Malvolio catches up with Cesario (Viola) on the road and presents him with the ring from the Countess Olivia. Cesario is confused about the ring and refuses to take it. The ill-tempered Malvolio then throws the ring on the ground and hurries off.
Viola picks up the ring and then speaks her thoughts (a soliloquy) about what Olivia means by the ring. In the first part of the soliloquy, Viola realizes that Olivia has fallen in love with her:
I left no ring with her. What means this lady? Fortune forbid my outside have not charmed her! She made good view of me, indeed so much That straight methought her eyes had lost her
tongue,
For she did speak in starts distractedly.
She loves me, sure: the cunning of her passion Invites me in this churlish messenger.
None of my lord’s ring! Why, he sent her none. I am the man. If it be so—as ’tis—
Poor lady, she were better love a dream! (15-24)
Viola recalls the way Olivia spoke and acted when they were together. Viola realizes that Olivia viewed her appearance – her outside – closely and spoke in an awkward or distracted manner. The expression “cunning of her passion” suggests that someone who is very much in love becomes cunning or clever in attempting ways to be with the person whom he or she loves. Viola realizes that Olivia sent the churlish (rude or ill-natured) Malvolio with the ring as a trick to get her to return. Viola concludes that it would be better for Olivia to love a man in a dream, for “Cesario” does not really exist. He is a fantasy created by Viola.
Viola then begins to believe that disguising herself as a man was a mistake, and she also then launches into a commentary about the frailty of women:
Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness Wherein the pregnant enemy does much. How easy is it for the proper-false
In women’s waxen hearts to set their forms! Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we,
For such as we are made of, such we be.
How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly, And I, poor monster, fond as much on him,
And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me. What will become of this? As I am man, My state is desperate for my master’s love. As I am woman, now alas the day!
What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe! O time, thou must untangle this, not I.
It is too hard a knot for me t’untie! (25-39)
Viola realizes that using a disguise is one type of deception and that deception is a trick of the devil. She refers to the devil as a “pregnant enemy,” for the devil is always full and ready to conceive new deceptions with which to trick mankind.
Viola then makes a generalization (broad statement) about the weakness or frailty of all women: women are easily deceived or tricked by false men. Many men will tell women that they love them when they do not really mean it, but the women press these men into their hearts. They fall in love with them and believe they are speaking the truth. In short, women are easily tricked or deceived into believing something that is not true. And “Cesario” is something that is not true.
Viola does not know what to do about this problem. She wonders what will happen next (suggested by the word “fadge”). Viola also refers to herself as a “monster.” In Greek mythology monsters were usually half man and half animal (the minotaur, for example, was half man and half bull). Viola is half man and half woman, but she also has gotten herself into a monstrous situation. Viola has created a monstrous love triangle.
Viola realizes that as long as she disguises herself as a man, her love for Orsino is hopeless (“desperate”). She can never win Orsino’s love in that disguise. However, because she really is a woman, Olivia’s own situation is also hopeless or desperate. Olivia can never and will never have Cesario.
Viola does not know what to do. She decides, in a sense, to do nothing. She leaves it up to time to untangle or resolve the problem. In essence, she is leaving it up to Fate. Some literary critics disapprove of Viola because she is a passive character in this situation. She is not a forceful character who takes action to solve her difficulties.
Viola is unlike Rosalind, the heroine in As You Like It. Rosalind also disguises herself as a male, but she uses her disguise to improve her situation and change her fate.
However, one should, perhaps, not be too critical of Viola at this juncture; for there are times in everyone’s life – in the lives of both women and men
– when fate steps in and is too powerful a force to control or manipulate. Shakespeare is suggesting that Viola is facing one of these times.
Sir Toby and Sir Andrew are inside the house of the Countess at night, and they are already quite drunk as the scene opens. There are some jokes about the merits of staying awake all night, and the verbal humor continues when Feste joins them. Much of Feste’s humor is verbal nonsense, but his best joke is one that will not make much sense to modern audiences. When Feste enters, he greets Sir Andrew and Sir Toby with the following line:
Did you never see the picture of ‘we three’?
(14-15)
This is an example of contemporary humor – a joke that would be easily understood by the people of Shakespeare’s own time. A person would approach another and ask if he would like to see a picture of three asses or three fools. Receiving the picture, he would see only two asses or two fools on it. The third ass or fool was the person holding the picture. This practical joke was well known in Shakespeare’s time, but of course is no longer well known today. Feste is obviously implying that the three fools are Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and himself. Feste may have already had a drink, or two, himself, for he quickly joins in the merriment and foolishness of the two drunken knights.
Sir Toby and Sir Andrew each give Feste a coin and ask him to sing a love song. The fools, as this scene suggest, do not earn a salary but rather live on tips or gratuities. That would explain why Feste often visits the Duke’s palace to make extra money. Renaissance comedies were often full of music, song, and dance. The people living in those hard times wanted light entertainment to make them forget their problems and worries.
Feste’s love song suggests that a person should love when he or she is young and take advantage of the present moment and not concern himself with the future:
What’s to come is still unsure.
In delay there lies no plenty. (45-46)
The future is uncertain or unsure. Love may not be available (“no plenty”) if one waits or delays. Feste is encouraging his listeners to take advantage of love when the occasion arises, for tomorrow the occasion may no longer exist. These lines directly apply to the situation of the Countess Olivia. Olivia may lose her chance at love if she waits too long.
The last line of the song also applies to Olivia’s situation:
Youth’s a stuff will not endure. (48)
Youth is brief. One gets old far too quickly. If Olivia waits for seven years before she thinks about love, she will have wasted her youth. She will no longer be so young, and perhaps she will no longer be so beautiful.
The three fools are singing loudly and shouting in their drunkenness at this point, and Maria comes in to tell them to be quiet. The Countess Olivia, still in mourning, does not wish to be disturbed by the revels of Sir Toby and his associates. Maria tries to warn them that Olivia will have all of them thrown out if they do not behave, but she is too late. The sour and ill-willed Malvolio also enters.