Colorado Shakespeare Gardens
self-guided tour
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Twelfth Night

Viola is not a courtly lover. She shares the name of the demure violet, which you can see in this Garden, but not its nature. She is bold enough to don a man’s attire and make her own way upon an unknown shore. Her predicament is that she truly loves Orsino, but cannot speak without betraying her disguise as Cesario. So she tells him instead of an imaginary sister, painting a pitiful picture of a damask-rose bud that, because of an insect eating its heart, will never bloom:

      She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek. [Twelfth Night II iv]

Twelfth Night

 

A shipwrecked Viola, believing her twin brother dead, disguises herself as a boy named Cesario. She goes into service with Duke Orsino, whom she secretly comes to love. He sends her to woo Olivia, who falls in love with "him". Part of the mischief of the comedy is around this triangle of lovers.

The play also features Olivia's household: Sir Toby Belch, his drinking companion Sir Andrew, Olivia's maid Maria, her fool Feste, and her head of house, Malvolio, whom the others bully and abuse. When Viola's twin brother Sebastian arrives he is mistaken for Viola, but in the end will marry Olivia and Viola will marry the Duke.

 

Enjoy this slideshow of the plants in our Twelfth Night Garden: