← All monologuesFull work: Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night · William Shakespeare · c. 1602
VIOLA
A woman disguised as a man, in love with the master who cannot see her, tells him about her 'sister' who is really herself. She grieves and flirts in the same breath, hidden in plain sight.
The speech96 words · 3 beats
0:00 / 1:02
My father had a daughter loved a man,
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship.
And what's her history?
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 not this 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.turn
- Speaking to
- Orsino, whom she loves and cannot tell.
- What just happened
- Orsino has claimed no woman could love as deeply as he loves Olivia. Viola, in her page's disguise, quietly disputes it by describing a love she can only call her sister's.
- Objective
- To make Orsino feel the love she cannot openly declare.
- The turn
- 'I am all the daughters of my father's house, / And all the brothers too' — the invented sister nearly gives her away.
- Watch out for
- The trap is playing pure melancholy. The scene is a tightrope of dramatic irony; she is teasing and aching at once. 'Was not this love indeed?' is a genuine challenge to him, not a sigh. Guard against the audience getting ahead of her.