Viola has now disguised herself as a boy, Cesario, and has been taken into the service of Count Orsino.

Maria exits, and Sir Toby and Sir Andrew continue to quibble, with some amusing results at last, they decide to start drinking. Sir Toby attempts to introduce Sir Andrew to Maria wordplay ensues from a series of misunderstandings, puns, and differing usages of words. Sir Toby has great affection for Sir Andrew, but Maria does not she believes that Sir Andrew is a drunkard and a fool, and not to be suffered. Maria also objects to one of Sir Toby's drinking buddies, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, a rather foolish man who Sir Toby has brought as a potential suitor to Olivia.

Sir Toby, Olivia's drunken uncle, is approached by Olivia's handmaiden, Maria, about his late hours and disorderly habits. The Captain agrees to help her, and he leads her to Orsino. Viola proposes that she serve Orsino, since he is a good and just man she conspires with the Captain that she may be presented to Orsino as a eunuch, and that her true identity as a foreign woman be concealed. As it happens, the Captain is from Illyria, and tells Viola of Count Orsino, and of his love for Lady Olivia the Captain also mentions Olivia's recent loss of both her father and her brother, and Viola, having lost her brother as well, commiserates with Olivia's situation. The Captain recalls seeing her brother in the water after the shipwreck, clinging onto a mast, and riding above the waves. Viola hopes that her brother was saved, as she was the Captain, who also managed to get ashore, tries to console her of the hopes of finding her brother alive. Viola lands in Illyria, after a terrible shipwreck in which she was separated from her twin brother, Sebastian. Orsino's servant Valentine, whom Orsino sent to give his affections to Olivia, returns Valentine was not allowed to speak directly to Olivia, but Olivia sent a message, via her handmaiden, that Olivia will continue to mourn her dead brother, and will neither allow Orsino to see her or to woo her. Count Orsino of Illyria is introduced he laments that he is lovesick, and wishes that 'if music be the food of love,' he could kill his unrequited love through an overdose of music.

12 night william shakespeare