The comic ending of Twelfth Night sees mistaken and
assumed identities sorted out and two couples united – Olivia and Sebastian and
the more complicated Orsino and Viola. Cesario has been revealed to be a girl
and not exactly the person Orsino fell in love with either, at least in
appearance and name. However, Viola and Cesario are the same person, and Orsino
sees that, though how he addresses his partner at first makes it seem he does
not. Turning to Viola, he says “Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand
times / Thou never shouldst love woman like to me” (TN.5.1.265-266),
still calling her, perhaps out of habit, a boy. This is then countered by his
next lines, asking to see her in her “woman’s weeds” (TN.5.1.271).
So, who does Orsino love, Cesario or Viola?
The answer is both. “Here is my hand,” Orsino says, “Yo
shall from this time be your master’s mistress” (TN.5.1.321-323).
He doesn’t reject Viola because she technically isn’t who he was first
attracted to, and he doesn’t question her presentation of gender. He sees the
same person, and he loves them. His closing lines before Feste’s song
demonstrate how he feels about Viola/Cesario - “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” (TN.5.1.381-383).
I take this and the rest of his reaction to mean he loves Viola/Cesario for who
they are, male or female (or perhaps a combination). His love doesn’t change
even if the name of the recipient of it changes.
This is an illustration of love defined in Sonnet 116,
specifically “Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds”
(116.2-3). Love does not seek to change the other person, and it itself does
not change. If love for someone else changes when they do, then it really
wasn’t love – and Orsino’s love does not alter with the alteration of Cesario
to Viola.
As I said, above, Orsino loves Cesario, or Viola, (or as
5.1.380-384 might suggest, whichever one they want to be) for their person.
Orsino spent time with Cesario and enjoyed his company whereas Olivia wouldn’t
even speak to him, which meant there was no relationship in the first place.
Because Cesario was male, there wasn’t the expectations of a male/female
acquaintanceship, which probably would not have begun with friendship. Knowing
how much he is loved in return makes this the real marriage of true minds.
And makes Orsino bisexual.
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