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Twelfth Night
by
Sebastian, half dazed and all delighted with her beauty and grace, readily consented, and that very day, so great was Olivia’s baste, they were married before she had discovered that he was not Cesario, or Sebastian was quite certain whether or not he was in a dream.
Meanwhile Orsino, hearing how ill Cesario sped with Olivia, visited her himself, taking Cesario with him. Olivia met them both before her door, and seeing, as she thought, her husband there, reproached him for leaving her, while to the Duke she said that his suit was as fat and wholesome to her as howling after music.
“Still so cruel?” said Orsino.
“Still so constant,” she answered.
Then Orsino’s anger growing to cruelty, he vowed that, to be revenged on her, he would kill Cesario, whom he knew she loved. “Come, boy,” he said to the page.
And Viola, following him as he moved away, said, “I, to do you rest, a thousand deaths would die.”
A great fear took hold on Olivia, and she cried aloud, “Cesario, husband, stay!”
“Her husband?” asked the Duke angrily.
“No, my lord, not I,” said Viola.
“Call forth the holy father,” cried Olivia.
And the priest who had married Sebastian and Olivia, coming in, declared Cesario to be the bridegroom.
“O thou dissembling cub!” the Duke exclaimed. “Farewell, and take her, but go where thou and I henceforth may never meet.”
At this moment Sir Andrew came up with bleeding crown, complaining that Cesario had broken his head, and Sir Toby’s as well.
“I never hurt you,” said Viola, very positively; “you drew your sword on me, but I bespoke you fair, and hurt you not.”
Yet, for all her protesting, no one there believed her; but all their thoughts were on a sudden changed to wonder, when Sebastian came in.
“I am sorry, madam,” he said to his wife, “I have hurt your kinsman. Pardon me, sweet, even for the vows we made each other so late ago.”
“One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons!” cried the Duke, looking first at Viola, and then at Sebastian.
“An apple cleft in two,” said one who knew Sebastian, “is not more twin than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?”
“I never had a brother,” said Sebastian. “I had a sister, whom the blind waves and surges have devoured.” “Were you a woman,” he said to Viola, “I should let my tears fall upon your cheek, and say, ‘Thrice welcome, drowned Viola!'”
Then Viola, rejoicing to see her dear brother alive, confessed that she was indeed his sister, Viola. As she spoke, Orsino felt the pity that is akin to love.
“Boy,” he said, “thou hast said to me a thousand times thou never shouldst love woman like to me.”
“And all those sayings will I overswear,” Viola replied, “and all those swearings keep true.”
“Give me thy hand,” Orsino cried in gladness. “Thou shalt be my wife, and my fancy’s queen.”
Thus was the gentle Viola made happy, while Olivia found in Sebastian a constant lover, and a good husband, and he in her a true and loving wife.