| If music be the food of love, play on/ Give me excess of it… | that surfeiting/ The appetite may sicken and so die – Orsino |
| So full of shapes is fancy/… | That it alone is high fantastical – Orsino |
| Many a good hanging… | prevents a bad marriage – Feste |
| Lady, you are the cruell’st she alive/ If you will lead these graces… | to the grave/ And leave the world no copy – Viola |
| Make me a willow cabin at your gate […] write loyal cantons of contemned love… | and sing them loud even in the dead of night, Hallow your name to the reverberate hills (Viola) |
| What is love? Tis not hereafter/ Present mirth hath present laughter/ What’s to come is still unsure… | In delay there lies no plenty/ Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty/ Youth’s a stuff will not endure – Feste |
| Let still the woman… | take an elder than herself – Orsino |
| For, boy, however do we praise ourselves/ Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm… | More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn/ Than women’s are – Orsino |
| Now the melancholy god protect thee, and the tailor make… | Thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal – Feste |
| Yet a barful strife! Who’er I woo, | myself would be his wife! – Viola |
| She sat like Patience on a monument… | Smiling at grief – Viola |
| for whose dear love/ they say… | she hath abjured the sight of men |
| I have unclasped to thee… | the book even of my secret soul |
| Diana’s lip is not more smooth and rubious… | thy small pipe is as the maiden’s organ, shrill and sound, and all is semblative a woman’s part (Orsino) |
| Poor lady… | she were better love a dream (Viola) |
| How easy it is for the proper-false… | in women’s waxen hearts to set their forms (Viola) |
| She’s a beagle, true bred… | and one that adores me (T about Maria) |
| For such as I am, all true lovers are, | Unstaid and skittish in all motions else, Save in the constant image of the creature that is beloved (Orsino) |
| 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 (Orsino) |
| O what a deal of scorn looks beautiful… | in the contempt and anger of his lip (Olivia) |
| I have said too much… | unto a heart of stone (Olivia) |
| His life I gave him, and did thereto add my love without retention or restraint all in his dedication… | For his sake, I did expose myself, pure for his love, into the danger of this adverse town (Antonio about Seb) |
| I’ll sacrifice the lamb that I do love… | to spite a raven’s heart within a dove (kill Viola to get back at Olivia) |
| O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,Methought she purged the air of pestilence. | That instant was I turned into a hart,And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,E’er since pursue me. (Orsino) |
| O, she that hath a heart of that fine frameTo pay this debt of love but to a brother, | How will she love when the rich golden shaftHath killed the flock of all affections elseThat live in her (Orsino) |
| Even so quickly may one | catch the plague? (Olivia) |
| I could not stay behind you. My desire, | More sharp than filèd steel, did spur me forth; (Antonio) |
| Cesario, come,For so you shall be while you are a man. | But when in other habits you are seen,Orsino’s mistress, and his fancy’s queen. (Orsino) |
| Maria writThe letter at Sir Toby’s great importance, | In recompense whereof he hath married her. (Fabian) |
| Where like Arion on the dolphin’s back | I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves (Captain) |
| for whose dear love they say | she hath abjured the sight and company of men (Captain) |
| He hath known you but three days | and already you are no stranger (Valentine) |
| ‘Tis poetical’ (Cesario) | It is the more like to be feigned; I pray you keep it in (Olivia) |
| If you be not mad, be gone | if you have reason, be brief (Olivia) |
| The rudeness that hath appeared in me | I learned from my entertainment (Viola about Orsino) |
| You are now out of your text, | but we will draw the curtain and show you the picture (unveiling) (Olivia) |
| I do not know what, and fear to find | Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind (Olivia) |
| If you will not murder me for my love | let me be your servant (Antonio) |
| I have many enemies in Orsino’s court, Else would I very shortly see thee there. | But come what may, I do adore thee so, That danger shall seem sport, and I will go’ (Antonio) |
| I left no ring with her: what means this lady? | Fortune forbid my outside have not charmed her! (Viola) |
| Methought, her eyes had lost her tongue, | For she did speak in starts, distractedly (Viola) |
| Poor lady, | she were better love a dream (Viola) |
| What kind of woman is’t? (Orsino) | Of your complexion (Viola) |
| For women are roses, whose fair flower, | Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour (Orsino) |
| Make no compare between that love a woman can bear me | and that I owe Olivia (Orsino) |
| In faith, they (women) | are as true of heart as we (Viola) |
| 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 (Viola) |
| How now, | my metal of India? (Toby) |
| I could marry this wench for this device […] | and ask no other dowry with her but such another jest (Toby) |
| I would play Lord Pandarus of Phrygia, sir | to bring a Cressida to this Troilus (Feste) |
| For him, I think not on him, for his thoughts | Would they were blanks, rather than filled with me! (Olivia about Orsino) |
| I bade you never speak again of him; But would you take another suit | I had rather hear you to solicit that, Than music from the spheres (Olivia to Cesario) |
| Have you not set mine honour at the stake, | And baited it with all h’unmuzzled thoughts That tyrannous heart can think? (Olivia) |
| Enough is shown: a cypress, not a bosom, | Hides my heart (Olivia) |
| I pity you ( Viola) | That’s a degree to love (Olivia) |
| O world, how apt the poor are to be proud! | If one should be a prey, how much the better to fall before the lion than the wolf (Olivia) |
| I prithee tell me what thou think’st of me. (O) – That you do not think you are not what you are (V) | If I think so, I think the same of you. (O) – Then think you right: I am not what I am (V) |
| Love’s night | is noon. (Olivia) |
| I love thee so that, maugre all thy pride, | Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide (Olivia) |
| Love sought is good, | but giv’n unsought is better (Olivia) |
| I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth. And that no woman has; | Nor never none, Shall mistress be of it, save I alone (Viola) |
| Yet come again: for thou perhaps mayst move | That heart which now abhors to like his love (Olivia) |
| Marry, I saw your niece do more favours to the count’s servingman | than she ever bestowed upon me. (Andrew) |
| She did show favour to the youth in your sight only to exasperate you | to awake your dormouse valour, to put fire in your heart and brimstone in your liver (Fabian) |
| You are now sailed into the north of my lady’s opinion | and where you will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman’s beard (Fabian) |
| My desire, More sharp than filed steel | did spur me forth; and not all love to see you (Antonio) |
| Haply you eye shall light upon some toy | You have desire to purchase (Antonio) |
| If this young gentleman have done offence, I take the fault on me; If you offend him, I for him defy you […] | One sir, that for his love dares yet do more than you have heard him brag to you he will (Antonio for Cesario) |
| This youth that you see here, I snatched one half out the jaws of death, Relieved him with such sanctity of love; | And to his image, which methought did promise most venerable worth, did I devotion (Antonio) |
| Virtue is beauty, but the beauteous-evil | Are empty trunks o’er flourished by the devil (Antonio) |
| Beshrew his soul for me, | He started one poor heart of mine, in thee (Olivia) |
| Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep | If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep! (See) |
| And underneath that consecrated roof | Plight me the full assurance of your faith (Olivia) |
| Then lead the way, good father, and heavens so shine, | That they may fairly note this act of mine! (Olivia) |
| No interim, not a minute’s vacancy, | Both day and night did we keep company (Antonio) |
| After him I love, | More than I love these eyes, more than my life (Viola) |
| Alas, it is the baseness of thy fear That makes thee strangle thy propriety. Fear not, Cesario | take thy fortunes up; Be that thou know’st thou art, and then thou art as great as thou fear’st (Olivia) |
| A contract of eternal bond of love, Confirmed by mutual joinder of your hands, […] | Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave I have travelled but two hours (Priest) |
| You throw a strange regard upon me, and by that I do perceive it hath offended you. | Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vows We made each other but so late ago (Seb) |
| O my dear Antonio, | How have the hours racked and tortured me, Since I have lost thee! (See) |
| Were you a woman – as the rest goes even | I should let my tears fall upon your cheek, And say, ‘Thrice welcome, drowned Viola’ (Seb) |
| If this be so – as yet the glass seems true – I shall have share in this most happy wreck. | Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times Thou never shouldst love a woman like to me (Orsino) |
| And all those swearing keep as true in soul | As doth that orbed continent the fire That severs day from night (Viola) |
Twelfth Night – Desire and Love Quotes
July 18, 2019