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).