This brief, luminous scene is the play's moment of wonder — the instant when the comic machinery pauses and a character stands in genuine awe of what is happening to him. Sebastian's soliloquy is Shakespeare's most sustained exploration of the experience of being overwhelmed by inexplicable good fortune, and it provides the philosophical counterweight to Malvolio's dark room in the preceding scene. Sebastian's method of reality-testing is touchingly empirical: "This is the air; that is the glorious sun; / This pearl she gave me, I do feel't and see't." He proceeds through the senses — sight, touch — to confirm that he is awake, then applies logic to rule out madness. His reasoning about Olivia is particularly astute: if she were mad, she couldn't manage her household so competently. The conclusion — "there's something in't / That is deceivable" — is exactly right, though he cannot guess what the deception is. Sebastian's willingness to accept the inexplicable — to follow fortune rather than fight it — aligns him with the play's comic wisdom. Where Malvolio tried to force reality to match his fantasies and was punished, Sebastian simply says "I'll follow this good man, and go with you" and is rewarded. The...
Scene Summary
Sebastian, alone, tries to make sense of his extraordinary situation. He tests reality — the sun, the pearl Olivia gave him — and concludes he is not mad, even if events defy explanation. He wishes for Antonio's counsel but cannot find him. Olivia arrives with a priest and proposes they be secretly betrothed immediately. Sebastian, though bewildered, consents, and they go together to the chapel to exchange vows.
"This is the air; that is the glorious sun; / This pearl she gave me, I do feel't and see't; / And though 'tis wonder that enwraps me thus, / Yet 'tis not madness." — Sebastian (IV.3.1-4)
"I am ready to distrust mine eyes / And wrangle with my reason that persuades me / To any other trust but that I am mad, / Or else the lady's mad." — Sebastian (IV.3.13-16)
"I'll follow this good man, and go with you; / And, having sworn truth, ever will be true." — Sebastian (IV.3.30-31)