ACT I.
SCENE I. An Apartment in the DUKE'S Palace.
[Enter DUKE, CURIO, Lords; Musicians attending.]
DUKE.
- If music be the food of love, play on,
- Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting,
- The appetite may sicken and so die.--
- That strain again;--it had a dying fall;
- O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
- That breathes upon a bank of violets,
- Stealing and giving odour.--Enough; no more;
- 'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
- O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou!
- That, notwithstanding thy capacity
- Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
- Of what validity and pitch soever,
- But falls into abatement and low price
- Even in a minute! so full of shapes is fancy,
- That it alone is high-fantastical.
CURIO.
- Will you go hunt, my lord?
DUKE.
- What, Curio?
CURIO.
- The hart.
DUKE.
- Why, so I do, the noblest that I have:
- O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,
- Methought she purg'd the air of pestilence;
- That instant was I turn'd into a hart;
- And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
- E'er since pursue me.--How now! what news from her?
[Enter VALENTINE.]
VALENTINE.
- So please my lord, I might not be admitted,
- But from her handmaid do return this answer:
- The element itself, till seven years' heat,
- Shall not behold her face at ample view;
- But like a cloistress she will veiled walk,
- And water once a-day her chamber round
- With eye-offending brine: all this to season
- A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh
- And lasting in her sad remembrance.
DUKE.
- O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame
- To pay this debt of love but to a brother,
- How will she love when the rich golden shaft
- Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else
- That live in her; when liver, brain, and heart,
- These sovereign thrones, are all supplied and fill'd,--
- Her sweet perfections,--with one self king!--
- Away before me to sweet beds of flowers:
- Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. The sea-coast.
[Enter VIOLA, CAPTAIN, and Sailors.]
VIOLA.
- What country, friends, is this?
CAPTAIN.
- This is Illyria, lady.
VIOLA.
- And what should I do in Illyria?
- My brother he is in Elysium.
- Perchance he is not drown'd--What think you, sailors?
CAPTAIN.
- It is perchance that you yourself were sav'd.
VIOLA.
- O my poor brother! and so perchance may he be.
CAPTAIN.
- True, madam; and, to comfort you with chance,
- Assure yourself, after our ship did split,
- When you, and those poor number sav'd with you,
- Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,
- Most provident in peril, bind himself,---
- Courage and hope both teaching him the practice,--
- To a strong mast that liv'd upon the sea;
- Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,
- I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves
- So long as I could see.
VIOLA.
- For saying so, there's gold!
- Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope,
- Whereto thy speech serves for authority,
- The like of him. Know'st thou this country?
CAPTAIN.
- Ay, madam, well; for I was bred and born
- Not three hours' travel from this very place.
VIOLA.
- Who governs here?
CAPTAIN.
- A noble duke, in nature
- As in name.
VIOLA.
- What is his name?
CAPTAIN.
- Orsino.
VIOLA.
- Orsino! I have heard my father name him.
- He was a bachelor then.
CAPTAIN.
- And so is now,
- Or was so very late; for but a month
- Ago I went from hence; and then 'twas fresh
- In murmur,--as, you know, what great ones do,
- The less will prattle of,--that he did seek
- The love of fair Olivia.
VIOLA.
- What's she?
CAPTAIN.
- A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count
- That died some twelvemonth since; then leaving her
- In the protection of his son, her brother,
- Who shortly also died; for whose dear love,
- They say, she hath abjured the company
- And sight of men.
VIOLA.
- O that I served that lady!
- And might not be delivered to the world,
- Till I had made mine own occasion mellow,
- What my estate is.
CAPTAIN.
- That were hard to compass:
- Because she will admit no kind of suit,
- No, not the duke's.
VIOLA.
- There is a fair behaviour in thee, captain;
- And though that nature with a beauteous wall
- Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee
- I will believe thou hast a mind that suits
- With this thy fair and outward character.
- I pray thee, and I'll pay thee bounteously,
- Conceal me what I am; and be my aid
- For such disguise as, haply, shall become
- The form of my intent. I'll serve this duke;
- Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him;
- It may be worth thy pains, for I can sing,
- And speak to him in many sorts of music,
- That will allow me very worth his service.
- What else may hap to time I will commit;
- Only shape thou silence to my wit.
CAPTAIN.
- Be you his eunuch and your mute I'll be;
- When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see.
VIOLA.
- I thank thee. Lead me on.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. A Room in OLIVIA'S House.
[Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and MARIA.]
SIR TOBY.
- What a plague means my niece, to take the death of her
- brother thus? I am sure care's an enemy to life.
MARIA.
- By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o' nights;
- your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours.
SIR TOBY.
- Why, let her except, before excepted.
MARIA.
- Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits
- of order.
SIR TOBY.
- Confine? I'll confine myself no finer than I am: these
- clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too;
- an they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps.
MARIA.
- That quaffing and drinking will undo you: I heard my lady
- talk of it yesterday; and of a foolish knight that you brought in
- one night here to be her wooer.
SIR TOBY.
- Who? Sir Andrew Ague-cheek?
MARIA.
- Ay, he.
SIR TOBY.
- He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria.
MARIA.
- What's that to the purpose?
SIR TOBY.
- Why, he has three thousand ducats a year.
MARIA.
- Ay, but he'll have but a year in all these ducats; he's a
- very fool, and a prodigal.
SIR TOBY.
- Fye that you'll say so! he plays o' the viol-de-gambo,
- and speaks three or four languages word for word without book,
- and hath all the good gifts of nature.
MARIA.
- He hath indeed,--almost natural: for, besides that he's a
- fool, he's a great quarreller; and, but that he hath the gift of
- a coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrelling, 'tis thought
- among the prudent he would quickly have the gift of a grave.
SIR TOBY.
- By this hand, they are scoundrels and subtractors that
- say so of him. Who are they?
MARIA.
- They that add, moreover, he's drunk nightly in your company.
SIR TOBY.
- With drinking healths to my niece; I'll drink to her as
- long as there is a passage in my throat and drink in Illyria.
- He's a coward and a coystril that will not drink to my niece
- till his brains turn o' the toe like a parish-top. What, wench!
- Castiliano-vulgo! for here comes Sir Andrew Ague-face.
[Enter SIR ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK.]
AGUE-CHEEK.
- Sir Toby Belch! how now, Sir Toby Belch!
SIR TOBY.
- Sweet Sir Andrew?
SIR ANDREW.
- Bless you, fair shrew.
MARIA.
- And you too, sir.
SIR TOBY.
- Accost, Sir Andrew, accost.
SIR ANDREW.
- What's that?
SIR TOBY.
- My niece's chamber-maid.
SIR ANDREW.
- Good Mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance.
MARIA.
- My name is Mary, sir.
SIR ANDREW.
- Good Mistress Mary Accost,--
SIR TOBY.
- You mistake, knight: accost is, front her, board her,
- woo her, assail her.
SIR ANDREW.
- By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company.
- Is that the meaning of accost?
MARIA.
- Fare you well, gentlemen.
SIR TOBY.
- An thou let part so, Sir Andrew, would thou mightst never
- draw sword again.
SIR ANDREW.
- An you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw
- sword again. Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand?
MARIA.
- Sir, I have not you by the hand.
SIR ANDREW.
- Marry, but you shall have; and here's my hand.
MARIA.
- Now, sir, thought is free. I pray you, bring your hand to
- the buttery-bar and let it drink.
SIR ANDREW.
- Wherefore, sweetheart? what's your metaphor?
MARIA.
- It's dry, sir.
SIR ANDREW.
- Why, I think so; I am not such an ass but I can keep my
- hand dry. But what's your jest?
MARIA.
- A dry jest, sir.
SIR ANDREW.
- Are you full of them?
MARIA.
- Ay, sir, I have them at my fingers' ends: marry, now I let
- go your hand I am barren.
[Exit MARIA.]
SIR TOBY.
- O knight, thou lack'st a cup of canary: When did I see
- thee so put down?
SIR ANDREW.
- Never in your life, I think; unless you see canary put
- me down. Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian
- or an ordinary man has; but I am great eater of beef, and, I
- believe, that does harm to my wit.
SIR TOBY.
- No question.
SIR ANDREW.
- An I thought that, I'd forswear it. I'll ride home
- to-morrow, Sir Toby.
SIR TOBY.
- Pourquoy, my dear knight?
SIR ANDREW.
- What is pourquoy? do or not do? I would I had bestowed
- that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing, and
- bear-baiting. Oh, had I but followed the arts!
SIR TOBY.
- Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair.
SIR ANDREW.
- Why, would that have mended my hair?
SIR TOBY.
- Past question; for thou seest it will not curl by nature.
SIR ANDREW.
- But it becomes me well enough, does't not?
SIR TOBY.
- Excellent; it hangs like flax on a distaff; and I hope to
- see a houswife take thee between her legs and spin it off.
SIR ANDREW.
- Faith, I'll home to-morrow, Sir Toby; your niece will
- not be seen; or, if she be, it's four to one she'll none of me;
- the count himself here hard by woos her.
SIR TOBY.
- She'll none o' the Count; she'll not match above her
- degree, neither in estate, years, nor wit; I have heard her
- swear't. Tut, there's life in't, man.
SIR ANDREW.
- I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o' the strangest
- mind i' the world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes
- altogether.
SIR TOBY.
- Art thou good at these kick-shaws, knight?
SIR ANDREW.
- As any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be, under the
- degree of my betters; and yet I will not compare with an old man.
SIR TOBY.
- What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight?
SIR ANDREW.
- Faith, I can cut a caper.
SIR TOBY.
- And I can cut the mutton to't.
SIR ANDREW.
- And, I think, I have the back-trick simply as strong as
- any man in Illyria.
SIR TOBY.
- Wherefore are these things hid? wherefore have these
- gifts a curtain before them? are they like to take dust, like
- Mistress Mall's picture? why dost thou not go to church in a
- galliard and come home in a coranto? My very walk should be a
- jig; I would not so much as make water but in a sink-a-pace. What
- dost thou mean? is it a world to hide virtues in? I did think, by
- the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was formed under the
- star of a galliard.
SIR ANDREW.
- Ay, 'tis strong, and it does indifferent well in
- flame-colour'd stock. Shall we set about some revels?
SIR TOBY.
- What shall we do else? were we not born under Taurus?
SIR ANDREW.
- Taurus? that's sides and heart.
SIR TOBY.
- No, sir; it is legs and thighs. Let me see thee caper: ha,
- higher: ha, ha!--excellent!
[Exeunt.]
SCENE IV. A Room in the DUKE'S Palace.
[Enter VALENTINE, and VIOLA in man's attire.]
VALENTINE.
- If the duke continue these favours towards you, Cesario,
- you are like to be much advanced; he hath known you but three
- days, and already you are no stranger.
VIOLA.
- You either fear his humour or my negligence, that you call
- in question the continuance of his love. Is he inconstant, sir,
- in his favours?
VALENTINE.
- No, believe me.
[Enter DUKE, CURIO, and Attendants.]
VIOLA.
- I thank you. Here comes the count.
DUKE.
- Who saw Cesario, ho?
VIOLA.
- On your attendance, my lord; here.
DUKE.
- Stand you awhile aloof.--Cesario,
- Thou know'st no less but all; I have unclasp'd
- To thee the book even of my secret soul:
- Therefore, good youth, address thy gait unto her;
- Be not denied access, stand at her doors,
- And tell them there thy fixed foot shall grow
- Till thou have audience.
VIOLA.
- Sure, my noble lord,
- If she be so abandon'd to her sorrow
- As it is spoke, she never will admit me.
DUKE.
- Be clamorous and leap all civil bounds,
- Rather than make unprofited return.
VIOLA.
- Say I do speak with her, my lord. What then?
DUKE.
- O, then unfold the passion of my love,
- Surprise her with discourse of my dear faith:
- It shall become thee well to act my woes;
- She will attend it better in thy youth
- Than in a nuncio of more grave aspect.
VIOLA.
- I think not so, my lord.
DUKE.
- Dear lad, believe it,
- For they shall yet belie thy happy years
- That say thou art a man: Diana's lip
- Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe
- Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound,
- And all is semblative a woman's part.
- I know thy constellation is right apt
- For this affair:--some four or five attend him:
- All, if you will; for I myself am best
- When least in company:--prosper well in this,
- And thou shalt live as freely as thy lord,
- To call his fortunes thine.
VIOLA.
- I'll do my best
- To woo your lady. [Aside] Yet, a barful strife!
- Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife.
SCENE V. A Room in OLIVIA'S House.
[Enter MARIA and CLOWN.]
MARIA.
- Nay; either tell me where thou hast been, or I will not open
- my lips so wide as a bristle may enter in way of thy excuse: my
- lady will hang thee for thy absence.
CLOWN.
- Let her hang me: he that is well hanged in this world needs
- to fear no colours.
MARIA.
- Make that good.
CLOWN.
- He shall see none to fear.
MARIA.
- A good lenten answer: I can tell thee where that saying was
- born, of, I fear no colours.
CLOWN.
- Where, good Mistress Mary?
MARIA.
- In the wars; and that may you be bold to say in your foolery.
CLOWN.
- Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are
- fools, let them use their talents.
MARIA.
- Yet you will be hanged for being so long absent: or to be
- turned away; is not that as good as a hanging to you?
CLOWN.
- Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage; and for turning
- away, let summer bear it out.
MARIA.
- You are resolute, then?
CLOWN.
- Not so, neither: but I am resolved on two points.
MARIA.
- That if one break, the other will hold; or if both break,
- your gaskins fall.
CLOWN.
- Apt, in good faith, very apt! Well, go thy way; if Sir Toby
- would leave drinking, thou wert as witty a piece of Eve's flesh
- as any in Illyria.
MARIA.
- Peace, you rogue; no more o' that; here comes my lady: make
- your excuse wisely; you were best.
[Exit.]
[Enter OLIVIA and MALVOLIO.]
CLOWN.
- Wit, and't be thy will, put me into good fooling! Those wits
- that think they have thee do very oft prove fools; and I, that am
- sure I lack thee, may pass for a wise man. For what says
- Quinapalus? Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.--God bless
- thee, lady!
OLIVIA.
- Take the fool away.
CLOWN.
- Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady.
OLIVIA.
- Go to, you're a dry fool; I'll no more of you: besides, you
- grow dishonest.
CLOWN.
- Two faults, madonna, that drink and good counsel will amend:
- for give the dry fool drink, then is the fool not dry; bid the
- dishonest man mend himself: if he mend, he is no longer
- dishonest; if he cannot, let the botcher mend him. Anything
- that's mended is but patched; virtue that transgresses is but
- patched with sin, and sin that amends is but patched with virtue.
- If that this simple syllogism will serve, so; if it will not,
- what remedy? As there is no true cuckold but calamity, so
- beauty's a flower:
--the lady bade take away the fool; therefore,
- I say again, take her away.
OLIVIA.
- Sir, I bade them take away you.
CLOWN.
- Misprision in the highest degree!--Lady, Cucullus non facit
- monachum
; that's as much to say, I wear not motley in my
- brain. Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.
OLIVIA.
- Can you do it?
CLOWN.
- Dexteriously, good madonna.
OLIVIA.
- Make your proof.
CLOWN.
- I must catechize you for it, madonna.
- Good my mouse of virtue, answer me.
OLIVIA.
- Well, sir, for want of other idleness, I'll 'bide your proof.
CLOWN.
- Good madonna, why mourn'st thou?
OLIVIA.
- Good fool, for my brother's death.
CLOWN.
- I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
OLIVIA.
- I know his soul is in heaven, fool.
CLOWN.
- The more fool you, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul
- being in heaven.--Take away the fool, gentlemen.
OLIVIA.
- What think you of this fool, Malvolio? doth he not mend?
MALVOLIO.
- Yes; and shall do, till the pangs of death shake him.
- Infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool.
CLOWN.
- God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity, for the better
- increasing your folly! Sir Toby will be sworn that I am no fox;
- but he will not pass his word for twopence that you are no fool.
OLIVIA.
- How say you to that, Malvolio?
MALVOLIO.
- I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren
- rascal; I saw him put down the other day with an ordinary fool
- that has no more brain than a stone. Look you now, he's out of
- his guard already; unless you laugh and minister occasion to him,
- he is gagged. I protest I take these wise men that crow so at
- these set kind of fools, no better than the fools' zanies.
OLIVIA.
- O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a
- distempered appetite. To be generous, guiltless, and of free
- disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem
- cannon bullets. There is no slander in an allowed fool, though he
- do nothing but rail; nor no railing in known discreet man, though
- he do nothing but reprove.
CLOWN.
- Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou speakest well of
- fools!
[Re-enter MARIA.]
MARIA.
- Madam, there is at the gate a young gentleman much desires
- to speak with you.
OLIVIA.
- From the Count Orsino, is it?
MARIA.
- I know not, madam; 'tis a fair young man, and well attended.
OLIVIA.
- Who of my people hold him in delay?
MARIA.
- Sir Toby, madam, your kinsman.
OLIVIA.
- Fetch him off, I pray you; he speaks nothing but madman.
- Fie on him!
[Exit MARIA]
- Go you, Malvolio: if it be a suit from the count, I am sick, or
- not at home; what you will to dismiss it.
[Exit MALVOLIO.]
- Now you see, sir, how your fooling grows old, and people dislike
- it.
CLOWN.
- Thou hast spoke for us, madonna, as if thy eldest son should
- be a fool: whose skull Jove cram with brains, for here he comes--
- one of thy kin, has a most weak pia mater.
[Enter SIR TOBY BELCH.]
OLIVIA.
- By mine honour, half drunk!--What is he at the gate, cousin?
SIR TOBY.
- A gentleman.
OLIVIA.
- A gentleman? What gentleman?
SIR TOBY.
- 'Tis a gentleman here.--A plague o' these pickle-herrings!--How
- now, sot?
CLOWN.
- Good Sir Toby,--
OLIVIA.
- Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this lethargy?
SIR TOBY.
- Lechery! I defy lechery. There's one at the gate.
OLIVIA.
- Ay, marry; what is he?
SIR TOBY.
- Let him be the devil an he will, I care not: give me
- faith, say I. Well, it's all one.
[Exit.]
OLIVIA.
- What's a drunken man like, fool?
CLOWN.
- Like a drowned man, a fool, and a madman: one draught above
- heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns
- him.
OLIVIA.
- Go thou and seek the coroner, and let him sit o' my coz;
- for he's in the third degree of drink; he's drowned: go, look
- after him.
CLOWN.
- He is but mad yet, madonna; and the fool shall look to the
- madman.
[Exit CLOWN.]
[Re-enter MALVOLIO.]
MALVOLIO.
- Madam, yond young fellow swears he will speak with you. I
- told him you were sick; he takes on him to understand so much,
- and therefore comes to speak with you; I told him you were
- asleep; he seems to have a foreknowledge of that too, and
- therefore comes to speak with you. What is to be said to him,
- lady? he's fortified against any denial.
OLIVIA.
- Tell him, he shall not speak with me.
MALVOLIO.
- Has been told so; and he says he'll stand at your door
- like a sheriff's post, and be the supporter of a bench, but he'll
- speak with you.
OLIVIA.
- What kind of man is he?
MALVOLIO.
- Why, of mankind.
OLIVIA.
- What manner of man?
MALVOLIO.
- Of very ill manner; he'll speak with you, will you or no.
OLIVIA.
- Of what personage and years is he?
MALVOLIO.
- Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy;
- as a squash is before 'tis a peascod, or a codling, when 'tis
- almost an apple: 'tis with him e'en standing water, between boy
- and man. He is very well-favoured, and he speaks very shrewishly;
- one would think his mother's milk were scarce out of him.
OLIVIA.
- Let him approach. Call in my gentlewoman.
MALVOLIO.
- Gentlewoman, my lady calls.
[Exit.]
[Re-enter MARIA.]
OLIVIA.
- Give me my veil; come, throw it o'er my face;
- We'll once more hear Orsino's embassy.
[Enter VIOLA.]
VIOLA.
- The honourable lady of the house, which is she?
OLIVIA.
- Speak to me; I shall answer for her. Your will?
VIOLA.
- Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty,--I pray you,
- tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her: I
- would be loath to cast away my speech; for, besides that it is
- excellently well penned, I have taken great pains to con it. Good
- beauties, let me sustain no scorn; I am very comptible, even to
- the least sinister usage.
OLIVIA.
- Whence came you, sir?
VIOLA.
- I can say little more than I have studied, and that
- question's out of my part. Good gentle one, give me modest
- assurance, if you be the lady of the house, that I may proceed in
- my speech.
OLIVIA.
- Are you a comedian?
VIOLA.
- No, my profound heart: and yet, by the very fangs of malice
- I swear, I am not that I play. Are you the lady of the house?
OLIVIA.
- If I do not usurp myself, I am.
VIOLA.
- Most certain, if you are she, you do usurp yourself; for
- what is yours to bestow is not yours to reserve. But this is from
- my commission: I will on with my speech in your praise, and then
- show you the heart of my message.
OLIVIA.
- Come to what is important in't: I forgive you the praise.
VIOLA.
- Alas, I took great pains to study it, and 'tis poetical.
OLIVIA.
- It is the more like to be feigned; I pray you keep it in. I
- heard you were saucy at my gates; and allowed your approach,
- rather to wonder at you than to hear you. If you be not mad, be
- gone; if you have reason, be brief: 'tis not that time of moon
- with me to make one in so skipping a dialogue.
MARIA.
- Will you hoist sail, sir? here lies your way.
VIOLA.
- No, good swabber; I am to hull here a little longer.--
- Some mollification for your giant, sweet lady.
OLIVIA.
- Tell me your mind.
VIOLA.
- I am a messenger.
OLIVIA.
- Sure, you have some hideous matter to deliver, when the
- courtesy of it is so fearful. Speak your office.
VIOLA.
- It alone concerns your ear. I bring no overture of war, no
- taxation of homage; I hold the olive in my hand: my words are as
- full of peace as matter.
OLIVIA.
- Yet you began rudely. What are you? what would you?
VIOLA.
- The rudeness that hath appeared in me have I learned from my
- entertainment. What I am and what I would are as secret as
- maidenhead: to your ears, divinity; to any other's, profanation.
OLIVIA.
- Give us the place alone: we will hear this divinity.
[Exit MARIA.]
- Now, sir, what is your text?
VIOLA.
- Most sweet lady,--
OLIVIA.
- A comfortable doctrine, and much may be said of it.
- Where lies your text?
VIOLA.
- In Orsino's bosom.
OLIVIA.
- In his bosom? In what chapter of his bosom?
VIOLA.
- To answer by the method, in the first of his heart.
OLIVIA.
- O, I have read it; it is heresy. Have you no more to say?
VIOLA.
- Good madam, let me see your face.
OLIVIA.
- Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate with my
- face? you are now out of your text: but we will draw the curtain
- and show you the picture. Look you, sir, such a one I was this
- present
. Is't not well done?
[Unveiling.]
VIOLA.
- Excellently done, if God did all.
OLIVIA.
- 'Tis in grain, sir; 'twill endure wind and weather.
VIOLA.
- 'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
- Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on:
- Lady, you are the cruel'st she alive,
- If you will lead these graces to the grave,
- And leave the world no copy.
OLIVIA.
- O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted; I will give out
- divers schedules. of my beauty. It shall be inventoried; and every
- particle and utensil labelled to my will: as, item, two lips
- indifferent red; item, two grey eyes with lids to them; item, one
- neck, one chin, and so forth. Were you sent hither to praise me?
VIOLA.
- I see you what you are: you are too proud;
- But, if you were the devil, you are fair.
- My lord and master loves you. O, such love
- Could be but recompens'd though you were crown'd
- The nonpareil of beauty!
OLIVIA.
- How does he love me?
VIOLA.
- With adorations, fertile tears,
- With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.
OLIVIA.
- Your lord does know my mind; I cannot love him:
- Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble,
- Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth;
- In voices well divulged, free, learn'd, and valiant,
- And, in dimension and the shape of nature,
- A gracious person: but yet I cannot love him;
- He might have took his answer long ago.
VIOLA.
- If I did love you in my master's flame,
- With such a suffering, such a deadly life,
- In your denial I would find no sense,
- I would not understand it.
OLIVIA.
- Why, what would you?
VIOLA.
- Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
- And call upon my soul within the house;
- Write loyal cantons of contemned love,
- And sing them loud, even in the dead of night;
- Holla your name to the reverberate hills,
- And make the babbling gossip of the air
- Cry out Olivia! O, you should not rest
- Between the elements of air and earth,
- But you should pity me.
OLIVIA.
- You might do much. What is your parentage?
VIOLA.
- Above my fortunes, yet my state is well: I am a gentleman.
OLIVIA.
- Get you to your lord;
- I cannot love him: let him send no more;
- Unless, perchance, you come to me again,
- To tell me how he takes it. Fare you well:
- I thank you for your pains: spend this for me.
VIOLA.
- I am no fee'd post, lady; keep your purse;
- My master, not myself, lacks recompense.
- Love make his heart of flint that you shall love;
- And let your fervour, like my master's, be
- Placed in contempt! Farewell, fair cruelty.
[Exit.]
OLIVIA.
- What is your parentage?
- 'Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:
- I am a gentleman.'--I'll be sworn thou art;
- Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit,
- Do give thee five-fold blazon. Not too fast:--soft, soft!
- Unless the master were the man.--How now?
- Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
- Methinks I feel this youth's perfections
- With an invisible and subtle stealth
- To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.--
- What, ho, Malvolio!--
[Re-enter MALVOLIO.]
MALVOLIO.
- Here, madam, at your service.
OLIVIA.
- Run after that same peevish messenger,
- The county's man: he left this ring behind him,
- Would I or not; tell him I'll none of it.
- Desire him not to flatter with his lord,
- Nor hold him up with hopes; I am not for him:
- If that the youth will come this way to-morrow,
- I'll give him reasons for't. Hie thee, Malvolio.
MALVOLIO.
- Madam, I will.
[Exit.]
OLIVIA.
- I do I know not what: and fear to find
- Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.
- Fate, show thy force. Ourselves we do not owe:
- What is decreed must be; and be this so!
[Exit.]
ACT II.
SCENE I. The sea-coast.
[Enter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN.]
ANTONIO.
- Will you stay no longer; nor will you not that I go with you?
SEBASTIAN.
- By your patience, no; my stars shine darkly over me; the
- malignancy of my fate might, perhaps, distemper yours; therefore
- I shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone.
- It were a bad recompense for your love, to lay any of them on
- you.
ANTONIO.
- Let me know of you whither you are bound.
SEBASTIAN.
- No, 'sooth, sir; my determinate voyage is mere
- extravagancy. But I perceive in you so excellent a touch of
- modesty, that you will not extort from me what I am willing to
- keep in; therefore it charges me in manners the rather to express
- myself. You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian,
- which I called Rodorigo; my father was that Sebastian of
- Messaline whom I know you have heard of: he left behind him
- myself and a sister, both born in an hour; if the heavens had
- been pleased, would we had so ended! but you, sir, altered that;
- for some hours before you took me from the breach of the sea was
- my sister drowned.
ANTONIO.
- Alas the day!
SEBASTIAN.
- A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled me,
- was yet of many accounted beautiful: but though I could not, with
- such estimable wonder, overfar believe that, yet thus far I will
- boldly publish her,--she bore mind that envy could not but call
- fair. She is drowned already, sir, with salt water, though I seem
- to drown her remembrance again with more.
ANTONIO.
- Pardon me, sir, your bad entertainment.
SEBASTIAN.
- O, good Antonio, forgive me your trouble.
ANTONIO.
- If you will not murder me. for my love, let me be your servant.
SEBASTIAN.
- If you will not undo what you have done--that is, kill
- him whom you have recovered--desire it not. Fare ye well at once;
- my bosom is full of kindness; and I am yet so near the manners of
- my mother
that, upon the least occasion more, mine eyes will tell
- tales of me. I am bound to the Count Orsino's court: farewell.
[Exit.]
ANTONIO.
- The gentleness of all the gods go with thee!
- I have many cnemies in Orsino's court,
- Else would I very shortly see thee there:
- But come what may, I do adore thee so
- That danger shall seem sport, and I will go.
[Exit.]
SCENE II. A street.
[Enter VIOLA; MALVOLIO following.]
MALVOLIO.
- Were you not even now with the Countess Olivia?
VIOLA.
- Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since arrived but
- hither.
MALVOLIO.
- She returns this ring to you, sir; you might have saved
- me my pains, to have taken it away yourself. She adds moreover,
- that you should put your lord into a desperate assurance she will
- none of him: and one thing more: that you be never so hardy to
- come again in his affairs, unless it be to report your lord's
- taking of this. Receive it so.
VIOLA.
- She took the ring of me: I'll none of it.
MALVOLIO.
- Come, sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is
- it should be so returned. If it be worth stooping for, there it
- lies in your eye; if not, be it his that finds it.
[Exit.]
VIOLA.
- I left no ring with her; what means this lady?
- Fortune forbid my outside have not charm'd her!
- She made good view of me; indeed, so much,
- That methought her eyes had lost her tongue,
- For she did speak in starts distractedly.
- She loves me, sure: the cunning of her passion
- Invites me in this churlish messenger.
- None of my lord's ring! why, he sent her none.
- I am the man; --if it be so,--as 'tis,--
- Poor lady, she were better love a dream.
- Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness
- Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.
- How easy is it for the proper-false
- In women's waxen hearts to set their forms!
- Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we;
- For such as we are made of, such we be.
- How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly,
- And I, poor monster, fond as much on him;
- And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.
- What will become of this? As I am man,
- My state is desperate for my master's love;
- As I am woman, now alas the day!
- What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!
- O time, thou must untangle this, not I;
- It is too hard a knot for me to untie!
[Exit.]
SCENE III. A Room in OLIVIA'S House.
[Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and SIR ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK.]
SIR TOBY.
- Approach, Sir Andrew; not to be a-bed after midnight is to
- be up betimes; and diluculo surgere, thou know'st.
SIR ANDREW.
- Nay; by my troth, I know not; but I know to be up late
- is to be up late.
SIR TOBY.
- A false conclusion; I hate it as an unfilled can. To be
- up after midnight, and to go to bed then is early: so that to go
- to bed after midnight is to go to bed betimes. Do not our lives
- consist of the four elements?
SIR ANDREW.
- Faith, so they say; but I think it rather consists of
- eating and drinking.
SIR TOBY.
- Thou art a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink.--
- Marian, I say!--a stoup of wine.
[Enter CLOWN.]
SIR ANDREW.
- Here comes the fool, i' faith.
CLOWN.
- How now, my hearts? Did you never see the picture of we three?
SIR TOBY.
- Welcome, ass. Now let's have a catch.
SIR ANDREW.
- By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I had
- rather than forty shillings I had such a leg; and so sweet a
- breath to sing, as the fool has. In sooth, thou wast in very
- gracious fooling last night when thou spokest of Pigrogromitus,
- of the Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus
; 'twas very
- good, i' faith. I sent thee sixpence for thy leman. Hadst it?
CLOWN.
- I did impeticos thy gratillity; for Malvolio's nose is no
- whipstock. My lady has a white hand, and the Myrmidons are no
- bottle-ale houses.
SIR ANDREW.
- Excellent! Why, this is the best fooling, when all is
- done. Now, a song.
SIR TOBY.
- Come on; there is sixpence for you: let's have a song.
SIR ANDREW.
- There's a testril of me too: if one knight give a--
CLOWN.
- Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life?
SIR TOBY.
- A love-song, a love-song.
SIR ANDREW.
- Ay, ay; I care not for good life.
CLOWN.
- SONG
- O, mistress mine, where are you roaming?
- O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,
- That can sing both high and low:
- Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
- Journeys end in lovers meeting,
- Every wise man's son doth know.
SIR ANDREW.
- Excellent good, i' faith.
SIR TOBY.
- Good, good.
CLOWN.
- What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
- Present mirth hath present laughter;
- What's to come is still unsure.
- In delay there lies no plenty;
- Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty;
- Youth's a stuff will not endure.
SIR ANDREW.
- A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight.
SIR TOBY.
- A contagious breath.
SIR ANDREW.
- Very sweet and contagious, i' faith.
SIR TOBY.
- To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion. But shall
- we make the welkin dance indeed? Shall we rouse the night-owl in
- a catch that will draw three souls out of one weaver? shall we do
- that?
SIR ANDREW.
- An you love me, let's do't: I am dog at a catch.
CLOWN.
- By'r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well.
SIR ANDREW.
- Most certain: let our catch be, 'Thou knave.'
CLOWN.
- 'Hold thy peace, thou knave' knight? I shall be constrain'd
- in't to call thee knave, knight.
SIR ANDREW.
- 'Tis not the first time I have constrained one to call
- me knave. Begin, fool; it begins 'Hold thy peace.'
CLOWN.
- I shall never begin if I hold my peace.
SIR ANDREW.
- Good, i' faith! Come, begin.
[They sing a catch.]
[Enter MARIA.]
MARIA.
- What a caterwauling do you keep here! If my lady have not
- called up her steward Malvolio, and bid him turn you out of
- doors, never trust me.
SIR TOBY.
- My lady's a Cataian, we are politicians; Malvolio's a
- Peg-a-Ramsey, and
[Singing.]
- 'Three merry men be we.'
- Am not I consanguineous? am I not of her blood? Tilly-valley,
- lady.
- 'There dwelt a man in Babylon, lady, lady.'
CLOWN.
- Beshrew me, the knight's in admirable fooling.
SIR ANDREW.
- Ay, he does well enough if he be disposed, and so do I
- too; he does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural.
SIR TOBY.
[Singing] O, the twelfth day of December,--
MARIA.
- For the love o' God, peace!
[Enter MALVOLIO]
MALVOLIO.
- My masters, are you mad? or what are you? Have you no
- wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this
- time of night? Do ye make an ale-house of my lady's house, that
- ye squeak out your coziers' catches without any mitigation or
- remorse of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor
- time, in you?
SIR TOBY.
- We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up!
MALVOLIO.
- Sir Toby, I must be round with you. My lady bade me tell
- you that, though she harbours you as her kinsman she's nothing
- allied to your disorders. If you can separate yourself and your
- misdemeanours, you are welcome to the house; if not, an it would
- please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you
- farewell.
SIR TOBY.
- 'Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone.'
MARIA.
- Nay, good Sir Toby.
CLOWN.
- 'His eyes do show his days are almost done.'
MALVOLIO.
- Is't even so?
SIR TOBY.
- 'But I will never die.'
CLOWN.
- Sir Toby, there you lie.
MALVOLIO.
- This is much credit to you.
SIR TOBY.
[Singing] 'Shall I bid him go?'
CLOWN.
- 'What an if you do?'
SIR TOBY.
- 'Shall I bid him go, and spare not?'
CLOWN.
- 'O, no, no, no, no, you dare not.'
SIR TOBY.
- Out o' tune? sir, ye lie. Art any more than a steward? Dost thou
- think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes
- and ale?
CLOWN.
- Yes, by Saint Anne; and ginger shall be hot i' the mouth
- too.
SIR TOBY.
- Thou'art i' the right.--Go, sir, rub your chain with crumbs:
- A stoup of wine, Maria!
MALVOLIO.
- Mistress Mary, if you prized my lady's favour at anything
- more than contempt, you would not give means for this uncivil
- rule; she shall know of it, by this hand.
[Exit.]
MARIA.
- Go shake your ears.
SIR ANDREW.
- 'Twere as good a deed as to drink when a man's a-hungry,
- to challenge him the field, and then to break promise with him
- and make a fool of him.
SIR TOBY.
- Do't, knight; I'll write thee a challenge; or I'll
- deliver thy indignation to him by word of mouth.
MARIA.
- Sweet Sir Toby, be patient for to-night; since the youth of
- the count's was to-day with my lady, she is much out of quiet.
- For Monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him: if I do not gull
- him into a nayword
, and make him a common recreation, do not
- think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed. I know I can
- do it.
SIR TOBY.
- Possess us, possess us; tell us something of him.
MARIA.
- Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan.
SIR ANDREW.
- O, if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog.
SIR TOBY.
- What, for being a Puritan? thy exquisite reason, dear knight?
SIR ANDREW.
- I have no exquisite reason for't, but I have reason good enough.
MARIA.
- The devil a Puritan that he is, or anything constantly but a
- time-pleaser: an affectioned ass that cons state without book and
- utters it by great swarths; the best persuaded of himself, so
- crammed, as he thinks, with excellences, that it is his grounds
- of faith that all that look on him love him; and on that vice in
- him will my revenge find notable cause to work.
SIR TOBY.
- What wilt thou do?
MARIA.
- I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of love;
- wherein, by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the
- manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and
- complexion, he shall find himself most feelingly personated. I
- can write very like my lady, your niece; on a forgotten matter we
- can hardly make distinction of our hands.
SIR TOBY.
- Excellent! I smell a device.
SIR ANDREW.
- I have't in my nose too.
SIR TOBY.
- He shall think, by the letters that thou wilt drop, that
- they come from my niece, and that she is in love with him.
MARIA.
- My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour.
SIR ANDREW.
- And your horse now would make him an ass.
MARIA.
- Ass, I doubt not.
SIR ANDREW.
- O 'twill be admirable!
MARIA.
- Sport royal, I warrant you. I know my physic will work with
- him. I will plant you two, and let the fool make a third, where
- he shall find the letter; observe his construction of it. For
- this night, to bed, and dream on the event. Farewell.
[Exit.]
SIR TOBY.
- Good night, Penthesilea.
SIR ANDREW.
- Before me, she's a good wench.
SIR TOBY.
- She's a beagle true bred, and one that adores me. What o' that?
SIR ANDREW.
- I was adored once too.
SIR TOBY.
- Let's to bed, knight.--Thou hadst need send for more money.
SIR ANDREW.
- If I cannot recover your niece I am a foul way out.
SIR TOBY.
- Send for money, knight; if thou hast her not i' the end,
- call me Cut.
SIR ANDREW.
- If I do not, never trust me; take it how you will.
SIR TOBY.
- Come, come; I'll go burn some sack; 'tis too late to go
- to bed now: come, knight; come, knight.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE IV. A Room in the DUKE'S Palace.
[Enter DUKE, VIOLA, CURIO, and others.]
DUKE.
- Give me some music:--Now, good morrow, friends:--
- Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song,
- That old and antique song we heard last night;
- Methought it did relieve my passion much;
- More than light airs and recollected terms
- Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times:--
- Come, but one verse.
CURIO.
- He is not here, so please your lordship, that should sing it.
DUKE.
- Who was it?
CURIO.
- Feste, the jester, my lord; a fool that the Lady Olivia's
- father took much delight in: he is about the house.
DUKE.
- Seek him out, and play the tune the while.
[Exit CURIO. Music.]
- Come hither, boy. If ever thou shalt love,
- In the sweet pangs of it remember me:
- 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 belov'd.--How dost thou like this tune?
VIOLA.
- It gives a very echo to the seat
- Where Love is throned.
DUKE.
- Thou dost speak masterly:
- My life upon't, young though thou art, thine eye
- Hath stayed upon some favour that it loves;
- Hath it not, boy?
VIOLA.
- A little, by your favour.
DUKE.
- What kind of woman is't?
VIOLA.
- Of your complexion.
DUKE.
- She is not worth thee, then. What years, i' faith?
VIOLA.
- About your years, my lord.
DUKE.
- Too old, by heaven! Let still the woman take
- An elder than herself; so wears she to him,
- So sways she level in her husband's heart.
- For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
- Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
- More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won,
- Than women's are.
VIOLA.
- I think it well, my lord.
DUKE.
- Then let thy love be younger than thyself,
- Or thy affection cannot hold the bent:
- For women are as roses, whose fair flower,
- Being once display'd, doth fall that very hour.
VIOLA.
- And so they are: alas, that they are so;
- To die, even when they to perfection grow!
[Re-enter CURIO and CLOWN.]
DUKE.
- O, fellow, come, the song we had last night:--
- Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain:
- The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,
- And the free maids, that weave their thread with bones,
- Do use to chant it: it is silly sooth,
- And dallies with the innocence of love
- Like the old age.
CLOWN.
- Are you ready, sir?
DUKE.
- Ay; pr'ythee, sing. [Music]
CLOWN.
- SONG
- Come away, come away, death.
- And in sad cypress let me be laid;
- Fly away, fly away, breath;
- I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
- My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
- O, prepare it!
- My part of death no one so true
- Did share it.
- Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
- On my black coffin let there be strown:
- Not a friend, not a friend greet
- My poor corpse where my bones shall be thrown:
- A thousand thousand sighs to save,
- Lay me, O, where
- Sad true lover never find my grave,
- To weep there!
DUKE.
- There's for thy pains.
CLOWN.
- No pains, sir; I take pleasure in singing, sir.
DUKE.
- I'll pay thy pleasure, then.
CLOWN.
- Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid one time or another.
DUKE.
- Give me now leave to leave thee.
CLOWN.
- Now the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy
- doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal!--I
- would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business
- might be everything, and their intent everywhere; for that's it
- that always makes a good voyage of nothing.--Farewell.
[Exit CLOWN.]
DUKE.
- Let all the rest give place.--
[Exeunt CURIO and Attendants.]
- Once more, Cesario,
- Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty:
- Tell her my love, more noble than the world,
- Prizes not quantity of dirty lands;
- The parts that fortune hath bestow'd upon her,
- Tell her, I hold as giddily as fortune;
- But 'tis that miracle and queen of gems
- That Nature pranks her in attracts my soul.
VIOLA.
- But if she cannot love you, sir?
DUKE.
- I cannot be so answer'd.
VIOLA.
- 'Sooth, but you must.
- Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,
- Hath for your love as great a pang of heart
- As you have for Olivia: you cannot love her;
- You tell her so. Must she not then be answer'd?
DUKE.
- There is no woman's sides
- Can bide the beating of so strong a passion
- As love doth give my heart: no woman's heart
- So big to hold so much; they lack retention.
- Alas, their love may be called appetite,--
- No motion of the liver, but the palate,--
- That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt;
- But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
- And can digest as much: make no compare
- Between that love a woman can bear me
- And that I owe Olivia.
VIOLA.
- Ay, but I know,--
DUKE.
- What dost thou know?
VIOLA.
- Too well what love women to men may owe.
- In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
- My father had a daughter loved a man,
- As it might be perhaps, were I a woman,
- I should your lordship.
DUKE.
- And what's her history?
VIOLA.
- A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
- But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
- Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought;
- And with a green and yellow melancholy,
- She sat like patience on a monument,
- Smiling at grief. Was not this love, indeed?
- We men may say more, swear more; but indeed,
- Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
- Much in our vows, but little in our love.
DUKE.
- But died thy sister of her love, my boy?
VIOLA.
- I am all the daughters of my father's house,
- And all the brothers too;--and yet I know not.--
- Sir, shall I to this lady?
DUKE.
- Ay, that's the theme.
- To her in haste: give her this jewel; say
- My love can give no place, bide no denay.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE V. OLIVIA'S garden.
[Enter SIR TOBY BELCH, SIR ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK, and FABIAN.]
SIR TOBY.
- Come thy ways, Signior Fabian.
FABIAN.
- Nay, I'll come; if I lose a scruple of this sport let me be
- boiled to death with melancholy.
SIR TOBY.
- Wouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly rascally
- sheep-biter come by some notable shame?
FABIAN.
- I would exult, man; you know he brought me out o' favour
- with my lady about a bear-baiting here.
SIR TOBY.
- To anger him we'll have the bear again; and we will fool
- him black and blue:--shall we not, Sir Andrew?
SIR ANDREW.
- An we do not, it is pity of our lives.
[Enter MARIA.]
SIR TOBY.
- Here comes the little villain:--How now, my mettle of India?
MARIA.
- Get ye all three into the box-tree: Malvolio's coming down
- this walk; he has been yonder i' the sun practising behaviour to
- his own shadow this half hour: observe him, for the love of
- mockery; for I know this letter will make a contemplative idiot
- of him. Close, in the name of jesting! [The men hide themselves.]
- Lie thou there; [Throws down a letter] for here comes the trout
- that must be caught with tickling.
[Exit Maria.]
[Enter MALVOLIO.]
MALVOLIO.
- 'Tis but fortune; all is fortune. Maria once told me she
- did affect me: and I have heard herself come thus near, that,
- should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion. Besides, she
- uses me with a more exalted respect than any one else that
- follows her. What should I think on't?
SIR TOBY.
- Here's an overweening rogue!
FABIAN.
- O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him;
- how he jets under his advanced plumes!
SIR ANDREW.
- 'Slight, I could so beat the rogue:--
SIR TOBY.
- Peace, I say.
MALVOLIO.
- To be Count Malvolio;--
SIR TOBY.
- Ah, rogue!
SIR ANDREW.
- Pistol him, pistol him.
SIR TOBY.
- Peace, peace.
MALVOLIO.
- There is example for't; the lady of the Strachy married
- the yeoman of the wardrobe.
SIR ANDREW.
- Fie on him, Jezebel!
FABIAN.
- O, peace! now he's deeply in; look how imagination blows him.
MALVOLIO.
- Having been three months married to her, sitting in my state,--
SIR TOBY.
- O for a stone-bow to hit him in the eye!
MALVOLIO.
- Calling my officers about me, in my branched velvet gown;
- having come from a day-bed, where I have left Olivia sleeping.
SIR TOBY.
- Fire and brimstone!
FABIAN.
- O, peace, peace.
MALVOLIO.
- And then to have the humour of state: and after a demure
- travel of regard,--telling them I know my place as I would they
- should do theirs,--to ask for my kinsman Toby.
SIR TOBY.
- Bolts and shackles!
FABIAN.
- O, peace, peace, peace! Now, now.
MALVOLIO.
- Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make out for
- him: I frown the while, and perchance, wind up my watch, or play
- with some rich jewel. Toby approaches; court'sies there to me:
SIR TOBY.
- Shall this fellow live?
FABIAN.
- Though our silence be drawn from us with cars, yet peace.
MALVOLIO.
- I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar smile with an
- austere regard of control:
SIR TOBY.
- And does not Toby take you a blow o' the lips then?
MALVOLIO.
- Saying 'Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me on your
- niece, give me this prerogative of speech':--
SIR TOBY.
- What, what?
MALVOLIO.
- 'You must amend your drunkenness.'
SIR TOBY.
- Out, scab!
FABIAN.
- Nay, patience, or we break the sinews of our plot.
MALVOLIO.
- 'Besides, you waste the treasure of your time with a
- foolish knight';
SIR ANDREW.
- That's me, I warrant you.
MALVOLIO.
- 'One Sir Andrew':
SIR ANDREW.
- I knew 'twas I; for many do call me fool.
MALVOLIO.
- What employment have we here?
[Taking up the letter.]
FABIAN.
- Now is the woodcock near the gin.
SIR TOBY.
- O, peace! And the spirit of humours intimate reading aloud to
- him!
MALVOLIO.
- By my life, this is my lady's hand: these be her very
- C's, her U's, and her T's; and thus makes she her great P's. It
- is in contempt of question, her hand.
SIR ANDREW.
- Her C's, her U's, and her T's. Why that?
MALVOLIO.
[Reads] 'To the unknown beloved, this, and my good
- wishes.' Her very phrases!--By your leave, wax.--Soft!--and the
- impressure her Lucrece, with which she uses to seal: 'tis my
- lady. To whom should this be?
FABIAN.
- This wins him, liver and all.
MALVOLIO.
[Reads]
- 'Jove knows I love,
- But who?
- Lips, do not move,
- No man must know.'
- 'No man must know.'--What follows? the numbers alter'd!--'No man
- must know':--If this should be thee, Malvolio?
SIR TOBY.
- Marry, hang thee, brock!
MALVOLIO.
- 'I may command where I adore:
- But silence, like a Lucrece knife,
- With bloodless stroke my heart doth gore;
- M, O, A, I, doth sway my life.'
FABIAN.
- A fustian riddle!
SIR TOBY.
- Excellent wench, say I.
MALVOLIO.
- 'M, O, A, I, doth sway my life.'--Nay, but first let me see,--let
- me see,--let me see.
FABIAN.
- What dish of poison has she dressed him!
SIR TOBY.
- And with what wing the stannyel checks at it!
MALVOLIO.
- 'I may command where I adore.' Why, she may command me: I
- serve her, she is my lady. Why, this is evident to any formal
- capacity; there is no obstruction in this;
--And the end,--What
- should that alphabetical position portend? If I could make that
- resemble something in me.--Softly!--M, O, A, I.--
SIR TOBY.
- O, ay, make up that:--he is now at a cold scent.
FABIAN.
- Sowter will cry upon't for all this, though it be as rank as a
- fox.
MALVOLIO.
- M,--Malvolio; M,--why, that begins my name.
FABIAN.
- Did not I say he would work it out?
- The cur is excellent at faults.
MALVOLIO.
- M,--But then there is no consonancy in the sequel; that
- suffers under probation: A should follow, but O does.
FABIAN.
- And O shall end, I hope.
SIR TOBY.
- Ay, or I'll cudgel him, and make him cry 'O!'
MALVOLIO.
- And then I comes behind.
FABIAN.
- Ay, an you had any eye behind you, you might see more
- detraction at your heels than fortunes before you.
MALVOLIO.
- M, O, A, I;--This simulation is not as the former:--and
- yet, to crush this a little, it would bow to me, for every one of
- these letters are in my name. Soft; here follows prose.--
- 'If this fall into thy hand, revolve. In my stars I am above
- thee; but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some
- achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Thy
- fates open their hands; let thy blood and spirit embrace them.
- And, to inure thyself to what thou art like to be, cast thy
- humble slough and appear fresh. Be opposite with a kinsman, surly
- with servants: let thy tongue tang arguments of state; put
- thyself into the trick of singularity: She thus advises thee that
- sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and
- wished to see thee ever cross-gartered. I say, remember. Go to;
- thou art made, if thou desirest to be so; if not, let me see thee
- a steward still, the fellow of servants, and not worthy to touch
- fortune's fingers. Farewell. She that would alter services with
- thee,
- 'The fortunate-unhappy.'
- Daylight and champian discovers not more: this is open. I will be
- proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I
- will wash off gross acquaintance, I will be point-device, the
- very man. I do not now fool myself to let imagination jade me;
- for every reason excites to this, that my lady loves me. She did
- commend my yellow stockings of late, she did praise my leg being
- cross-gartered; and in this she manifests herself to my love, and
- with a kind of injunction, drives me to these habits of her
- liking. I thank my stars I am happy. I will be strange, stout, in
- yellow stockings, and cross-gartered, even with the swiftness of
- putting on. Jove and my stars be praised!--Here is yet a
- postscript. 'Thou canst not choose but know who I am. If thou
- entertainest my love, let it appear in thy smiling; thy smiles
- become thee well: therefore in my presence still smile, dear my
- sweet, I pr'ythee.' Jove, I thank thee. I will smile; I will do
- everything that thou wilt have me.
[Exit.]
FABIAN.
- I will not give my part of this sport for a pension of
- thousands to be paid from the Sophy.
SIR TOBY.
- I could marry this wench for this device:
SIR ANDREW.
- So could I too.
SIR TOBY.
- And ask no other dowry with her but such another jest.
[Enter MARIA.]
SIR ANDREW.
- Nor I neither.
FABIAN.
- Here comes my noble gull-catcher.
SIR TOBY.
- Wilt thou set thy foot o' my neck?
SIR ANDREW.
- Or o' mine either?
SIR TOBY.
- Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip, and become thy bond-slave?
SIR ANDREW.
- I' faith, or I either?
SIR TOBY.
- Why, thou hast put him in such a dream, that, when the
- image of it leaves him, he must run mad.
MARIA.
- Nay, but say true; does it work upon him?
SIR TOBY.
- Like aqua-vitae with a midwife.
MARIA.
- If you will then see the fruits of the sport, mark his
- first approach before my lady: he will come to her in yellow
- stockings, and 'tis a colour she abhors, and cross-gartered, a
- fashion she detests; and he will smile upon her, which will now
- be so unsuitable to her disposition, being addicted to a
- melancholy as she is, that it cannot but turn him into a notable
- contempt; if you will see it, follow me.
SIR TOBY.
- To the gates of Tartar, thou most excellent devil of wit!
SIR ANDREW.
- I'll make one too.
[Exeunt.]
ACT III.
SCENE I. OLIVIA'S garden.
[Enter VIOLA, and CLOWN with a tabor.]
VIOLA.
- Save thee, friend, and thy music. Dost thou live by thy tabor?
CLOWN.
- No, sir, I live by the church.
VIOLA.
- Art thou a churchman?
CLOWN.
- No such matter, sir: I do live by the church; for I do live
- at my house, and my house doth stand by the church.
VIOLA.
- So thou mayst say the king lies by a beggar, if a beggar
- dwell near him; or the church stands by thy tabor, if thy tabor
- stand by the church.
CLOWN.
- You have said, sir.--To see this age!--A sentence is but a
- cheveril glove to a good wit. How quickly the wrong side may be
- turned outward!
VIOLA.
- Nay, that's certain; they that dally nicely with words may
- quickly make them wanton.
CLOWN.
- I would, therefore, my sister had had no name, sir.
VIOLA.
- Why, man?
CLOWN.
- Why, sir, her name's a word; and to dally with that word
- might make my sister wanton. But indeed words are very rascals,
- since bonds disgraced them.
VIOLA.
- Thy reason, man?
CLOWN.
- Troth, sir, I can yield you none without words; and words
- are grown so false I am loath to prove reason with them.
VIOLA.
- I warrant, thou art a merry fellow, and carest for nothing.
CLOWN.
- Not so, sir, I do care for something: but in my conscience,
- sir, I do not care for you; if that be to care for nothing, sir,
- I would it would make you invisible.
VIOLA.
- Art not thou the Lady Olivia's fool?
CLOWN.
- No, indeed, sir; the Lady Olivia has no folly: she will keep
- no fool, sir, till she be married; and fools are as like husbands
- as pilchards are to herrings, the husband's the bigger; I am,
- indeed, not her fool, but her corrupter of words.
VIOLA.
- I saw thee late at the Count Orsino's.
CLOWN.
- Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun; it
- shines everywhere. I would be sorry, sir, but the fool should be
- as oft with your master as with my mistress: I think I saw your
- wisdom there.
VIOLA.
- Nay, an thou pass upon me, I'll no more with thee.
- Hold, there's expenses for thee.
CLOWN.
- Now Jove, in his next commodity of hair, send thee a beard!
VIOLA.
- By my troth, I'll tell thee, I am almost sick for one; though I
- would not have it grow on my chin. Is thy lady within?
CLOWN.
- Would not a pair of these have bred, sir?
VIOLA.
- Yes, being kept together and put to use.
CLOWN.
- I would play Lord Pandarus of Phrygia, sir, to bring a
- Cressida to this Troilus.
VIOLA.
- I understand you, sir; 'tis well begged.
CLOWN.
- The matter, I hope, is not great, sir, begging but a beggar:
- Cressida was a beggar. My lady is within, sir. I will construe to
- them whence you come; who you are and what you would are out of
- my welkin: I might say element; but the word is overworn.
[Exit.]
VIOLA.
- This fellow's wise enough to play the fool;
- And, to do that well, craves a kind of wit:
- He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
- The quality of persons, and the time;
- And, like the haggard, check at every feather
- That comes before his eye. This is a practice
- As full of labour as a wise man's art:
- For folly, that he wisely shows, is fit;
- But wise men, folly-fallen, quite taint their wit.
[Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and SIR ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK.]
SIR TOBY.
- Save you, gentleman.
VIOLA.
- And you, sir.
SIR ANDREW.
- Dieu vous garde, monsieur.
VIOLA.
- Et vous aussi; votre serviteur.
SIR ANDREW.
- I hope, sir, you are; and I am yours.
SIR TOBY.
- Will you encounter the house? my niece is desirous you
- should enter, if your trade be to her.
VIOLA.
- I am bound to your niece, sir: I mean, she is the list of my
- voyage.
SIR TOBY.
- Taste your legs, sir; put them to motion.
VIOLA.
- My legs do better understand me, sir, than I understand what
- you mean by bidding me taste my legs.
SIR TOBY.
- I mean, to go, sir, to enter.
VIOLA.
- I will answer you with gait and entrance: but we are prevented.
[Enter OLIVIA and MARIA.]
- Most excellent accomplished lady, the heavens rain odours on you!
SIR ANDREW.
- That youth's a rare courtier- 'Rain odours'! well.
VIOLA.
- My matter hath no voice, lady, but to your own most pregnant
- and vouchsafed
ear.
SIR ANDREW.
- 'Odours,' 'pregnant,' and 'vouchsafed':--I'll get 'em all
- three ready.
OLIVIA.
- Let the garden door be shut, and leave me to my hearing.
[Exeunt SIR TOBY, SIR ANDREW, and MARIA.]
- Give me your hand, sir.
VIOLA.
- My duty, madam, and most humble service.
OLIVIA.
- What is your name?
VIOLA.
- Cesario is your servant's name, fair princess.
OLIVIA.
- My servant, sir! 'Twas never merry world,
- Since lowly feigning was call'd compliment:
- You are servant to the Count Orsino, youth.
VIOLA.
- And he is yours, and his must needs be yours;
- Your servant's servant is your servant, madam.
OLIVIA.
- For him, I think not on him: for his thoughts,
- Would they were blanks rather than fill'd with me!
VIOLA.
- Madam, I come to whet your gentle thoughts
- On his behalf:--
OLIVIA.
- O, by your leave, I pray you:
- I bade you never speak again of him:
- But, would you undertake another suit,
- I had rather hear you to solicit that
- Than music from the spheres.
VIOLA.
- Dear lady,--
OLIVIA.
- Give me leave, beseech you: I did send,
- After the last enchantment you did here,
- A ring in chase of you; so did I abuse
- Myself, my servant, and, I fear me, you:
- Under your hard construction must I sit;
- To force that on you, in a shameful cunning,
- Which you knew none of yours. What might you think?
- Have you not set mine honour at the stake,
- And baited it with all the unmuzzl'd thoughts
- That tyrannous heart can think? To one of your receiving
- Enough is shown: a cypress, not a bosom,
- Hides my heart: so let me hear you speak.
VIOLA.
- I Pity you.
OLIVIA.
- That's a degree to love.
VIOLA.
- No, not a grise; for 'tis a vulgar proof
- That very oft we pity enemies.
OLIVIA.
- Why, then, methinks 'tis time to smile again:
- O world, how apt the poor are to be proud!
- If one should be a prey, how much the better
- To fall before the lion than the wolf!
[Clock strikes.]
- The clock upbraids me with the waste of time.--
- Be not afraid, good youth, I will not have you:
- And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest,
- Your wife is like to reap a proper man.
- There lies your way, due-west.
VIOLA.
- Then westward-ho:
- Grace and good disposition 'tend your ladyship!
- You'll nothing, madam, to my lord by me?
OLIVIA.
- Stay:
- I pr'ythee tell me what thou think'st of me.
VIOLA.
- That you do think you are not what you are.
OLIVIA.
- If I think so, I think the same of you.
VIOLA.
- Then think you right; I am not what I am.
OLIVIA.
- I would you were as I would have you be!
VIOLA.
- Would it be better, madam, than I am,
- I wish it might; for now I am your fool.
OLIVIA.
- O what a deal of scorn looks beautiful
- In the contempt and anger of his lip!
- A murd'rous guilt shows not itself more soon
- Than love that would seem hid: love's night is noon.
- Cesario, by the roses of the spring,
- By maidhood, honour, truth, and everything,
- I love thee so that, maugre all thy pride,
- Nor wit, nor reason, can my passion hide.
- Do not extort thy reasons from this clause,
- For, that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause:
- But rather reason thus with reason fetter:
- Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.
VIOLA.
- By innocence I swear, and by my youth,
- I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth,
- And that no woman has; nor never none
- Shall mistress be of it
, save I alone.
- And so adieu, good madam; never more
- Will I my master's tears to you deplore.
OLIVIA.
- Yet come again: for thou, perhaps, mayst move
- That heart, which now abhors, to like his love.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. A Room in OLIVIA'S House.
[Enter SIR TOBY BELCH, SIR ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK, and FABIAN.]
SIR ANDREW.
- No, faith, I'll not stay a jot longer.
SIR TOBY.
- Thy reason, dear venom: give thy reason.
FABIAN.
- You must needs yield your reason, Sir Andrew.
SIR ANDREW.
- Marry, I saw your niece do more favours to the count's
- servingman than ever she bestowed upon me; I saw't i' the
- orchard.
SIR TOBY.
- Did she see thee the while, old boy? tell me that.
SIR ANDREW.
- As plain as I see you now.
FABIAN.
- This was a great argument of love in her toward you.
SIR ANDREW.
- 'Slight! will you make an ass o' me?
FABIAN.
- I will prove it legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of judgment
- and reason.
SIR TOBY.
- And they have been grand jurymen since before Noah was a
- sailor.
FABIAN.
- She did show favour to the youth in your sight only to
- exasperate you, to awake your dormouse valour, to put fire in
- your heart and brimstone in your liver. You should then have
- accosted her; and with some excellent jests, fire-new from the
- mint, you should have banged the youth into dumbness. This was
- looked for at your hand, and this was baulked: the double gilt of
- this opportunity you let time wash off, and you are now sailed
- into the north of my lady's opinion; where you will hang like an
- icicle on Dutchman's beard, unless you do redeem it by some
- laudable attempt either of valour or policy.
SIR ANDREW.
- And't be any way, it must be with valour: for policy I
- hate; I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician.
SIR TOBY.
- Why, then, build me thy fortunes upon the basis of
- valour. Challenge me the count's youth to fight with him; hurt
- him in eleven places; my niece shall take note of it: and assure
- thyself there is no love-broker in the world can more prevail in
- man's commendation with woman than report of valour.
FABIAN.
- There is no way but this, Sir Andrew.
SIR ANDREW.
- Will either of you bear me a challenge to him?
SIR TOBY.
- Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief; it is
- no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and full of invention;
- taunt him with the licence of ink; if thou 'thou'st' him some
- thrice, it shall not be amiss; and as many lies as will lie in
- thy sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the
- bed of Ware in England, set 'em down; go about it. Let there be
- gall enough in thy ink; though thou write with a goose-pen, no
- matter. About it.
SIR ANDREW.
- Where shall I find you?
SIR TOBY.
We'll call thee at the cubiculo. Go.
[Exit SIR ANDREW.]
FABIAN.
- This is a dear manakin to you, Sir Toby.
SIR TOBY.
- I have been dear to him, lad; some two thousand strong, or so.
FABIAN.
- We shall have a rare letter from him: but you'll not deliver it.
SIR TOBY.
- Never trust me then; and by all means stir on the youth
- to an answer. I think oxen and wainropes cannot hale them
- together. For Andrew, if he were opened and you find so much
- blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the
- rest of the anatomy.
FABIAN.
- And his opposite, the youth, bears in his visage no great
- presage of cruelty.
[Enter MARIA.]
SIR TOBY.
- Look where the youngest wren of nine comes.
MARIA.
- If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourselves into
- stitches, follow me: yond gull Malvolio is turned heathen, a very
- renegado; for there is no Christian, that means to be saved by
- believing rightly, can ever believe such impossible passages of
- grossness.
He's in yellow stockings.
SIR TOBY.
- And cross-gartered?
MARIA.
- Most villainously; like a pedant that keeps a school i' the
- church.
--I have dogged him like his murderer. He does obey every
- point of the letter that I dropped to betray him. He does smile
- his face into more lines than is in the new map, with the
- augmentation of the Indies: you have not seen such a thing as
- 'tis; I can hardly forbear hurling things at him. I know my lady
- will strike him; if she do, he'll smile and take't for a great
- favour.
SIR TOBY.
- Come, bring us, bring us where he is.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. A street.
[Enter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN.]
SEBASTIAN.
- I would not by my will have troubled you;
- But since you make your pleasure of your pains,
- I will no further chide you.
ANTONIO.
- I could not stay behind you: my desire,
- More sharp than filed steel, did spur me forth;
- And not all love to see you,--though so much,
- As might have drawn one to a longer voyage,--
- But jealousy what might befall your travel,
- Being skilless in these parts; which to a stranger,
- Unguided and unfriended, often prove
- Rough and unhospitable. My willing love,
- The rather by these arguments of fear,
- Set forth in your pursuit.
SEBASTIAN.
- My kind Antonio,
- I can no other answer make but thanks,
- And thanks, and ever thanks. Often good turns
- Are shuffled off with such uncurrent pay;
- But were my worth, as is my conscience, firm,
- You should find better dealing. What's to do?
- Shall we go see the reliques of this town?
ANTONIO.
- To-morrow, sir; best, first, go see your lodging.
SEBASTIAN.
- I am not weary, and 'tis long to night;
- I pray you, let us satisfy our eyes
- With the memorials and the things of fame
- That do renown this city.
ANTONIO.
- Would you'd pardon me;
- I do not without danger walk these streets:
- Once in a sea-fight, 'gainst the count, his galleys,
- I did some service; of such note, indeed,
- That, were I ta'en here, it would scarce be answered.
SEBASTIAN.
- Belike you slew great number of his people.
ANTONIO.
- The offence is not of such a bloody nature;
- Albeit the quality of the time and quarrel
- Might well have given us bloody argument.
- It might have since been answered in repaying
- What we took from them; which, for traffic's sake,
- Most of our city did: only myself stood out;
- For which, if I be lapsed in this place,
- I shall pay dear.
SEBASTIAN.
- Do not then walk too open.
ANTONIO.
- It doth not fit me. Hold, sir, here's my purse;
- In the south suburbs, at the Elephant,
- Is best to lodge: I will bespeak our diet
- Whiles you beguile the time and feed your knowledge
- With viewing of the town; there shall you have me.
SEBASTIAN.
- Why I your purse?
ANTONIO.
- Haply your eye shall light upon some toy
- You have desire to purchase; and your store,
- I think, is not for idle markets, sir.
SEBASTIAN.
- I'll be your purse-bearer, and leave you for an hour.
ANTONIO.
- To the Elephant.--
SEBASTIAN.
- I do remember.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE IV. OLIVIA'S garden.
[Enter OLIVIA and MARIA.]
OLIVIA.
- I have sent after him. He says he'll come;
- How shall I feast him? what bestow on him?
- For youth is bought more oft than begged or borrowed.
- I speak too loud.--
- Where's Malvolio?--He is sad and civil,
- And suits well for a servant with my fortunes;--
- Where is Malvolio?
MARIA.
- He's coming, madam:
- But in very strange manner. He is sure possessed.
OLIVIA.
- Why, what's the matter? does he rave?
MARIA.
- No, madam, he does nothing but smile: your ladyship were
- best to have some guard about you if he come;
- For, sure, the man is tainted in his wits.
OLIVIA.
- Go call him hither.--I'm as mad as he,
- If sad and merry madness equal be.--
[Enter MALVOLIO.]
- How now, Malvolio?
MALVOLIO.
- Sweet lady, ho, ho.
[Smiles fantastically.]
OLIVIA.
- Smil'st thou?
- I sent for thee upon a sad occasion.
MALVOLIO.
- Sad, lady? I could be sad: this does make some
- obstruction in the blood, this cross-gartering. But what of that?
- If it please the eye of one, it is with me as the very true
- sonnet is: 'Please one and please all.'
OLIVIA.
- Why, how dost thou, man? what is the matter with thee?
MALVOLIO.
- Not black in my mind, though yellow in my legs.
- It did come to his hands, and commands shall be executed.
- I think we do know the sweet Roman hand.
OLIVIA.
- Wilt thou go to bed, Malvolio?
MALVOLIO.
- To bed? ay, sweetheart; and I'll come to thee.
OLIVIA.
- God comfort thee! Why dost thou smile so, and kiss thy hand so
- oft?
MARIA.
- How do you, Malvolio?
MALVOLIO.
- At your request? Yes; nightingales answer daws.
MARIA.
- Why appear you with this ridiculous boldness before my lady?
MALVOLIO.
- 'Be not afraid of greatness':--'twas well writ.
OLIVIA.
- What meanest thou by that, Malvolio?
MALVOLIO.
- 'Some are born great,'--
OLIVIA.
- Ha?
MALVOLIO.
- 'Some achieve greatness,'--
OLIVIA.
- What say'st thou?
MALVOLIO.
- 'And some have greatness thrust upon them.'
OLIVIA.
- Heaven restore thee!
MALVOLIO.
- 'Remember who commended thy yellow stockings;'--
OLIVIA.
- Thy yellow stockings?
MALVOLIO.
- 'And wished to see thee cross-gartered.'
OLIVIA.
- Cross-gartered?
MALVOLIO.
- 'Go to: thou an made, if thou desirest to be so:'--
OLIVIA.
- Am I made?
MALVOLIO.
- 'If not, let me see thee a servant still.'
OLIVIA.
- Why, this is very midsummer madness.
[Enter Servant.]
SERVANT.
- Madam, the young gentleman of the Count Orsino's is
- returned; I could hardly entreat him back; he attends your
- ladyship's pleasure.
OLIVIA.
- I'll come to him.
[Exit Servant.]
- Good Maria, let this fellow be looked to. Where's my cousin Toby?
- Let some of my people have a special care of him; I would not
- have him miscarry for the half of my dowry.
[Exeunt OLIVIA and MARIA.]
MALVOLIO.
- O, ho! do you come near me now? No worse man than Sir
- Toby to look to me? This concurs directly with the letter: she
- sends him on purpose, that I may appear stubborn to him; for she
- incites me to that in the letter. 'Cast thy humble slough,' says
- she;--'be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants,--let thy
- tongue tang with arguments of state,--put thyself into the trick
- of singularity;--and consequently, sets down the manner how; as,
- a sad face, a reverend carriage, a slow tongue, in the habit of
- some air of note, and so forth. I have limed her; but it is
- Jove's doing, and Jove make me thankful! And, when she went away
- now, 'Let this fellow be looked to;' Fellow! not Malvolio, nor
- after my degree, but fellow. Why, everything adheres together;
- that no dram of a scruple, no scruple of a scruple, no obstacle,
- no incredulous or unsafe circumstance,--What can be said?
- Nothing, that can be, can come between me and the full prospect
- of my hopes. Well, Jove, not I, is the doer of this, and he is to
- be thanked.
[Re-enter MARIA, with SIR TOBY BELCH and FABIAN.]
SIR TOBY.
- Which way is he, in the name of sanctity? If all the
- devils of hell be drawn in little, and Legion himself possessed
- him, yet I'll speak to him.
FABIAN.
- Here he is, here he is:--How is't with you, sir? how is't with
- you, man?
MALVOLIO.
- Go off; I discard you; let me enjoy my private; go off.
MARIA.
- Lo, how hollow the fiend speaks within him! did not I tell
- you?--Sir Toby, my lady prays you to have a care of him.
MALVOLIO.
- Ah, ha! does she so?
SIR TOBY.
- Go to, go to; peace, peace, we must deal gently with him;
- let me alone. How do you, Malvolio? how is't with you? What, man!
- defy the devil: consider, he's an enemy to mankind.
MALVOLIO.
- Do you know what you say?
MARIA.
- La you, an you speak ill of the devil, how he takes it at
- heart! Pray God he be not bewitched.
FABIAN.
- Carry his water to the wise woman.
MARIA.
- Marry, and it shall be done to-morrow morning, if I live. My
- lady would not lose him for more than I'll say.
MALVOLIO.
- How now, mistress!
MARIA.
- O lord!
SIR TOBY.
- Pr'ythee hold thy peace; this is not the way. Do you not
- see you move him? let me alone with him.
FABIAN.
- No way but gentleness; gently, gently: the fiend is rough,
- and will not be roughly used.
SIR TOBY.
- Why, how now, my bawcock? how dost thou, chuck.
MALVOLIO.
- Sir?
SIR TOBY.
- Ay, Biddy, come with me. What, man! 'tis not for gravity
- to play at cherry-pit with Satan. Hang him, foul collier!
MARIA.
- Get him to say his prayers; good Sir Toby, get him to pray.
MALVOLIO.
- My prayers, minx?
MARIA.
- No, I warrant you, he will not hear of godliness.
MALVOLIO.
- Go, hang yourselves all! you are idle shallow things: I
- am not of your element; you shall know more hereafter.
[Exit.]
SIR TOBY.
- Is't possible?
FABIAN.
- If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as
- an improbable fiction.
SIR TOBY.
- His very genius hath taken the infection of the device, man.
MARIA.
- Nay, pursue him now; lest the device take air and taint.
FABIAN.
- Why, we shall make him mad indeed.
MARIA.
- The house will be the quieter.
SIR TOBY.
- Come, we'll have him in a dark room and bound. My niece
- is already in the belief that he's mad; we may carry it thus, for
- our pleasure and his penance, till our very pastime, tired out of
- breath, prompt us to have mercy on him: at which time we will
- bring the device to the bar, and crown thee for a finder of
- madmen. But see, but see.
[Enter SIR ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK.]
FABIAN.
- More matter for a May morning.
SIR ANDREW.
- Here's the challenge, read it; I warrant there's vinegar and
- pepper in't.
FABIAN.
- Is't so saucy?
SIR ANDREW.
- Ay, is't, I warrant him; do but read.
SIR TOBY.
- Give me. [Reads.] 'Youth, whatsoever thou art, thou art but a
- scurvy fellow.'
FABIAN.
- Good and valiant.
SIR TOBY.
- 'Wonder not, nor admire not in thy mind, why I do
- call thee so, for I will show thee no reason for't.'
FABIAN.
- A good note: that keeps you from the blow of the law.
SIR TOBY.
- 'Thou comest to the Lady Olivia, and in my sight
- she uses thee kindly: but thou liest in thy throat; that is not
- the matter I challenge thee for.'
FABIAN.
- Very brief, and to exceeding good senseless.
SIR TOBY.
- 'I will waylay thee going home; where if it be
- thy chance to kill me,'--
FABIAN.
- Good.
SIR TOBY.
- 'Thou kill'st me like a rogue and a villain.'
FABIAN.
- Still you keep o' the windy side of the law. Good.
SIR TOBY.
- 'Fare thee well; and God have mercy upon one of
- our souls! He may have mercy upon mine; but my hope is better,
- and so look to thyself. Thy friend, as thou usest him, and thy
- sworn enemy, Andrew Ague-Cheek.'
- If this letter move him not, his legs cannot: I'll give't him.
MARIA.
- You may have very fit occasion for't; he is now in some
- commerce with my lady, and will by and by depart.
SIR TOBY.
- Go, Sir Andrew; scout me for him at the corner of the
- orchard, like a bum-baily; so soon as ever thou seest him,
- draw; and as thou drawest, swear horrible; for it comes to pass
- oft that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply
- twanged off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof
- itself would have earned him. Away.
SIR ANDREW.
- Nay, let me alone for swearing.
[Exit.]
SIR TOBY.
- Now will not I deliver his letter; for the behaviour of
- the young gentleman gives him out to be of good capacity and
- breeding; his employment between his lord and my niece confirms
- no less; therefore this letter, being so excellently ignorant,
- will breed no terror in the youth: he will find it comes from a
- clodpole. But, sir, I will deliver his challenge by word of
- mouth, set upon Ague-cheek notable report of valour, and drive
- the gentleman,--as I know his youth will aptly receive it,--into
- a most hideous opinion of his rage, skill, fury, and impetuosity.
- This will so fright them both that they will kill one another by
- the look, like cockatrices.
[Enter OLIVIA and VIOLA.]
FABIAN.
- Here he comes with your niece; give them way till he take
- leave, and presently after him.
SIR TOBY.
- I will meditate the while upon some horrid message for a
- challenge.
[Exeunt SIR TOBY, FABIAN, and MARIA.]
OLIVIA.
- I have said too much unto a heart of stone,
- And laid mine honour too unchary on it:
- There's something in me that reproves my fault;
- But such a headstrong potent fault it is
- That it but mocks reproof.
VIOLA.
- With the same 'haviour that your passion bears
- Goes on my master's griefs.
OLIVIA.
- Here, wear this jewel for me; 'tis my picture;
- Refuse it not; it hath no tongue to vex you:
- And, I beseech you, come again to-morrow.
- What shall you ask of me that I'll deny,
- That, honour saved, may upon asking give?
VIOLA.
- Nothing but this, your true love for my master.
OLIVIA.
- How with mine honour may I give him that
- Which I have given to you?
VIOLA.
- I will acquit you.
OLIVIA.
- Well, come again to-morrow. Fare thee well;
- A fiend like thee might bear my soul to hell.
[Exit.]
[Re-enter SIR TOBY BELCH and SIR FABIAN.]
SIR TOBY.
- Gentleman, God save thee.
VIOLA.
- And you, sir.
SIR TOBY.
- That defence thou hast, betake thee to't. Of what nature
- the wrongs are thou hast done him, I know not; but thy
- intercepter, full of despite, bloody as the hunter, attends
- thee at the orchard end: dismount thy tuck, be yare in thy
- preparation, for thy assailant is quick, skilful, and deadly.
VIOLA.
- You mistake, sir; I am sure no man hath any quarrel to me;
- my remembrance is very free and clear from any image of offence
- done to any man.
SIR TOBY.
- You'll find it otherwise, I assure you: therefore, if you
- hold your life at any price, betake you to your guard; for your
- opposite hath in him what youth, strength, skill, and wrath, can
- furnish man withal.
VIOLA.
- I pray you, sir, what is he?
SIR TOBY.
- He is knight, dubbed with unhacked rapier and on carpet
- consideration
; but he is a devil in private brawl; souls and
- bodies hath he divorced three; and his incensement at this moment
- is so implacable that satisfaction can be none but by pangs of
- death and sepulchre: hob, nob is his word; give't or take't.
VIOLA.
- I will return again into the house and desire some conduct
- of the lady. I am no fighter. I have heard of some kind of men
- that put quarrels purposely on others to taste their valour:
- belike this is a man of that quirk.
SIR TOBY.
- Sir, no; his indignation derives itself out of a very
- competent injury; therefore, get you on and give him his desire.
- Back you shall not to the house, unless you undertake that with
- me
which with as much safety you might answer him: therefore on,
- or strip your sword stark naked; for meddle you must, that's
- certain, or forswear to wear iron about you.
VIOLA.
- This is as uncivil as strange. I beseech you, do me this
- courteous office as to know of the knight what my offence to him
- is; it is something of my negligence, nothing of my purpose.
SIR TOBY.
- I Will do so. Signior Fabian, stay you by this gentleman
- till my return.
[Exit SIR TOBY.]
VIOLA.
- Pray you, sir, do you know of this matter?
FABIAN.
- I know the knight is incensed against you, even to a mortal
- arbitrement
; but nothing of the circumstance more.
VIOLA.
- I beseech you, what manner of man is he?
FABIAN.
- Nothing of that wonderful promise, to read him by his form,
- as you are like to find him in the proof of his valour. He is
- indeed, sir, the most skilful, bloody, and fatal opposite that
- you could possibly have found in any part of Illyria. Will you
- walk towards him? I will make your peace with him if I can.
VIOLA.
- I shall be much bound to you for't. I am one that would
- rather go with sir priest than sir knight: I care not who knows
- so much of my mettle.
[Exeunt.]
[Re-enter SIR TOBY With SIR ANDREW.]
SIR TOBY.
- Why, man, he's a very devil; I have not seen such a
- virago. I had a pass with him, rapier, scabbard, and all, and he
- gives me the stuck-in with such a mortal motion that it is
- inevitable; and on the answer, he pays you as surely as your feet
- hit the ground they step on. They say he has been fencer to the
- Sophy.
SIR ANDREW.
- Pox on't, I'll not meddle with him.
SIR TOBY.
- Ay, but he will not now be pacified: Fabian can scarce
- hold him yonder.
SIR ANDREW.
- Plague on't; an I thought he had been valiant, and so
- cunning in fence, I'd have seen him damned ere I'd have
- challenged him. Let him let the matter slip and I'll give him
- my horse, grey Capilet.
SIR TOBY.
- I'll make the motion. Stand here, make a good show on't;
- this shall end without the perdition of souls. [Aside.] Marry,
- I'll ride your horse as well as I ride you.
[Re-enter FABIAN and VIOLA.]
- I have his horse [To FABIAN.] to take up the quarrel; I have persuaded him the youth's a devil.
FABIAN.
- He is as horribly conceited of him; and pants and looks pale, as
- if a bear were at his heels.
SIR TOBY.
- There's no remedy, sir: he will fight with you for's oath sake:
- marry, he hath better bethought him of his quarrel, and he finds
- that now scarce to be worth talking of: therefore, draw for the
- supportance of his vow; he protests he will not hurt you.
VIOLA.
[Aside] Pray God defend me! A little thing would make me
- tell them how much I lack of a man.
FABIAN.
- Give ground if you see him furious.
SIR TOBY.
- Come, Sir Andrew, there's no remedy; the gentleman will,
- for his honour's sake, have one bout with you: he cannot by the
- duello avoid it; but he has promised me, as he is a gentleman and
- a soldier, he will not hurt you. Come on: to't.
SIR ANDREW.
- Pray God he keep his oath!
[Draws.]
[Enter ANTONIO.]
VIOLA.
- I do assure you 'tis against my will.
[Draws.]
ANTONIO.
- Put up your sword:--if this young gentleman
- Have done offence, I take the fault on me;
- If you offend him, I for him defy you.
[Drawing.]
SIR TOBY.
- You, sir! why, what are you?
ANTONIO.
- One, sir, that for his love dares yet do more
- Than you have heard him brag to you he will.
SIR TOBY.
- Nay, if you be an undertaker, I am for you.
[Draws.]
[Enter two Officers.]
FABIAN. O good Sir Toby, hold; here come the officers.
SIR TOBY.
[To ANTONIO] I'll be with you anon.
VIOLA.
[To Sir Andrew.] Pray, sir, put your sword up, if you please.
SIR ANDREW.
- Marry, will I, sir; and for that I promised you, I'll be
- as good as my word. He will bear you easily and reins well.
FIRST OFFICER.
- This is the man; do thy office.
SECOND OFFICER.
- Antonio, I arrest thee at the suit
- Of Count Orsino.
ANTONIO.
- You do mistake me, sir.
FIRST OFFICER.
- No, sir, no jot; I know your favour well,
- Though now you have no sea-cap on your head.--
- Take him away; he knows I know him well.
ANTONIO.
- I Must obey.--This comes with seeking you;
- But there's no remedy; I shall answer it.
- What will you do? Now my necessity
- Makes me to ask you for my purse. It grieves me
- Much more for what I cannot do for you
- Than what befalls myself. You stand amazed;
- But be of comfort.
SECOND OFFICER.
- Come, sir, away.
ANTONIO.
- I must entreat of you some of that money.
VIOLA.
- What money, sir?
- For the fair kindness you have showed me here,
- And part being prompted by your present trouble,
- Out of my lean and low ability
- I'll lend you something; my having is not much;
- I'll make division of my present with you:
- Hold, there is half my coffer.
ANTONIO.
- Will you deny me now?
- Is't possible that my deserts to you
- Can lack persuasion?
Do not tempt my misery,
- Lest that it make me so unsound a man
- As to upbraid you with those kindnesses
- That I have done for you.
VIOLA.
- I know of none,
- Nor know I you by voice or any feature:
- I hate ingratitude more in a man
- Than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness,
- Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption
- Inhabits our frail blood.
ANTONIO.
- O heavens themselves!
SECOND OFFICER.
- Come, sir, I pray you go.
ANTONIO.
- Let me speak a little. This youth that you see here
- I snatched one half out of the jaws of death,
- Relieved him with such sanctity of love,--
- And to his image, which methought did promise
- Most venerable worth, did I devotion.
FIRST OFFICER.
- What's that to us? The time goes by; away.
ANTONIO.
- But O how vile an idol proves this god!
- Thou hast, Sebastian, done good feature shame.
- In nature there's no blemish but the mind;
- None can be call'd deform'd but the unkind:
- Virtue is beauty; but the beauteous-evil
- Are empty trunks, o'erflourished by the devil.
FIRST OFFICER.
- The man grows mad; away with him. Come, come, sir.
ANTONIO.
- Lead me on.
[Exeunt Officers with ANTONIO.]
VIOLA.
- Methinks his words do from such passion fly
- That he believes himself; so do not I.
- Prove true, imagination; O prove true,
- That I, dear brother, be now ta'en for you!
SIR TOBY.
- Come hither, knight; come hither, Fabian; we'll whisper
- o'er a couplet or two of most sage saws.
VIOLA.
- He named Sebastian; I my brother know
- Yet living in my glass;
even such and so
- In favour was my brother; and he went
- Still in this fashion, colour, ornament,
- For him I imitate. O, if it prove,
- Tempests are kind, and salt waves fresh in love!
[Exit.]
SIR TOBY.
- A very dishonest paltry boy, and more a coward than a
- hare: his dishonesty appears in leaving his friend here in
- necessity, and denying him; and for his cowardship, ask Fabian.
FABIAN.
- A coward, a most devout coward, religious in it.
SIR ANDREW.
- 'Slid, I'll after him again and beat him.
SIR TOBY.
- Do, cuff him soundly, but never draw thy sword.
SIR ANDREW.
- And I do not,--
[Exit.]
FABIAN.
- Come, let's see the event.
SIR TOBY.
- I dare lay any money 'twill be nothing yet.
[Exeunt.]
ACT IV.
SCENE I. The Street before OLIVIA'S House.
[Enter SEBASTIAN and CLOWN.]
CLOWN.
- Will you make me believe that I am not sent for you?
SEBASTIAN.
- Go to, go to, thou art a foolish fellow;
- Let me be clear of thee.
CLOWN.
- Well held out, i' faith! No, I do not know you; nor I am not
- sent to you by my lady, to bid you come speak with her; nor your
- name is not Master Cesario; nor this is not my nose neither.--
- Nothing that is so is so.
SEBASTIAN.
- I pr'ythee vent thy folly somewhere else. Thou know'st not me.
CLOWN.
- Vent my folly! he has heard that word of some great man, and
- now applies it to a fool. Vent my folly! I am afraid this great
- lubber, the world, will prove a cockney.--I pr'ythee now, ungird
- thy strangeness, and tell me what I shall vent to my lady. Shall
- I vent to her that thou art coming?
SEBASTIAN.
- I pr'ythee, foolish Greek, depart from me;
- There's money for thee; if you tarry longer
- I shall give worse payment.
CLOWN.
- By my troth, thou hast an open hand:--These wise men that
- give fools money get themselves a good report after fourteen
- years' purchase.
[Enter SIR ANDREW, SIR TOBY, and FABIAN.]
SIR ANDREW.
- Now, sir, have I met you again? there's for you.
[Striking SEBASTIAN.]
SEBASTIAN.
- Why, there's for thee, and there, and there.
- Are all the people mad?
[Beating SIR ANDREW.]
SIR TOBY.
- Hold, sir, or I'll throw your dagger o'er the house.
CLOWN.
- This will I tell my lady straight. I would not be in some of
- your coats
for twopence.
[Exit CLOWN.]
SIR TOBY.
- Come on, sir; hold.
[Holding SEBASTIAN.]
SIR ANDREW.
- Nay, let him alone; I'll go another way to work with
- him
; I'll have an action of battery against him, if there be any
- law in Illyria: though I struck him first, yet it's no matter for
- that.
SEBASTIAN.
- Let go thy hand.
SIR TOBY.
- Come, sir, I will not let you go. Come, my young soldier,
- put up your iron: you are well fleshed; come on.
SEBASTIAN.
- I will be free from thee. What wouldst thou now?
- If thou dar'st tempt me further, draw thy sword.
[Draws.]
SIR TOBY.
- What, what? Nay, then I must have an ounce or two of this
- malapert blood from you.
[Draws.]
[Enter OLIVIA.]
OLIVIA.
- Hold, Toby; on thy life, I charge thee hold.
SIR TOBY.
- Madam?
OLIVIA.
- Will it be ever thus? Ungracious wretch,
- Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves,
- Where manners ne'er were preach'd! Out of my sight!
- Be not offended, dear Cesario!--
- Rudesby, be gone!--I pr'ythee, gentle friend,
[Exeunt SIR TOBY, SIR ANDREW, and FABIAN.]
- Let thy fair wisdom, not thy passion, sway
- In this uncivil and unjust extent
- Against thy peace. Go with me to my house,
- And hear thou there how many fruitless pranks
- This ruffian hath botch'd up, that thou thereby
- Mayst smile at this: thou shalt not choose but go;
- Do not deny. Beshrew his soul for me,
- He started one poor heart of mine in thee.
SEBASTIAN.
- What relish is in this? how runs the stream?
- Or I am mad or else this is a dream:--
- Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep;
- If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep!
OLIVIA.
- Nay, come, I pr'ythee. Would thou'dst be ruled by me!
SEBASTIAN.
- Madam, I will.
OLIVIA.
- O, say so, and so be!
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. A Room in OLIVIA'S House.
[Enter MARIA and CLOWN.]
MARIA.
- Nay, I pr'ythee, put on this gown and this beard; make him
- believe thou art Sir Topas the curate; do it quickly: I'll call
- Sir Toby the whilst.
[Exit MARIA.]
CLOWN.
- Well, I'll put it on, and I will dissemble myself in't; and
- I would I were the first that ever dissembled in such a gown. I
- am not tall enough to become the function well: nor lean enough
- to be thought a good student: but to be said, an honest man and a
- good housekeeper, goes as fairly as to say, a careful man and a
- great scholar. The competitors enter.
[Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and MARIA.]
SIR TOBY.
- Jove bless thee, Master Parson.
CLOWN.
- Bonos dies, Sir Toby: for as the old hermit of Prague, that
- never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to a niece of King
- Gorboduc, 'That that is, is'; so I, being master parson, am
- master parson: for what is that but that? and is but is?
SIR TOBY.
- To him, Sir Topas.
CLOWN.
- What, hoa, I say,--Peace in this prison!
SIR TOBY.
- The knave counterfeits well; a good knave.
MALVOLIO.
[In an inner chamber.] Who calls there?
CLOWN.
- Sir Topas the curate, who comes to visit Malvolio the
- lunatic.
MALVOLIO.
- Sir Topas, Sir Topas, good Sir Topas, go to my lady.
CLOWN.
- Out, hyperbolical fiend! how vexest thou this man? talkest thou
- nothing but of ladies?
SIR TOBY.
- Well said, master parson.
MALVOLIO.
- Sir Topas, never was man thus wronged: good Sir Topas, do
- not think I am mad; they have laid me here in hideous darkness.
CLOWN.
- Fie, thou dishonest Sathan! I call thee by the most modest
- terms; for I am one of those gentle ones that will use the devil
- himself with courtesy. Say'st thou that house is dark?
MALVOLIO.
- As hell, Sir Topas.
CLOWN.
- Why, it hath bay windows transparent as barricadoes, and the
- clerestories toward the south-north are as lustrous as ebony;
- and yet complainest thou of obstruction?
MALVOLIO.
- I am not mad, Sir Topas; I say to you this house is dark.
CLOWN.
- Madman, thou errest. I say there is no darkness but
- ignorance; in which thou art more puzzled than the Egyptians in
- their fog.
MALVOLIO.
- I say this house is as dark as ignorance, though
- ignorance were as dark as hell; and I say there was never man
- thus abused. I am no more mad than you are; make the trial of it
- in any constant question.
CLOWN.
- What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild-fowl?
MALVOLIO.
- That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.
CLOWN.
- What thinkest thou of his opinion?
MALVOLIO.
- I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his opinion.
CLOWN.
- Fare thee well. Remain thou still in darkness: thou shalt
- hold the opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow of thy wits; and
- fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy
- grandam. Fare thee well.
MALVOLIO.
- Sir Topas, Sir Topas!
SIR TOBY.
- My most exquisite Sir Topas!
CLOWN.
- Nay, I am for all waters.
MARIA.
- Thou mightst have done this without thy beard and gown: he
- sees thee not.
SIR TOBY.
- To him in thine own voice, and bring me word how thou
- findest him; I would we were well rid of this knavery. If he may
- be conveniently delivered, I would he were; for I am now so far
- in offence with my niece that I cannot pursue with any safety
- this sport to the upshot. Come by and by to my chamber.
[Exeunt SIR TOBY and MARIA.]
CLOWN.
[Singing.] 'Hey, Robin, jolly Robin,
- Tell me how thy lady does.'
MALVOLIO.
- Fool,--
CLOWN.
- 'My lady is unkind, perdy.'
MALVOLIO.
- Fool,--
CLOWN.
- 'Alas, why is she so?'
MALVOLIO.
- Fool, I say;--
CLOWN.
- 'She loves another'--Who calls, ha?
MALVOLIO.
- Good fool, as ever thou wilt deserve well at my hand,
- help me to a candle, and pen, ink, and paper; as I am a
- gentleman, I will live to be thankful to thee for't.
CLOWN.
- Master Malvolio!
MALVOLIO.
- Ay, good fool.
CLOWN.
- Alas, sir, how fell you besides your five wits?
MALVOLIO.
- Fool, there was never man so notoriously abused; I am as well in
- my wits, fool, as thou art.
CLOWN.
- But as well? then you are mad indeed, if you be no better in
- your wits than a fool.
MALVOLIO.
- They have here propertied me; keep me in darkness, send
- ministers to me, asses, and do all they can to face me out of my
- wits.
CLOWN.
- Advise you what you say: the minister is here.--Malvolio, thy
- wits the heavens restore! endeavour thyself to sleep, and leave
- thy vain bibble-babble.
MALVOLIO.
- Sir Topas,--
CLOWN.
- Maintain no words with him, good fellow. Who, I, sir? not
- I, sir. God b' wi' you, good Sir Topas.--Marry, amen.--I will
- sir, I will.
MALVOLIO.
- Fool, fool, fool, I say,--
CLOWN.
- Alas, sir, be patient. What say you, sir? I am shent for
- speaking to you.
MALVOLIO.
- Good fool, help me to some light and some paper;
- I tell thee I am as well in my wits as any man in Illyria.
CLOWN.
- Well-a-day,--that you were, sir!
MALVOLIO.
- By this hand, I am: Good fool, some ink, paper, and
- light, and convey what I will set down to my lady; it shall
- advantage thee more than ever the bearing of letter did.
CLOWN.
- I will help you to't. But tell me true, are you not mad
- indeed? or do you but counterfeit?
MALVOLIO.
- Believe me, I am not; I tell thee true.
CLOWN.
- Nay, I'll ne'er believe a madman till I see his brains.
- I will fetch you light, and paper, and ink.
MALVOLIO.
- Fool, I'll requite it in the highest degree: I pr'ythee be
- gone.
CLOWN.
[Singing.]
- 'I am gone, sir,
- And anon, sir,
- I'll be with you again,
- In a trice,
- Like to the old vice,
- Your need to sustain;
- Who with dagger of lath,
- In his rage and his wrath,
- Cries ah, ha! to the devil:
- Like a mad lad,
- Pare thy nails, dad.
- Adieu, goodman drivel.
[Exit.]
SCENE III. OLIVIA'S Garden.
[Enter SEBASTIAN.]
SEBASTIAN.
- This is the air; that is the glorious sun;
- This pearl she gave me, I do feel't and see't:
- And though 'tis wonder that enwraps me thus,
- Yet 'tis not madness. Where's Antonio, then?
- I could not find him at the Elephant;
- Yet there he was; and there I found this credit,
- That he did range the town to seek me out.
- His counsel now might do me golden service;
- For though my soul disputes well with my sense,
- That this may be some error, but no madness,
- Yet doth this accident and flood of fortune
- So far exceed all instance, all discourse,
- That I am ready to distrust mine eyes
- And wrangle with my reason, that persuades me
- To any other trust but that I am mad,
- Or else the lady's mad; yet if 'twere so,
- She could not sway her house, command her followers,
- Take and give back affairs and their dispatch
- With such a smooth, discreet, and stable bearing,
- As I perceive she does: there's something in't
- That is deceivable. But here comes the lady.
[Enter OLIVIA and a Priest.]
OLIVIA.
- Blame not this haste of mine. If you mean well,
- Now go with me and with this holy man
- Into the chantry by: there, before him
- And underneath that consecrated roof,
- Plight me the full assurance of your faith,
- That my most jealous and too doubtful soul
- May live at peace. He shall conceal it
- Whiles you are willing it shall come to note;
- What time we will our celebration keep
- According to my birth.--What do you say?
SEBASTIAN.
- I'll follow this good man, and go with you;
- And, having sworn truth, ever will be true.
OLIVIA.
- Then lead the way, good father;--And heavens so shine
- That they may fairly note this act of mine!
[Exeunt.]
ACT V.
SCENE I. The Street before OLIVIA's House.
[Enter CLOWN and FABIAN.]
FABIAN.
- Now, as thou lovest me, let me see his letter.
CLOWN.
- Good Master Fabian, grant me another request.
FABIAN.
- Anything.
CLOWN.
- Do not desire to see this letter.
FABIAN.
- This is to give a dog; and in recompense desire my dog again.
[Enter DUKE, VIOLA, and Attendants.]
DUKE.
- Belong you to the Lady Olivia, friends?
CLOWN.
- Ay, sir; we are some of her trappings.
DUKE.
- I know thee well. How dost thou, my good fellow?
CLOWN.
- Truly, sir, the better for my foes and the worse for my friends.
DUKE.
- Just the contrary; the better for thy friends.
CLOWN.
- No, sir, the worse.
DUKE.
- How can that be?
CLOWN.
- Marry, sir, they praise me and make an ass of me; now my
- foes tell me plainly I am an ass: so that by my foes, sir, I
- profit in the knowledge of myself, and by my friends I am abused:
- so that, conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make
- your two affirmatives,
why then, the worse for my friends and
- the better for my foes.
DUKE.
- Why, this is excellent.
CLOWN.
- By my troth, sir, no; though it please you to be one of my
- friends.
DUKE.
- Thou shalt not be the worse for me; there's gold.
CLOWN.
- But that it would be double-dealing, sir, I would you could
- make it another.
DUKE.
- O, you give me ill counsel.
CLOWN.
- Put your grace in your pocket, sir, for this once, and let
- your flesh and blood obey it.
DUKE.
- Well, I will be so much a sinner to be a double-dealer: there's
- another.
CLOWN.
- Primo, secundo, tertio, is a good play; and the old saying
- is, the third pays for all; the triplex, sir, is a good tripping
- measure; or the bells of Saint Bennet, sir, may put you in mind;
- one, two, three.
DUKE.
- You can fool no more money out of me at this throw: if you
- will let your lady know I am here to speak with her, and bring
- her along with you, it may awake my bounty further.
CLOWN.
- Marry, sir, lullaby to your bounty till I come again. I go,
- sir; but I would not have you to think that my desire of having
- is the sin of covetousness: but, as you say, sir, let your bounty
- take a nap; I will awake it anon.
[Exit CLOWN.]
[Enter ANTONIO and Officers.]
VIOLA.
- Here comes the man, sir, that did rescue me.
DUKE.
- That face of his I do remember well:
- Yet when I saw it last it was besmeared
- As black as Vulcan in the smoke of war:
- A bawbling vessel was he captain of,
- For shallow draught and bulk unprizable;
- With which such scathful grapple did he make
- With the most noble bottom of our fleet
- That very envy and the tongue of loss
- Cried fame and honour on him.--What's the matter?
FIRST OFFICER.
- Orsino, this is that Antonio
- That took the Phoenix and her fraught from Candy:
- And this is he that did the Tiger board
- When your young nephew Titus lost his leg:
- Here in the streets, desperate of shame and state,
- In private brabble did we apprehend him.
VIOLA.
- He did me kindness, sir; drew on my side;
- But, in conclusion, put strange speech upon me.
- I know not what 'twas, but distraction.
DUKE.
- Notable pirate! thou salt-water thief!
- What foolish boldness brought thee to their mercies,
- Whom thou, in terms so bloody and so dear,
- Hast made thine enemies?
ANTONIO.
- Orsino, noble sir,
- Be pleased that I shake off these names you give me:
- Antonio never yet was thief or pirate,
- Though, I confess, on base and ground enough,
- Orsino's enemy. A witchcraft drew me hither:
- That most ingrateful boy there, by your side
- From the rude sea's enraged and foamy mouth
- Did I redeem; a wreck past hope he was:
- His life I gave him, and did thereto add
- My love, without retention or restraint,
- All his in dedication: for his sake,
- Did I expose myself, pure for his love,
- Into the danger of this adverse town;
- Drew to defend him when he was beset:
- Where being apprehended, his false cunning,--
- Not meaning to partake with me in danger,--
- Taught him to face me out of his acquaintance,
- And grew a twenty-years-removed thing
- While one would wink; denied me mine own purse,
- Which I had recommended to his use
- Not half an hour before.
VIOLA.
- How can this be?
DUKE.
- When came he to this town?
ANTONIO.
- To-day, my lord; and for three months before,--
- No interim, not a minute's vacancy,--
- Both day and night did we keep company.
[Enter OLIVIA and Attendants.]
DUKE.
- Here comes the countess; now heaven walks on earth.--
- But for thee, fellow, fellow, thy words are madness:
- Three months this youth hath tended upon me;
- But more of that anon.--Take him aside.
OLIVIA.
- What would my lord, but that he may not have,
- Wherein Olivia may seem serviceable!--
- Cesario, you do not keep promise with me.
VIOLA.
- Madam?
DUKE.
- Gracious Olivia,--
OLIVIA.
- What do you say, Cesario?--Good my lord,--
VIOLA.
- My lord would speak, my duty hushes me.
OLIVIA.
- If it be aught to the old tune, my lord,
- It is as fat and fulsome to mine ear
- As howling after music.
DUKE.
- Still so cruel?
OLIVIA.
- Still so constant, lord.
DUKE.
- What! to perverseness? you uncivil lady,
- To whose ingrate and unauspicious altars
- My soul the faithfull'st offerings hath breathed out
- That e'er devotion tender'd! What shall I do?
OLIVIA.
- Even what it please my lord, that shall become him.
DUKE.
- Why should I not, had I the heart to do it.
- Like to the Egyptian thief, at point of death,
- Kill what I love; a savage jealousy
- That sometime savours nobly.--But hear me this:
- Since you to non-regardance cast my faith,
- And that I partly know the instrument
- That screws me from my true place in your favour,
- Live you the marble-breasted tyrant still;
- But this your minion, whom I know you love,
- And whom, by heaven I swear, I tender dearly,
- Him will I tear out of that cruel eye
- Where he sits crowned in his master's sprite.--
- Come, boy, with me; my thoughts are ripe in mischief:
- I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love,
- To spite a raven's heart within a dove.
[Going.]
VIOLA.
- And I, most jocund, apt, and willingly,
- To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die.
OLIVIA.
- Where goes Cesario?
VIOLA.
- After him I love
- More than I love these eyes, more than my life,
- More, by all mores, than e'er I shall love wife;
- If I do feign, you witnesses above
- Punish my life for tainting of my love!
OLIVIA.
- Ah me, detested! how am I beguil'd!
VIOLA.
- Who does beguile you? who does do you wrong?
OLIVIA.
- Hast thou forgot thyself? Is it so long?--
- Call forth the holy father.
[Exit an ATTENDANT.]
DUKE.
[To Viola.] Come, away!
OLIVIA.
- Whither, my lord? Cesario, husband, stay.
DUKE.
- Husband?
OLIVIA.
- Ay, husband, can he that deny?
DUKE.
- Her husband, sirrah?
VIOLA.
- No, my lord, not I.
OLIVIA.
- Alas, it is the baseness of thy fear
- That makes thee strangle thy propriety:
- Fear not, Cesario, take thy fortunes up;
- Be that thou know'st thou art, and then thou art
- As great as that thou fear'st--O, welcome, father!
[Re-enter Attendant and Priest.]
- Father, I charge thee, by thy reverence,
- Here to unfold,--though lately we intended
- To keep in darkness what occasion now
- Reveals before 'tis ripe,--what thou dost know
- Hath newly passed between this youth and me.
PRIEST.
- A contract of eternal bond of love,
- Confirmed by mutual joinder of your hands,
- Attested by the holy close of lips,
- Strengthen'd by interchangement of your rings;
- And all the ceremony of this compact
- Sealed in my function, by my testimony:
- Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave,
- I have travelled but two hours.
DUKE.
- O thou dissembling cub! What wilt thou be,
- When time hath sowed a grizzle on thy case?
- Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow
- That thine own trip shall be thine overthrow?
- Farewell, and take her; but direct thy feet
- Where thou and I henceforth may never meet.
VIOLA.
- My lord, I do protest,--
OLIVIA.
- O, do not swear;
- Hold little faith, though thou has too much fear.
[Enter SIR ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK, with his head broke.]
SIR ANDREW.
- For the love of God, a surgeon; send one presently to Sir Toby.
OLIVIA.
- What's the matter?
SIR ANDREW.
- He has broke my head across, and has given Sir Toby a
- bloody coxcomb too: for the love of God, your help: I had rather
- than forty pound I were at home.
OLIVIA.
- Who has done this, Sir Andrew?
SIR ANDREW.
- The Count's gentleman, one Cesario: we took him for a
- coward, but he's the very devil incardinate.
DUKE.
- My gentleman, Cesario?
SIR ANDREW.
- Od's lifelings, here he is:--You broke my head for
- nothing; and that that I did, I was set on to do't by Sir Toby.
VIOLA.
- Why do you speak to me? I never hurt you:
- You drew your sword upon me without cause;
- But I bespake you fair and hurt you not.
SIR ANDREW.
- If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me; I think
- you set nothing by a bloody coxcomb.
[Enter SIR TOBY BELCH, drunk, led by the CLOWN.]
- Here comes Sir Toby halting; you shall hear more: but if he had
- not been in drink he would have tickled you othergates than he
- did.
DUKE.
- How now, gentleman? how is't with you?
SIR TOBY.
- That's all one; he has hurt me, and there's the end on't.--
- Sot, didst see Dick Surgeon, sot?
CLOWN.
- O, he's drunk, Sir Toby, an hour agone; his eyes were set at
- eight i' the morning.
SIR TOBY.
- Then he's a rogue. After a passy-measures pavin, I hate a
- drunken rogue.
OLIVIA.
- Away with him. Who hath made this havoc with them?
SIR ANDREW.
- I'll help you, Sir Toby, because we'll be dressed together.
SIR TOBY.
- Will you help? An ass-head, and a coxcomb, and a knave? a
- thin-faced knave, a gull?
OLIVIA.
- Get him to bed, and let his hurt be looked to.
[Exeunt CLOWN, SIR TOBY, and SIR ANDREW.]
[Enter SEBASTIAN.]
SEBASTIAN.
- I am sorry, madam, I have hurt your kinsman;
- But, had it been the brother of my blood,
- I must have done no less, with wit and safety.
- You throw a strange regard upon me, and by that
- I do perceive it hath offended you;
- Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vows
- We made each other but so late ago.
DUKE.
- One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons;
- A natural perspective, that is, and is not.
SEBASTIAN.
- Antonio, O my dear Antonio!
- How have the hours rack'd and tortur'd me
- Since I have lost thee.
ANTONIO.
- Sebastian are you?
SEBASTIAN.
- Fear'st thou that, Antonio?
ANTONIO.
- How have you made division of yourself?--
- An apple, cleft in two, is not more twin
- Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?
OLIVIA.
- Most wonderful!
SEBASTIAN.
- Do I stand there? I never had a brother:
- Nor can there be that deity in my nature
- Of here and everywhere. I had a sister
- Whom the blind waves and surges have devoured:--
[To Viola.] Of charity, what kin are you to me?
- What countryman, what name, what parentage?
VIOLA.
- Of Messaline: Sebastian was my father;
- Such a Sebastian was my brother too:
- So went he suited to his watery tomb:
- If spirits can assume both form and suit,
- You come to fright us.
SEBASTIAN.
- A spirit I am indeed:
- But am in that dimension grossly clad,
- Which from the womb I did participate.
- Were you a woman, as the rest goes even,
- I should my tears let fall upon your cheek,
- And say--Thrice welcome, drowned Viola!
VIOLA.
- My father had a mole upon his brow.
SEBASTIAN.
- And so had mine.
VIOLA.
- And died that day when Viola from her birth
- Had numbered thirteen years.
SEBASTIAN.
- O, that record is lively in my soul!
- He finished, indeed, his mortal act
- That day that made my sister thirteen years.
VIOLA.
- If nothing lets to make us happy both
- But this my masculine usurp'd attire,
- Do not embrace me till each circumstance
- Of place, time, fortune, do cohere, and jump
- That I am Viola: which to confirm,
- I'll bring you to a captain in this town,
- Where lie my maiden weeds; by whose gentle help
- I was preserv'd to serve this noble count;
- All the occurrence of my fortune since
- Hath been between this lady and this lord.
SEBASTIAN.
[To OLIVIA] So comes it, lady, you have been mistook:
- But nature to her bias drew in that.
- You would have been contracted to a maid;
- Nor are you therein, by my life, deceived;
- You are betroth'd both to a maid and man.
DUKE.
- Be not amazed; right noble is his blood.--
- If this be so, as yet the glass seems true,
- I shall have share in this most happy wreck:
[To VIOLA] Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times,
- Thou never shouldst love woman like to me.
VIOLA.
- And all those sayings will I over-swear;
- And all those swearings keep as true in soul
- As doth that orbed continent the fire
- That severs day from night.
DUKE.
- Give me thy hand;
- And let me see thee in thy woman's weeds.
VIOLA.
- The captain that did bring me first on shore
- Hath my maid's garments: he, upon some action,
- Is now in durance, at Malvolio's suit;
- A gentleman and follower of my lady's.
OLIVIA.
- He shall enlarge him:--Fetch Malvolio hither:--
- And yet, alas, now I remember me,
- They say, poor gentleman, he's much distract.
[Re-enter CLOWN, with a letter.]
- A most extracting frenzy of mine own
- From my remembrance clearly banished his.--
- How does he, sirrah?
CLOWN.
- Truly, madam, he holds Belzebub at the stave's end as well
- as a man in his case may do: he has here writ a letter to you; I
- should have given it you to-day morning, but as a madman's
- epistles are no gospels
, so it skills not much when they are
- delivered.
OLIVIA.
- Open it, and read it.
CLOWN.
- Look then to be well edified when the fool delivers the
- madman:--'By the Lord, madam,--'
OLIVIA.
- How now! art thou mad?
CLOWN.
- No, madam, I do but read madness: an your ladyship will have
- it as it ought to be, you must allow vox.
OLIVIA.
- Pr'ythee, read i' thy right wits.
CLOWN.
- So I do, madonna; but to read his right wits is to read
- thus; therefore perpend, my princess, and give ear.
OLIVIA.
[To FABIAN] Read it you, sirrah.
FABIAN.
[Reads] 'By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, and the world
- shall know it: though you have put me into darkness and given
- your drunken cousin rule over me, yet have I the benefit of my
- senses as well as your ladyship. I have your own letter that
- induced me to the semblance I put on; with the which I doubt not
- but to do myself much right or you much shame. Think of me as you
- please. I leave my duty a little unthought of, and speak out of
- my injury.
- The madly-used Malvolio'
OLIVIA.
- Did he write this?
CLOWN.
- Ay, madam.
DUKE.
- This savours not much of distraction.
OLIVIA.
- See him delivered, Fabian: bring him hither.
[Exit FABIAN.]
- My lord, so please you, these things further thought on,
- To think me as well a sister as a wife,
- One day shall crown the alliance on't, so please you,
- Here at my house, and at my proper cost.
DUKE.
- Madam, I am most apt to embrace your offer.--
[To VIOLA] Your master quits you; and, for your service done him,
- So much against the mettle of your sex,
- So far beneath your soft and tender breeding,
- And since you called me master for so long,
- Here is my hand; you shall from this time be
- You master's mistress.
OLIVIA.
- A sister!--you are she.
[Re-enter FABIAN with MALVOLIO.]
DUKE.
- Is this the madman?
OLIVIA.
- Ay, my lord, this same;
- How now, Malvolio?
MALVOLIO.
- Madam, you have done me wrong,
- Notorious wrong.
OLIVIA.
- Have I, Malvolio? no.
MALVOLIO.
- Lady, you have. Pray you peruse that letter:
- You must not now deny it is your hand,
- Write from it, if you can, in hand or phrase;
- Or say 'tis not your seal, not your invention:
- You can say none of this. Well, grant it then,
- And tell me, in the modesty of honour,
- Why you have given me such clear lights of favour;
- Bade me come smiling and cross-garter'd to you;
- To put on yellow stockings, and to frown
- Upon Sir Toby and the lighter people:
- And, acting this in an obedient hope,
- Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd,
- Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,
- And made the most notorious geck and gull
- That e'er invention played on? tell me why.
OLIVIA.
- Alas, Malvolio, this is not my writing,
- Though, I confess, much like the character:
- But out of question, 'tis Maria's hand.
- And now I do bethink me, it was she
- First told me thou wast mad; then cam'st in smiling,
- And in such forms which here were presuppos'd
- Upon thee in the letter. Pr'ythee, be content:
- This practice hath most shrewdly pass'd upon thee:
- But, when we know the grounds and authors of it,
- Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge
- Of thine own cause.
FABIAN.
- Good madam, hear me speak;
- And let no quarrel, nor no brawl to come,
- Taint the condition of this present hour,
- Which I have wonder'd at. In hope it shall not,
- Most freely I confess, myself and Toby
- Set this device against Malvolio here,
- Upon some stubborn and uncourteous parts
- We had conceiv'd against him. Maria writ
- The letter, at Sir Toby's great importance;
- In recompense whereof he hath married her.
- How with a sportful malice it was follow'd
- May rather pluck on laughter than revenge,
- If that the injuries be justly weigh'd
- That have on both sides past.
OLIVIA.
- Alas, poor fool! how have they baffled thee!
CLOWN.
- Why, 'some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some
- have greatness thrown upon them.' I was one, sir, in this
- interlude;:--one Sir Topas, sir; but that's all one:--'By the
- Lord, fool, I am not mad;'--But do you remember? 'Madam, why
- laugh you at such a barren rascal? An you smile not, he's
- gagged'?
And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.
MALVOLIO.
- I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you.
[Exit.]
OLIVIA.
- He hath been most notoriously abus'd.
DUKE.
- Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace:--
- He hath not told us of the captain yet;
- When that is known, and golden time convents,
- A solemn combination shall be made
- Of our dear souls.--Meantime, sweet sister,
- We will not part from hence.--Cesario, come:
- For so you shall be while you are a man;
- But, when in other habits you are seen,
- Orsino's mistress, and his fancy's queen.
[Exeunt.]
CLOWN.
- Song.
- When that I was and a little tine boy,
- With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
- A foolish thing was but a toy,
- For the rain it raineth every day.
- But when I came to man's estate,
- With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
- 'Gainst knave and thief men shut their gate,
- For the rain it raineth every day.
- But when I came, alas! to wive,
- With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
- By swaggering could I never thrive,
- For the rain it raineth every day.
- But when I came unto my bed,
- With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
- With toss-pots still had drunken head,
- For the rain it raineth every day.
- A great while ago the world begun,
- With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
- But that's all one, our play is done,
- And we'll strive to please you every day.
[Exit.]
Notes by the incredible David Loftus. Updated 4/30/2007.