The evidence is clear. Olivia has indeed fallen in love with Cesario; when she spoke to the young man, she spoke in starts and spurts, and her manner was vague and distracted. Now "the winning of her passion" has sent Malvolio after the "boy" whom she believes to be the object of her love.
Viola pities Olivia; it would be better for the poor Olivia to "love a dream." Viola recognizes that "disguise . . . art a wickedness." She aptly calls disguise a "pregnant enemy," an enemy able to play havoc with "women's waxen hearts." Like Olivia, Viola too is a woman. She knows the anguish of love: "Our frailty is the cause, not we," she meditates, "for such are we made of."
This is a dreadfully complicated knot. Viola loves her master, Orsino, who loves the beautiful but disdainful Olivia, who loves the handsome Cesario (who is not a man at all, but is Viola, in disguise). Viola calls on Time to untangle this knot, for she is incapable of doing so herself; "it is too hard a knot for me to untie."
