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Imagery
Explanation and Analysis—Trees and Flowers:
Throughout Twelfth Night, several different characters make use of natural imagery. The twin motifs of trees and flowers are used at different points throughout the play to symbolize beauty, love, and death.
In Act 2, Scene 4, Orsino introduces flowers as a symbol of inconstant love:
Orsino: For women are as roses, whose fair flower,
Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour.
A woman's beauty, Orsino argues, is as short-lived as a rose that blooms and dies in a single season. As a result, men's love is likewise ephemeral. This floral motif continues in Act 3, Scene 1, when Olivia swears her love to Cesario "by the roses of the spring." Since both the flower and the season are temporary, the image of springtime roses is especially fleeting, and Olivia's imagery implies that her feelings are not as enduring as she claims. This implication proves true later in the play, when her love is easily transferred from Cesario to Sebastian.
Feste's song in Act 2, Scene 4 contrasts the ephemeral nature of flowers with the eternity of death:
Fool: Not a flower, not a flower sweet
On my black coffin let there be strown
In this song, Feste also makes reference to "sad cypress" and a "shroud of white, stuck all with yew." Cypress and yew trees have historically been associated with death due to their use in burial and funerary rites, but since they are evergreens, they also symbolize eternal life.
Viola's speech to Olivia In Act 1, Scene 5 associates the image of trees with devotion:
Viola: Make me a willow cabin at your gate
This image of the "willow cabin," which succeeds where Orsino's flowery love poetry failed in winning Olivia's love, may actually be a political allusion. When the Spanish Armada invaded England in 1588, Queen Elizabeth I traveled to West Tilbury, Essex, to deliver an address to the troops assembled there. In her speech, Elizabeth proclaimed her eternal devotion to the English people and pledged to take up arms herself against the armada. According to author James Aske, the fields of Tilbury, where Elizabeth delivered this famous address, were filled with willow trees.
Considering the notable similarities between Elizabeth I and the character of Olivia, it's quite possible that the image of the willow cabin is meant to evoke the queen's devotion to her country. This line, paired with Feste's song, establishes trees as a symbol of steadfast, eternal love, which sharply contrasts with the inconstant love represented by flowers.
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