A Room in OLIVIA’S House. | |
| |
Enter MARIA and Clown. | |
| Mar. 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. | |
| Clo. Let her hang me: he that is well hanged in this world needs to fear no colours. | 4 |
| Mar. Make that good. | |
| Clo. He shall see none to fear. | |
| Mar. A good lenten answer: I can tell thee where that saying was born, of, ‘I fear no colours.’ | |
| Clo. Where, good Mistress Mary? | 8 |
| Mar. In the wars; and that may you be bold to say in your foolery. | |
| Clo. Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents. | |
| Mar. 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? | |
| Clo. Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage; and, for turning away, let summer bear it out. | 12 |
| Mar. You are resolute then? | |
| Clo. Not so, neither; but I am resolved on two points. | |
| Mar. That if one break, the other will hold; or, if both break, your gaskins fall. | |
| Clo. 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. | 16 |
| Mar. Peace, you rogue, no more o’that. Here comes my lady: make your excuse wisely, you were best. [Exit. | |
| Clo. Wit, an’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.’ | |
| |
Enter OLIVIA with MALVOLIO. | |
| God bless thee, lady! | 20 |
| Oli. Take the fool away. | |
| Clo. Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady. | |
| Oli. Go to, you’re a dry fool; I’ll no more of you: besides, you grow dishonest. | |
| Clo. 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. Any thing 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. | 24 |
| Oli. Sir, I bade them take away you. | |
| Clo. Misprision in the highest degree! Lady, cucullus non facit monachum; that’s as much to say as I wear not motley in my brain. Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool. | |
| Oli. Can you do it? | |
| Clo. Dexteriously, good madonna. | 28 |
| Oli. Make your proof. | |
| Clo. I must catechise you for it, madonna: good my mouse of virtue, answer me. | |
| Oli. Well, sir, for want of other idleness, I’ll bide your proof. | |
| Clo. Good madonna, why mournest thou? | 32 |
| Oli. Good fool, for my brother’s death. | |
| Clo. I think his soul is in hell, madonna. | |
| Oli. I know his soul is in heaven, fool. | |
| Clo. The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother’s soul being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen. | 36 |
| Oli. What think you of this fool, Malvolio? doth he not mend? | |
| Mal. Yes; and shall do, till the pangs of death shake him: infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool. | |
| Clo. 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 two pence that you are no fool. | |
| Oli. How say you to that, Malvolio? | 40 |
| Mal. 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. | |
| Oli. 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 a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove. | |
| Clo. Now, Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou speakest well of fools! | |
| |
Re-enter MARIA. | 44 |
| Mar. Madam, there is at the gate a young gentleman much desires to speak with you. | |
| Oli. From the Count Orsino, is it? | |
| Mar. I know not, madam: ’tis a fair young man, and well attended. | |
| Oli. Who of my people hold him in delay? | 48 |
| Mar. Sir Toby, madam, your kinsman. | |
| Oli. 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. | |
| Clo. Thou hast spoken for us, madonna, as if thy eldest son should be a fool; whose skull Jove cram with brains! for here comes one of thy kin has a most weak pia mater. | |
| |
Enter SIR TOBY BELCH. | 52 |
| Oli. By mine honour, half drunk. What is he at the gate, cousin? | |
| Sir To. A gentleman. | |
| Oli. A gentleman! what gentleman? | |
| Sir To. ’Tis a gentleman here,—a plague o’ these pickle herring! How now, sot! | 56 |
| Clo. Good Sir Toby. | |
| Oli. Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this lethargy? | |
| Sir To. Lechery! I defy lechery! There’s one at the gate. | |
| Clo. Ay, marry, what is he? | 60 |
| Sir To. Let him be the devil, an he will, I care not: give me faith, say I. Well, it’s all one. [Exit. | |
| Oli. What’s a drunken man like, fool? | |
| Clo. 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. | |
| Oli. Go thou and seek the crowner, and let him sit o’ my coz; for he’s in the third degree of drink, he’s drowned: go, look after him. | 64 |
| Clo. He is but mad yet, madonna; and the fool shall look to the madman. [Exit. | |
| |
Re-enter MALVOLIO. | |
| Mal. 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. | |
| Oli. Tell him he shall not speak with me. | 68 |
| Mal. Ha’s been told so; and he says, he’ll stand at your door like a sheriff’s post, and be the supporter to a bench, but he’ll speak with you. | |
| Oli. What kind o’man is he? | |
| Mal. Why, of mankind. | |
| Oli. What manner of man? | 72 |
| Mal. Of very ill manner: he’ll speak with you, will you or no. | |
| Oli. Of what personage and years is he? | |
| Mal. 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 in 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. | |
| Oli. Let him approach. Call in my gentlewoman. | 76 |
| Mal. Gentlewoman, my lady calls. [Exit. | |
| |
Re-enter MARIA. | |
| Oli. Give me my veil: come, throw it o’er my face. | |
| We’ll once more hear Orsino’s embassy. | 80 |
| |
Enter VIOLA and Attendants. | |
| Vio. The honourable lady of the house, which is she? | |
| Oli. Speak to me; I shall answer for her. Your will? | |
| Vio. 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. | 84 |
| Oli. Whence came you, sir? | |
| Vio. 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. | |
| Oli. Are you a comedian? | |
| Vio. 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? | 88 |
| Oli. If I do not usurp myself, I am. | |
| Vio. 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. | |
| Oli. Come to what is important in’t: I forgive you the praise. | |
| Vio. Alas! I took great pains to study it, and ’tis poetical. | 92 |
| Oli. 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. | |
| Mar. Will you hoist sail, sir? here lies your way. | |
| Vio. No, good swabber; I am to hull here a little longer. Some mollification for your giant, sweet lady. | |
| Oli. Tell me your mind. | 96 |
| Vio. I am a messenger. | |
| Oli. Sure, you have some hideous matter to deliver, when the courtesy of it is so fearful. Speak your office. | |
| Vio. 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. | |
| Oli. Yet you began rudely. What are you? what would you? | 100 |
| Vio. The rudeness that hath appear’d in me have I learn’d from my entertainment. What I am, and what I would, are as secret as maidenhead; to your ears, divinity; to any other’s, profanation. | |
| Oli. Give us the place alone: we will hear this divinity. [Exit MARIA and Attendants.] | |
| Now, sir; what is your text? | |
| Vio. Most sweet lady,— | 104 |
| Oli. A comfortable doctrine, and much may be said of it. Where lies your text? | |
| Vio. In Orsino’s bosom. | |
| Oli. In his bosom! In what chapter of his bosom? | |
| Vio. To answer by the method, in the first of his heart. | 108 |
| Oli. O! I have read it: it is heresy. Have you no more to say? | |
| Vio. Good madam, let me see your face. | |
| Oli. 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. [Unveiling.] Look you, sir, such a one I was as this present: is’t not well done? | |
| Vio. Excellently done, if God did all. | 112 |
| Oli. ’Tis in grain, sir; ’twill endure wind and weather. | |
| Vio. ’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, | 116 |
| If you will lead these graces to the grave | |
| And leave the world no copy. | |
| Oli. 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? | 120 |
| Vio. 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 | 124 |
| The nonpareil of beauty. | |
| Oli. How does he love me? | |
| Vio. With adorations, with fertile tears, | |
| With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire. | 128 |
| Oli. 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 divulg’d, free, learn’d, and valiant; | 132 |
| 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. | |
| Vio. If I did love you in my master’s flame, | 136 |
| With such a suffering, such a deadly life, | |
| In your denial I would find no sense; | |
| I would not understand it. | |
| Oli. Why, what would you? | 140 |
| Vio. 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; | 144 |
| 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, | 148 |
| But you should pity me! | |
| Oli. You might do much. What is your parentage? | |
| Vio. Above my fortune, yet my state is well: | |
| I am a gentleman. | 152 |
| Oli. 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: | 156 |
| I thank you for your pains: spend this for me. | |
| Vio. 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, | 160 |
| And let your fervour, like my master’s, be | |
| Plac’d in contempt! Farewell, fair cruelty. [Exit. | |
| Oli. ‘What is your parentage?’ | |
| ‘Above my fortunes, yet my state is well: | 164 |
| 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! | 168 |
| 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. | 172 |
| What, ho! Malvolio! | |
| |
Re-enter MALVOLIO. | |
| Mal. Here, madam, at your service. | |
| Oli. Run after that same peevish messenger, | 176 |
| 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’m not for him. | 180 |
| If that the youth will come this way to-morrow, | |
| I’ll give him reasons for’t. Hie thee, Malvolio. | |
| Mal. Madam, I will. [Exit. | |
| Oli. I do I know what, and fear to find | 184 |
| 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. | |
