed the disguise of manly dress, she has not the overpowering volubility and brilliant wit of Rosalind, nor the mournful but tender gravity and moral sententiousness of Imogen, nor the lawyer-like cool wariness and subtle certainty of her prey of Portia, but Viola’s speeches are always distinguished by a rhythm of their own, a simplicity and silvery sweetness, and a temperance—so to speak—indicative of self-control over a heart whose emotions, all most gentle and most pure, we perceive as much by what she suppresses as by what she says, making us feel how much more touching, and even terrible to the spectator is a passion controlled than one which is vehemently manifested. To resume.

Whilst Valentine and Viola are speaking, the Duke enters, and making his suite retire, he thus addresses her:

• “ Duke. Cesario,
• Thou know’st no less but all: I have unclasp’d
• To thee the book even of my secret soul:”

and thereupon he proceeds to require of her the performance of a task that she certainly had not imagined to herself, when, standing on the shore, she uttered the resolve, “I’ll serve this Duke;” for he adds:

• “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.”

More able to appreciate Olivia’s state of feeling than himself, Viola urges:

• “Sure, my noble lord,
• If she be so abandon’d to her sorrow
• As it is spoke, she never will admit me.”

Still, with the same want of sympathy we have before commented on, he regards not Olivia’s grief, but, in his violent and selfish self-will, persists in his plan: and in order to carry it out, imposes on his “gentleman Cesario” a proceeding beneath his own ducal dignity—how inexpressibly disagreeable then to the real Viola!

• “ Duke. Be clamorous, and leap all civil bounds,
• Rather than make unprofited return.”

Anxious, however, to give him any relief she can, it is evident she mentally vows she will gain admittance, and then answers:

• “ Vio. Say I do speak with her, my lord, what then?”

Perhaps she scarcely anticipated the extent of his commission, which is as follows:

• “ Duke. 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 of more grave aspect.
• Vio. I think not so, my lord.”

From which answer, she would have him infer, that himself would be the fitter “nuncio;” but he continues:

• “ Duke. 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,
• 10When least in company:—Prosper well in this,
• And thou shalt live as freely as thy lord,
• To call his fortunes thine.
• Vio. I’ll do my best
• To woo your lady: yet [ aside] a barful strife!
• Whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife.”
  
  Act i. scene 5.

The firmness which could enable her to repress all sign of the torture occasioned by his allusion, under the circumstances, to her feminine beauty and sweetness, is truly wonderful; whilst the reward he holds out to her in the words “Prosper well,” &c, might, in any inferior mind, have raised a bitter contrast, between the recompense he offered, and the relation to him she coveted; but, rising above all this, she adopts, as we have seen, the only course worthy of her.

Her position was now so painful one would at first be tempted to believe nothing could be worse: but we must observe, in passing, that from one misery, at least, Viola was exempt. She was in no uncertainty as to Orsino’s feelings; on that head she could entertain no doubt. Doubt!—perhaps the only evil under which a great mind may sink without incurring blame, or losing our admiration. Doubt!—which brings to the verge of madness natures different as that of the energetic Othello and the contemplative Hamlet: and no wonder: for, in the phantom region of Doubt, the Mind and Will know not what arms to bring forth, not knowing what enemy there is, nor even if there be one—but, fevered and exhausted, nature sinks, as does a warrior under the poisoned arrows of an invisible foe.

Viola’s path was clear, and she resolved at once to tread it:

• “I’ll do my best
• To woo your lady.”

With what tact and zeal, with what unswerving fidelity the resolution was kept, any one studying the subsequent scenes will judge for himself. And it could not be otherwise: for, now, in the silence to which her own passion was doomed, the unutterable love could find no manifestation except in the ardent and assiduous effort to promote the happiness and dearest wishes of the beloved. The struggle was deadly, and death must have followed the victory: but the death of victory is not the worst alternative which fate may proffer to our choice. We must confess that Viola might have been more unhappy than she was. She might have been unable to render service to Orsino.

In showing us this heroine subject to so severe an ordeal, Shakespeare has not been without a motive. He has wished to prove to us that a perfect love must be born, if at all, out of a perfect friendship, and this law of the mind is one of those which the drama we are considering was intended to trace; and this it does trace, in characters of light which none should overlook.

Whilst Viola, accompanied by a suite, wends her way to the scene of her fiery trial, let us cast a glance into the interior of Olivia’s house. There we hear Sir Toby’s complaint:

“What a plague means my niece to take the death of her brother thus? I am sure care’s an enemy to life.”— Act i. scene 3.

Her brother has been dead a year, during which time she has closely shut herself up. Her accustomed amusements have become distasteful to her: for instance, the Jester has had no acceptance with her of late; so he has been hanging about Orsino’s court, singing to him, and turning an honest penny that way. In reply to Viola’s question,

• “Art not thou the lady Olivia’s fool?”

he answers:

“No, indeed, Sir; the lady Olivia has no folly: she will keep no fool till she be married.”— Act iii. scene 1.

This absence has, however displeased Olivia, as we learn from the waiting woman, Maria, who says to the clown,

“Nay, either tell me where thou hast been, or I will not open my lips so wide as a bristle may enter in, in way of thy excuse: my lady will hang thee for thy absence.

---

here comes my lady: make your excuse wisely, you were best.”— Act i. scene 5.

On entering, Olivia’s first words are,

• “Take the fool away.
• Clo.Do you not hear, fellow? Take away the lady.
• Oli. Go to, you’re a dry fool. I’ll none of you: besides
• You grow dishonest.”

After some further parley, he says:

• “Good Madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.
• Oli. Can you do it?
• Clo. Dexterously, good Madonna.
• Oli. Make your proof.
• Clo.I must catechise you for it, Madonna:
• Good my mouse of virtue, answer me.”

A pretty expression, by the way, as



if to say the virtue of grief made her hide herself like a mouse from the world.

• “ Oli. Well, sir, for want of other idleness I’ll bide your proof.
• Clo. Good Madonna, why mourn’st thou?
• Oli. Good fool, for my brother’s death.
• Clo. I think his soul is in hell, Madonna.
• Oli. I know his soul is in heaven, fool.
• Clo. The more fool you, Madonna, to mourn for your brother’s soul being in heaven.—Take away the fool, gentlemen.”

That he has obtained his pardon by this delicate flattery, is clear, from her delighted remark to Malvolio:

“ Oli. What think you of this fool, Malvolio? doth he not mend?”

Malvolio’s cynical answer draws from Olivia an observation which lays open a very leading trait in her own character:

“ Oli. O you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite. To be generous, guiltless, and of free disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon-bullets: There is no slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail; nor no railing in a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove.”

Now from this we conceive, in part, why Orsino’s suit had been so distasteful to Olivia. She has no self-love, consequently, no love of admiration, and many passages show her dislike of praise. Nor has she the poetical temperament; consequently, the character she was most likely to value was one which could win her esteem by its well-regulated balance: the “known discreet man” who would “reprove” her, would be more likely to gain her love than the man who should idolize her. Nor would she, having so little self-esteem, deem it any proof of a man’s “discreet” judgment that he admired her excessively: she would be more apt to respect his judgment who thought slightingly of her, nay, scorned her: and her affection would flow to him whom she admired, not to one who admired her. Emerson has a passage descriptive of this sort of nature. He says, “The continual effort to raise himself, to work a pitch above his last height, betrays itself in a man’s relations. We thirst for approbation, yet cannot forgive the approver. The sweet of nature is love; yet if I have a friend, I am tormented by my imperfections. The love of me accuses the other party; if he were high enough to slight me then I could love him, and rise by my affection to new heights.”— Essays, p. 309. It is the inference the mind draws of great merit in the one who is proud and cold that excites the vehement desire to win the love of such, rather than wounded vanity or any natural inherent contradiction or love of conquest. These last are very inferior qualities, prevalent enough in persons of low morals, but with which high natures have nothing to do. “Meg grew sick as he grew heal,” is a feeling which we leave to Meg and Duncan to settle between themselves; it is altogether different from that of which we are speaking, which is the desire to rise up to a level and communion with a nature that seems supreme, and seems so even by its very disdain. With these prefatory remarks, for the proof of the correctness of which we must beg the reader to be on the watch in the ensuing scenes, we now return to the action of the play.

At the precise moment when the clown’s “catechising” had startled the mind of Olivia into a sudden brightness and reconciliation, by bringing before her that one only thought which reconciles us to the death of our friends, and which does so the more quickly and completely the deeper is our love; at that moment Maria enters and says:

“Madam, there is at the gate a young gentleman much desires to speak with you.”

With the instinctive apprehension of a lady undergoing the peculiar sort of persecution to which Olivia is subject, she answers,

• “From tho Count Orsino, is it?
• Maria. I know not, madam; ’t is a fair young man and well attended.

Olivia despatches Malvolio in these words:

“Go you, Malvolio; if it be a suit from the Count, I am sick, or not at home; what you will to dismiss it.”

After a time Malvolio returns, and in his account we see that, while Viola most carefully conceals whence she comes, as the first condition of effecting an entrance, she is acting up to the letter of the instructions, which we have heard Orsino deliver:

“ Mal. Madam, yond young fellow swears he will speak with you. I told him you were sick; he takes on him to understand so much, and therefore comes to speak with you: I told him you were asleep; he seems to have a foreknowledge of that too, and therefore comes to speak with you. What is to be said to him, lady? He’s fortified against any denial.

Oli. Tell him, he shall not speak with me.

Mal. He has been told so: and he says, he’ll stand at your door like a sheriff’s post, and be the supporter of a bench but he’ll speak with you.

Oli. What kind of man is he?

Mal. Why of mankind.

Oli. What manner of man?

Mal. Of very ill manner; he’ll speak with you, will you or no.

Oli. Of what personage and years is he?

Mal. Not yet old enough for a man nor young enough for a boy; as a squash is before ’t is a peascod, or a codling when ’t is almost an apple: ’t is with him e’en standing water, between boy and man. He is very well favored and he speaks very shrewishly; one would think his mother’s milk were scarce out of him.”

This description of his youth (Orsino for once guessed aright) added to the fact of his spirited pertinacity, decides Olivia: she says:

“ Oli. Let him approach: Call in my gentlewoman—Give me my veil. . . . .We’ll once more hear Orsino’s embassy.”

When we realize the fact that Viola had had to encounter the pert Maria, the swaggering half intoxicated Sir Toby, and the formal, morose steward, her generous perseverance appears in clearness to our mind, and the embarrassment of her position on being ushered into the apartment is no less evident, if we consider that there she finds two persons, strangers to her, one of them veiled, and the speech she has to repeat, the speech in which Orsino “unfolds the passion of his love,” commences—“Most exquisite, radiant, and unmatchable beauty .”—The ridiculousness of rehearsing this to a veiled unknown, stops Viola, and from that moment she drops Orsino and takes the matter in her own hands. She is not put out of countenance, but with modest ease appeals to them as ladies: “Good beauties, let me sustain no scorn; I am very comptible even to the least sinister usage.” With admirable tact she so conducts the dialogue that from being the butt of ridicule she soon begins to have the sway. Her first object is to ascertain if she is addressing Olivia herself. Having stated that she has a speech to recite, Olivia asks, “Are you a comedian?” And we, the audience, can well understand her answer, and sympathize in all it implies:

“ Vio. No, my profound heart; and yet by the very fangs of malice I am not that I play. Are you the lady of the house?

Oli. If I do not usurp myself I am.

Vio. Most certain if you are she you do usurp yourself; for what is yours to bestow is not yours to reserve. But this is from my commission: I will on with my speech in your praise, and then show you the heart of my message.

Oli. Come to what is important in’t; I forgive you the praise.”

The tone of reproof Viola assumes above, and the sincerity and dignity of her perseverance win upon Olivia, and at Viola’s request to be heard in private, Maria is ordered to withdraw. But this is only one obstacle removed. Before Viola can “do her best to woo” Orsino’s “lady” she must see her: she therefore endeavours next to get rid of the veil.

“ Vio. Good Madam, let me see your face.

Oli. 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 as I was this presents: Is’t not well done? [ Unveiling.]

• Vio. Excellently done, if God did all.

Oli. ’Tis in grain, sir, ’twill endure wind and weather.

• Vio. ’Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
• Nature’s own sweet and cunning hand laid on:
• Lady, you are the cruel’st she alive,
• If you will lead these graces to the grave
• And leave the world no copy.”

What can be more admirable than the generous recognition herein contained of Olivia’s beauty! What more noble than Viola’s friendship for Orsino! She even seems here, in the completeness of her sympathy to change existences with him; she looks with his eyes, thinks with his mind, and speaks with his tongue.

Olivia answers with her characteristic coldness to the voice of praise.

“ Oli. 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?

• Vio. 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!”

This rebuke is not just, for Olivia is not proud; she is simply indifferent to Orsino, and indifferent to, though aware of, her personal attractions; but the tone Viola takes secures from thenceforth Olivia’s serious and respectful attention. She asks: “How does he love me?”

• “ Vio. With adorations, with fertile tears,
• With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.”

This picture of abject love is repulsive to Olivia; she answers steadily and gravely, and without the least touch of triumph,—we will not say without the least touch of contempt,—but rather with a total indifference both to Orsino’s admiration and his sufferings:

• “ Oli. 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.”

A speech which shows with perfect truth to nature that respect and admiration may exist without there ensuing any personal feeling; which fact Viola in her answer entirely overlooks. She thinks that, with this opinion of Orsino, Olivia cannot fail at last to love him.

• “ Vio. 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.
• Oli. Why what would you?
• Vio. Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
• And call upon my soul within the house;
• Write loyal cantos of contemned love,
• And sing them loud even in the dead of night;
• 10Holla 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.
• Oli. You might do much: What is your parentage?
• Vio. Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:
• I am a gentleman.”

We see from the above how the mode of wooing that Viola describes, differing essentially in its energetic self-will and masterdom from Orsino’s plaintive suffering and idolatry, pleases Olivia. She replies in continuation,

• “ Oli. 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.”

Another indignity for Viola to undergo in addition to those which she



has already experienced in the execution of this commission; but she quietly puts it aside, and only makes it the opportunity for urging Orsino’s suit.

• “ Vio. I am no fee’d post, lady; keep your purse:
• My master, not myself, needs recompense.”

And then adds,

• Love make his heart of flint that you shall love;
• And let your fervour, like my master’s, be
• Placed in contempt. Farewell, fair cruelty.” [ Exit.]

These are the only harsh words we ever hear Viola utter; and if there be anything that not only can move the patience of a saint but ought to do so, it is to see a person whom she loves made to suffer by one whom she less esteems.

After Viola’s departure Olivia thus soliloquizes:

• “ Oli. 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,
• 10To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.”

Here then is Olivia’s first impression of love; made by “perfections,” which she enumerates in one long line, and whose effect, she in the three last describes perfectly. In addition and subordination to the reasons which, according to what we have said, it is clear such a nature as Olivia’s would find for loving such a nature as Viola’s, we may add the extreme beauty of Viola (called somewhere in the play “an estimable wonder,”) and which no doubt shone forth with unwonted lustre in this interview. It had “a mind put in’t;” the intellectual and moral faculties were taxed to the uttermost. The magnanimity of her purpose and the self-possession she exercised would give to her deportment dignity and repose; the generous passions that the dialogue called up would endue with brilliancy and fervour her countenance, gestures and language; whilst the whole air must have been rendered yet more touching by that sentiment of which she could never have been wholly unconscious, but to which she only reverts once, viz. in that speech in which the words “my profound heart” the “fangs of malice” (mal-aise) “I am not that I play;” completely suggest the “pang of heart” she was so firmly quelling. All this soul, no doubt, lent to her beauty a chaste but rich expression, which Olivia felt infinitely attractive. And so having heard the welcome words, “I am a gentleman,” she gives herself up to “the enchantment,” as she herself names it, done by Viola. Olivia was one of those ladies too, we must add, who are not ambitious of elevating themselves in rank through marriage. Sir Toby informs Sir Andrew Aguecheek, “she’ll none o’ the count; she’ll not match above her degree, neither in estate, years, nor wit: I have heard her swear it.” Now the Duke was not far above Olivia in any one of these respects, but he was in a measure, and Olivia’s choice like that of Imogen, Portia, Rosalind, and others of Shakespeare’s heroines, fell upon “a poor but worthy gentleman,” (as she thought him) rather than on one “above her degree.”

Viola returning “on a moderate pace,” (her recent interview having given her plenty to think of, and besides being in no haste to communicate to the Duke the “unprofited return” she had made,) is overtaken by Malvolio, who brings a ring from Olivia, which she says, “the county’s man had left behind him, would” she “or no:” with this message,

• “Desire him not to flatter with his lord,
• Nor hold him up with hopes! I am not for him:
• If that the youth will come again tomorrow,
• I’ll give him reasons for’t.”

On Malvolio’s exit the slight contempt expressed in the words, “I left



no ring with her: What means this lady?” is soon replaced by self-reproach, and, notwithstanding the wish with which she has just quitted Olivia, by pity.

• “ Vio. Fortune forbid my outside have not charm’d her!
• She made good view of me; indeed so much,
• That, sure, methought her eyes had lost her tongue,
• For she did speak in starts distractedly.
• She loves me sure; the cunning of her passion
• Invites me in this churlish messenger.
• None of my lord’s ring! why he sent her none.
• I am the man; If it be so (as ’tis),
• Poor lady, she were better love a dream.
• 10Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness,
• Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.”

In the words

• “How easy is it for the proper false
• In women’s waxen hearts to set their forms!”

she resents Olivia’s late expressions of “heresy” and “feigned” as applied to Orsino’s sentiment and poetry, and remarks how easy it is for the “proper false,” that is the really false, to gain affection; but follows with an humble observation taught by her own feeling, unconquered though hopeless, and which because hopeless, she might think unreasonable, and because unreasonable, meriting to be called frailty: she says:

• “Alas! our frailty is the cause, not we;
• For, such as we are made of, such we be.”

She then continues:

• “How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly;
• And I, poor monster, fond as much on him;
• And she mistaken seems to dote on me:
• What will become of this! As I am man,
• My state is desperate for my master’s love;
• As I am woman, now, alas the day!
• What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe?”

The epithet monster refers to her disguise. In the following lines of her speech she appeals to the Power she has once before invoked; the friend of the unhappy; the hope of the heroic:

• “O time, thou must untangle this, not I;
• It is too hard a knot for me to untie.”
  
  Act ii. scene 2.

Viola with her usual fine clearness of moral perception and delicacy of feeling now perceives that, added to all other motives, justice to Olivia demands that her sex should become known; and, firmly persuaded in her own mind that Olivia never will change towards the Duke, she strives in the ensuing scene to impress him with the same conviction, to induce him to look elsewhere for reciprocation, and to make the idea of her disguise flash upon his mind. In this exquisite dialogue it is impossible not to feel how harmoniously these two natures act and react upon each other: the responses are like a piece of music played by two flutes perfectly in accord. The Duke, having commanded “the old and antique song” he “heard last night,” inquires “How dost thou like this tune?”

• “ Vio. It gives a very echo to the seat
• Where Love is throned.
• Duke. Thou dost speak masterly:
• My life upon’t, young though thou art, thine eye
• Hath stay’d upon some favour that it loves;
• Hath it not, boy?
• Vio. A little by your favour.
• Duke. What kind of woman is’t?
• Vio. Of your complexion.
• 10 Duke. She is not worth thee then. What years, i’ faith?
• Vio. About your years, my lord.
• Duke. Too old, by heaven; Let still the woman take
• An elder than herself; so wears she to him,
• So sways she level in her husband’s heart.
• For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
• Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
• More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,
• Than women’s are.
• Vio. I think it well, my lord.”

an answer which perhaps implies not only a glance at her own constancy, but a belief in the chance that the Duke himself may some day give up his present fancy.

• “ Duke. Then let thy love be younger than thyself,
• Or thy affection cannot hold the bent:
• For women are as roses; whose fair flower,



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• Being once display’d, doth fall that very hour.
• Vio. And so they are: alas, that they are so;
• To die, even when they to perfection grow.”

These words of Viola’s relate to her own anticipated doom; though they serve at the same time as a reply to the Duke’s remark on the fleeting attraction of beauty. Orsino then begins to comment, with his usual fine taste, on the song which is about to be sung, and which he and Viola both like so much— her reason we can well discern. He speaks to the Clown:

• “ Duke. O, fellow, come, the song we had last night.
• Mark it, Cesario: it is old, and plain:
• The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,
• And the free maids that weave their threads with bones
• Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth, ^*
• And dallies with the innocence of love
• Like the old age.

• Song
• Clo. Come away, come away, death,
• And in sad cypress let me be laid;
• 10Fly away, fly away, breath;
• I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
• My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
• O, prepare it;
• My part of death no one so true
• Did share it.

• Not a flower, not a flower, sweet,
• On my black coffin let there be strown;
• Not a friend, not a friend greet
• My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown;
• 20A thousand, thousand sighs to save,
• Lay me, O, where
• Sad true lover never find my grave,
• To weep there.”

Viola feels every word of this in her heart’s core. Neither friend nor lover was there to weep on her “black coffin” in that inhospitable land where she found herself a lonely stranger. The Duke’s feeling is merely sentimental: his reason for liking the song he has stated to be,

• “Methought, it did relieve my passion much,
• More than light airs and recollected terms
• Of these most brisk and giddy paced times.”

Accordingly, no sooner is it concluded than, far from uttering any feelings in harmony with the dismal anticipations of the song, he thus addresses Viola:

• “Once more, Cesario,
• Get thee to yon some 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.
• Vio. But, if she cannot love you, sir?”

(Olivia’s own words, and which Viola firmly believes.)

• “ Duke. I cannot be so answer’d.
• Vio. ’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 answered?
• Duke. 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
• 10So 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.”

Without disputing the Duke’s first position, which probably is true in nature, Viola proceeds to answer his last: and, not denying that the passion of a man may be more violent than that which a woman can feel, she insists that a woman’s may be as true.

• “ Vio. Ay, but I know,—
• Duke. What dost thou know?
• Vio. Too well what love women to men may owe:
• In faith they are as true of heart as we.
• My father had a daughter lov’d a man,
• As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
• I should your lordship.
• Duke. And what’s her history?
• Vio. A blank, my lord: She never told her love,
• 10 But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,
• Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought;



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• 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.”

In that one word “a blank,” what worlds of pain are held Viola too well knew—and many others too well know. In the two concluding lines how well, and yet how gently, she describes Orsino’s present passion—so great in show, so little containing of real love. He answers,

• “But died thy sister of her love, my boy?
• Vio. I am all the daughters of my father’s house,
• And all the brothers too;—and yet I know not.”

The first line of this reply should have struck him who had already said that all in her was “semblative a woman’s part;” but it does not—and then she adds the mysterious, hesitating second line—and then, seeing that Orsino is still obtuse, she asks, “Sir, shall I to this lady?” The Duke, as if he reproached himself for a moment or two of sympathy spared to another than himself, replies,

• “ Ay, that’s the theme:
• To her in haste; give her this jewel; say
• My love can give no place, bide no denay.”

Viola , according to Orsino’s desire, having repaired to Olivia’s house, encounters the Clown and salutes him, saying, “Save thee, friend, and thy music.” A very natural expression, for she has the pleasant recollection of having lately heard him sing the “old and antique song” to the Duke and herself. After some other talk, from which we see that the Clown, who has a very sharp pair of eyes, and looks through every one in the play, and prys into all their affairs, surmises her disguise, Viola, contrasting silently his feelings with her own, says, “I warrant, thou art a merry fellow, and carest for nothing.”

“ Clo. 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. ^*

Vio. I saw thee late at the Count Orsino’s.

Clo. Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb, like the sun; it shines everywhere. I should be sorry, sir, but the fool should be as oft with your master, as with my mistress: I think I saw your wisdom there.

Vio. Nay, an thou pass upon me, I’ll no more with thee. Hold, there’s expenses for thee.”

But she cannot buy off the two curious eyes that are searching her secret. He answers, laying a trap, into which she falls,

“ Clo. Now Jove in his next commodity of hair send thee a beard.

Vio. By my troth, I’ll tell thee I am almost sick for one: though I would not have it grow on my chin.”

(Of course not: remembering how Orsino has said, “Diana’s lip is not more smooth and rubious.”)

She then desires the Clown to ask for Olivia: he knows quite well the purpose of her visit, guesses in silence at her disguise and at her love, and goes away expressing his completely puzzled state. “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 overworn.”

Viola finds no difficulty now in obtaining an entrance into Olivia’s house. She is courteously received by every one. Sir Toby, for instance, says,



“Will you encounter the house? my niece is desirous you should enter, if your trade be to her:” but before she can enter, Olivia already comes to meet her. Viola’s difficulties, therefore, have ceased to be, as in the first instance, external difficulties: the “barful strife” is in the nature of the task itself. To the accomplishment of this, however, she now directs all her wonted unflinching faithfulness, her consummate delicacy, and her nicety of judgment. As soon as the garden door is by Olivia’s order shut, she says to the supposed Cesario,

• “Give me your hand, sir.
• Vio. My duty, madam, and most humble service.
• Oli. What is your name?
• Vio. Cesario is your servant’s name, fair princess.”

The calm respect and seriousness with which Viola withdraws from Olivia’s advances is extremely beautiful. A nature less noble might have enjoyed the triumph of deluding and humiliating a favoured rival, but no such thought dims the clear soul of Viola: she is tender of the dignity of “Orsino’s lady,” and is grieved at the disguise she must yet awhile assume, since only as long as she does assume it can she act as Orsino’s “nuncio.” We shall see in the ensuing scenes with what singleness of purpose she watches every mood of Olivia and every opening in the conversation to work her round to a consent. The dialogue proceeds:

• “ Oli. My servant, sir! ’Twas never merry world
• Since lowly feigning was called compliment:
• You are servant to the Count Orsino, youth.
• Vio. And he is yours, and his must needs be yours;
• Your servant’s servant is your servant, madam.
• Oli. For him, I think not on him; for his thoughts, would they were blanks, rather than filled with me!
• Vio. Madam, I come to whet your gentle thoughts
• On his behalf:—
• Oli. O, by your leave, I pray you;
• 10I bade you never speak again of him:
• But would you undertake another suit,
• I had rather hear you to solicit that,
• Than music from the spheres.”

Olivia then refers to the sending of the ring and the construction to be put