“Twelfth Night, Viola,
&
The Language of Love”
By
Alycia Smith-Howard
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 odor. 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. (I.i.1-15)
Contrasting text in Orsino’s speech
“If music be the food of love, play on,” (1)
_
“Enough, no more,/Tis not so sweet now as it was before.” (78)
Chronology
1600-01
1600-01
1601
1601-02
1604
1604
1605
1605
1605-06
Hamlet
The Merry Wives of Windsor
*Twelfth Night, or What You Will*
Troilus and Cressida
Othello
Measure for Measure
All’s Well that Ends Well
Timon of Athens
King Lear
VIOLA
Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons of contemned love,
And sing them loud even in the dead of night;
Hallow your name to the reverberate hills,
And make the babbling gossip of the air
Cry out “Olivia!” O, you should not rest
Between the elements of air and earth
But you should pity me! (I.v.267-276)
VIOLA
My father had a daughter loved a man; As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, I should love your lordship.
…
A blank, my lord: 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.
Was this not love indeed?
We men
may say more, swear more: but indeed
Our
shows are more than will; for still we prove
Much in our vows, but little in our love.
…
I am all the daughters of my father’s house,
And all the brothers too: and yet I know not. (II.iv. 106-121)
Peggy Ashcrosft as Viola
Old Vic, 1950, dir. Hugh Hunt
Viola (Jane Lapotaire) and Orsino (John Price) (dir. Peter Gill, 1974)
1974
Vivien Leigh as Viola, Keith Mitchell as Orsino; dir. John Geilgud (RSC, 1955)
Maxine Audley (Olivia) and Vivien Leigh (Viola) (1955)
Orsino (Alan Howard) and Viola (Diana Rigg), 1966 (dir. Clifford Williams)
Cherie Lunghi (Viola) Stephen Rashbrook (Sebastian) in Terry Hands’ “Christmas” Twelfth Night (1974)
Frederick Richard Pickersgill painting of Orsino and Viola, mid 1800s
Amanda Bynes as Sebastian in She’s the Man
Judi Dench as Viola
(RSC 1969/70, dir. John Barton)
1969
Viola (Judi Dench) and Olivia (Lisa Harrow) in John Barton’s “Chekhovian” Twelfth Night, 1969
Chris New (Viola) and Tim Chipping (Sea Captain) (dir. Michael Boyd, 2007)
Foreground: John Lithgow as Malvolio
Background: Annabel Leventon (Sir Andrew) and Marjorie Yates (Sir Toby Belch)