In a typical Sir Andrew blunder, he uses the wrong word. He should have said incarnate, which means in physical form or in a human body. But the Countess overlooks the blunder because of the shock. Neither she nor the Duke can believe that the gentle Cesario is capable of such prowess and fighting skill.
Viola was confused earlier, but she becomes doubly so at this point.
The confusion continues when the bloody Sir Toby comes on stage. Feste is with him. Sir Toby is angry and demands to see a doctor. Sir Toby also is angry at Sir Andrew (who was not much help in the fighting) and curses him (at lines 198-99).
Olivia orders Feste and Fabian to take Sir Toby away so that he can get some medical attention. Sir Andrew exits with them.
Before the Duke, the Countess, and Viola can deal with their current confusion and state of shock, another even greater shock arrives: Sebastian. The twin brother immediately goes up to the Countess – he does not see Cesario right away.
Sebastian starts to apologize to the Countess for fighting against her kinsman, Sir Toby. But before he gets too far in his apology, he notices the odd look on Olivia’s face: “You throw a strange regard upon me” (204). Sebastian thinks that his fight with Sir Toby has offended her. Of course, the Countess is shocked beyond words because she is seeing two Cesarios.
Sebastian then sees his friend Antonio standing nearby and is delighted that Antonio appears to be all right. Antonio is just as shocked as everyone else. He asks Sebastian, “How have you made division of yourself?” (215).
And, then, Sebastian sees Viola (still disguised as Cesario). Sebastian feels like he is looking at his own reflection. Viola feels like she is looking at a ghost or a devil in disguise. Their emotions numbed and uncertain, they quickly ask each other by their parentage and lives.
Viola, still very much in a state of wonder and surprise, soon reveals herself: “I am Viola” (246).
Viola then explains how she has been serving the Duke, and Sebastian then understands that the Countess made a mistake in thinking that he was Cesario:
So comes it, lady, you have been mistook. But nature in her bias drew in that.
You would have been contracted to a maid, Now are you therein, by my life, deceived, You are betrothed both to a maid and a man.
(252-56)
Sebastian is exclaiming that Nature (and the power of Fate) took advantage of Olivia’s mistake. Nature is biased in the sense that nature prefers women to mate with men (and not other women). Thus, Sebastian is declaring that his marriage to Olivia is natural. Shakespeare also includes a pun in these lines with the word maid. The first time it appears, the word means girl or young woman. The second time it appears, it means virgin. Although the Countess was deceived in thinking that Sebastian was Cesario, the deception worked in her favor: for she is now “contracted” (married) to a man instead of a girl.
Although Duke Orsino realizes that he can now never marry the Countess, he is not unhappy about the situation. In fact, he finds a new love to take the place of the old:
I shall have share in this most happy wreck. (259)
The word wreck here does mean ruin or destruction. The Duke’s plans to marry the Countess have been wrecked or destroyed, yet he finds happiness in it not because the Countess is happily married to Sebastian. Rather, for him the happiness is in discovering that the boy Cesario is really the girl Viola. The Duke had always enjoyed the company of the clever Cesario, and he is delighted in learning that Cesario is a noble young lady whom he can now marry.
The Renaissance audience would not have been bothered by the fickleness of either the Duke or the Countess; and the modern audience should not be bothered by it as well. Everything happens so quickly in the final act that the audience does not really have much time to ponder over the sudden changes in affection in these two characters. This is, after all, a crazy madcap comedy intended to delight the audience, who should laugh at the results rather than criticize them.
Moreover, the Duke’s sudden switch of affection from the Countess to Viola and the Countess’ sudden switch of affection from Cesario to Sebastian suggest a different message by the playwright. Shakespeare is not presenting a theme on the constancy of love. Rather, he is presenting a theme on the incorrect and foolish choices that men and women sometimes (or often) make when it comes to matters of love. Fortunately for the Duke and the Countess, this is a pleasant comedy; and fate interferes so that the Duke and the Countess each end up with the right partners so that they can and will live happily ever after. After all, it was just a matter of fate that Viola and Sebastian washed up on the shores of Illyria in the first place. Fate, at least in this play, is a benevolent force that corrects human error and brings happiness to all. Well, not quite all! There is still the matter of Malvolio.
Before wedding bells can sound, Feste arrives on the scene bearing a letter from the steward Malvolio. In the letter Malvolio complains about being locked in a dark room and about being accused of being mad. He tells the Countess that he has a letter written in her own hand that caused him to act the way that he had (wearing yellow stockings and cross-garters and always smiling). Because the letter is soundly and logically written, the Countess orders her servants to bring Malvolio before her.
A few moments later the scruffy and bedraggled Malvolio appears and produces the letter that Maria had written to trick him. The Countess looks over the letter and quickly realizes that Maria is indeed the author of it.
The attendant Fabian then confesses the matter and explains that Maria did indeed write the letter at Sir Toby’s insistence. However, Sir Toby was so pleased with her and the way in which they played a joke on Malvolio, that Sir Toby married Maria (line 353). Thus, the drunken Sir Toby, despite all of his faults, does have merit in him after all: he does not allow the prejudices of social class prevent him from marrying a commoner and finding happiness for himself because of it.
Fabian adds that injuries occurred on both sides. Malvolio had been haughty and scornful to Sir Toby and the others, and so the trick they had played was in recompense (repayment) for that. The situation is now even. The Countess cannot help but agree.
Feste also admits to playing Sir Topas; but, as he also indicates, he was not a part of the actual scheme from the start. Malvolio is speechless at this point, so Feste now finds occasion to throw the words back at him that Malvolio had spoken at the beginning of the play (Act I, Scene 5: 74-75):
Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal, an you smile not, he’s gagged. (362-63)
In the first act Malvolio had asked the Countess why would anyone laugh at a fool, whose words are “barren” or meaningless. The word an means if. If you do not laugh at the fool, then he is gagged or speechless. And now Malvolio has become the gagged fool.
Feste sums up his comment with this clever conclusion:
The whirligig of time brings in his revenges. (364)
Time or Fate is a whirligig, a spinning toy. It turns full circle. And, thus, the circle has turned: Act V turns back to Act I. But this time it has turned against Malvolio instead of in favor for him. Feste is suggesting that there is poetic justice regarding what has happened to the haughty steward.
Malvolio, quite naturally, does not see the matter in the same way that Feste does. He is angry and unsatisfied, and he leaves the stage with the vow that he promises to get revenge against everyone. Duke Orsino orders some of his men to go after Malvolio and attempt to bring him to terms of peace.
The play ends with a promise of Duke Orsino to marry Viola after she leaves her disguise and becomes a woman once again.
And following that promise is a song sung by Feste. The song is light and lyrical and suggests the pattern of life, with a movement from boyhood to manhood and from bachelorhood to that of the married man. Adversity in life is indicated by the line that closes the first four verses:
For the rain it raineth everyday. (379)
But in life, the song suggests, one becomes successful (“thrive”) not by being forceful and bullying (“swaggering” at line 386), but by gently giving in to the forces of nature and fate.
Life goes by quickly, just like the song and just like the play:
Our play is done. (394)
Feste’s final message, and perhaps Shakespeare’s own message or theme, thus seems to be that a person should not struggle against the forces of nature or fate to be successful or happy in life. Life is too short: find pleasure in it. Shakespeare ends the play with his fool’s message. And, just perhaps, the fool is right.