The central character in _Twelfth Night_ is Viola, of whom her brother does not say a word too much when, thinking that she has been drowned, he exclaims, "She bore a mind that envy could not but call fair." Shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria, her first wish is to enter the service of the young Countess; but learning that Olivia is inaccessible, she determines to dress as a page (a eunuch) and approach the young unmarried Duke, of whom she has heard her father speak with warmth. He at once makes the deepest impression upon her heart, but being ignorant of her sex, does not dream of what is passing within her; so that she is perpetually placed in the painful position of being employed as a messenger from the man she loves to another woman. She gives utterance to her love in carefully disguised and touching words (ii. 4):-- "My father had a daughter lov'd a man, As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, I should your lordship. _Duke_. And what's her history? _Vio_. A blank, my lord. She never told her love,-- But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, Feed on her damask cheek: she pin'd in thought: And, with a green and yellow melancholy, She sat like Patience on a monument, Smiling at grief." But the passion which possesses her makes her a more eloquent messenger of love than she designs to be. To Olivia's question as to what she would do if she loved her as her master does, she answers (i. 5):-- "Make me a willow cabin at your gate, And call upon my soul within the house; Write loyal cantons of contemned love, And sing them loud even in the dead of night; Holla your name to the reverberate hills, And make the babbling gossip of the air Cry out, Olivia! O! you should not rest Between the elements of air and earth, But you should pity me."