Twelfth Night, or What You Will

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1. ACT I.

   Duke Orsino pines for the mourning countess Olivia, who refuses all suitors. The shipwrecked Viola, believing her twin drowned, disguises herself as the page 'Cesario' and enters Orsino's service; sent to woo Olivia for him, Cesario unwittingly makes Olivia fall in love instead. Meanwhile Olivia's uncle Sir Toby and his gull Sir Andrew carouse in her house.

   1. Scene 1 — An Apartment in the DUKE'S Palace.

      Orsino, lovesick for Olivia, calls for music: 'If music be the food of love, play on.' Valentine reports that Olivia will admit no suit, having vowed to mourn her dead brother in seclusion for seven years.

   2. Scene 2 — The sea-coast.

      Viola, washed ashore in Illyria and fearing her twin Sebastian drowned, learns from the friendly Captain about Duke Orsino and the mourning Olivia. She resolves to disguise herself as a young man and serve the Duke until she sees 'what my estate is.'

   3. Scene 3 — A Room in OLIVIA'S House.

      In Olivia's house, Maria scolds Sir Toby Belch for his late nights and for bringing the foolish knight Sir Andrew Aguecheek as a suitor for Olivia. Toby flatters and fleeces Andrew, who shows off his feeble dancing and is persuaded to stay another month.

   4. Scene 4 — A Room in the DUKE'S Palace.

      Within three days 'Cesario' has become Orsino's favourite. The Duke sends the disguised Viola to press his love-suit on Olivia, sure that a youth so fair will be heard. Viola obeys, but reveals her own secret in an aside: 'Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife.'

   5. Scene 5 — A Room in OLIVIA'S House.

      Feste jests his way back into Olivia's favour, proving her a fool for mourning; Malvolio sourly disdains him. Cesario arrives and delivers Orsino's suit so wittily that Olivia, unveiling, falls for the messenger. She sends Malvolio after Cesario with a ring as a pretext to bring him back.

2. ACT II.

   Sebastian, alive and mourning his 'drowned' sister, comes toward Orsino's court with the devoted sea-captain Antonio. Viola realizes Olivia loves her disguise. In a night of revelry Malvolio's rebuke earns him the household's revenge, and Maria's forged letter gulls him into believing Olivia loves him.

   1. Scene 1 — The sea-coast.

      On the coast, Sebastian (saved from the same wreck) grieves for the sister he thinks drowned and resolves to try Orsino's court. The sea-captain Antonio, who loves him, decides to follow despite having dangerous enemies there.

   2. Scene 2 — A street.

      Malvolio overtakes Cesario to return the ring Olivia pretends Cesario left. Viola grasps the truth: Olivia loves her disguised self. Alone, she laments the tangle, in which Olivia loves a fiction, she loves Orsino, and Orsino loves Olivia: 'O time, thou must untangle this, not I.'

   3. Scene 3 — A Room in OLIVIA'S House.

      Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Feste drink and sing late into the night ('O mistress mine'); Malvolio storms in to rebuke them, prompting Toby's retort, 'Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?' Maria proposes to forge a letter in Olivia's hand to make the vain steward think his mistress loves him.

   4. Scene 4 — A Room in the DUKE'S Palace.

      Orsino and Cesario discuss love and constancy while Feste sings the melancholy 'Come away, come away, death.' Viola hints at her hidden love through a fiction: a sister who 'never told her love' but 'sat like patience on a monument, smiling at grief.'

   5. Scene 5 — OLIVIA'S garden.

      Hidden in the box-tree, Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Fabian watch Malvolio find Maria's forged letter. Puzzling out the riddle 'M.O.A.I.,' he convinces himself Olivia loves him and vows to do all it asks, to smile constantly and appear cross-gartered in yellow stockings.

3. ACT III.

   Olivia openly declares her love to Cesario, who can only refuse. The jealous Sir Andrew is goaded into challenging Cesario to a duel. Malvolio, grinning and cross-gartered, is taken for mad and confined. Antonio, mistaking the disguised Viola for Sebastian, is arrested and wounded by her failure to know him.

   1. Scene 1 — OLIVIA'S garden.

      Cesario trades wit with Feste, then carries Orsino's suit to Olivia, who can no longer hide her feelings and all but declares her love. Viola gently refuses ('I am not what I am') yet pity and constancy bind them in mutual frustration.

   2. Scene 2 — A Room in OLIVIA'S House.

      Sir Andrew, seeing Olivia favour Cesario, despairs of his suit, but Sir Toby and Fabian work him up to challenge the youth to a duel to prove his valour. Maria reports that Malvolio, smiling and cross-gartered, has swallowed the bait whole.

   3. Scene 3 — A street.

      Antonio, having followed Sebastian into the hostile town, gives him his purse for safety and arranges to meet at an inn, while keeping out of sight himself because he is an old enemy of Orsino's.

   4. Scene 4 — OLIVIA'S garden.

      Malvolio appears before a baffled Olivia, grinning and cross-gartered and quoting the letter; she thinks him mad and leaves him to Sir Toby's 'care' (confinement). The terrified Cesario and Sir Andrew are pushed into a duel; Antonio intervenes, taking Cesario for Sebastian, and is arrested. When the bewildered Viola does not know him, his cry of betrayal gives her hope that her brother lives.

4. ACT IV.

   Sebastian, mistaken for Cesario, is challenged, then swept up and married by the smitten Olivia, marvelling at his sudden fortune. Feste, disguised as a curate, torments the imprisoned Malvolio in the dark, 'proving' him mad before relenting enough to fetch him pen and paper.

   1. Scene 1 — The Street before OLIVIA'S House.

      Feste, then Sir Andrew and Sir Toby, accost Sebastian as 'Cesario'; Andrew strikes him and gets a beating in return. Olivia stops the brawl and leads the astonished Sebastian away. 'Or I am mad, or else this is a dream,' he says, willing to 'be thus' a while longer.

   2. Scene 2 — A Room in OLIVIA'S House.

      Maria and the others lock Malvolio in a dark room as a supposed lunatic. Feste, disguised as 'Sir Topas' the curate, mocks and gaslights him, insisting the dark house is full of light, before dropping the disguise enough to promise him paper and ink.

   3. Scene 3 — OLIVIA'S Garden.

      Sebastian, amazed at the wealthy lady who woos him and at Antonio's absence, decides his luck is real rather than madness and agrees to be betrothed at once; Olivia hurries him to a priest to be plighted in secret.

5. ACT V.

   All the confusions converge before Olivia's house: Antonio's accusation, Olivia's claim of a husband, Orsino's anger, and Sir Andrew's broken head. When Sebastian appears beside the disguised Viola, the twins are reunited; Olivia learns she has married Sebastian, Orsino claims the unmasked Viola, and the gulled Malvolio is freed but storms off vowing revenge as Feste closes with a song.

   1. Scene 1 — The Street before OLIVIA's House.

      Antonio is brought before Orsino as Olivia arrives and claims Cesario as her husband, which the priest confirms; Sir Andrew enters with a broken head, blaming Cesario. Then Sebastian appears, and the twins stand face to face: Viola reveals herself, Orsino turns his love to her, and Olivia finds her husband is Sebastian. Malvolio's gulling is exposed and he is released, but he leaves swearing 'I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you.' Feste ends alone with the song 'When that I was and a little tiny boy ... the rain it raineth every day.'

Characters

• Viola protagonist

  A young noblewoman shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria and separated from her twin brother Sebastian, whom she believes drowned. For safety she disguises herself as a young man, 'Cesario,' and enters the service of Duke Orsino. Sent to woo the countess Olivia on Orsino's behalf, she falls in love with Orsino herself, while Olivia falls for 'Cesario', tangling the three in a knot only her brother's return can untie.

• Orsino major

  Duke (or Count) of Illyria, who opens the play languishing in unrequited love for Olivia: 'If music be the food of love, play on.' Self-absorbed and in love with the idea of love, he sends his new page 'Cesario' to court Olivia for him, not seeing that Cesario is a woman who loves him. At the end he turns his affection to the revealed Viola.

• Olivia major

  A wealthy Illyrian countess in mourning for her dead brother, who has vowed to shun men's company for seven years. She rejects Orsino's suit but falls suddenly and hard for his messenger 'Cesario' (the disguised Viola). Mistaking Viola's twin Sebastian for Cesario, she marries him in haste, and finds her error is also her happiness.

• Sebastian supporting

  Viola's twin brother, saved from the same shipwreck by the sea-captain Antonio and believing his sister drowned. His arrival in Illyria, identical to the disguised Viola, sets off the comedy's final confusions: he is challenged by strangers, embraced by a countess he has never met, and married to her before brother and sister are reunited.

• Malvolio major

  Olivia's humorless, self-loving steward, called 'a kind of Puritan' for his sober disapproval of the household's revels. Maria forges a letter in Olivia's hand that tricks him into believing his mistress loves him; he appears cross-gartered in yellow stockings, smiling absurdly, and is shut up as a madman. His parting vow, 'I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you,' darkens the comedy's close.

• Sir Toby Belch major

  Olivia's hard-drinking, riotous uncle, who sponges on the foolish knight Sir Andrew by promising him Olivia's hand. The spirit of misrule in the household, he resents Malvolio's killjoy authority ('Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?') and masterminds the gulling of both Malvolio and Sir Andrew. He marries Maria for devising the letter-plot.

• Sir Andrew Aguecheek supporting

  A foolish, cowardly, thin-haired knight brought to Olivia's house by Sir Toby as a gull and a hopeless suitor for Olivia. Vain about his dancing and his (nonexistent) wit, he is goaded into challenging 'Cesario' to a duel and ends up beaten by Sebastian. 'I was adored once too,' he says, in a rare wistful line.

• Maria supporting

  Olivia's sharp and clever waiting-gentlewoman, the real engineer of the plot against Malvolio: she forges a love-letter in a hand 'very like my lady's' to make him think Olivia loves him. Allied with Sir Toby in the household's misrule, she is rewarded with marriage to him.

• Feste supporting

  Olivia's licensed fool (jester), who moves freely between her house and Orsino's court, paid by both for his songs and word-play. Sharper than the people he serves, he proves Olivia a fool for mourning, baits the imprisoned Malvolio in the guise of 'Sir Topas' the curate, and closes the play alone with the song 'When that I was and a little tiny boy ... the rain it raineth every day.'

• Fabian supporting

  A member of Olivia's household with his own grudge against Malvolio (who got him into trouble over a bear-baiting). He joins Sir Toby and Maria in spying on the gulled steward and later helps stage-manage the duel, and finally confesses the prank and reads the letter aloud at the unraveling.

• Antonio supporting

  A sea-captain who rescues Sebastian from the wreck and grows devoted to him, following him into hostile Illyria though Antonio has old enemies there. When he mistakes the disguised Viola for Sebastian and she fails to know him, his sense of betrayal gives the comedy a note of real pain. (A different man from the Antonio of Much Ado About Nothing.)

• Captain minor

  The sea-captain who brings the shipwrecked Viola safe ashore in Illyria, tells her about Orsino and Olivia, and helps her disguise herself as the page Cesario.

• Valentine minor

  A gentleman attending on Duke Orsino, who reports Olivia's refusal of the Duke's suit and notes how quickly the new page 'Cesario' has won Orsino's favour.

• Curio minor

  A gentleman attending on Duke Orsino at court, who tries to divert his melancholy master with talk of the hunt.

• First Officer minor

  An officer of Illyria who, with a second officer, arrests the sea-captain Antonio at Orsino's suit in the street, precipitating the painful scene in which the disguised Viola seems not to know her friend.

• Second Officer minor

  The second of the two officers who arrest Antonio and identify him as an old enemy of Orsino's.

• Priest minor

  The priest who secretly marries Olivia and Sebastian and later, before Orsino, confirms the 'contract of eternal bond of love' between Olivia and the man she took for Cesario.

• Servant minor

  A servant of Olivia's who summons the disguised Viola back to the house.

Cross-references

• Folger Shakespeare
• MIT plain text
• Wikipedia