In his piece “Fiction and Friction,” Greenblatt mentions Antonio’s passion for Sebastian in passing several times, but he does not spend a particularly long time dwelling on this relationship – arguably the most explicit example of homosexual desire in Twelfth Night. I find it interesting that Antonio is so bold as to declare his love for Sebastian in no uncertain terms, not only to Sebastian himself but also to others – including officers who have come to arrest him for other crimes – especially considering the sentences imposed on Marin le Marcis and his lover during the same time period. In view of the fact that le Marcis and le Febvre were condemned to horrible punishments and grisly deaths for engaging in homosexual behavior, how can Antonio so brazenly declare his homosexual love in such public spaces? Is it a sex-based determination, since le Marcis and le Febvre were both women and Antonio and Sebastian are both men? As Greenblatt points out, Shakespeare frequently makes self-reflexive references to the fact that all female parts in his comedies were being played by men, but Antonio’s love is not an object of levity or humor but one of serious passion, and he is ultimately “left out in the cold” but not threatened with bodily harm (Greenblatt 93). I find it difficult to reconcile such differing reactions to the presence of homosexual love and relations in Elizabethan England. Any ideas?