Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Adaptations; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stories, plots, etc. -- Juvenile literature
faithless mistress, and the young dissemisler, her husband, as he
called Viola, warning her never to come in his sight again, when (as it
seemed to them) a miracle appeared! for another Cesario entered, and
addressed Olivia as his wife. This new Cesario was Sebastian, the real
husband of Olivia; and when their wonder had a little ceased at seeing
two persons with the same face the same voice, and the same habit, the
brother and sister began to question each other; for Viola could scarce
be persuaded that her brother was living, and Sebastian knew not how to
account for the sister he supposed drowned being found in the habit of
a young man. But Viola presently acknowledged that she was indeed
Viola, and his sister, under that disguise.
When all the errors were cleared up which the extreme likeness between
this twin brother and sister had occasioned, they laughed at the lady
Olivia for the pleasant mistake she had made in falling in love with a
woman; and Olivia showed no dislike to her exchange, when she found she
had wedded the brother instead of the sister.
The hopes of Orsino were for ever at an end by this marriage of Olivia,
and with his hopes, all his fruitless love seemed to vanish away, and
all his thoughts were fixed on the event of his favourite, young
Cesario, being changed into a fair lady. He viewed Viola with great
attention, and he remembered how very handsome he had always thought
Cesario was, and he concluded she would look very beautiful in a
woman's attire; and then he remembered how often she had said she loved
him, which at the time seemed only the dutiful expressions of a
faithful page; but now he guessed that something more was meant, for
many of her pretty sayings, which were like riddles to him, came now
into his mind, and he no sooner remembered all these things than he
resolved to make Viola his wife; and he said to her (he still could not
help calling her Cesario and boy): 'Boy, you have said to me a thousand
times that you should never love a woman like to me, and for the
faithful service you have done for me so much beneath your soft and
tender breeding, and since you have called me master so long, you shall
now be your master's mistress, and Orsino's true duchess.'
Olivia, perceiving Orsino was making over that heart, which she had so
ungraciously rejected, to Viola, invited them to enter her house, and
offered the assistance of the good priest, who had married her to
Sebastian in the morning, to perform the same ceremony in the remaining
part of the day for Orsino and Viola. Thus the twin brother and sister
were both wedded on the same day: the storm and shipwreck, which had
separated them, being the means of bringing to pass their high and
mighty fortunes. Viola was the wife of Orsino, the duke of Illyria, and
Sebastian the husband of the rich and noble countess, the lady Olivia.
TIMON OF ATHENS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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