Orsino wants to hear music. He asks to hear a certain song, and sends for Feste to sing it. He tells Cesario to remember him whenever he falls in love: "For such as I am, all true lovers are, unstaid and skittish in all motions else, save in the constant image of the creature that is beloved." Act 2, Scene 4, line 16 When Cesario says that the song the musicians are playing reminds him of love, the Duke asks if Cesario has ever been in love. He says he has: with someone who looked rather like the Duke, and was about the same age. The Duke protests that such a manly woman was not worthy of Cesario.
The Duke says that men should be older than the women they love, because female beauty is so short-lived, and because men cannot commit to stable relationships until they are older.
The clown enters and sings a song about a man who died from love. The clown leaves, telling Orsino that he is so moody he should be sent to live at sea, because the ocean is just as inconstant. Orsino tells Cesario to go again to Olivia, telling her that she must love him--he will not take no for an answer. Cesario protests that if a woman loved Orsino as much as Orsino loves Olivia, Orsino would nevertheless have to tell this woman he could not love her: shouldn't Olivia be able to do the same thing? Orsino protests, saying, "make no compare between that love a woman can bear me and that I owe Olivia." Act 2, Scene 4, line 103 Cesario says that women's love is indeed comparable to men's love. He knows because his sister loved a man so deeply that she became ill and died. Cesario finally agrees to go to Olivia again.
