Twelfth Night

By William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night, Or What You Will is a comedy by William Shakespeare, based on the short story "Of Apolonius and Silla" by Barnabe Rich. It is named after the Twelfth Night holiday of the Christmas season. It was written around 1601 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The main title is believed to be an afterthought, created after John Marston premiered a play titled What You Will during the course of the writing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Booklassic
• Release date: Jun 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9789635236961

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is arguably the most famous playwright to ever live. Born in England, he attended grammar school but did not study at a university. In the 1590s, Shakespeare worked as partner and performer at the London-based acting company, the King’s Men. His earliest plays were Henry VI and Richard III, both based on the historical figures. During his career, Shakespeare produced nearly 40 plays that reached multiple countries and cultures. Some of his most notable titles include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar. His acclaimed catalog earned him the title of the world’s greatest dramatist.

Book preview

Twelfth Night

William Shakespeare

Booklassic

2015

ISBN 978-963-523-696-1

Act I

SCENE I. DUKE ORSINO's palace.

Enter DUKE ORSINO, CURIO, and other Lords; Musicians attending

DUKE ORSINO

If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.

That strain again! it had a dying fall:

O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:

'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.

O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,

That, notwithstanding thy capacity

Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,

Of what validity and pitch soe'er,

But falls into abatement and low price,

Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy

That it alone is high fantastical.

CURIO

Will you go hunt, my lord?

DUKE ORSINO

What, Curio?

CURIO

The hart.

DUKE ORSINO

Why, so I do, the noblest that I have:

O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,

Methought she purged the air of pestilence!

That instant was I turn'd into a hart;

And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,

E'er since pursue me.

Enter VALENTINE

How now! what news from her?

VALENTINE

So please my lord, I might not be admitted;

But from her handmaid do return this answer:

The element itself, till seven years' heat,

Shall not behold her face at ample view;

But, like a cloistress, she will veiled walk

And water once a day her chamber round

With eye-offending brine: all this to season

A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh

And lasting in her sad remembrance.

DUKE ORSINO

O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame

To pay this debt of love but to a brother,

How will she love, when the rich golden shaft

Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else

That live in her; when liver, brain and heart,

These sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and fill'd

Her sweet perfections with one self king!

Away before me to sweet beds of flowers:

Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers.

Exeunt

SCENE II. The sea-coast.

Enter VIOLA, a Captain, and Sailors

VIOLA

What country, friends, is this?

Captain

This is Illyria, lady.

VIOLA

And what should I do in Illyria?

My brother he is in Elysium.

Perchance he is not drown'd: what think you, sailors?

Captain

It is perchance that you yourself were saved.

VIOLA

O my poor brother! and so perchance may he be.

Captain

True, madam: and, to comfort you with chance,

Assure yourself, after our ship did split,

When you and those poor number saved with you

Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,

Most provident in peril, bind himself,

Courage and hope both teaching him the practise,

To a strong mast that lived upon the sea;

Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,

I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves

So long as I could see.

VIOLA

For saying so, there's gold:

Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope,

Whereto thy speech serves for authority,

The like of him. Know'st thou this country?

Captain

Ay, madam, well; for I was bred and born

Not three hours' travel from this very place.

VIOLA

Who governs here?

Captain

A noble duke, in nature as in name.

VIOLA

What is the name?

Captain

Orsino.

VIOLA

Orsino! I have heard my father name him:

He was a bachelor then.

Captain

And so is now, or was so very late;

For but a month ago I went from hence,

And then 'twas fresh in murmur,—as, you know,

What great ones do the less will prattle of,—

That he did seek the love of fair Olivia.

VIOLA

What's she?

Captain

A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count

That died some twelvemonth since, then leaving her

In the protection of his son, her brother,

Who shortly also died: for whose dear love,

They say, she hath abjured the company

And sight of men.

VIOLA

O that I served that lady

And might not be delivered to the world,

Till I had made mine own occasion mellow,

What my estate is!

Captain

That were hard to compass;

Because she will admit no kind of suit,

No, not the duke's.

VIOLA

There is a fair behavior in thee, captain;

And though that nature with a beauteous wall

Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee

I will believe thou hast a mind that suits

With this thy fair and outward character.

I prithee, and I'll pay thee bounteously,

Conceal me what I am, and be my aid

For such disguise as haply shall become

The form of my intent. I'll serve this duke:

Thou shall present me as an eunuch to him:

It may be worth thy pains; for I can sing

And speak to him in many sorts of music

That will allow me very worth his service.

What else may hap to time I will commit;

Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.

Captain

Be you his eunuch, and your mute I'll be:

When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see.

VIOLA

I thank thee: lead me on.

Exeunt

SCENE III. OLIVIA'S house.

Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and MARIA

SIR TOBY BELCH

What a plague means my niece, to take the death of

her brother thus? I am sure care's an enemy to life.

MARIA

By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o'

nights: your cousin, my lady, takes great

exceptions to your ill hours.

SIR TOBY BELCH

Why, let her except, before excepted.

MARIA

Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest

limits of order.

SIR TOBY BELCH

Confine! I'll confine myself no finer than I am:

these clothes are good enough to drink in; and so be

these boots too: an they be not, let them hang

themselves in their own straps.

MARIA

That quaffing and drinking will undo you: I heard

my lady talk of it yesterday; and of a foolish

knight that you brought in one night here to be her wooer.

SIR TOBY BELCH

Who, Sir Andrew Aguecheek?

MARIA

Ay, he.

SIR TOBY BELCH

He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria.

MARIA

What's that to the purpose?

SIR TOBY

Reviews for Twelfth Night

[john257hopper · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have read this play after seeing it performed at The Globe on Friday. It's funny and relies on comic tropes such as characters dressing up as the opposite sex, dressing in comedic yellow cross-gartered stockings for effect, and formation of love triangles. The Clown role is probably my favourite character. It's light and insubstantial and often doesn't make a whole lot of sense (e.g. the whole Malvolio sub-plot); indeed at one point Fabian says with ironic self-reference "If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction".

[kchung_kaching · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Easily my favorite Shakespeare play.

[birdie.newborn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A rightfully popular Shakespeare play, this one has resourcefulness, the audience is in on the fun, yet it works well.

[julesjones_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

BBC Radio 3 full cast production, first broadcast in 1998, and presented on 2 CDs. I bought this one because of the Blake's 7 interest, as Josette Simon plays Olivia. While it's an enjoyable performance, I would have been hard put to it to follow what was going on without previous knowledge of the plot from seeing the play on stage. Fortunately there's a good synopsis booklet included in the box.

[trilliams · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

So there's this girl that's a guy that works for a guy that she loves as a girl but has to send his love to a girl as a guy and that girl loves the girl as a guy but really she's a girl that looks like a guy and this is why Shakespeare's comedies are just weird.

[kant1066 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read this in preparation for going to see an upcoming production of this play put on by "Shakespeare in the Park" that's going to be playing June 1st through the 4th of this year in the Botanical Gardens. Considering the myriad summaries and expositions of this play, I won't recapitulate those here. What I will do, both for my personal use and for the remote possibility that someone else might find some use in them, is post my own thoughts and notes I took as I read it. Hopefully they'll serve as an aide memoire if I ever need one.ACT I: Overall themes: identity (masque?), rejection, and desire. It asks whether or not love is something real, or just another human artifice, much like the music that Count Orsino "feeds" on. Orsino's switch of affection from Olivia to Viola is a hint that he loves the idea of love more than one of the women themselves. He's a parody of the hopeless romantic. Viola's wish to be transformed into a eunuch is indicative of gender liminality - or at least this seems to be a common argument, even though it's readily known that men played all roles in Elizabethan and Jacobean theater (so I'm a little confused by the single-minded focus that much modern scholarship has put on gender in this play). Perhaps this gender ambiguity is a sort of defense mechanism to deal with the uncertainty inherent with being tossed on an unknown island. There has also been some focus on Orsino's shift of affection toward Viola (Cesario) from a platonic friendship to a more romantic one. (Could our more modern emotional coldness associated with masculinity be coloring this reading, too?) Feste is obviously one of the cleverest people in the play. "Cucullus non facit monachum" indeed! As a critique of courtly love, this act accomplishes a lot, and Feste comes out being one of the least foolish people on the stage.ACT II: Malvolio (literally, from the Latin, "ill will"), the only character who takes himself much too seriously, is tricked into the tomfoolery that he himself so deplores, ultimately proving Feste right: it's not just the role of the fool to entertain folly.ACT III: Even though, considering Malvolio's transformation from joy-hating blowhard into romantic lover is a drastic one, that Olivia thinks him mad might be telling. Is there any room here for a sort of Foucauldian discussion of what constitutes "madness and civilization" in Elizabethan England? From the little that I've seen of the scholarly literature, I haven't yet seen any discussions that run along these lines.

[bryndahlquis · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This has always been one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, and it probably always will be. It's just as fun to read the second time, with plenty of humor and lovely lines. Feste, of course, is my favorite.I feel like I could go into a long analysis of it, but... I read it for my English class, and no doubt we're going to dissect it and talk about all the underlying themes. Personally, I say you should just read it and enjoy it and then go see it performed.

[alanwpowers · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Here Shakespeare borrows as so often in his comedies, from Plautus for the overarching plot--the separated siblings, the twinning (recall his Errors, and the Menaechmi), the arrival from sea. But he adds so much as to make it unrecognizable as a Roman comedy. He adds an attractive drunk, Sir Toby, who fleeces a silly aristocrat who--perhaps alone in literature-- knows himself to be silly. He adds, for instance, a parody of Renaissance psychiatry (well, more theology, but since "psyche" in Greek is both "soul" and "mind," that's fair) practiced on Shakespeare's only American. Instead of the common psyche ward question, "What does 'the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence' mean to you?" Feste as Reverend Psychiatrist asks, "What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning the soul?" Remember, you can't get out of the psyche ward unless you answer right. Well, Malvolio DOES get it right, he hits it out of the park, but Feste keeps him in lockdown anyway. Why?Herein lies a tale. Malvolio is portrayed as stark raving mad simply because he wants to marry the boss's daughter--or really, the boss herself. A crazy idea. An American idea, one that would take a couple centuries and a Revolution to be accepted by anybody at all. Those rejects on the other side of the Atlantic.Yes, Malvolio is Shakespeare's only American (except possibly Othello?). And he is indeed, as he himself pleads at plays end, notoriously abused. He vows revenge on the whole pack--which we, as delighted playgoers, cannot support, though justice, and America, are on his side.

[clarisao-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I´ve re-read it countless times..My favourite from Shakespeare.

[vgnunez_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read this play in high school. I immediately connected with Viola who hid her true identity (and her emotions) from society. Though modern critics look at (and/or analyze) the story's use of homosexuality and gender/sexual politics, I can't break from my initial path of loving the story for Viola's strength in hiding her identity and love.

[jhudsui_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In the words of deuce: "gay, working on gayer". Kind of a shame it never made it to gayer because Viola and the Countess are the most well developed pairing in the play. Also while the Duke's bits where he acts like a self-important tool are funny, they undermine the "happy ending" of Viola marrying him. This could have been fixed by giving him some bits where he displayed more redeeming characteristics, because (unlike the rapist guy in Two Gentleman) nothing he does is unforgivable... it's just that, all we do see of his personality is that he's kind of a douche. The production of it I saw was consistently funny in every scene and I had a great time watching it performed.

[emcarso1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What can one really say negative about Shakespeare? Any of his writings are simply a classic. However, this would not be my favourite of his works, it's simply a bit too ridiculous for my personal taste - I know Shakespeare's audience would have loved it. Boy loves Girl, another Girl (2) is stranded and decides to cross-dress to be near Boy, Boy sends Girl 2 to persuade Girl 1 of his love who in turn falls in love with cross-dressing Girl 2. Then Girl 2's twin brother shows up and causes chaos and in the end Boy 2 ends up with Girl 1 and Boy 1 with cross-dressing Girl 2, not questioning her cross-dressing for a second

[othemts · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My favorite Shakespearean comedy (partially because I portrayed Sir Toby in a high school production) with the perfect mix of witty dialogue, physical humor and characterization.

[amerynth · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The introduction says Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" is one of his most performed plays, which is funny since I've never heard of it being performed locally (and have seen many others.)It wouldn't surprise me though, as the play is pretty entertaining and uses the often-employed Shakespearean disguise fairly well. The story follows Viola and Sebastian, siblings who are in a shipwreck and each believes the other has died. Meanwhile, the beautiful Olivia is fending off a crew of courting men and antics ensue.Overall, the story is fairly amusing and moves along at a nice pace.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Audio performed by Stella Gonet, Gerard Murphy and a full cast

Viola and her twin brother, Sebastian, are separated during a shipwreck. When she arrives on the shores of Illyria, she presumes Sebastian is dead. The ship’s captain helps her disguise herself as a man, and she enters the service of Duke Orsino, with whom she falls in love. Orsino, however, loves the Countess Olivia, who has foresworn any suitors while she mourns the death of her father and brother. Orsino begs Cesario (Viola in disguise) to plead his case with Olivia, but Olivia instead falls in love with Cesario. And so the fun begins.

I love Shakespeare, and I confess to liking his comedies more than the tragedies or historical dramas. I find it particularly delightful to watch the various mistaken identities, convoluted twists and turns in plot, purposeful obfuscations or pranks, and dawning realizations unfold before my eyes. The scenarios are outlandish and ridiculous to a modern audience, but are still fun and delightful in their execution.

BUT … I dislike reading plays. I much prefer to see them performed. When I’m reading – especially Shakespeare – I find that I lose the sense of action and can more easily get bogged down in unfamiliar terms or phrases. Listening to this audio performance was a happy compromise. I’ve seen this play on stage and could easily picture the scenarios and shenanigans while listening to this very talented cast audio performance.

I did also have a text version to supplement the audio experience, and the particular edition I had (Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-953609-2) includes a long introduction outlining the history of this work, copious footnotes in the play defining terms, an appendix with the music, and an extensive index. It is an edition I would definitely recommend to someone who is studying this play.

[girl_detective · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The text of the play is mostly a delight, though there are a few toothsome things to mull over after the play is done. Its end of multiple marriages is seemingly tidy, but a few characters are left out in the cold, including Antonio, whose love for Sebastian may be the truest and most steadfast love in the play.

[martinbodek · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Madcap was 't adventure
And pleasure finest to read.
Whilst mirthy with the wordplay.
Brought forth as Feste's mead.
Three's Company-esque
Was allst confusion.
Which what happened
By staged amusion.
Verily, I enjoyed it, by and by.
What readeth me next, wondereth I?

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Though my text stated that that was his comic masterpiece, I liked As You Like It much better. The only saving grace, for me, was the clown. He saved the best lines of wit and wisdom for that character. I suppose by this point, I am getting a bit put off by all the mistaken identity stuff. Perhaps the Bard was growing weary of the device as well.

[clif_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I listened to this play a year ago and forgot to add to my Library Thing list. So the plot isn't fresh in my mind. I do remember that the plot is quite complicated with numerous mistaken identities, disguises and switching of roles. The plot is so convoluted that I recommend drafting a chart to keep track of the characters and their multiple identities. There is a mean joke played on a Puritan character in the play which was probably funny to 16th Century theater audiences. However, I fou...more I listened to this play a year ago and forgot to add to my Goodreads list. So the plot isn't fresh in my mind. I do remember that the plot is quite complicated with numerous mistaken identities, disguises and switching of roles. The plot is so convoluted that I recommend drafting a chart to keep track of the characters and their multiple identities. There is a mean joke played on a Puritan character in the play which was probably funny to 16th Century theater audiences. However, I found it to be cruel and not very funny. Read in December, 2007

[tiffanyak_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is definitely a classic Shakespearean comedy, complete with disguises, intrigue, love, humor, and a lot of fun. In all honesty, I am not generally a big fan of comedies, but this is definitely an example of an exception. As to the edition itself, I found it to be greatly helpful in understanding the action in the play. It has a layout which places each page of the play opposite a page of notes, definitions, explanations, and other things needed to understand that page more thoroughly. While I didn't always need it, I was certainly glad to have it whenever I ran into a turn of language that was unfamiliar, and I definitely appreciated the scene-by-scene summaries. Really, if you want to or need to read Shakespeare, an edition such as this is really the way to go, especially until you get more accustomed to it.

[redg18_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Honestly, I am not all that into reading plays. However, I am so into gender-bender that I had to read 12th night. The whole idea of a girl dressing up as a boy and fooling everyone is so interesting to me. The thing that put me off from this book was the fact that the emotions that the characters were feeling were not as evident just from reading this play. I mean, it was like saying "I feel that I love you". It is not as moving as if the author had described what the feeling is. For some reason, I loved Julius Cesar, Othello, and sort of liked "As you like it". So maybe I am just not into this story that much.

[coach_of_alva · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Shakespeare's last great romantic comedy combines the wit of the other great comedies with some rather mean-spirited slapstick more reminiscent of his very first comedies. The first is provided largely by the male-impersonating heroine who finds herself, as an intermediary between lovers, becoming the true object of affection from both lovers. The slapstick is provided by Sir Toby Belch, a small-scale Falstaff, and his idiot friends, who make life miserable for a major domo whose Puritanism does not protect him from vanity and desire. I loved it, despite the bullying.

[kathyschenck · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fabulous! Even an eighth grader can read (with a little guidance) and enjoy!

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Shipwrecked siblings, love-struck Dukes and Duchesses, silly servants and misplaced affections. I enjoyed this very much. No one does confusion of identity as well as Shakespeare, and when it's one of his comedies, there is always a happy ending.

[ncgraham_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

My relationship with the Bard’s works began when, at the tender age of six, I went to a Shakespeare in the Park performance of Much Ado About Nothing and had the time of my life. Since then, it’s been up and down at times with me and Will, as I’ve been alternately befuddled, entranced, delighted, disturbed, and moved by his handiwork. It was only last year, however, that I really began reading his plays in earnest—up until then, my exposure had been limited solely to films and live performances. I've been taking them slowly, picking up a play as the inclination strikes, and not following any particular order.Despite the fact that it is critically regarded as one of Shakespeare's best and most advanced comedies, I have to say that so far Twelfth Night is my least favorite of the lot. I’m hoping it’s not because it was assigned for a class, when all the others I picked up of my own volition. Either way, I found I couldn’t connect to any of these characters, neither when I read the play nor when I watched the 1996 Trevor Nunn film (and let me tell you, if Helena Bonham Carter can’t make me feel for Olivia, no one can). They made for an interesting group to observe— not the uninvolved, almost scientific word. There is no Puck or Rosalind or Beatrice or Shylock to give this comedy some sort of heart or animating spirit. Viola and Feste come closest, simply because they are vehicles for some of Shakespeare's best poetry and wordplay—but even then, the language is more interesting than its bearers. Indeed, I would say this play is most interesting when looked at mostly for how it uses language and what it has to say about it.The critics are right in commending Twelfth Night for its clever wordplay and complex social vision, but to my mind Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night’s Dream are far more entertaining, and The Merchant of Venice deeper.

[fufuakaspeechless_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love this play. Shakespeare's comedies are very enjoyable.

[jmcgarry2011 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I thought this was a great edition. They have the text on the right side, and the explanation of obscure terms on the left side. I just saw this play done at the Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona, MN. It's amazing how closely they followed the text. I didn't need to read it to understand everything, but reading did help explain some things.

[erickibler · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I reread the play as I'll be appearing in it this summer as Sir Toby Belch. Ah, what fun!

Shakespeare fact: most directors these days cut Shakespeare's plays down to a reasonable two hours for performance. That will be the case for the production I'm in. I'll miss the double-talk conversations between Sir Toby and the Clown, and some of the "mistaken identity" humor involving male/female twins Sebastian and Viola. Although I can see why the director removed this stuff. In the former case, the invented references to phony experts like "Qeuebus" (God, would I have loved saying "Qeuebus"!) would have been indistinguishable from other archaic references, thereby causing confusion to the average theater goer. In the latter case, the humorous situations are often repetitive.


Cutting Shakespeare is nothing new. David Garrick, an actor and director who was a friend of Samuel Johnson, used to do it routinely in the 18th century.

[anduril85 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read this book with my girlfriend and it was ok but not one of my most liked books ever. At times it's a little hard to understand if you don't have the spark notes or some other translation like it, but if you like plays and have never read it I recommend it to you, for everyone else you.

[hippielunatic · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There is brilliance in this play, as there is in all of Shakespeare's work... but...Well, this one doesn't live up to the others, at least not in the reading of the script. I could not attach myself to any of the characters, and while I often have to reread the words and the footnotes to gain any understanding of the plot, this one felt hollow to me, even after I could grasp what was going on.The brilliance comes in much of the twisting of words and understandings of phrases. Shakespeare was a wordsmith, there is no doubt about that.... but most of the time, I feel like he was also incredibly connected to his characters, his audience, his stories. This one felt flimsy to me.