‘Yet, a Barful strife / Whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife’ (Viola, 1:5)

Viola loves Orsino but is realistic about the obstacles in her way.

‘By the very fangs of malice I swear, I am not that I play.’ (Viola, 1:5)

Viola is very clever with words and often tells other characters who she really is without them realising.

‘Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; as a squash is before ‘tis a peascod or a codling when ‘tis almost an apple. ‘Tis with him in standing water between boy and man.’ (Malvolio, 1:5)

While dressed as Cesario, other characters do not see her as very manly.

‘Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit / Do give thee five-fold blazon.’ (Olivia, 1:5)

Viola comes across as well mannered and is seen by Olivia as good looking.

‘A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful…she bore a mind that envy could not but call fair’ (Sebastian, 2:1)

Viola looks like Sebastian and is generally regarded as beautiful both for her looks and her mind.

‘Even so quickly may one catch the plague? / Methinks I feel this youth’s perfections / With an invisible and subtle stealth / To creep in at mine eyes.’ (Olivia, 1:5)

Olivia falls in love with 'Cesario' very quickly.

‘Still so constant, lord’ (Olivia, 5:1)

Olivia is constant and honest, never implying she likes Orsino.

‘A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count / That died some twelvemonth since, then leaving her / In the protection of his son, her brother, / Who shortly also died, for whose dear love, they say, she hath abjured the company and sight of men.’ (Captain, 1:3)

Olivia is in mourning and is not interested in a relationship.

‘She’ll none o’th’count. She’ll not match above her degree, neither in estate, years, nor wit; I have heard her swear’t.’ (Toby, 1:3)

Olivia does not want to marry someone more intelligent or important than her.

‘I see you what you are, you are too proud. / But if you were the devil, you are fair.’ (Viola, 1:5)

Olivia is very beautiful but is also proud, something Viola recognises in her.

‘I myself am best / When least in company.’ (Orsino, 1:5)

Orsino likes to be alone

‘Tell her my love, more noble than the world, / Prizes not quantity of dirty lands. / The parts that fortune hath bestowed upon her, / Tell her I hold as giddily as fortune.’ (Orsino, 2:4)

Orsino wants to make very clear that he loves Olivia for herself and not for her wealth.

‘But this your minion, whom I know you love, / And whom, by heaven, I swear I tender dearly, / Him will I tear out of that cruel eye, / Where he sits crowned in his master’s spite.’ (Orsino, 5:1)

Orsino comes across as dramatic, suggesting he will hurt Cesario because Olivia loves him.

‘A noble duke in nature as in name.’ (Captain, Act 1, Scene 2)

Orsino is viewed as a good man by the Captain, a visitor to Illyria.

‘Your lord does know my mind: I cannot love him. / Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble, / Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth; / In voices well divulged, free, learned, and valiant, / And in dimension and the shape of nature, / A gracious person. But yet I cannot love him.’ (Olivia, 1:5)

Orsino is seen as a virtuous, good looking, and accomplished man, even by Olivia who does not love him.

‘I could marry this wench for this device…And ask no other dowry with her but such another jest.’ (Sir Toby, 2:5)

Sir Toby likes Maria and enjoys playing jokes with her.

Fabian: This is a dear manikin to you, Sir Toby.

Sir Toby: I have been dear to him, lad, some two thousand strong or so. (Act 3, Scene 2)

Sir Toby enjoys treating Sir Andrew like his puppet and getting money out of him.

‘My niece is already in the belief that he’s mad. We may carry it thus for our pleasure and his penance, till our very pastime, tired out of breath, prompt us to have mercy on him.’ (Sir Toby, 3:4)

Sir Toby enjoys making fun out of Malvolio as punishment.

‘By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier a-nights: your cousin, my lady, takes great exception to your ill hours’ (Maria, 1:3)

Sir Toby is often drunk and stays up late, creating noise and disturbances.

‘Will it be ever thus? Ungracious wretch, / Fir for the mountains and the barbarous caves, / Where manners ne’er were preached! Out of my sight!’ (Olivia, 4:1)

Sir Toby is bad mannered and Olivia is losing patience with him.

‘To be Count Malvolio!’ (Malvolio, 2:5)

Malvolio believes that he has a chance of marrying Olivia.

‘I say there was never man thus abused. I am no more mad than you are’. (Malvolio, 4:2)

Malvolio believes he has been treated very badly at the end of the play.

‘O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite. To be generous, guiltless, and of free disposition is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon-bullets.’ (Olivia, 1:5)

Olivia respects Malvolio as her servant but is critical of how he is with others.

‘The devil a Puritan that he is, or anything constantly but a time-pleaser, an affectioned ass, that cons state without book and utters it by great swaths. The best persuaded of himself, so crammed, as he thinks, with excellences, that it is his grounds of faith that all that look on him love him’ (Maria, 2:3)

Maria describes Malvolio as a man who thinks far too much of himself and how important he is.

‘Let some of my people have a special care of him. I would not have him miscarry for the half of my dowry.’ (Olivia, 3:4)

Malvolio’s strange behaviour in the play is very out of character and Olivia wants him to be normal again.

‘I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing, and bear-baiting.’ (Sir Andrew, 1:3)

Sir Andrew is supposed to be educated but admits he spends more time having fun.

‘I’ll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o’th’strangest mind I’th’world: I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether.’ (Sir Andrew, 1:3)

Sir Andrew enjoys entertainments, parties and dancing and is easily convinced by Sir Toby to stay.

‘If I cannot recover your niece, I am a foul way out’ (Sir Andrew, 2:3)

Sir Andrew has wasted a lot of his money in the hopes of marrying Olivia and gaining control of her fortune.

‘He’s a very fool and a prodigal’ (Maria, 1:3)

Maria has a low opinion of Sir Andrew.

‘For Andrew, if he were opened and you find so much blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I’ll eat the rest of th’anatomy.’ (Sir Toby, 3:2)

Sir Toby believes that Sir Andrew is a coward who will not want to fight.

‘An ass-head and a coxcomb and a knave, a thin faced knave, a gull.’ (Sir Toby, 5:1)

Sir Andrew is very gullible and Sir Toby tells him this later in the play.

‘For Monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him. If I do not gull him into a nayword and make him a common recreation, do not think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed. I know I can do it.’ (Maria, 2:3)

Maria is confident that she can trick Malvolio and make him look a fool for everyone to laugh at.

‘If Sir Toby would leave drinking, thou wert as witty a piece of Eve’s flesh as any in Illyria’ (Feste, 1:5)

Maria is quick witted, according to Feste who also suggests she might be a good match for Sir Toby.

‘She’s a beagle, true-bred and one that adores me.’ (Sir Toby, Act 2, Scene 4)

Maria likes Sir Toby and is sharp minded.

‘out of question ‘tis Maria’s hand. / And now I do bethink me, it was she / First told me thou wast mad. (Olivia, 5:1)

Maria knows Olivia well enough to forge her handwriting and masterminds the plot against Malvolio.

‘I wear not motley in my brain’ (Feste, 1:5)

Feste is not foolish, even if other people look at him and see a ‘fool’.

‘No pains, sir, I take pleasure in singing, sir.’ (Feste, 2:4)

Feste seems respectful towards Orsino and says that he enjoys singing.

‘There is no slander in an allowed fool’ (Olivia, 1:5)

Feste can do very little wrong in Olivia’s eyes.

‘By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I had rather than forty shillings I had such a leg, and so sweet a breath to sing as the fool has. (Sir Andrew, 2:3)

Feste is a skilled singer and performer.

‘This fellow is wise enough to play the fool, / And to do that well, craves a kind of wit.’ (Viola, 3:1)

Feste has great skill with words, and impresses Viola.

‘my stars shine darkly over me’ (Sebastian, 2:1)

Sebastian believes he is going through a period of bad luck.

‘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’ (Sebastian, 2:1)

Sebastian’s father was well known in the region. He died leaving behind him Sebastian and his twin sister.

‘I’ll follow this good man and go with you, / And having sworn truth, ever will be true.’ (Sebastian, 4:3)

Sebastian is enchanted by Olivia’s attention and love towards him and agrees to marry her.

‘I saw your brother, / Most provident in peril, bind himself - / Courage and hope both teaching him the practice - / To a strong mast that lived upon the sea’ (Captain, 1:2)

The Captain saw Sebastian tie himself to a wooden mast that was floating in the sea in the hope of surviving the storm.

‘A wreck past hope he was. / His life I gave him’ (Antonio, 5:1)

Sebastian would have drowned after the shipwreck, if Antonio had not rescued him.

‘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.’ (Antonio, 2:1)

Antonio knows that he will face trouble if he follows Sebastian to Illyria, but his attachment to Sebastian is so strong, he decides to go anyway.

‘This youth that you see here / I snatched one half out of the jaws of death, / Relieved him with such sanctity of love, / And to his image, which methought did promise / Most venerable worth, did I devotion.’ (Antonio, 3:4)

Antonio rescued Sebastian from drowning and looked after him. The language he uses about his devotion to Sebastian uses religious imagery.

‘His counsel now might do me golden service’ (Sebastian, 4:3)

When Sebastian is confused by Olivia’s advances he says he would value the advice of his friend.

‘He did me kindness, sir, drew on my side, / But in conclusion, put strange speech upon me. / I know not what ‘twas but distraction.’ (Viola, 5:1)

Viola speaks up about Antonio’s kindness in defending her but says that what Antonio said to her made no sense.

‘Notable pirate, thou salt-water thief, / What foolish boldness brought thee to their mercies, / Whom thou in terms so bloody and so dear / Hast made thine enemies?’ (Orsino, 5:1)

Orsino is very clear that he thinks Antonio stole from his ships and behaved in a violent way that makes him an enemy to Illyria.