Twelfth Night Foreshadowing Quotes

My stars shine darkly over me.

– William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 1. Sebastian explains to Antonio why he doesn’t want him to go with him. Following his shipwreck and loss of his twin sister Viola he feels he is cursed. As Sebastian likes Antonio, who has cared for him after his bad fortune, he doesn’t want bad things to happen him. In an ironical way, this quote foreshadows what later happens to Sebastian – he is blessed with good fortune when he is mistaken for Cesario by Olivia.

I left no ring with her. What means this lady?
Fortune forbid my outside have not charmed her!
She made good view of me.

– William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 2. Viola as Cesario, meditating on the meaning of the ring and realizing that her male disguise is causing some gender troubles for her. Olivia uses Malvolio in a trick to get Cesario to return to talk with her another day. She sends Malvolio to return Cesario’s ring. Olivia is lying about the ring, but she has fallen in love with Cesario. This passage foreshadows Olivia’s love with Sebastian, Viola’s twin brother.

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.

– William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 3. Feste sings of journeys that end up in lovers meeting. The song foreshadows the happy romantic ending to the play, when Viola and Orsino find love together and Olivia and Sebastian are wed. It is particularly directed towards Feste’s mistress Olivia – “your true love’s coming.”

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.

– William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 4. Orsino talks about men and women and love to Cesario (Viola), and suggests Cesario marry someone younger than himself. Men are more fickle than women, says the Duke, and more likely to change their love from one woman to another. Women are more committed and faithful with their love, he observes. This foreshadows the end of the play when Orsino’s love does indeed change to another woman.

Now, the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal.

– William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 4. Feste sings a song to Orsino, asking the Roman god Saturn – who ruled melancholy – to protect him. He suggests Orsino is moody and fickle with the mind of an opal, constantly changing. This foreshadows that Orsino will later switch his love from Olivia to Viola. Foreshadowed also in the scene are the two kinds of desire we find in Twelfth Night, the constant faithful love (Viola’s) and the fickle one that switches from one to another (Orsino’s).
Close