<-- back to Scene Eight SCENE 9 The street. Viola's mission reasserted. Light change to suggest midmorning. The musicians have crashed out. Their corner of the stage resembles a beach house or a con hotel room: limbs and pillows and blankets everywhere.
Enter Duke Orsino, Viola, Curio, and others, walking up to the music circle and greeting the musicians. The town has but one jukebox.
DUKE ORSINO Give me some music. Now, good morrow, friends. Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song, That old and antique song we heard last night: methought it did relieve my passion much, More than light airs and recollected terms Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times: Come, but one verse.
Viola tries her best with one of the instruments from the circle (and possibly some of the verse), before Curio bails her out.
CURIO He is not here, so please your lordship that should sing it.
ORSINO Who was it?
CURIO Feste, the jester, my lord; a fool that the lady Olivia's father took much delight in.One of the musicians looks up and gestures OSR. Hm? What? The clown? Oh, he went thataway.
He is about the house.
DUKE ORSINO Seek him out, and play the tune the while.Exit Curio, OSR. Musicians play: an instrumental, tragic piece.
Come hither, boy: if ever thou shalt love, in the sweet pangs of it remember me; for such as I am all true lovers are, unstaid and skittish in all motions else, save in the constant image of the creature that is beloved. How dost thou like this tune?
VIOLA It gives a very echo to the seat where Love is throned.
DUKE ORSINO 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?Gentle, here. Her heart is being peeled like a piece of fruit.
VIOLA A little, by your favour.
DUKE ORSINO What kind of woman is't?
VIOLA Of your complexion.
DUKE ORSINO She is not worth thee, then. What years, i' faith?
VIOLA About your years, my lord.
DUKE ORSINO 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.No argument here.
VIOLA I think it well, my lord.
DUKE ORSINO Then let thy love be younger than thyself, or thy affection cannot hold the bent; for women are as roses, whose fair flower being once display'd, doth fall that very hour.Winceful. So close, and yet so not.
VIOLA And so they are: alas, that they are so; to die, even when they to perfection grow!
[Re-enter Curio and Feste.]
DUKE ORSINO 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 thread with bones do use to chant it: it is silly sooth, and dallies with the innocence of love, like the old age.
The problem with singing for this court is that you're never sure when Monsieur Love is done waxing poetic.
FESTE Are you ready, sir?
DUKE ORSINO Ay; prithee, sing.This song should be the saddest moment in the play; it winds up Orsino for all of the passion that follows.
FESTE Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly 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:
A thousand thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, O, where
Sad true lover never find my grave,
To weep there!Orsino on the brink of tears; Viola barely holding on (if she starts crying, she won't stop, and the disguise will be ruined). Orsino has one chief objective in courting Olivia: he's terrified that this song's exact scenario will happen. He doesn't want to die alone. For Viola, the sword is double-edged. Her brother didn't get a coffin (and, for the near future, has yet to receive a ceremony, burial or memorial) and her family name could very well die in infamy if she doesn't make it home, which is by no means certain. On top of that, her beloved is in agony but cannot receive the salve she would otherwise offer to him. She knows exactly how he feels, but there's nothing she can do about it.
DUKE ORSINO There's for thy pains.
FESTE No pains, sir: I take pleasure in singing, sir.
DUKE ORSINO I'll pay thy pleasure then.
FESTE Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid,Glancing at Viola, who's looking away: please don't blow my cover.
one time or another.
DUKE ORSINO Give me now leave to leave thee.
FESTE Now, the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal. I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business might be every thing and their intent every where; for that's it that always makes a good voyage of nothing. Farewell.[Musicians take five and withdraw]
DUKE ORSINO Let all the rest give place.
[Curio and Attendants exit]
This scene is the heart of the play. It should build to a fever's pitch; Feste's song has them both on the brink of emotional collapse.
Once more, Cesario, get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty: tell her, my love, more noble than the world, prizes not quantity of dirty lands; the parts that fortune hath bestow'd upon her, tell her, I hold as giddily as fortune; but 'tis that miracle and queen of gems that nature pranks her in attracts my soul.
VIOLA But if she cannot love you, sir?The passion of a heart in tatters.
DUKE ORSINO I cannot be so answer'd.
Make that two hearts.
VIOLA Sooth, but you must. Say that some lady, as perhaps there is, hath for your love a great a pang of heart as you have for Olivia: you cannot love her; you tell her so; must she not then be answer'd?
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.Beat of Viola's: Jerk.
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-Rage. This is the breaking point. Can't Cesario see how much pain you're in? And how could a youth possibly understand this kind of grief?
DUKE ORSINO What dost thou know?
Barely flinching. You think you know pain, dearheart?
VIOLA Too well what love women to men may owe: in faith, they are as true of heart as we.
Fully tempted to reveal everything, but no. Pulling back a bit, reasserting the disguise.
My father had a daughter loved a man,
Starting to withdraw now. Hi, Doctor, I have this 'friend,' who has this rash
as it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, I should your lordship.
DUKE ORSINO And what's her history?Trying really hard to meet his eyes. Almost making it.
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?Carefully, a one-two punch:
VIOLA I am all the daughters of my father's house,
Glib. That was clever. But you outsmarted yourself: there's only one way to finish this sentence, and you can't do it without crying. Finally truly internalizing that you are completely alone, that your brother is dead. And Orsino's looking you in the eyes while you do it. Goddamnit. GodDAMNit.
and all the brothers too.
Turning away, holding the locket around your neck as if it's burning your hand but you don't dare let it go or take it off.
And yet I know not. Sir, shall I to this lady?
Stunned. All of the fire gone, because poor Cesario seems to have borne the brunt of it, and you never meant to hurt him. Gently, possibly a shoulder hug while steering him towards Olivia's court
DUKE ORSINO Ay, that's the theme. To her in haste; give her this jewel; say, my love can give no place, bide no denay.
[They exit in different directions]
--> on to Scene Ten Twelfth Night Annotated Script © 2001 Kevin M. Hollenbeck.
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