How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare (13 page)

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting
,

The appetite may sicken and so die
.

Another clue to what this play will be about is the word
excess
. All the characters in the play will go to extremes, and it will get them in trouble. Orsino is excessively in love. Olivia is in excessive mourning over the deaths of her father and brother. Malvolio, when it’s his turn to woo Olivia, will go to excesses that are against his nature.

The other key word in this couplet is die.
Twelfth Night
is filled with issues of dying and death. These allusions create shadows throughout the play, so that as we laugh at the witty lines and revel in the extravagant characters, we are aware that larger issues of life and death are looming just around the corner.

Orsino continues by asking the musicians to repeat a particular passage, or
strain
, of the music that he just heard; and he describes that strain
as having a
dying fall
, meaning that the passage is descending. (There’s that suggestion of dying again.)

That strain again! It had a dying fall
.

And now he describes the music in more detail:

O, it came o’er
[over]
my ear like the sweet sound

That breathes upon a bank of violets
,

Stealing and giving odor
.

How interesting that Shakespeare would say that the sound
breathes upon a bank of violets
. Remembering the passage

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows

one might well conclude that Shakespeare was fond of banks of flowers and found them romantic.

That breathes upon a bank of violets
,

Stealing and giving odor
.

Stealing
seems to mean “stealing up on” or “stealing over.” And the beautiful sound of the music seems to have an odor, or smell, and it seems to breathe.

But we hear music. We listen to it. How can it
breathe
, then
steal
, then give off
odor?
Point out to your children that Shakespeare is doing something very clever here. He is mingling the senses, as if love knows no bounds and can make us feel and see and smell all at the same time. Thus, in the very first speech of the play, Shakespeare is telling us how multi-faceted love can be, and he is hinting that love will be one of the major themes of the play.

O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound

That breathes upon a bank of violets
,

Stealing and giving odor
.

At this point, Orsino stops the musicians from allowing him to indulge in all this richness and says:

Enough; no more
.

’Tis not so sweet now as it was before
.

Have your children rehearse each phrase as often as possible until the passage is memorized. This passage is no longer than the first passage they learned from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, but it is considerably more complex. Say it together one final time before taking a well-deserved break.

Passage 7
The Nature of Shakespearean Comedy

VIOLA

What country, friends, is this?

CAPTAIN

This is Illyria, lady
.

VIOLA

And what should I do in Illyria?

My brother he is in Elysium
.

Perchance he is not drowned.—What think you, sailors?

CAPTAIN

It is perchance that you yourself were saved.…

VIOLA

I prithee—and I’ll pay thee bounteously—

Conceal me what I am, and be my aid

For such disguise as haply shall become

The form of my intent. I’ll serve this duke
.

(
Twelfth Night
, Act I, Scene 2, lines 1ff.)

W
e are now on a beach on the coast of Illyria right after a shipwreck. (It’s the second scene of the play.) A ship was split on a rock, lives were lost, a man tied himself to a mast to save himself, and a few survivors have struggled out of the water onto the beach. It is here that we meet Viola and hear her distinctive, invigorating, yearning voice for the first time.

After hearing Orsino spouting all those hothouse metaphors about love and hunger in the first scene, this simple narrative exchange comes as a breath of fresh air. You play the Captain, and let your child play Viola:
VIOLA

What country, friends, is this?

CAPTAIN

This is Illyria, lady
.

VIOLA

And what should I do in Illyria?

My brother he is in Elysium
.

Perchance he is not drowned.—What think you, sailors?

CAPTAIN

It is perchance that you yourself were saved
.

This scene is characteristic of Shakespeare in the sense that most of his plays open quickly. In general, a play begins when a world in equilibrium is broken into by a significant change. In Shakespeare, the opening disruption usually occurs early in the action. In
Hamlet
we hear about the ghost by line 20 (
What, has this thing appear’d again tonight?
). In
King Lear
we’re only up to line 37 when the monarch unwisely divides his kingdom, thereby setting off the entire plot of the play.
The Tempest
opens with an exciting shipwreck that drives the rest of the play’s action. And
Romeo and Juliet
opens with a street brawl between warring families that will lead directly to the final tragedy. Similarly, here in
Twelfth Night
, the shipwreck off the coast of Illyria occurs after an opening scene of a mere seven speeches.

Tell your child to imagine a rocky coastline. Waves batter the sand,
and we see a lone ship in the distance, buffeted by a terrible wind. Then suddenly, we’re on that ship and people are crying out, fearful for their very lives.
Crack!
The ship hits a rock, and now your daughter tumbles from her bed and across the floor. She’s on a beach, and for a moment she’s unconscious. Then she wakes up slowly, stunned and aching. A few of her fellow passengers, including the Captain, are sitting nearby, equally stunned from the wreck. She catches her breath and says:

What country, friends, is this?

It sounds so simple, this sentence, yet I find it to be one of the greatest first lines of any character ever written. It reminds me of the opening line of
Hamlet
when, at night, a nervous guard at Elsinore Castle cries
Who’s there?!
In both cases, the questioner seems to be asking “Who’s out there?” “Why am I here?” “What will become of me?”

What country, friends, is this?

And the Captain replies:

This is Illyria, lady
.

Illyria will prove to be a magical place. Not magical like the Wood near Athens—there are no fairies here, no supernatural goings-on. But the world of Illyria will turn out to contain daffy servants and lovelorn travelers, loyal comrades and identical twins, a melancholy jester and a drunken knight. If there is any fictional world I want to live in, it is definitely Illyria.

And what shall I do in Illyria?

My brother he is in Elysium
.

In Greek mythology, Elysium was a place at the end of the earth where favored heroes were conveyed by the gods after death. Thus we know immediately that Viola believes that her brother is dead, and we know that she loved him so much that she is certain of his heavenly reward. Also point out to your children that Elysium and Illyria sound somewhat the
same. Could Illyria be a kind of Elysium for the blessed who are not yet dead? Also notice that the names Olivia, Viola, and Malvolio are virtual anagrams of one another. Shakespeare is up to something, and it has to do with relationships and the identities of these three main characters.

Next comes an idea and a ray of hope:

Perchance he is not drowned.—What think you, sailors?

To which the Captain replies:

It is perchance that you yourself were saved
.

Brothers and chance will play significant roles in this play, and it is not surprising that both are touched upon in these early speeches.

In general, you’ll find that passages with two or more characters are especially fun to memorize with your children, as you can each take a different role and turn the passage into a little play.

(Thunder. Lightning. Shipwreck. Children roll off bed.)

VIOLA

What country, friends, is this?

CAPTAIN

This is Illyria, lady
.

VIOLA

And what should I do in Illyria?

My brother he is in Elysium
.

Perchance he is not drowned.—What think you, sailors?

CAPTAIN

It is perchance that you yourself were saved
.

As the scene continues, Viola questions the Captain about Illyria, which is a way for Shakespeare to fill in the backstory. The Captain explains,
first, that during the shipwreck, he saw Viola’s brother tie himself to a mast. Therefore the young man
might
have saved himself. Next he explains that Illyria is governed by a duke named Orsino, that Orsino is in love with a neighboring countess named Olivia, and that Olivia has turned the Duke away.

VIOLA

Who governs here?

CAPTAIN

A noble duke, in nature as in name
.

VIOLA

What is his name?

CAPTAIN

Orsino
.

VIOLA

Orsino. I have heard my father name him
.

He was a bachelor then
.

Isn’t it interesting that Viola would remember that he’s a bachelor? Already Shakespeare has us thinking romance.

CAPTAIN

And is so now, or was so very late
[lately];

For but a month ago I went from hence
[here],

And then ’twas fresh in murmur (as, you know
,

What great ones do the less will prattle of)

That he did seek the love of fair Olivia
.

What a clever epigram Shakespeare throws in like an extra treat:
What great ones do the less will prattle of
. In other words, “What celebrities do, we lesser folks will talk about.”

VIOLA

What’s she?

CAPTAIN

A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count

That died some twelvemonth since
[a year ago],
then leaving her

In the protection of his son, her brother
,

Who shortly also died, for whose dear love
,

They say, she hath abjured
[given up, sworn off]
the sight