# The Complete Works of William Shakespeare ## Part 198 Book page: https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/the-complete-works-of-william-shakespeare-100/index.md DUKE. Dear lad, believe it; For they shall yet belie thy happy years, That say thou art a man: Diana’s lip Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe Is as the maiden’s organ, shrill and sound, And all is semblative a woman’s part. I know thy constellation is right apt For this affair. Some four or five attend him: All, if you will; for I myself am best When least in company. Prosper well in this, And thou shalt live as freely as thy lord, To call his fortunes thine. VIOLA. I’ll do my best To woo your lady. [_Aside._] Yet, a barful strife! Whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife. [_Exeunt._] SCENE V. A Room in Olivia’s House. 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 with 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, y’are 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 a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove. CLOWN. Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou speak’st well of fools! 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. 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._] 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 o’ 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 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. OLIVIA. Let him approach. Call in my gentlewoman. MALVOLIO. Gentlewoman, my lady calls. [_Exit._] 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 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. Tell me your mind. 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. [_Unveiling._] Look you, sir, such a one I was this present. Is’t not well done? 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 divulg’d, 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 suff’ring, 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; Hallow 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 Plac’d 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! 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 tomorrow, 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._] ACT II. SCENE I. The sea-coast. Enter Antonio and Sebastian. ANTONIO. Will you stay no longer? Nor will you not that I go with you? SEBASTIAN. By your patience, no; my stars shine darkly over me; the malignancy of my fate might perhaps distemper yours; therefore I shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone. It were a bad recompense for your love, to lay any of them on you. ANTONIO. Let me know of you whither you are bound. SEBASTIAN. No, sooth, sir; my determinate voyage is mere extravagancy. But I perceive in you so excellent a touch of modesty, that you will not extort from me what I am willing to keep in. Therefore it charges me in manners the rather to express myself. You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian, which I called Roderigo; my father was that Sebastian of Messaline whom I know you have heard of. He left behind him myself and a sister, both born in an hour. If the heavens had been pleased, would we had so ended! But you, sir, altered that, for some hour before you took me from the breach of the sea was my sister drowned. ANTONIO. Alas the day! SEBASTIAN. A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful. But though I could not with such estimable wonder overfar believe that, yet thus far I will boldly publish her, she bore a mind that envy could not but call fair. She is drowned already, sir, with salt water, though I seem to drown her remembrance again with more. ANTONIO. Pardon me, sir, your bad entertainment. SEBASTIAN. O good Antonio, forgive me your trouble. ANTONIO. If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your servant. SEBASTIAN. If you will not undo what you have done, that is, kill him whom you have recovered, desire it not. Fare ye well at once; my bosom is full of kindness, and I am yet so near the manners of my mother, that upon the least occasion more, mine eyes will tell tales of me. I am bound to the Count Orsino’s court: farewell. [_Exit._] ANTONIO. The gentleness of all the gods go with thee! I have many enemies in Orsino’s court, Else would I very shortly see thee there: But come what may, I do adore thee so, That danger shall seem sport, and I will go. [_Exit._] SCENE II. A street. Enter Viola; Malvolio at several doors. MALVOLIO. Were you not even now with the Countess Olivia? VIOLA. Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since arrived but hither. MALVOLIO. She returns this ring to you, sir; you might have saved me my pains, to have taken it away yourself. She adds, moreover, that you should put your lord into a desperate assurance she will none of him. And one thing more, that you be never so hardy to come again in his affairs, unless it be to report your lord’s taking of this. Receive it so. VIOLA. She took the ring of me: I’ll none of it. MALVOLIO. Come sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is it should be so returned. If it be worth stooping for, there it lies in your eye; if not, be it his that finds it. [_Exit._] VIOLA. I left no ring with her; what means this lady? Fortune forbid my outside have not charm’d her! She made good view of me, indeed, so much, That methought her eyes had lost her tongue, For she did speak in starts distractedly. She loves me, sure, the cunning of her passion Invites me in this churlish messenger. None of my lord’s ring? Why, he sent her none. I am the man; if it be so, as ’tis, Poor lady, she were better love a dream. Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness Wherein the pregnant enemy does much. How easy is it for the proper false In women’s waxen hearts to set their forms! Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we, For such as we are made of, such we be. How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly, And I, poor monster, fond as much on him, And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me. What will become of this? As I am man, My state is desperate for my master’s love; As I am woman (now alas the day!) What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe! O time, thou must untangle this, not I, It is too hard a knot for me t’untie! [_Exit._] SCENE III. A Room in Olivia’s House. Enter Sir Toby and Sir Andrew. SIR TOBY. Approach, Sir Andrew; not to be abed after midnight, is to be up betimes; and _diluculo surgere_, thou know’st. SIR ANDREW. Nay, by my troth, I know not; but I know to be up late is to be up late. SIR TOBY. A false conclusion; I hate it as an unfilled can. To be up after midnight, and to go to bed then is early: so that to go to bed after midnight is to go to bed betimes. Does not our lives consist of the four elements? SIR ANDREW. Faith, so they say, but I think it rather consists of eating and drinking. SIR TOBY. Th’art a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink. Marian, I say! a stoup of wine. Enter Clown. SIR ANDREW. Here comes the fool, i’ faith. CLOWN. How now, my hearts? Did you never see the picture of “we three”? SIR TOBY. Welcome, ass. Now let’s have a catch. SIR ANDREW. By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I had rather than forty shillings I had such a leg, and so sweet a breath to sing, as the fool has. In sooth, thou wast in very gracious fooling last night when thou spok’st of Pigrogromitus, of the Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus; ’twas very good, i’ faith. I sent thee sixpence for thy leman. Hadst it? CLOWN. I did impeticos thy gratillity; for Malvolio’s nose is no whipstock. My lady has a white hand, and the Myrmidons are no bottle-ale houses. SIR ANDREW. Excellent! Why, this is the best fooling, when all is done. Now, a song. SIR TOBY. Come on, there is sixpence for you. Let’s have a song. SIR ANDREW. There’s a testril of me too: if one knight give a— CLOWN. Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life? SIR TOBY. A love-song, a love-song. SIR ANDREW. Ay, ay. I care not for good life. CLOWN. [_sings._] _O mistress mine, where are you roaming? O stay and hear, your true love’s coming, That can sing both high and low. Trip no further, pretty sweeting. Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man’s son doth know._ SIR ANDREW. Excellent good, i’ faith. SIR TOBY. Good, good. CLOWN. _What is love? ’Tis not hereafter, Present mirth hath present laughter. What’s to come is still unsure. In delay there lies no plenty, Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty. Youth’s a stuff will not endure._ SIR ANDREW. A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight. SIR TOBY. A contagious breath. SIR ANDREW. Very sweet and contagious, i’ faith. SIR TOBY. To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion. But shall we make the welkin dance indeed? Shall we rouse the night-owl in a catch that will draw three souls out of one weaver? Shall we do that? SIR ANDREW. And you love me, let’s do’t: I am dog at a catch. CLOWN. By’r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well. SIR ANDREW. Most certain. Let our catch be, “Thou knave.” CLOWN. “Hold thy peace, thou knave” knight? I shall be constrain’d in’t to call thee knave, knight. SIR ANDREW. ’Tis not the first time I have constrained one to call me knave. Begin, fool; it begins “Hold thy peace.” CLOWN. I shall never begin if I hold my peace. SIR ANDREW. Good, i’ faith! Come, begin. [_Catch sung._] Enter Maria. MARIA. What a caterwauling do you keep here! If my lady have not called up her steward Malvolio, and bid him turn you out of doors, never trust me. SIR TOBY. My lady’s a Cataian, we are politicians, Malvolio’s a Peg-a-Ramsey, and [_Sings._] _Three merry men be we._ Am not I consanguineous? Am I not of her blood? Tilly-vally! “Lady”! _There dwelt a man in Babylon, Lady, Lady._ CLOWN. Beshrew me, the knight’s in admirable fooling. SIR ANDREW. Ay, he does well enough if he be disposed, and so do I too; he does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural. SIR TOBY. [_Sings._] _O’ the twelfth day of December—_ MARIA. For the love o’ God, peace! Enter Malvolio. MALVOLIO. My masters, are you mad? Or what are you? Have you no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night? Do ye make an ale-house of my lady’s house, that ye squeak out your coziers’ catches without any mitigation or remorse of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time, in you? SIR TOBY. We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up! 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 misdemeanours, you are welcome to the house; if not, and it would please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you farewell. SIR TOBY. [_Sings._] _Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone._ MARIA. Nay, good Sir Toby. CLOWN. [_Sings._] _His eyes do show his days are almost done._ MALVOLIO. Is’t even so? SIR TOBY. [_Sings._] _But I will never die._ CLOWN. [_Sings._] _Sir Toby, there you lie._ MALVOLIO. This is much credit to you. SIR TOBY. [_Sings._] _Shall I bid him go?_ CLOWN. [_Sings._] _What and if you do?_ SIR TOBY. [_Sings._] _Shall I bid him go, and spare not?_ CLOWN. [_Sings._] _O, no, no, no, no, you dare not._ SIR TOBY. 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. Th’art i’ the right. Go, sir, rub your chain with crumbs. A stoup of wine, Maria!