SEBASTIAN    What a strange drowsiness possesses them!

ANTONIO       It is the quality o’th’ climate.

SEBASTIAN                                        Why

Doth it not then our eyelids sink? I find not

Myself disposed to sleep.

ANTONIO                                           Nor I. My spirits are nimble.

They fell together all, as by consent;

They dropped, as by a thunderstroke. What might,

Worthy Sebastian, O, what might—? No more;

And yet, methinks I see it in thy face

What thou shouldst be. Th’occasion speaks thee, and

My strong imagination sees a crown

Dropping upon thy head.

SEBASTIAN                                        What, art thou waking?

ANTONIO       Do you not hear me speak?

SEBASTIAN                                        I do, and surely

It is a sleepy language, and thou speak’st

Out of thy sleep. (2.1.199-212)

 

Goodness, why has everyone else fallen asleep? Is it something to do with the climate, something in the air? Surely not, otherwise Sebastian and Antonio would be asleep too, and they’re not feeling drowsy at all. My spirits are nimble, says Antonio; I’m wide awake, full of energy – but nimble here can specifically suggest quick to devise a plan, clever, cunning; slippery, we might say. Antonio is up to something… And so he observes – but it’s really a retrospective stage direction – that everyone fell asleep at once, like they’d agreed it amongst themselves, dropped, as if they’d been struck by thunder(or by lightning). Everyone but we two, dead to the world, just like that. But Antonio has something else on his mind; he’s just going to take his time getting to the point, either genuinely indecisive, or feigning uncertainty, indecision. Coming to it, obliquely. I see it in thy face what thou shouldst be. And now is the occasion, the opportunity; now’s your chance. I am imagining, vividly, intensely, that I see you being crowned, the crown dropping upon thy head as if from heaven, falling (as it were) into your lap. Sebastian is initially – surprised? shocked? disconcerted, at least? trying to laugh it off, perhaps: are you sure you’re still awake, not dreaming and talking in your sleep? You can hear me, can’t you? (and, you know what I’m saying, don’t you? you understand what I’m getting at). You’re talking crazy talk, as if you’re asleep, or dreaming… Shades of the Macbeths here, as editors point out…