Act II: Scene 2
A street
Summary
Viola, still in disguise as Cesario, comes on stage and
is followed by Malvolio, who catches up with the lad and asks him if he is
indeed the young man who was with the Countess Olivia only a short time ago.
Cesario admits that it was he, and Malvolio holds out a ring to him — seemingly
a ring that Duke Orsino sent to Olivia, one which Cesario left behind by
mistake. Malvolio adds sarcastically that Cesario would have saved Malvolio the
time and trouble of returning it if Cesario had not been so absent-minded.
Scornfully, Malvolio tells Cesario to return to his master, Orsino, and tell
him that Olivia "will none of him," and furthermore he warns Cesario
that he should "never be so hardy to come again in his [Orsino's]
affairs."
Cesario is dumbfounded by Malvolio's high-handed manner;
then, matching Malvolio's insolence, he says, "I'll none of it."
Malvolio is incensed at Cesario's haughty manner and flings the ring to the
ground; if Cesario wants it and "if it be worth stooping for, there it
lies." With that, he exits abruptly.
Left alone, Viola ponders all that has happened; she is
absolutely certain that she left no ring with Olivia, yet why does Olivia
believe that she did and, moreover, why did she send Malvolio with such urgency
to return it? Then she realizes what may have happened, and she is horrified:
can it be possible that Olivia has fallen in love with Viola's boyish disguise?
She is aghast: "fortune forbid my outside have not charmed her!"
Thinking back on their interview, however, she clearly recalls that Olivia
certainly "made good view of me; indeed, so much / That sure methought her
eyes had lost her tongue."
The evidence is clear. Olivia has indeed fallen in love
with Cesario; when she spoke to the young man, she spoke in starts and spurts,
and her manner was vague and distracted. Now "the winning of her
passion" has sent Malvolio after the "boy" whom she believes to
be the object of her love.
Viola pities Olivia; it would be better for the poor
Olivia to "love a dream." Viola recognizes that "disguise . . .
art a wickedness." She aptly calls disguise a "pregnant enemy,"
an enemy able to play havoc with "women's waxen hearts." Like Olivia,
Viola too is a woman. She knows the anguish of love: "Our frailty is the
cause, not we," she meditates, "for such are we made of."
This is a dreadfully complicated knot. Viola loves her
master, Orsino, who loves the beautiful but disdainful Olivia, who loves the
handsome Cesario (who is not a man at all, but is Viola, in disguise). Viola
calls on Time to untangle this knot, for she is incapable of doing so herself;
"it is too hard a knot for me to untie."
Analysis
At the end of Act I,
Olivia sent Malvolio to catch up with Cesario and return a ring that Cesario
did notleave behind. In
this short scene, Malvolio is seen returning the ring in a very scornful,
haughty, and arrogant manner. The scene serves in part to bring out Malvolio's
rudeness and his ill nature. He is extremely insolent to a youth who has caused
him no personal injury. His unwarranted enmity is seen in the manner in which
he delivers the ring. Malvolio's action here again prepares the reader for
delight in the tricks that will later be played on this insolent man who shows
nothing but scorn for any person who is not above him in social status.
While this scene does not advance the plot, it does show
us how intricately Viola is caught up in the entanglement. She suddenly
realizes that Olivia has fallen in love with an exterior facade — and not with
the inner person. This realization allows her to comment on the
"frailty" of women who are constantly deceived by disguises of one
sort or another. When Viola cries out, "Disguise, I see thou art a
wickedness, / Wherein the pregnant enemy does much," she speaks with
allusions about the "wickedness" that arises from a woman's being
constantly deceived by disguises, ever since Eve was first deceived in the
Garden of Eden. Yet, Viola must retain her disguise because, as a girl alone in
a foreign country, she would be powerless to defend herself, as we see later
when the cowardly Sir Aguecheek threatens her.
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