Twelfth Night
was a beggar. My lady is within, sir. I will conster to them whence you
come; who you are and what you would are out of my welkin. I might say
“element”, but the word is overworn.
[_Exit._]
VIOLA.
This fellow is wise enough to play the fool,
And to do that well, craves a kind of wit:
He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons, and the time,
And like the haggard, check at every feather
That comes before his eye. This is a practice
As full of labour as a wise man’s art:
For folly, that he wisely shows, is fit;
But wise men, folly-fall’n, quite taint their wit.
Enter Sir Toby and Sir Andrew.
SIR TOBY.
Save you, gentleman.
VIOLA.
And you, sir.
SIR ANDREW.
_Dieu vous garde, monsieur._
VIOLA.
_Et vous aussi; votre serviteur._
SIR ANDREW.
I hope, sir, you are, and I am yours.
SIR TOBY.
Will you encounter the house? My niece is desirous you should enter, if
your trade be to her.
VIOLA.
I am bound to your niece, sir, I mean, she is the list of my voyage.
SIR TOBY.
Taste your legs, sir, put them to motion.
VIOLA.
My legs do better understand me, sir, than I understand what you mean
by bidding me taste my legs.
SIR TOBY.
I mean, to go, sir, to enter.
VIOLA.
I will answer you with gait and entrance: but we are prevented.
Enter Olivia and Maria.
Most excellent accomplished lady, the heavens rain odours on you!
SIR ANDREW.
That youth’s a rare courtier. ‘Rain odours,’ well.
VIOLA.
My matter hath no voice, lady, but to your own most pregnant and
vouchsafed ear.
SIR ANDREW.
‘Odours,’ ‘pregnant,’ and ‘vouchsafed.’—I’ll get ’em all three ready.
OLIVIA.
Let the garden door be shut, and leave me to my hearing.
[_Exeunt Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Maria._]
Give me your hand, sir.
VIOLA.
My duty, madam, and most humble service.
OLIVIA.
What is your name?
VIOLA.
Cesario is your servant’s name, fair princess.
OLIVIA.
My servant, sir! ’Twas never merry world,
Since lowly feigning was call’d compliment:
Y’are servant to the Count Orsino, youth.
VIOLA.
And he is yours, and his must needs be yours.
Your servant’s servant is your servant, madam.
OLIVIA.
For him, I think not on him: for his thoughts,
Would they were blanks rather than fill’d with me!
VIOLA.
Madam, I come to whet your gentle thoughts
On his behalf.
OLIVIA.
O, by your leave, I pray you.
I bade you never speak again of him.
But would you undertake another suit,
I had rather hear you to solicit that
Than music from the spheres.
VIOLA.
Dear lady—
OLIVIA.
Give me leave, beseech you. I did send,
After the last enchantment you did here,
A ring in chase of you. So did I abuse
Myself, my servant, and, I fear me, you.
Under your hard construction must I sit;
To force that on you in a shameful cunning,
Which you knew none of yours. What might you think?
Have you not set mine honour at the stake,
And baited it with all th’ unmuzzled thoughts
That tyrannous heart can think? To one of your receiving
Enough is shown. A cypress, not a bosom,
Hides my heart: so let me hear you speak.
VIOLA.
I pity you.
OLIVIA.
That’s a degree to love.
VIOLA.
No, not a grize; for ’tis a vulgar proof
That very oft we pity enemies.
OLIVIA.
Why then methinks ’tis time to smile again.
O world, how apt the poor are to be proud!
If one should be a prey, how much the better
To fall before the lion than the wolf! [_Clock strikes._]
The clock upbraids me with the waste of time.
Be not afraid, good youth, I will not have you.
And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest,
Your wife is like to reap a proper man.
There lies your way, due west.
VIOLA.
Then westward ho!
Grace and good disposition attend your ladyship!
You’ll nothing, madam, to my lord by me?
OLIVIA.
Stay:
I prithee tell me what thou think’st of me.
VIOLA.
That you do think you are not what you are.
OLIVIA.
If I think so, I think the same of you.
VIOLA.
Then think you right; I am not what I am.
OLIVIA.
I would you were as I would have you be.
VIOLA.
Would it be better, madam, than I am?
I wish it might, for now I am your fool.
OLIVIA.
O what a deal of scorn looks beautiful
In the contempt and anger of his lip!
A murd’rous guilt shows not itself more soon
Than love that would seem hid. Love’s night is noon.
Cesario, by the roses of the spring,
By maidhood, honour, truth, and everything,
I love thee so, that maugre all thy pride,
Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide.
Do not extort thy reasons from this clause,
For that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause;
But rather reason thus with reason fetter:
Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.
VIOLA.
By innocence I swear, and by my youth,
I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth,
And that no woman has; nor never none
Shall mistress be of it, save I alone.
And so adieu, good madam; never more
Will I my master’s tears to you deplore.
OLIVIA.
Yet come again: for thou perhaps mayst move
That heart, which now abhors, to like his love.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. A Room in Olivia’s House.
Enter Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Fabian.
SIR ANDREW.
No, faith, I’ll not stay a jot longer.
SIR TOBY.
Thy reason, dear venom, give thy reason.
FABIAN.
You must needs yield your reason, Sir Andrew.
SIR ANDREW.
Marry, I saw your niece do more favours to the Count’s servingman than
ever she bestowed upon me; I saw’t i’ th’ orchard.
SIR TOBY.
Did she see thee the while, old boy? Tell me that.
SIR ANDREW.
As plain as I see you now.
FABIAN.
This was a great argument of love in her toward you.
SIR ANDREW.
’Slight! will you make an ass o’ me?
FABIAN.
I will prove it legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of judgment and reason.
SIR TOBY.
And they have been grand-jurymen since before Noah was a sailor.
FABIAN.
She did show favour to the youth in your sight only to exasperate you,
to awake your dormouse valour, to put fire in your heart and brimstone
in your liver. You should then have accosted her, and with some
excellent jests, fire-new from the mint, you should have banged the
youth into dumbness. This was looked for at your hand, and this was
balked: the double gilt of this opportunity you let time wash off, and
you are now sailed into the north of my lady’s opinion; where you will
hang like an icicle on Dutchman’s beard, unless you do redeem it by
some laudable attempt, either of valour or policy.
SIR ANDREW.
And’t be any way, it must be with valour, for policy I hate; I had as
lief be a Brownist as a politician.
SIR TOBY.
Why, then, build me thy fortunes upon the basis of valour. Challenge me
the Count’s youth to fight with him. Hurt him in eleven places; my
niece shall take note of it, and assure thyself there is no love-broker
in the world can more prevail in man’s commendation with woman than
report of valour.
FABIAN.
There is no way but this, Sir Andrew.
SIR ANDREW.
Will either of you bear me a challenge to him?
SIR TOBY.
Go, write it in a martial hand, be curst and brief; it is no matter how
witty, so it be eloquent and full of invention. Taunt him with the
licence of ink. If thou ‘thou’st’ him some thrice, it shall not be
amiss, and as many lies as will lie in thy sheet of paper, although the
sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in England, set ’em down. Go
about it. Let there be gall enough in thy ink, though thou write with a
goose-pen, no matter. About it.
SIR ANDREW.
Where shall I find you?
SIR TOBY.
We’ll call thee at the cubiculo. Go.
[_Exit Sir Andrew._]
FABIAN.
This is a dear manikin to you, Sir Toby.
SIR TOBY.
I have been dear to him, lad, some two thousand strong, or so.
FABIAN.
We shall have a rare letter from him; but you’ll not deliver it.
SIR TOBY.
Never trust me then. And by all means stir on the youth to an answer. I
think oxen and wainropes cannot hale them together. For Andrew, if he
were opened and you find so much blood in his liver as will clog the
foot of a flea, I’ll eat the rest of th’ anatomy.
FABIAN.
And his opposite, the youth, bears in his visage no great presage of
cruelty.
Enter Maria.
SIR TOBY.
Look where the youngest wren of nine comes.
MARIA.
If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourselves into stitches,
follow me. Yond gull Malvolio is turned heathen, a very renegado; for
there is no Christian that means to be saved by believing rightly can
ever believe such impossible passages of grossness. He’s in yellow
stockings.
SIR TOBY.
And cross-gartered?
MARIA.
Most villainously; like a pedant that keeps a school i’ th’ church. I
have dogged him like his murderer. He does obey every point of the
letter that I dropped to betray him. He does smile his face into more
lines than is in the new map with the augmentation of the Indies. You
have not seen such a thing as ’tis. I can hardly forbear hurling
things at him. I know my lady will strike him. If she do, he’ll smile
and take’t for a great favour.
SIR TOBY.
Come, bring us, bring us where he is.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE III. A street.
Enter Sebastian and Antonio.
SEBASTIAN.
I would not by my will have troubled you,
But since you make your pleasure of your pains,
I will no further chide you.
ANTONIO.
I could not stay behind you: my desire,
More sharp than filed steel, did spur me forth;
And not all love to see you, though so much,
As might have drawn one to a longer voyage,
But jealousy what might befall your travel,
Being skilless in these parts; which to a stranger,
Unguided and unfriended, often prove
Rough and unhospitable. My willing love,
The rather by these arguments of fear,
Set forth in your pursuit.
SEBASTIAN.
My kind Antonio,
I can no other answer make but thanks,
And thanks, and ever thanks; and oft good turns
Are shuffled off with such uncurrent pay.
But were my worth, as is my conscience, firm,
You should find better dealing. What’s to do?
Shall we go see the relics of this town?
ANTONIO.
Tomorrow, sir; best first go see your lodging.
SEBASTIAN.
I am not weary, and ’tis long to night;
I pray you, let us satisfy our eyes
With the memorials and the things of fame
That do renown this city.
ANTONIO.
Would you’d pardon me.
I do not without danger walk these streets.
Once in a sea-fight, ’gainst the Count his galleys,
I did some service, of such note indeed,
That were I ta’en here, it would scarce be answer’d.
SEBASTIAN.
Belike you slew great number of his people.
ANTONIO.
Th’ offence is not of such a bloody nature,
Albeit the quality of the time and quarrel
Might well have given us bloody argument.
It might have since been answered in repaying
What we took from them, which for traffic’s sake,
Most of our city did. Only myself stood out,
For which, if I be lapsed in this place,
I shall pay dear.
SEBASTIAN.
Do not then walk too open.
ANTONIO.
It doth not fit me. Hold, sir, here’s my purse.
In the south suburbs, at the Elephant,
Is best to lodge. I will bespeak our diet
Whiles you beguile the time and feed your knowledge
With viewing of the town. There shall you have me.
SEBASTIAN.
Why I your purse?
ANTONIO.
Haply your eye shall light upon some toy
You have desire to purchase; and your store,
I think, is not for idle markets, sir.
SEBASTIAN.
I’ll be your purse-bearer, and leave you for an hour.
ANTONIO.
To th’ Elephant.
SEBASTIAN.
I do remember.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE IV. Olivia’s garden.
Enter Olivia and Maria.
OLIVIA.
I have sent after him. He says he’ll come;
How shall I feast him? What bestow of him?
For youth is bought more oft than begg’d or borrow’d.
I speak too loud.—
Where’s Malvolio?—He is sad and civil,
And suits well for a servant with my fortunes;
Where is Malvolio?
MARIA.
He’s coming, madam:
But in very strange manner. He is sure possessed, madam.