TWELFTH NIGHT - Contextual Question 1
Read the extract printed below and answer the questions which follow.
DUKE: Once more, Cesario,
Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty.
Tell her, my love, more noble than the world,
Prizes not quantity of dirty lands;
The parts that fortune hath bestowed upon her,
Tell her, I hold as giddily as fortune.
But ’tis that miracle and queen of gems
That nature pranks in her attracts my soul.
VIOLA: But if she cannot love you, sir?
DUKE: I cannot be so answered.
VIOLA: Sooth, but you must.
Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,
Hath for your love as great a pang of heart
As you have for Olivia. You cannot love her;
You tell her so. Must she not then be answered?
DUKE: There is no woman’s sides
Can bide the beating of so strong a passion
As love doth give my heart; no woman’s heart
So big, to hold so much; they lack retention.
Alas, their love may be called appetite,
No motion of the liver, but the palate,
That suffer surfeit, cloyment and revolt;
But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
And can digest as much. Make no compare
Between that love a woman can bear me
And that I owe Olivia.
VIOLA: Aye, but I know
DUKE: What dost thou know?
VIOLA: Too well what love women to men may owe.
In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
My father had a daughter loved a man,
As it might be perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship.
DUKE: And what’s her history?
VIOLA: 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.
DUKE: But died thy sister of her love, my boy?
VIOLA: I am all the daughters of my father’s house,
And all the brothers too - and yet I know not.
Sir, shall I to this lady?
DUKE: Ay, that’s the theme.
To her in haste; give her this jewel; say,
My love can give no place, bide no deny.
A. What do you learn about Viola’s character from this extract?
B. Is the Duke always like this in the rest of the play?
C. Describe what has led to the relationship between Viola and the Duke in this extract.
D. How significant is the relationship between Viola and the Duke to the whole play?