Twelfth Night Viola Quotes

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.

– William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 4. Feste the fool sings one of the most depressing love songs in Shakespeare for Orsino and Cesario (Viola). It is about a lover who dies of a broken heart, pining for his uncaring love. The song has particular meaning for Orsino and Viola. It could also be mocking Orsino and his desperate over-the-top passion for Olivia.

DUKE: 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?

– William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 4. Viola (disguised as Cesario) tells Orsino the story of her father’s daughter who had a secret love. Of course the daughter is actually Viola and the secret love is Orsino.

VIOLA: Nay, that’s certain. They that dally nicely with words may quickly make them wanton.
FESTE: I would therefore my sister had had no name, sir.
VIOLA: Why, man?
FESTE: 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.

– William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 1. Feste shows how words can be twisted and turned inside out like a glove. He picks on Viola’s using the expression “dally nicely” (play around) and jokes about a “wanton” woman and promiscuity.

This is a practice
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.

– William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 1. Viola says that Feste’s wit takes a lot of intelligence and requires as much work as a learned and wise man. The wise, on the other hand, damage their reputation when they try to play the fool. The last line can be read as a reference to Malvolio, who early in the play puts on the airs of an educated scholar but lets himself down badly as he reveals his ambitions to rise above his station.

Go, Sir Andrew. Scout me for him at the corner the orchard like a bum-baily. So soon as ever thou seest him, draw, and as thou draw’st, swear horrible; for it comes to pass oft that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twanged off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned him. Away!

– William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 4. After Sir Toby talks Sir Andrew into a duel with Cesario (Viola) to win Olivia’s love, he goes on to confuse the notion of “manhood” with swaggering and swearing behavior.
Close