Quotation Analysis Exemplar
“Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit
Do give thee fivefold blazen. Not too fast! Soft,
soft!
Unless the master were the man. How now?
Even so quickly may one catch the plague.
Methinks I feel this youth’s perfections
With an invisible and subtle stealth
To creep in at mine eyes.” (1.5.298-305)
Speaker: Olivia
Context: Olivia says these lines after meeting Ceasrio, who she does not know
is really Viola, for the first time. Cesario has been sent by Duke
Orsino to try and convince Olivia, who is in 7 years mourning after the
death of her brother, to fall in love with him. However, Olivia has just
fallen for Cesario
Significance:
 Olivia reveals that she is character who falls in love quickly. When
Cesario arrived she refused to speak to him because she had sworn off
men for seven years yet, as she states in the first two lines of the
quotation, she cannot help but fall for Cesario because of how attractive
he is as well as because of his romantic actions. She is trying to stop
herself from falling in love with him so quickly when she states “Not too
fast! Stop! Stop!”

Olivia also reveals that she believes love is a disease as she calls it a
“plague”. This suggests that you can fall in love without knowing or
expecting to (just as one unknowingly or unwillingly catches a cold). This
also suggests that love has a negative side, one that can make you sick.

Olivia also suggests that love is uncontrollable when she comments
“Methinks I feel this youth’s perfections/With an invisible and subtle
stealth/To creep in at mine eyes”. She is explaining that love creeps in
and eventually over takes us. We cannot control its influence.

This quotation also reflects plot development as with Olivia falling for
Cesario a love triangle is created since Duke Orsino is in love with Olivia
and Cesario, who is really Viola, is in love with Duke Orsino. This can
also connect to the theme of unrequited love.

The lines are written in iambic pentameter rather than prose suggesting
the speaker, Olivia, is of high status.