Viola returned to Orsino’s palace, and related to her lord the ill success of the negotiation, repeating the command of Olivia, that the duke should trouble her no more. Yet still the duke persisted in hoping that the gentle Cesario would in time be able to persuade her to show some pity, and therefore he bade him he should go to her again the next day. In the meantime, to pass away the tedious interval, he commanded a song which he loved to be sung; and he said: “My good Cesario, when I heard that song last night, methought it did relieve my passion much. Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain. The spinsters and the knitters when they sit in the sun, and the young maids that weave their thread with bone, chant this song. It is silly, yet I love it, for it tells of the innocence of love in the old times.”
SONG
Come away, come away, Death
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath,
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white stuck all with yew, O prepare it!
My part of death no one so true did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet
On my black coffin let there be strewn:
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown
A thousand thousand sighs to save, lay me O where
Sad true lover never kind my grave, to weep there!
Viola did not fail to mark the words of the old song which in such true simplicity described the pangs of unrequited love, and she bore testimony in her countenance of feeling what the song expressed. Her sad looks were observed by Orsino, who said to her: “My life upon it, Cesario, though you are so young, your eye has looked upon some face that it loves: has it not, boy?”—”A little, with your leave,” replied Viola. “And what kind of woman, and of what age is she?” said Orsino. ” Of your age and of your complexion, my lord,” said Viola; which made the duke smile to hear this fair young boy loved a woman so much older than himself, and of a man’s dark complexion; but Viola secretly meant Orsino, and not a woman like him.