ACT2

SCENE4
ORSINO, VIOLA, CURIO, and others enter.
ORSINO
Give me some music. [Music plays] Now, good morning, friends.

[To VIOLA]  Now, good Cesario, have them play that old-fashioned song we heard last
night. 5 It helped ease my passion and made me feel better, more than the silly songs
and memorized words of these fast-paced modern times. Come, have them sing just
one verse at least.
CURIO
Forgive me, my lord, but the man who should sing it 10isn't here.
ORSINO
Who is that?
CURIO
Feste the jester, my lord, a fool that Olivia's father used to like. He's somewhere in the
house.
ORSINO
15Seek him out, and play the tune the while.
CURIO exits.
[To VIOLA] Come here, boy. If you ever fall in love, remember me when you feel its
bittersweet pangs. Because the way I am now is the way all true lovers are—moody and
fickle in every emotion, constant only in imagining the face of the person they love. How
do you like this song?
VIOLA
It echoes poignantly in the heart.
ORSINO
You speak well. 25 I'd bet my life that, young as you are, you've fallen in love with a
woman before. Am I right, boy?
VIOLA
A little bit, sir.
ORSINO
What kind of woman is she?
VIOLA
30She looks something like you.
ORSINO
She's not worthy of you, then. How old is she?
VIOLA
About your age, my lord.
ORSINO
Then she's too old, by heaven. A woman should be with a man older than she is, so she
can adapt herself35 to her husband and keep his love constant. We men praise
ourselves, boy, but in reality we are more fickle and inconstant in love than women are
—our desires waver and disappear sooner and more frequently.
VIOLA
40I think you're right, my lord.
ORSINO
Then your beloved should be younger than you are, or you won't be able to maintain
your feelings for her. Women are like roses, whose beauty is greatest in the same hour
that they fall from the stem and decay.
VIOLA
45So they are. It's too bad that this is how it is—beauty starts to die just as it reaches its
perfection!
CURIO and the FOOL enter.
ORSINO
Oh, you fellow, come sing the song we heard last night. Listen closely to it, Cesario, it's
a simple old song. The wool spinners and knitters used to sing it while they sewed, 45
and innocent maidens recited it over their weaving. It tells the simple truth about the
innocence of love, as it was in the good old days.
FOOL
Are you ready, sir?
ORSINO
55Yes; please, sing.
Music plays.
FOOL
[Singing]
Come now, come now death,
And let me be laid in a cypress coffin.
Fly away, fly away breath, 60
I've been killed by a fair, cruel girl.
My shroud of white, adorned with yew sprigs,
Oh, prepare it for me!
No one as faithful as I
Has ever died like me. 65
Throw no flowers, no sweet flowers
Upon my black coffin.
Let no friends, no friends see
My poor corpse, or my scattered bones.
Save your thousand sighs of mourning,
And bury me, Oh, where
No sad true lovers can find my grave,
To weep there!
ORSINO
[Giving the FOOL money] That's for your trouble.
FOOL
It was no trouble, sir. I take pleasure in singing, sir.
ORSINO
75I'll pay you for your pleasure, then.
FOOL
All right then, sir. We all pay for our pleasures eventually.
ORSINO
Allow me to let you leave now.

FOOL
May the god of melancholy watch over you, and may a tailor80 make you a jacket
of opal, for your mind changes like the colors of an opal. Men as changeable as you
should be put out to sea, where they can make everything their business and scatter
their ideas everywhere, drifting about on the changeable waves—that's how you make a
good voyage out of nothing. Farewell.
The FOOL exits.
ORSINO
85The rest of you can leave too.
CURIO and the attendants exit.
Once more, Cesario, go visit that supremely cruel woman. Tell her that my love is more
noble than anything else in the world, 90 and has nothing to do with her property or the
riches she has inherited. Tell her that the fortune I value the most is her gem-like
beauty, which is priceless and attracts my helpless soul.
VIOLA
But if she cannot love you, sir?
ORSINO
95I cannot accept that answer.
VIOLA
Truly, but you must. Imagine a lady—who probably exists somewhere—who loves you
just as passionately as you love Olivia. But you cannot love her, 100 and you tell her so.
Doesn't she have to accept your answer then?
ORSINO
There is no woman strong enough to withstand the passion of love that's in my
heart. No woman's heart is big enough to hold so much emotion. Women can't carry too
much. 105 Alas, love for them is just a shallow appetite—a matter of taste, not a matter
of the heart. If they try to eat too much, they get sick, but my love is as insatiable as the
sea, and can swallow just as much as the ocean. Don't compare my love for Olivia110
to any love a woman could have for me.

VIOLA
Yes, but I know—
ORSINO
What do you know?
VIOLA
I know too well how strongly a woman can love a man115. Really, their hearts are as
true as ours are. My father had a daughter who loved a man just as strongly as I might
love you, if I were a woman.
ORSINO
And what's her story?
VIOLA
120Her story is blank, my lord. She never spoke of her love, but kept her passion
concealed. It tormented her from the inside, like a worm trapped inside a closed flower
bud, and fed on her outer beauty until it faded. She pined away quietly and sadly, and
sat like a sculpture of patience itself, 125 smiling despite her grief. Now wasn't this true
love? We men might say more and promise more, but indeed our words are stronger
than our passions. We are good at making vows of love, but worse at keeping them.
ORSINO
But did your sister die of her love, my boy?
VIOLA
130I am all of my father's daughters, and all of his sons too—and yet I'm not certain of
that. Sir, should I go see this lady then?
ORSINO
Yes, that's right. Go to her quickly. Give her this jewel. Say 135that my love cannot
yield, and cannot be denied. [He hands her a jewel]
They exit.