[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.]