Page:Twelfth Night (1922) Yale.djvu/120

Silla (Viola) falls hopelessly in love. But in Riche's story the actual shipwreck of the heroine occurs in the course of her love-chase after Apolonius to Constantinople and frees her from the violent importunities of the ship's captain during the voyage. In Twelfth Night Viola's captain is no longer persecutor but protector.

The following passage from Apolonius and Silla^[1] recounting Silla's experiences after her shipwreck will sufficiently suggest the general relation of Riche's story to Shakespeare's main plot. 'Silla her self beying in the Caben as you have heard, tooke holde of a Chest that was the Captaines, the whiche by the onely prouidence of God brought her safe to the shore, the which when she hed recouered, not knowyng what was become of Pedro her manne, she deemed that bothe he and all the rest had been drouned, for that she saw no bodie vppon the shore but her self, wherefore, when she had a while made greate lamentations, complainyng her mishappes, she beganne in the ende to comforte herselfe with the hope, that she had to see her Apolonius, and found such meanes that she brake open the Chest that brought her to lande, wherin she found good store of coine, and sondrie sutes of apparell that were the captaines, and now to preuent a nomber of iniuries, that might bee proffered to a woman that was lefte in her case, she determined to leaue her owne apparell, and to sort her self into some of those sutes, that beyng taken for a man, she might passe through the Countrie in the better safetie, & as she changed her apparell, she thought it likewise conuenient to change her name, wherefore not readily happenyng of any other, she called her self Siluio, by the name of her owne brother, whom you haue heard spoken of before.