[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 nettle 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.]