Put
up your sword. If this young gentleman
Have
done offence, I take the fault on me:
If
you offend him, I for him defy you.
Antonio
Twelfth Night Act III, Scene iv, Line 315
Here we go again. The young gentleman being referred to in the line above is actually a woman, Viola, pretending to be a man (again, the actor is a man- so that we have a man pretending to be a woman pretending to be a man). At this point I’m not sure if Antonio has mistaken Viola for her twin brother Sebastian who, presumably she looks like when she’s dressed as a man. Sebastian is Antonio’s friend so it would make sense that he would be trying to defend him.
In any event, there are people all over the place
here with their swords drawn, but none of them is actually interested in
fighting. They’re all bluffing. But Antonio doesn’t know that.
Does any of this matter and does any of what I’ve
written so far make any sense to anyone reading this? Good question.
The thing is, there’s a lot going on here. We’re
well into the play, and there are a lot of players. There’s Viola, who’s
shipwrecked in a strange land, pretending to be a man because she’s afraid of
being taken advantage of as a woman. There’s Antonio who was separately
shipwrecked with Viola’s brother Sebastian. There’s Sir Andrew Aguecheek and
Sir Toby Belch. These two are living on the estate of Olivia, who is Sir Toby’s
niece and with whom Sir Andrew is infatuated. Olivia, in the meantime, is
infatuated with Viola because she’s thinks he/she is a young man. Viola is
infatuated with the Duke of Illyria, who in turn wants to get his arms around
Olivia.
Essentially, by this time in the play we realize
that almost everyone wants someone who has no interest in them, and that half
the people aren’t who/what the other people think they are.
Confused? I guess you should be but, on the other
hand, this sort of sounds like the real world. Sort of.
2 comments:
I was with you in the first half, but then things got pretty confusing. Kind of like that sticker!
Yes, very confusing.
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