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 misdemeanors, 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 Belch
‘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 Belch
‘But I will never die.’
Clown
Sir Toby, there you lie.
Malvolio
This is much credit to you.
Sir Toby Belch
‘shall I bid him go?’
Clown
‘What an if you do?’
Sir Toby Belch
‘shall I bid him go, and spare not?’
Clown
‘O no, no, no, no, you dare not.’
Sir Toby Belch
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 Belch
Thou’rt 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 any thing 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 Belch
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 tonight: since the youth of the count’s was today with thy 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 Belch
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’ld beat him like a dog!
Sir Toby Belch
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 any thing 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 excellencies, 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 Belch
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 Belch
Excellent! I smell a device.
Sir Andrew
I have’t in my nose too.
Sir Toby Belch
He shall think, by the letters that thou wilt drop, that they come from my niece, and that she’s 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 Belch
Good night, Penthesilea.
Sir Andrew
Before me, she’s a good wench.
Sir Toby Belch
She’s a beagle, true-bred, and one that adores me: what o’ that?
Sir Andrew
I was adored once too.
Sir Toby Belch
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 Belch
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 Belch
Come, come, I’ll go burn some sack; ’tis too late to go to bed now: come, knight; come, knight.
Exeunt
SCENE IV. DUKE ORSINO’S PALACE.
Enter Duke Orsino, Viola, Curio, and others
Duke Orsino
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 Orsino
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 Orsino
Seek him out, and play the tune the while.
Exit Curio. Music plays
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 beloved. How dost thou like this tune?
Viola
It gives a very echo to the seat
Where Love is throned.
Duke Orsino
Thou dost speak masterly:
My life upon’t, young though thou art, thine eye
Hath stay’d upon some favour that it loves:
Hath it not, boy?
Viola
A little, by your favour.
Duke Orsino
What kind of woman is’t?
Viola
Of your complexion.
Duke Orsino
She is not worth thee, then. What years, i’ faith?
Viola
About your years, my lord.
Duke Orsino
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 worn,
Than women’s are.
Viola
I think it well, my lord.
Duke Orsino
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 Orsino
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 Orsino
Ay; prithee, sing.
Music
Song.
Clown
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 Orsino
There’s for thy pains.
Clown
No pains, sir: I take pleasure in singing, sir.
Duke Orsino
I’ll pay thy pleasure then.
Clown
Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid, one time or another.
Duke Orsino
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 every thing and their intent every where; for that’s it that always makes a good voyage of nothing. Farewell.
Exit
Duke Orsino
Let all the rest give place.
Curio and Attendants retire
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 Orsino
I cannot be so answer’d.
Viola
Sooth, but you must.
Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,
Hath for your love a 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 Orsino
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 call’d 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 Orsino
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 Orsino
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 Orsino
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 Orsino
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, and Fabian
Sir Toby Belch
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 Belch
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 Belch
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.
Sir Toby Belch
Here comes the little villain.
Enter Maria
How now, my metal 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 behavior 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! Lie thou there,
Throws down a letter
for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling.
Exit
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 Belch
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 Belch
Peace, I say.
Malvolio
To be Count Malvolio!
Sir Toby Belch
Ah, rogue!
Sir Andrew
Pistol him, pistol him.
Sir Toby Belch
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 Belch
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 Belch
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 for my kinsman Toby,—
Sir Toby Belch
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 watch, or play with my — some rich jewel. Toby approaches; courtesies there to me,—
Sir Toby Belch
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 Belch
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 Belch
What, what?
Malvolio
‘You must amend your drunkenness.’
Sir Toby Belch
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 Belch
O, peace! and the spirit of humour 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 altered! ‘No man must know:’ if this should be thee, Malvolio?
Sir Toby Belch
Marry, hang thee, brock!
Malvolio
[Reads]
I may command where I adore;
Complete Plays, The Page 334