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, and Attendants
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. Tell me your mind: 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 fun 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.
Exeunt Maria and Attendants
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 cruell’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 recompensed, 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;
Halloo 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 fervor, 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 yet 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 Roderigo. 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 hour 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 a 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 enemies 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 not you 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 sure 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. OLIVIA’S HOUSE.
Enter Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew
Sir Toby Belch
Approach, Sir Andrew: not to be abed after midnight is to be up betimes; and ‘diluculo surgere,’ thou know’st,—
Sir Andrew
Nay, my troth, I know not: but I know, to be up late is to be up late.
Sir Toby Belch
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. Does not our life consist of the four elements?
Sir Andrew
Faith, so they say; but I think it rather consists of eating and drinking.
Sir Toby Belch
Thou’rt 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 Belch
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 Belch
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 Belch
A love-song, a love-song.
Sir Andrew
Ay, ay: I care not for good life.
Clown
[Sings]
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
&nbs
p; Excellent good, i’ faith.
Sir Toby Belch
Good, good.
Clown
[Sings]
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 Belch
A contagious breath.
Sir Andrew
Very sweet and contagious, i’ faith.
Sir Toby Belch
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 constrained 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.
Catch sung
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 Belch
My lady’s a Cataian, we are politicians, Malvolio’s a Peg-a-Ramsey, and ‘Three merry men be we.’ Am not I consanguineous? am I not of her blood? Tillyvally. Lady!
Sings
‘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 Belch
[Sings] ‘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 ye no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night? Do ye make an alehouse 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 Belch
We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up!
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