When Viola, saved from the wreck, was grieving over the supposed
loss of her brother, she was comforted by the sea-captain, who told
her that he had seen Sebastian bind himself to a strong mast, which
floated on the sea, and that probably he too had been saved. This
turned out to be really the case. Sebastian was picked up by another
ship, the captain of which, Antonio by name, most kindly befriended
the destitute young stranger. For three months he kept Sebastian with
him, and he loved the boy so dearly that, when Sebastian left him to
go to the Court of Orsino, Antonio followed him to Illyria, fearing
lest some harm should come to him.
Antonio dared not show himself openly in Illyria, for several years
before he had fought valiantly on the side of the enemies of Orsino,
and done much damage to the Duke’s fleet. When on their arrival,
therefore, Sebastian proposed to take a walk to see anything of note
in the city, Antonio replied that it would be better for himself to
go and secure a lodging, and order food to be prepared; he knew of
a place that would suit very well, the Elephant Inn, in the south
suburbs of the city. Sebastian in the meanwhile could go for a walk,
and join him in about an hour’s time.
Knowing that Sebastian had no money, or very little, Antonio further
insisted on giving him his purse, in case he should see any trifle
he wished to purchase. Everything being thus arranged, they parted,
Antonio to go to the Elephant Inn, and Sebastian to take a walk
through the town.
* * * * *
In the palace of the Duke there was still sadness, for the young page
Cesario, in spite of his kind reception by the Countess Olivia, had
brought back no more cheering answer than former envoys. Weary at
heart, Orsino longed to hear some soothing music, and he called for
a touching little song which he had heard sung the night before--a
plaintive, old-world ditty, whose quaint sadness and simplicity had
more power to relieve his sorrow than the more light and cheerful
strains of modern music.
His servants told him that the person who had sung the song was Feste
the jester, who had been in the service of the Countess Olivia’s
father, and, as he was still about the house, Orsino ordered him to be
fetched. So Feste came, and this was the song he sang:
“Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair, cruel maid;
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O, prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.
“Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be strown;
A thousand, thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, O where
Sad true lover never find my grave
To weep there!”
This sad little song just suited the melancholy mood of the Duke,
and when Feste had sung it, and gone away, Orsino went on talking to
Viola--or his young page Cesario, as he thought her--about his unhappy
love for Olivia. He bade her go once more to the cruel lady, and
_insist_ on her listening to him.
“But if she cannot love you, sir?” said Viola.
“I cannot be answered so,” said Orsino.
“Sooth, but you must,” replied Viola. “Say that some lady, as perhaps
there is, has as great a love for you as you have for Olivia; you
cannot love her; you tell her so; must she not then be answered?”
Orsino replied that no woman could ever love any man as he loved
Olivia; that women’s hearts were much more shallow than men’s, etc.
Viola, knowing her own deep and hidden affection for the Duke himself,
protested that she knew too well how much women could love, and in
veiled language she went on to describe the case of “a daughter of her
father,” whom Orsino naturally took to mean a sister, but who was in
reality herself. However, the end of it was that Viola again went to
Olivia.
She was received just as kindly as before, but Olivia said plainly
that it was quite useless for her to plead on behalf of Orsino,
although if Cesario would undertake another suit she would listen to
it more gladly than to the music of the spheres. Viola could only
reply to this as she had done before, that she had one heart, and that
no woman except herself should ever be mistress of it. So she took her
leave.
* * * * *
The interview between the Countess and the young page had been
jealously watched; the spectator was the foolish knight, Sir Andrew
Aguecheek. It had occurred to Sir Toby that it would be a very good
plan to wed his niece Olivia to this silly gentleman, and he kept
urging Sir Andrew to pay his court to her. Sir Andrew spent money
lavishly in riotous living with Sir Toby, hoping to repay himself when
he married Olivia. He was therefore very indignant when he saw her
bestow more favours on Orsino’s messenger than she had ever done on
him, and he angrily told Sir Toby that he intended to leave at once.
Sir Toby tried to soothe him, and he and another gentleman of Olivia’s
household who happened to be present persuaded him that Olivia knew
all the time that he was looking on, and only showed favour to the
youth to exasperate Sir Andrew and to awaken his dormouse valour. They
said he ought immediately to have fired up, and frightened the boy
into dumbness, and that he had damaged his own cause by not doing so.
The only thing now to do was to redeem it by some laudable attempt
either of valour or policy.
“If it is to be anyway, it must be with valour, for policy I hate,”
said Sir Andrew.
“Why, then, build your fortunes on the basis of valour,” said Sir Toby
in his loud, jovial voice. “Challenge the youth to fight; hurt him in
eleven places; my niece shall take note of it; and be assured, nothing
prevails more to win a man favour with women than a report of valour.”
“There is no way but this, Sir Andrew,” added Fabian.
“Will either of you bear a challenge to him from me?” asked Sir Andrew.
“Go, write it in a martial hand,” said Sir Toby. “Be sharp and brief.
Make it as rude and insolent as you possibly can.”
Sir Andrew retired to write his challenge, leaving the other two men
to laugh heartily over the prospect of a good joke.
“We shall have a rare letter from him,” said Fabian, “but you will not
deliver it?”
“Faith, and I will!” exclaimed Sir Toby, “and by all means stir on the
youth to an answer. I think oxen and cart-ropes will not drag them
together.”
For he knew Sir Andrew had not a grain of courage in his whole body;
and as for Orsino’s page, he looked far too soft and gentle to be in
the least brave or daring.
Sir Andrew wrote his challenge, but when finished it was such an
extraordinary production that Sir Toby decided not to deliver it.
“The behaviour of the young gentleman,” he said, “shows him to be
of good capacity and breeding; therefore this letter, being so
excellently ignorant, will not terrify him in the least; he will
know it comes from a clodpole. I will deliver his challenge by word
of mouth, give a notable report of Aguecheek’s valour, and drive the
gentleman, who is so young I know he will readily believe it, into a
most hideous opinion of his rage, skill, fury, and impetuosity. This
will so frighten them both that they will kill each other by the look,
like cockatrices.”
What Sir Toby had planned came to pass, and he and Fabian were soon
hugely enjoying the success of their joke. They first found Viola, and
delivered Sir Andrew’s challenge, assuring her that he was terribly
incensed, and was a most dangerous adversary.
“If you hold your life at any price, betake you to your guard,”
counselled Sir Toby, “for your opponent has everything that youth,
strength, skill, and wrath can furnish a man with.”
Poor Viola was in the greatest alarm on hearing of the encounter that
awaited her; she would gladly have wriggled out of it if she could,
but Sir Toby would listen to no excuses.
“I will return again to the house, and desire some escort of the
lady,” said Viola. “I am no fighter.”
But Sir Toby insisted that she positively _must_ fight with Sir
Andrew, that he had real ground of injury, and that if she declined to
fight with him she would have to fight with himself, which would be
just as dangerous.
[Illustration: “I am no fighter.”]
“This is as uncivil as strange,” said poor Viola, inwardly quaking
with terror. “I beseech you, do me the courtesy to find out from
the knight what my offence is; it must be some oversight on my
part--certainly I have done nothing on purpose.”
“I will do so,” said Sir Toby. “Signor Fabian, stay with this
gentleman till my return.”
Sir Toby went off in search of Sir Andrew, to whom he proceeded to
give the most glowing account of the young page’s furious disposition,
and his marvellous skill in fencing. Sir Andrew was in a perfect agony
of fear.
“If I thought he had been valiant and so cunning in fence, I would
have seen him hanged before I would have challenged him!” he cried
miserably. “Let him let the matter slip, and will give him my horse,
Gray Capilet.”
“I will suggest it to him,” said Sir Toby. “Stand here, make a good
show of it; this shall end without loss of life.” Then, with a chuckle
to himself: “Marry, I’ll ride your horse, as well as I ride you!... I
have his horse to take up the quarrel,” he added in a low voice to
Fabian. “I have persuaded him the youth is a fury.”
“He thinks just as horribly of Sir Andrew,” laughed back Fabian, “and
pants and looks pale as if a bear were at his heels.”
“There is no remedy, sir; he will fight with you, because of his
oath,” announced Sir Toby to Viola. “He has thought better of his
quarrel, and finds now that is scarcely worth talking of; therefore
draw, for the sake of his vow; he protests he will not hurt you.”
“Pray heaven defend me,” murmured Viola aside. “A little thing would
make me tell them how much I lack of a man.”
“Give ground, if you see him furious,” advised Fabian apart to Viola.
“Come, Sir Andrew, there is no remedy,” said Sir Toby aside to the
other trembling combatant. “The gentleman will, for his honour’s sake,
have one bout with you; he cannot, by the laws of duelling, avoid it;
but he has promised me, as he is a gentleman and a soldier, he will
not hurt you. Come on; begin!”
“Pray heaven he keep his oath!” murmured Sir Andrew.
“I do assure you it is against my will,” said Viola piteously.
The two unhappy champions then reluctantly allowed themselves to be
almost dragged into position by their determined seconds, who had much
ado to prevent them both ignominiously taking to their heels. It would
be difficult to say which was in the most abject state of fear. Sir
Andrew was quaking in every limb, and Viola turned quite pale at the
sight of her own sword. But before their shaking weapons managed to
meet there came an interruption. Antonio, the sea-captain, passed that
way, and seeing Viola, he thought it was Sebastian, for in her page’s
dress Viola had copied her brother in every particular.
Ever careful for Sebastian’s safety, Antonio at once interfered.
“Put up your sword,” he said to Sir Andrew. “If this young gentleman
has offended you in any way, I take the fault on me. If you offend
him, I will fight you for him.”
“You, sir! Why, what are you?” demanded Sir Toby, not at all pleased
to have his joke spoilt in this fashion.
“One, sir, who for his love dares yet do more than you have heard him
brag to you he will,” said Antonio proudly.
“Nay, if you are a boaster, I am for you,” said Sir Toby, who, with
all his faults, was no coward.
The swords clashed in good earnest this time, but again there came an
interruption. Some officers arrived, who proceeded to arrest Antonio
at the suit of Duke Orsino; he had been seen and recognised as an
ancient enemy; there was no escape.
“This comes with seeking you,” said Antonio to Viola, whom he took for
Sebastian; “but there is no remedy, I shall answer it. What will you
do now that my necessity makes me ask you for my purse? I am much more
grieved for what I am prevented doing for you than for anything that
befalls myself. You stand amazed, but be comforted.”
“Come, sir, away,” said one of the officers, as Viola stood staring in
astonishment at Antonio. Of course she did not know in the least what
he meant, for she had never seen him before in her life.
“I must entreat of you some of that money,” pleaded Antonio.
“What money, sir?” asked Viola. “Because of the kindness you have
shown me here, and partly prompted by your present trouble, I will
lend you something out of my own very small means; I have not much. I
will divide with you what I have. Hold! there is half my purse.”
Antonio was deeply wounded by such apparent ingratitude from one
for whom he had done so much. He was reluctant to proclaim his
own good deeds, but when Viola persisted in declaring that she
did not know him, he could not help relating how he had saved the
youth from shipwreck, and what devotion he had lavished on him
afterwards. In telling this, he called him by his name, as he
thought--“Sebastian”--but he was hurried away by the officers before
Viola had time to answer.
This name “Sebastian” filled her with sudden hope; she knew how
closely she resembled her brother, and she had imitated the same
fashion, colour, and ornament which he was accustomed to wear.
Perhaps, then, the tempests had been kind and Sebastian was really
saved.
“A very dishonest, paltry boy, and more a coward than a hare,” was Sir
Toby’s disgusted comment, as Viola walked off. “His dishonesty appears
in leaving his friend here in necessity, and denying him; and for his
cowardice, ask Fabian.”
“A coward--a most devout coward,” agreed Fabian.
“Ha, I’ll after him again, and beat him,” said the valiant Sir Andrew.
“Do, cuff him soundly, but never draw your sword,” said Sir Toby.
“If I do not----” bragged Sir Andrew, swaggering away.
“Come, let us see what happens,” said Fabian.
“I dare lay any money, it will be nothing, after all,” said Sir Toby
shrewdly.