The way Shakespeare develops his characters here, at the same time as driving his plot forward, is worthy of close attention, so let us look in some detail at this crucial scene between Olivia and Viola in Act 1 Scene 5. The scene begins with Olivia’s instruction to her waiting women to ‘Give me my veil, come throw it o’er my face. / We’ll once more hear Orsino’s embassy’ (1.5.158-9). Olivia’s veil is a token of mourning but also a means of disguise. So when they first meet both Viola and Olivia are concealing themselves somewhat, Viola disguised as the male Cesario and Olivia behind her veil. Viola is determined to cut through the difficulty of identifying her target audience with a direct question: ‘The honourable lady of the house, which is she?’ (1.5.160). Olivia does not make a full disclosure of her identity, though arguably she gives herself away by speaking at all: ‘Speak to me, I shall answer for her. Your will’ (1.5.161). Now begins a curious device by which Shakespeare brings an absent character, Orsino, Duke of Illyria, into the scene. Viola begins to speak lines which are not her own, but learnt from a text, and the text she has learnt her lines from is Orsino’s. However, such is the irrepressible energy of Viola’s own character that she cannot get far into Orsino’s text (a text of rather lame hyperbolic courtly love poetry) before she interrupts it with her own spontaneous words:
Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty -1 pray you tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her. I would be loath to cast away my speech, for besides that it is excellently well penned, I have taken great pains to con it.
The effect of this interruption of herself is enhanced by Shakespeare’s theatrical allusions throughout this passage through words such as ‘comedian’, ‘part’, ‘speech’ and ‘play’:
This is another victory for Viola, whose directness and persistence has again been rewarded by Olivia revealing her identity. Olivia’s interest in the young, sexy visitor is apparent through her personal questioning of him: ‘Your will?’, ‘Whence came you sir?’ and ‘Are you a comedian?’ Though Viola now moves completely out of her prepared text, her exchange of words with Olivia maintains our awareness of the artifice of the situation, for behind Viola and Olivia, and behind Orsino’s text, there moves the pen of William Shakespeare, the feigning poet
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The rudeness that hath appeared in me have I learned from my entertainment. What I am and what I would are as secret as maidenhead: to your ears, divinity; to any others’, profanation.
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[to Maria and attendants] Give us the place alone, we will hear this divinity. (1.5.203-10)
Viola’s language here, mixing a sense of conspiracy (’secret’) and sexuality (’maidenhead’) with religious devotion (’divinity’) and wickedness (’profanation’), is a potent linguistic cocktail which works with intoxicating effect on Olivia. Now she knows who Olivia is and has her alone the scene reverts temporarily to its origins and Olivia asks Viola: ‘Now sir, what is your text?’ (1.5.211). Viola’s reply, ‘Most sweet lady’ (1.5.212), is interrupted by the now impatient Olivia, and the awkwardness of the next few lines of textual conceit ends with Viola returning to her strategy of directness with: ‘Good madam, let me see your face’ (1.5.220). As Olivia recognizes, Viola is now out of her text, and this is presumably what appeals to Olivia and leads her to ‘draw the curtain and show you the picture’ (1.5.223). By unveiling here Olivia reveals herself while Viola remains disguised. Not only does Olivia reveal her physical face, but her comment immediately following the lifting of the veil (’Look you sir, such a one I was this present. Is’t not well done? (1.5.224)) reveals her characteristic vanity, a vanity that Viola’s reply (’Excellently done, if God did all’ (1.5.226)) undermines by implying that her beauty may be artificial (owing more to make-up than natural looks).