Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare
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Quote Bank: Disguise and deceit
|
Quote |
Character |
Act/Scene |
|
“nature with a beauteous wall / Doth oft close in pollution” |
Viola |
Act 1 Scene 2 |
|
“Conceal me what I am... What else may hap, to time I will commit” |
Viola |
Act 1 Scene 2 |
|
“I’ll do my best / To woo your lady. Yet a bagful strife! Whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife.” |
Viola |
Act 1 Scene 4 |
|
“Speak to me; I shall answer for her [the honourable lady of the house]” |
Olivia |
Act 1 Scene 5 |
|
“by the very fangs of malice, I swear, I am not that I play. Are you the lady of the house?” |
Viola |
Act 1 Scene 5 |
|
“’tis poetical” (Viola), “It is the more like to be feigned” |
Olivia |
Act 1 Scene 5 |
|
“Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate with my face? You are now out of your text, but we will draw the curtain and show you the picture.” |
Olivia |
Act 1 Scene 5 |
|
“I see you what you are. You are too proud; / But if you were the devil you are fair!” |
Viola |
Act 1 Scene 5 |
|
“I perceive in you so excellent a touch of modesty that you will not extort from me what I am willing to keep in. Therefore it charges me in manners the rather to express myself. You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian (which I called Roderigo)” |
Sebastian |
Act 2 Scene 1 |
|
“I left no ring with her: what means this lady? / Fortune forbid my outside have not charmed her!... I am the man... Poor lady, she were better love a dream.” |
Viola |
Act 2 Scene 2 |
|
“Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness” |
Viola |
Act 2 Scene 2 |
|
“If I do not gull [Malvolio] into a ayword, and make him a common recreation, do not think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed.” |
Maria |
Act 2 Scene 3 |
|
“I am all the daughters of my father’s house, And all the brothers too” |
Viola |
Act 2 Scene 4 |
|
“[Olivia’s] very phrases! By your leave, wax. Soft! and the impressure her Lucrece, with which she uses to seal: ‘tis my lady.” |
Malvolio |
Act 2 Scene 5 |
|
“I do not now fool myself, to let imagination jade me; for every reason excites to this, that my lady loves me.” |
Malvolio |
Act 2 Scene 5 |
|
“I am not what I am” |
Viola |
Act 3 Scene 1 |
|
“O how vile an idol proves this god! // Thou hast, Sebastian, done good feature shame. // In nature there’s no blemish but the mind; //None can be call’d deform’d but the unkind:” |
Antonio |
Act 3 Scene 4 |
|
“Nothing that is so is so.” |
Feste |
Act 4 Scene 1 |
|
“Nay, I prithee, put on this gown and this beard; make him believe thou art Sir Topas the curate” (Maria) “I would I were the first that ever dissembled in such a gown.” |
Feste |
Act 4 Scene 2 |
|
“That that is, is” |
Feste |
Act 4 Scene 2 |
|
“This is the air; that is the glorious sun, / This pearl she gave me, I do feel’t and see’t, / And though ‘tis wonder that enwraps me thus, / Yet ‘tis not madness... I am ready to distrust mine eyes / And wrangle with my reason... there’s something in’t / That is deceiveable.” |
Sebastian |
Act 4 Scene 3 |
|
“O thou dissembling cub! what wilt thou be / When time hath sow’d a grizzle on thy case? / Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow, / That thine own trip shall be thine overthrow?” |
Orsino |
Act 5 Scene 1 |
|
“One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons, A natural perspective, that is and is not!” |
Orsino |
Act 5 Scene 1 |
|
“How have you made division of yourself? / An apple, cleft in two, is not more twin / Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?” |
Antonio |
Act 5 Scene 1 |
|
“I am Viola, which to confirm, / I’ll bring you to a captain in this town... by whose gentle help I was preserved” |
Viola |
Act 5 Scene 1 |
Download a free Sample Essay
Twelfth Night
Sample Essay
Count Orsino is infatuated with the Countess Olivia, who refuses his suit.
Viola is washed ashore after a shipwreck, her twin brother presumed drowned. She disguises herself as a man in order to serve in Orsino’s court. As ‘Cesario’, Viola quickly gains favour and is sent by Orsino to woo Olivia on his behalf. Viola does so reluctantly, having fallen in love with Orsino herself.
Olivia then falls in love with ‘Cesario’, forming a classic love triangle. Viola’s twin brother, Sebastian, is alive! A Captain called Antonio rescued him from the shipwreck. Sebastion looks exactly like his sister, who he assumes has drowned. Antonio cannot walk openly as he is a wanted man, so they arrange to meet up later.
Olivia’s uncle Sir Toby Belch and the incompetent knight Sir Andrew Ague, a suitor to Olivia, spend their days in drunken rowdiness at her court, sometimes joined by Olivia’s gentlewoman Maria, to the disdain of the steward Malvolio. He rebukes all three for some late-night revelry. In revenge, Maria forges a letter which convinces Malvolio that Olivia loves him, and that he should carry out various ridiculous actions if he loves her in return.
Viola/Cesario is sent again to Olivia, where the Countess confesses her love. Upset that Olivia shows more favour to Cesario than to himself, Sir Andrew challenges Viola/Cesario to a duel. Antonio, mistaking Viola for her brother, steps in to fight on ‘Sebastian’s’ behalf. As he is dragged away by police, Antonio is upset that Viola does not recognise him. Viola begins to suspect that her brother is alive and leaves. Spurred on by Sir Toby, Sir Andrew follows to continue the fight.
Malvolio approaches Olivia, enacting the absurd instructions of Maria’s forged love-letter. Olivia assumes he has gone mad and leaves him with Maria and Sir Toby, who delight in pretending he is possessed by Satan, and lock him up.
Sir Andrew fights Sebastian, believing him to be Cesario, and Olivia rushes to intervene. She begs forgiveness from Sebastian, also taking him for Cesario, who is at once confused and delighted by her tenderness, and agrees to marry her.
Finally, Orsino decides to visit Olivia himself, with Cesario/Viola tagging along. When Olivia rejects him again Orsino threatens to kill Cesario, despite his own strong affections for the page, suspecting her to be in love with ‘him’. Dismayed at Viola/Cesario’s willingness to die for the Count, Olivia reveals that they are married, to Viola’s bafflement.
Sebastian enters. Everyone is amazed to see the identical Viola and Sebastion together, and they are overjoyed to have found one another. Orsino realises that Viola loves him, and agrees to marry her.
Malvolio arrives with the letter, which Olivia reveals was written by Maria (now married to Sir Toby), and he vows to be revenged.
The play is riddled with appearances from the fool Feste, who ends the play with a song about growing through life’s stages, the chaos of human experience, and the hope that the audience enjoyed the play.
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