it began by the timely arrival of some officers of the law. In the meantime Malvolio's actions are so ridiculous that Olivia believes him insane and has him locked in a dark

room.

ACT IV

Viola's brother Sebastian had also been rescued at the time of the shipwreck. He now arrives in Illyria and being met on the street by Sir Andrew is mistaken by that gentleman for Viola and the fight is renewed. This time it is Olivia who stops the duel, thinking that Sebastian is the page Cesario. She invites him home with her and is delighted when instead of rejecting her love as in the past he returns it, and they are secretly married by a priest.

ACT V

Olivia meets Viola on the street in the company of the Duke and calls her husband. Viola denies the title but the priest who had married Olivia and Sebastian supports Olivia's claims. The Duke is angry at what he believes is treachery on the part of his page. The situation is relieved by the entrance of Sebastian. Brother and sister are united again; the Duke finds the attraction which the page had always inspired in him, ripens into love when he knows she is a woman; and Olivia finds that she has now a sister as well as a husband. The cause of Malvolio's insanity is discovered and he is released from his prison.

TWELFTH NIGHT;

OR, WHAT YOU WILL

ACT FIRST

SCENE I

An apartment in the Duke's palace.

Enter Duke, Curio, and other Lords; Musicians attending.

Duke. 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:

5. "sound"; so the Folios; Pope changed it to "south," and editors have generally accepted this emendation, but it seems unnecessary: Grant White appropriately asks, "Did Pope, or the editors who have followed him, ever lie musing on the sward at the edge of a wood, and hear the low sweet hum of the summer air, as it kissed the coyly-shrinking wild flowers upon the banks, and passed on loaded with fragrance from the sweet salute?”—I. G.

7. "and giving odor"; Milton seems to have had this in his eye when he wrote the richly-freighted lines:

"Now gentle gales,

Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense

Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils."-H. N. H.

'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.

Cur. Will you go hunt, my lord?

Duke.

Cur. The hart.

What, Curio?

Duke. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have:
O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,

10

Methought she purged the air of pestilence! 20
That instant was I turn'd into a hart;

And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
E'er since pursue me.

Enter Valentine.

How now! what news from her? Val. So please my lord, I might not be admitted; But from her handmaid do return this answer:

12. "pitch"; high worth.-C. H. H.

22. "like fell and cruel hounds"; referring to the story of Acteon. -I. G.

Shakespeare seems to think men cautioned against too great familiarity with forbidden beauty by the fable of Actæon, who saw Diana naked, and was torn to pieces by his hounds; as a man indulging his eyes or his imagination with a view of a woman he cannot gain, has his heart torn with incessant longing. An interpretation far more elegant and natural than Lord Bacon's, who, in his Wisdom of the Ancients, supposes this story to warn us against inquiring into the secrets of princes, by showing that those who know that which for reasons of state ought to be concealed will be detected and destroyed by their own servants.-H. N. H.

The element itself, till seven years' heat,
Shall not behold her face at ample view;
But, like a cloistress, she will veiled walk
And water once a day her chamber round
With eye-offending brine: all this to season 30
A brother's dead love, which she would keep
fresh

And lasting in her sad remembrance.

Duke. O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame
To pay this debt of love but to a brother,
How will she love, when the rich golden shaft
Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else
That live in her; when liver, brain and heart,
These sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and
fill'd

40

Her sweet perfections with one self king!
Away before me to sweet beds of flowers:
Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with
bowers.

[Exeunt.

26. "till seven years' heat"; for seven summers.-C. H. H. 30. "to season"; that is, preserve. The Poet elsewhere uses season in this sense. Thus in Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. sc. 3:

"Jesu Maria! what a deal of brine

Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!
How much salt water thrown away in waste,
To season love!"-H. N. H.

32. "remembrance"; four syllables.-C. H. H.
35. "shaft"; i. e. of Cupid.-C. H. H.

38. "all supplied, and filled"; the comma after "supplied" is not in the Folio: its insertion simplifies the lines. Others leave the Folio reading, but bracket "her sweet perfections" in the next line; making them appositional to "thrones.”—I. G.

SCENE II

The sea-coast.

Enter Viola, a Captain, and Sailors.

Vio. What country, friends, is this?

Cap. This is Illyria, lady.

Vio. And what should I do in Illyria?

My brother he is in Elysium.

Perchance he is not drown'd: what. think you,

sailors?

Cap. It is perchance that you yourself were saved. Vio. O my poor brother! and so perchance may he

be.

Cap. True, madam: and, to comfort you with chance,

Assure yourself, after our ship did split,

When you and those poor number saved with

you

10

Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,
Most provident in peril, bind himself,
Courage and hope both teaching him the prac-
tice,

To a strong mast that lived upon the sea;
Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,

I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves
So long as I could see.

Vio. For saying so, there's gold:

10. "Number" is here used as the plural, so that those should not

be changed to that, as it usually is.-H. N. H.

15. "Arion on the dolphin's back"; the Folios misprint "Orion” for "Arion."-I. G.