Was Ihr Wollt
Was Ihr Wollt
Translated by Christoph Martin Wieland
Twelfth Night is a glittering trap of desire and disguise. Viola, wash ashore and believing her twin brother Sebastian dead, disguises herself as a man named Cesario to survive in the court of Duke Orsino. But the strategy that keeps her safe becomes the engine of chaos: Orsino sends 'Cesario' to court Olivia on his behalf, Olivia falls desperately in love with the messenger, and Viola finds herself falling for the Duke even as she delivers his love to another. Meanwhile, Olivia's household teems with servants pranking each other,Malvolio chasing a hallucinated romance, and Sir Toby drunk on chaos. When Sebastian surfaces alive, everything collapses into a glorious tangle of mistaken identities and unexpected unions. What seems like a simple romantic comedy reveals itself as something stranger and sharper: a play about how we perform desire, how love mistakes its object, and how identity itself might be costume. Four centuries later, it remains Shakespeare's most audacious meditation on who we pretend to be when we're trying to love.
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“Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.””
— William Shakespeare
“If music be the food of love, play on;Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,The appetite may sicken, and so die.That strain again! it had a dying fall:O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,That breathes upon a bank of violets,Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,That, notwithstanding thy capacityReceiveth as the sea, nought enters there,Of what validity and pitch soe'er,But falls into abatement and low price,Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancyThat it alone is high fantastical.””
— William Shakespeare
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Your fate awaits you. Accept it in body and spirit. To get used to the life you'll most likely be leading soon, get rid of your low-class trappings.””
— William Shakespeare
“Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.””
— William Shakespeare
“Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man's son doth know.””
— William Shakespeare
“a young woman in love always looks like patience on a monument smiling at grief””
— William Shakespeare
“Love sought is good, but giv'n unsought is better.””
— William Shakespeare
“I say, there is no darknessbut ignorance; in which thou art more puzzled thanthe Egyptians in their fog.””
— William Shakespeare
“O time, thou must untangle this, not I.It is too hard a knot for me t'untie.””
— William Shakespeare
