Note to Twelfth Night, 2.1.35-36, "If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your servant."

Antonio offers to be Sebastian's servant because he feels as if he is being murdered when Sebastian insists that they part. Is Antonio gay? Maybe, but it's not a big issue. In Shakespeare's time men regularly (and unselfconsciously) used the word "love" to express their feelings for other men. And ardent brotherly love was an ideal of Elizabethan times.

Daniel Ezra as Sebastian and Adam Best as Antonio