Scene IV explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Love and Desire

  Orsino's obsessive love for Olivia is central, as he uses music and poetry to fuel his passion and insists on the superiority of his own desire over women's.

• Gender and Identity

  Viola, disguised as Cesario, challenges Orsino's gendered assumptions about love, arguing that women are as true of heart as men, while concealing her own identity and feelings.

• Mourning and Melancholy

  The song about death and unrequited love, along with Orsino's brooding mood, underscores the theme of melancholy as a performative and consuming emotion.

Characters to notice

• Viola

  Disguised as Cesario, she listens to Orsino's music and arguments about love, subtly defending women's constancy and hinting at her own hidden love for Orsino.

• Duke Orsino

  Continues to indulge in melancholy music and sends Cesario again to Olivia, insisting his love is unmatched and that women cannot love as deeply as he does.

• Feste

  The clown is summoned to sing the old song 'Come away, come away, death' for Orsino, and after performing, he delivers a witty farewell comment about Orsino's changeable mind.

• Curio

  Informs Orsino that Feste is the singer he seeks and is sent to find him.

Key passages

• “Give me some music. Now, good morrow, friends. Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song, That old and antique song we heard last night: Methought it did relieve my passion much, More than light airs and recollected terms Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times: Come, but one verse.”

  Orsino asks for music and specifically requests the old-fashioned song from the previous night, claiming it soothes his lovesickness better than modern, frivolous tunes.

  Orsino's preference for an 'antique' song reflects his romanticized view of love and his desire for a more sincere, old-world expression of emotion.

• “My father had a daughter loved a man, As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, I should your lordship.”

  Viola invents a story about a sister who loved a man, hinting that if she were a woman, she would love Orsino in the same way.

  Viola uses this fictional tale to indirectly confess her own love for Orsino while maintaining her disguise as Cesario.

• “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.”

  Viola describes a woman who kept her love secret, allowing it to consume her silently, like a worm eating a flower, and she endured her sorrow with a patient, sorrowful smile.

  This poignant image captures Viola's own hidden love for Orsino and the pain of concealment, emphasizing the theme of unspoken desire.