Twelfth Night might be most easily summed up by the defining topsy-turviness present in its subtitle of “what you will,” but, when all’s settled in the end, it is a play whose denouement prevents the consummation of two same-gender relationships (”limiting” a sort of “what you will” that the times had not-just-yet been ready for)–the one that might have blossomed had Viola not heeded the Captain’s advice (I.ii) and became Olivia’s servant (Olivia could so *totally* be dominatrix), and had Sebastian not been taken by wanderlust to venture into Illyria (II.i), and stayed longer in recompense to Antonio.

When I first read Act 2, Scene 1, I’d taken the relationship between Antonio and Sebastian to be compassionate rather than impassioned (the “orthodox” relationship), but after reading Taylor’s commentary (p 78ff), I feel as if I’m seeing the entire play from a different “worldview”. Previously, I would have cast the same actress for Viola as for Sebastian, but it seems that I’d miss a huge dimension of the play if Antonio and Sebastian weren’t the same gender.

A & S - in a masochistic relationship

It seems that the Antonio and Sebastian relationship can be seen as a sort of mutual masochism, where Antonio loves the torture that comes from loving Sebastian, and Sebastian does what he does not to escape Antonio’s love, but, subconsciously, to give Antonio recompense.

The scene opens, in medias res, with Antonio stating the problem, whose outcome will be determined by the scene’s denouement:

Antonio: Will you stay no longer? Nor will you not that I go with you.

The point is not only that Sebastian is leaving, but that Sebastian desires to leave Antonio.
Sebastian’s explanation for his leave is ominous, claiming that he does not want to share his bad luck, and that it would only be bad re-payment, that he’d rather go off on his own to brood over his evils alone:

Sebastian: By your patience, no: my stars shine darkly over me; the malignancies of my fate might perhaps distemper yours; therefore, I shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone. It were a bad recompense for your love, to lay any of them on you.

But, on closer inspection, it seems as if he’s giving an implicit suicide threat, inferring at the “malignancies of [his] fate [evils which he wishes to] bear… alone.”

Antonio’s reply shows concern, that this youth might not know what he’s saying–does he even know where he’s going?:

Antonio: Let me know of you–whither you are bound?

Or, perhaps this might be a desperate grasp at knowing, at least, where his dear Sebastian would go, “Where will you go; will you be all right? (Are you sure of it?).” Sebastian’s reply, “Honestly, I’m just going to wander around like a vagabond.”, can be taken as a retort of depressed gloominess (he’s just lost his sister, the remainder of his family, what else has he to go for):

Sebastian: No, sooth, sir — my determinate voyage is mere extravagancy…

Or, on closer inspection, it seems as if Sebastian’s line is carefully calculated to challenge Antonio–even as he’s complimenting Antonio’s good-natured politeness “so excellent a touch of modesty”, he seems to poke fun at Antonio’s concern, rendering that as his wish to “extort from [him] what [he is] willing to keep in”:

Sebastian: But I perceive in you so excellent a touch of modesty, that you will not extort from me, what I am willing to keep in; therefore, it charges me in manners, the rather to express myself.

Sebastian only decides to tell Antonio his backstory to emphasize the latent suicide threat in his wish expressed earlier of, “[bearing his] evils alone.”

Sebastian: You must know of me then Antonio, my name is Sebastian, which I called Rodorigo. My father was that Sebastian of Messaline, whom I know you have heard of. He left behind him, myself and a sister, both born in an hour: if the Heavens had been pleas’d, would we had so ended.

But, it’s his next line that betrays his subconscious scorn for Antonio’s action:

Sebastian: But you, sir, altered that, for some hours before you took me from the breach of the sea, was my sister drown’d.

Antonio’s response, in a conventional interpretation, where the two’s conversation is merely amicable, might be filled with horror. But, in this current “mutual masochism” interpretation, Antonio responds with a joy his words barely suppress, as he embraces Sebastian from behind (”Score! Sebastian is all alone in the world, were it not for me! We two, ta la la!”):

Antonio: Alas, the day!

It’s curious that Sebastian would next start describing his sister. In the standard interpretation, this could just be Sebastian continuing to tell his story, but in this same-gender relationship, it’s almost as if he is likening himself to his twin, becoming the more feminine couple, with a trace of mea-culpa-ism denying his own twin-beauty:

Sebastian: A Lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful.

Sebastian sounds like a sibling, as he comments that he doesn’t really believe that his sister was that beautiful, but, at least he can attest to her smarts:

Sebastian: But though I could not with estimable wonder overfar believe that, yet thus far I will boldly publish her: she bore a mind that envy could not but call fair.

And, apparently, that’s all of an eulogy Viola gets from him, as Sebastian closes with her fate, and his tearful reaction:

Sebastian: She is drown’d already, sir, with salt water, though I seem to drown her remembrance again with more.

Antonio’s response is one of those famous lines, but, in this masochistic interpretation, at least, what he’s really saying is that, “I’m sorry that I wasn’t a better host for you, not enough  for you to forget about the pains in your backstory, and to have you desire to stay longer with me”:

Antonio: Pardon me, sir, your bad entertainment.

Sebastian replies with like subtext, “You couldn’t have made me want to stay with you anyway. Forgive me.”:

Sebastian: O good Antonio, forgive me your trouble.

Antonio replies with all abandon (subtext: “Oh, I don’t care! I love you, don’t kill me, use me, let me serve you.”):

Antonio: If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your servant.

Sebastian knows that Antonio desires this intense companionship from him, and though he, himself, might even crave that, he knows that Antonio wants him to spurn him, that he desires this rejection, this holy grail of unrequited:

Sebastian: If you will not undo what you have done, that is, kill him whom you have recovered, desire it not.

He leaves Antonio in tears, and perhaps even with some affinity for Antonio (regretting that he’d have to leave Antonio to please his masochistic tendencies), but tragic understanding that nothing would give Antonio greater pleasure than this pivotal unrequitedness:

Sebastian: Fare ye well at once, my bosom is full of kindness, and I am yet so near the manners of my mother, that upon the least occasion more, mine eyes will tell tales of me: I am bound to the Count Orsino’s Court, farewell.

Delivering the scene’s ending soliloquy in a fleeting whisper, Antonio expresses his poetic justification for risking his life:

Antonio:
The gentleness of all the gods go with thee.
I have many enemies in Orsino’s Court,
Else would I very shortly see thee there.
But come what may, I do adore thee so,
That danger shall seem sport, and I will go.

A & S - in a “normal” relationship

Taking the above, assuming just a friendly relationship among the two, Sebastian can be seen as delivering all his lines simply as partly words to the man who saved his life, with kind thankfulness, and truthfulness. This “orthodox” interpretation is really straight-forward and no fun at all.

This neutral “orthodox professional no drama” interpretation in the “normal” relationship seems to be due to social upbringing, but what really changed my paradigm about this play was how it seems that all of the Olivia/Viola lines could be read as the words exchanged by a pair of potential lesbian lovers,  and that the Antonio/Sebastian relationship is almost an echo of that sort of topsy-turvy of same-gender marriages that would surely boggle the Elizabethan mind.

Tags: Antonio, masochism, Sebastian