nothing: he is both ass and ox. To an ox, were nothing: he is both ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an owl, a put-tock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care; but to be Menelaus, I would conspire against destiny. Ask me not what I would be, if I were not Thersites; for I care not to be the louse of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus. Hey-day! sprites and fires!
Enter HECTOR, TROILUS, AJAX, AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR, MENELAUS, and DIOMEDES, with lights
AGAMEMNON. We go wrong, we go wrong. AJAX. No, yonder ’tis;
There, where we see the lights.
HECTOR. I trouble you.
AJAX. No, not a whit.
Re-enter ACHILLES
ULYSSES. Here comes himself to guide you. ACHILLES. Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, Princes all. AGAMEMNON. So now, fair Prince of Troy, I bid good night; Ajax commands the guard to tend on you. HECTOR. Thanks, and good night to the Greeks’ general. MENELAUS. Good night, my lord.
HECTOR. Good night, sweet Lord Menelaus. THERSITES. Sweet draught! ‘Sweet’ quoth ‘a? Sweet sink, sweet sewer!
ACHILLES. Good night and welcome, both at once, to those That go or tarry.
AGAMEMNON. Good night.
Exeunt AGAMEMNON and MENELAUS ACHILLES. Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed, Keep Hector company an hour or two.
DIOMEDES. I cannot, lord; I have important business, The tide whereof is now. Good night, great Hector. HECTOR. Give me your hand.
ULYSSES. [Aside to TROILUS] Follow his torch; he goes to Calchas’ tent; I’ll keep you company.
TROILUS. Sweet sir, you honour me. HECTOR. And so, good night.
Exit DIOMEDES; ULYSSES and TROILUS following ACHILLES. Come, come, enter my tent.
Exeunt all but THERSITES THERSITES. That same Diomed’s a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust knave; I will no more trust him when he leers than I will a serpent when he hisses. He will spend his mouth and promise, like Brabbler the hound; but when he performs, astronomers foretell it: it is prodigious, there will come some change; the sun borrows of the moon when Diomed keeps his word. I will rather leave to see Hector than not to dog him. They say he keeps a Troyan drab, and uses the traitor Calchas’ tent. I’ll after. Nothing but lechery! All incontinent varlets! Exit
ACT V. SCENE 2.
The Grecian camp. Before CALCHAS’ tent
Enter DIOMEDES
DIOMEDES. What, are you up here, ho? Speak. CALCHAS. [Within] Who calls?
DIOMEDES. Diomed. Calchas, I think. Where’s your daughter? CALCHAS. [Within] She comes to you.
Enter TROILUS and ULYSSES, at a distance; after them THERSITES
ULYSSES. Stand where the torch may not discover us.
Enter CRESSIDA
TROILUS. Cressid comes forth to him. DIOMEDES. How now, my charge!
CRESSIDA. Now, my sweet guardian! Hark, a word with you. [Whispers]
TROILUS. Yea, so familiar!
ULYSSES. She will sing any man at first sight. THERSITES. And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff; she’s noted.
DIOMEDES. Will you remember?
CRESSIDA. Remember? Yes.
DIOMEDES. Nay, but do, then;
And let your mind be coupled with your words. TROILUS. What shall she remember?
ULYSSES. List!
CRESSIDA. Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly. THERSITES. Roguery!
DIOMEDES. Nay, then-
CRESSIDA. I’ll tell you what-
DIOMEDES. Fo, fo! come, tell a pin; you are a forsworn- CRESSIDA. In faith, I cannot. What would you have me do? THERSITES. A juggling trick, to be secretly open. DIOMEDES. What did you swear you would bestow on me? CRESSIDA. I prithee, do not hold me to mine oath; Bid me do anything but that, sweet Greek. DIOMEDES. Good night.
TROILUS. Hold, patience!
ULYSSES. How now, Troyan!
CRESSIDA. Diomed!
DIOMEDES. No, no, good night; I’ll be your fool no more. TROILUS. Thy better must.
CRESSIDA. Hark! a word in your ear. TROILUS. O plague and madness!
ULYSSES. You are moved, Prince; let us depart, I pray, Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself To wrathful terms. This place is dangerous; The time right deadly; I beseech you, go. TROILUS. Behold, I pray you.
ULYSSES. Nay, good my lord, go off; You flow to great distraction; come, my lord. TROILUS. I prithee stay.
ULYSSES. You have not patience; come. TROILUS. I pray you, stay; by hell and all hell’s torments, I will not speak a word.
DIOMEDES. And so, good night.
CRESSIDA. Nay, but you part in anger. TROILUS. Doth that grieve thee? O withered truth! ULYSSES. How now, my lord?
TROILUS. By Jove, I will be patient. CRESSIDA. Guardian! Why, Greek!
DIOMEDES. Fo, fo! adieu! you palter. CRESSIDA. In faith, I do not. Come hither once again. ULYSSES. You shake, my lord, at something; will you go? You will break out.
TROILUS. She strokes his cheek.
ULYSSES. Come, come.
TROILUS. Nay, stay; by Jove, I will not speak a word: There is between my will and all offences A guard of patience. Stay a little while. THERSITES. How the devil luxury, with his fat rump and potato finger, tickles these together! Fry, lechery, fry! DIOMEDES. But will you, then?
CRESSIDA. In faith, I will, lo; never trust me else. DIOMEDES. Give me some token for the surety of it. CRESSIDA. I’ll fetch you one. Exit ULYSSES. You have sworn patience.
TROILUS. Fear me not, my lord;
I will not be myself, nor have cognition Of what I feel. I am all patience.
Re-enter CRESSIDA
THERSITES. Now the pledge; now, now, now! CRESSIDA. Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve. TROILUS. O beauty! where is thy faith?
ULYSSES. My lord!
TROILUS. I will be patient; outwardly I will. CRESSIDA. You look upon that sleeve; behold it well. He lov’d me-O false wench!-Give’t me again. DIOMEDES. Whose was’t?
CRESSIDA. It is no matter, now I ha’t again. I will not meet with you to-morrow night. I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.
THERSITES. Now she sharpens. Well said, whetstone. DIOMEDES. I shall have it.
CRESSIDA. What, this?
DIOMEDES. Ay, that.
CRESSIDA. O all you gods! O pretty, pretty pledge! Thy master now lies thinking on his bed Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove, And gives memorial dainty kisses to it, As I kiss thee. Nay, do not snatch it from me; He that takes that doth take my heart withal. DIOMEDES. I had your heart before; this follows it. TROILUS. I did swear patience.
CRESSIDA. You shall not have it, Diomed; faith, you shall not; I’ll give you something else.
DIOMEDES. I will have this. Whose was it? CRESSIDA. It is no matter.
DIOMEDES. Come, tell me whose it was. CRESSIDA. ‘Twas one’s that lov’d me better than you will. But, now you have it, take it.
DIOMEDES. Whose was it?
CRESSIDA. By all Diana’s waiting women yond, And by herself, I will not tell you whose. DIOMEDES. To-morrow will I wear it on my helm, And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it. TROILUS. Wert thou the devil and wor’st it on thy horn, It should be challeng’d.
CRESSIDA. Well, well, ’tis done, ’tis past; and yet it is not; I will not keep my word.
DIOMEDES. Why, then farewell;
Thou never shalt mock Diomed again. CRESSIDA. You shall not go. One cannot speak a word But it straight starts you.
DIOMEDES. I do not like this fooling. THERSITES. Nor I, by Pluto; but that that likes not you Pleases me best.
DIOMEDES. What, shall I come? The hour- CRESSIDA. Ay, come-O Jove! Do come. I shall be plagu’d. DIOMEDES. Farewell till then.
CRESSIDA. Good night. I prithee come. Exit DIOMEDES Troilus, farewell! One eye yet looks on thee; But with my heart the other eye doth see. Ah, poor our sex! this fault in us I find, The error of our eye directs our mind. What error leads must err; O, then conclude, Minds sway’d by eyes are full of turpitude. Exit THERSITES. A proof of strength she could not publish more, Unless she said ‘My mind is now turn’d whore.’ ULYSSES. All’s done, my lord.
TROILUS. It is.
ULYSSES. Why stay we, then?
TROILUS. To make a recordation to my soul Of every syllable that here was spoke. But if I tell how these two did coact, Shall I not lie in publishing a truth? Sith yet there is a credence in my heart, An esperance so obstinately strong,
That doth invert th’ attest of eyes and ears; As if those organs had deceptious functions Created only to calumniate.
Was Cressid here?
ULYSSES. I cannot conjure, Troyan. TROILUS. She was not, sure.
ULYSSES. Most sure she was.
TROILUS. Why, my negation hath no taste of madness. ULYSSES. Nor mine, my lord. Cressid was here but now. TROILUS. Let it not be believ’d for womanhood. Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage To stubborn critics, apt, without a theme, For depravation, to square the general sex By Cressid’s rule. Rather think this not Cressid. ULYSSES. What hath she done, Prince, that can soil our mothers? TROILUS. Nothing at all, unless that this were she. THERSITES. Will ‘a swagger himself out on’s own eyes? TROILUS. This she? No; this is Diomed’s Cressida. If beauty have a soul, this is not she; If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimonies, If sanctimony be the god’s delight,
If there be rule in unity itself, This was not she. O madness of discourse, That cause sets up with and against itself! Bifold authority! where reason can revolt Without perdition, and loss assume all reason Without revolt: this is, and is not, Cressid. Within my soul there doth conduce a fight Of this strange nature, that a thing inseparate Divides more wider than the sky and earth; And yet the spacious breadth of this division Admits no orifex for a point as subtle As Ariachne’s broken woof to enter.
Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto’s gates: Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven. Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself: The bonds of heaven are slipp’d, dissolv’d, and loos’d; And with another knot, five-finger-tied, The fractions of her faith, orts of her love, The fragments, scraps, the bits, and greasy relics Of her o’er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomed. ULYSSES. May worthy Troilus be half-attach’d With that which here his passion doth express? TROILUS. Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well In characters as red as Mars his heart Inflam’d with Venus. Never did young man fancy With so eternal and so fix’d a soul.
Hark, Greek: as much as I do Cressid love, So much by weight hate I her Diomed.
That sleeve is mine that he’ll bear on his helm; Were it a casque compos’d by Vulcan’s skill My sword should bite it. Not the dreadful spout Which shipmen do the hurricano call,
Constring’d in mass by the almighty sun, Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune’s ear In his descent than shall my prompted sword Falling on Diomed.
THERSITES. He’ll tickle it for his concupy. TROILUS. O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false! Let all untruths stand by thy stained name, And they’ll seem glorious.
ULYSSES. O, contain yourself;
Your passion draws ears hither.
Enter AENEAS
AENEAS. I have been seeking you this hour, my lord. Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy; Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home. TROILUS. Have with you, Prince. My courteous lord, adieu. Fairwell, revolted fair!-and, Diomed,
Stand fast and wear a castle on thy head. ULYSSES. I’ll bring you to the gates.
TROILUS. Accept distracted thanks.
Exeunt TROILUS, AENEAS. and ULYSSES
THERSITES. Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me anything for the intelligence of this whore; the parrot will not do more for an almond than he for a commodious drab. Lechery, lechery! Still wars and lechery! Nothing else holds fashion. A burning devil take them! Exit
ACT V. SCENE 3.
Troy. Before PRIAM’S palace
Enter HECTOR and ANDROMACHE
ANDROMACHE. When was my lord so much ungently temper’d To stop his ears against admonishment? Unarm, unarm, and do not fight to-day. HECTOR. You train me to offend you; get you in. By all the everlasting gods, I’ll go.
ANDROMACHE. My dreams will, sure, prove ominous to the day. HECTOR. No more, I say.
Enter CASSANDRA
CASSANDRA. Where is my brother Hector? ANDROMACHE. Here, sister, arm’d, and bloody in intent. Consort with me in loud and dear petition, Pursue we him on knees; for I have dreamt Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter. CASSANDRA. O, ’tis true!
HECTOR. Ho! bid my trumpet sound.
CASSANDRA. No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet brother! HECTOR. Be gone, I say. The gods have heard me swear. CASSANDRA. The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows; They are polluted off’rings, more abhorr’d Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.
ANDROMACHE. O, be persuaded! Do not count it holy To hurt by being just. It is as lawful, For we would give much, to use violent thefts And rob in the behalf of charity.
CASSANDRA. It is the purpose that makes strong the vow; But vows to every purpose must not hold. Unarm, sweet Hector.
HECTOR. Hold you still, I say.
Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate. Life every man holds dear; but the dear man Holds honour far more precious dear than life.
Enter TROILUS
How now, young man! Mean’st thou to fight to-day? ANDROMACHE. Cassandra, call my father to persuade. Exit CASSANDRA HECTOR. No, faith, young Troilus; doff thy harness, youth; I am to-day i’ th’ vein of chivalry.
Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong, And tempt not yet the brushes of the war. Unarm thee, go; and doubt thou not, brave boy, I’ll stand to-day for thee and me and Troy. TROILUS. Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you Which better fits a lion than a man.
HECTOR. What vice is that, good Troilus? Chide me for it.
TROILUS. When many times the captive Grecian falls, Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword, You bid them rise and live.
HECTOR. O, ’tis fair play!
TROILUS. Fool’s play, by heaven, Hector. HECTOR. How now! how now!
TROILUS. For th’ love of all the gods, Let’s leave the hermit Pity with our mother; And when we have our armours buckled on, The venom’d vengeance ride upon our swords, Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth! HECTOR. Fie, savage, fie!
TROILUS. Hector, then ’tis wars.
HECTOR. Troilus, I would not have you fight to-day. TROILUS. Who should withhold me?
Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars Beck’ning with fiery truncheon my retire; Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees,
Their eyes o’ergalled with recourse of tears; Nor you, my brother, with your true sword drawn, Oppos’d to hinder me, should stop my way, But by my ruin.
Re-enter CASSANDRA, with PRIAM
CASSANDRA. Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast; He is thy crutch; now if thou lose thy stay, Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee, Fall all together.
PRIAM. Come, Hector, come, go back. Thy wife hath dreamt; thy mother hath had visions; Cassandra doth foresee; and I myself
Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt To tell thee that this day is ominous. Therefore, come back.
HECTOR. Aeneas is a-field;
And I do stand engag’d to many Greeks, Even in the faith of valour, to appear This morning to them.
PRIAM. Ay, but thou shalt not go.
HECTOR. I must not break my faith. You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir, Let me not shame respect; but give me leave To take that course by your consent and voice Which you do here forbid me, royal Priam. CASSANDRA. O Priam, yield not to him!
ANDROMACHE. Do not, dear father.
HECTOR. Andromache, I am offended with you. Upon the love you bear me, get you in. Exit ANDROMACHE TROILUS. This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl Makes all these bodements.
CASSANDRA. O, farewell, dear Hector! Look how thou diest. Look how thy eye turns pale. Look how thy wounds do bleed at many vents. Hark how Troy roars; how Hecuba cries out; How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth; Behold distraction, frenzy, and amazement, Like witless antics, one another meet, And all cry, Hector! Hector’s dead! O Hector! TROILUS. Away, away!
CASSANDRA. Farewell!-yet, soft! Hector, I take my leave. Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive. Exit HECTOR. You are amaz’d, my liege, at her exclaim. Go in, and cheer the town; we’ll forth, and fight, Do deeds worth praise and tell you them at night. PRIAM. Farewell. The gods with safety stand about thee! Exeunt severally PRIAM and HECTOR. Alarums TROILUS. They are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe, I come to lose my arm or win my sleeve.
Enter PANDARUS
PANDARUS. Do you hear, my lord? Do you hear? TROILUS. What now?
PANDARUS. Here’s a letter come from yond poor girl. TROILUS. Let me read.
PANDARUS. A whoreson tisick, a whoreson rascally tisick so troubles me, and the foolish fortune of this girl, and what one thing, what another, that I shall leave you one o’ th’s days; and I have a rheum in mine eyes too, and such an ache in my bones that unless a man were curs’d I cannot tell what to think on’t. What says she there?
TROILUS. Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart; Th’ effect doth operate another way.
[Tearing the letter] Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change together. My love with words and errors still she feeds, But edifies another with her deeds. Exeunt severally
ACT V. SCENE 4.
The plain between Troy and the Grecian camp
Enter THERSITES. Excursions
THERSITES. Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I’ll go look on. That dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy doting foolish young knave’s sleeve of Troy there in his helm. I would fain see them meet, that that same young Troyan ass that loves the whore there might send that Greekish whoremasterly villain with the sleeve back to the dissembling luxurious drab of a sleeve-less errand. A th’ t’other side, the policy of those crafty swearing rascals-that stale old mouse-eaten dry cheese, Nestor, and that same dog-fox, Ulysses -is not prov’d worth a blackberry. They set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur, Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles; and now is the cur, Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm to-day; whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy grows into an ill opinion.
Enter DIOMEDES, TROILUS following
Soft! here comes sleeve, and t’other. TROILUS. Fly not; for shouldst thou take the river Styx I would swim after.
DIOMEDES. Thou dost miscall retire. I do not fly; but advantageous care
Withdrew me from the odds of multitude. Have at thee.
THERSITES. Hold thy whore, Grecian; now for thy whore, Troyan-now the sleeve, now the sleeve! Exeunt TROILUS and DIOMEDES fighting
Enter HECTOR
HECTOR. What art thou, Greek? Art thou for Hector’s match? Art thou of blood and honour?
THERSITES. No, no-I am a rascal; a scurvy railing knave; a very filthy rogue.
HECTOR. I do believe thee. Live. Exit THERSITES. God-a-mercy, that thou wilt believe me; but a plague break thy neck for frighting me! What’s become of the wenching rogues? I think they have swallowed one another. I would laugh at that miracle. Yet, in a sort, lechery eats itself. I’ll seek them. Exit
ACT V. SCENE 5.
Another part of the plain
Enter DIOMEDES and A SERVANT
DIOMEDES. Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus’ horse; Present the fair steed to my lady Cressid. Fellow, commend my service to her beauty; Tell her I have chastis’d the amorous Troyan, And am her knight by proof.
SERVANT. I go, my lord. Exit
Enter AGAMEMNON
AGAMEMNON. Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamus Hath beat down enon; bastard Margarelon Hath Doreus prisoner,
And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam, Upon the pashed corses of the kings
Epistrophus and Cedius. Polixenes is slain; Amphimacus and Thoas deadly hurt;
Patroclus ta’en, or slain; and Palamedes Sore hurt and bruis’d. The dreadful Sagittary Appals our numbers. Haste we, Diomed,
To reinforcement, or we perish all.
Enter NESTOR
NESTOR. Go, bear Patroclus’ body to Achilles, And bid the snail-pac’d Ajax arm for shame. There is a thousand Hectors in the field; Now here he fights on Galathe his horse, And there lacks work; anon he’s there afoot, And there they fly or die, like scaled sculls Before the belching whale; then is he yonder, And there the strawy Greeks, ripe for his edge, Fall down before him like the mower’s swath. Here, there, and everywhere, he leaves and takes; Dexterity so obeying appetite
That what he will he does, and does so much That proof is call’d impossibility.
Enter ULYSSES
ULYSSES. O, courage, courage, courage, Princes! Great Achilles Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance. Patroclus’ wounds have rous’d his drowsy blood, Together with his mangled Myrmidons,
That noseless, handless, hack’d and chipp’d, come to him, Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend And foams at mouth, and he is arm’d and at it, Roaring for Troilus; who hath done to-day Mad and fantastic execution,
Engaging and redeeming of himself With such a careless force and forceless care As if that luck, in very spite of cunning, Bade him win all.
Enter AJAX
AJAX. Troilus! thou coward Troilus! Exit DIOMEDES. Ay, there, there.
NESTOR. So, so, we draw together. Exit Enter ACHILLES
ACHILLES. Where is this Hector?
Come, come, thou boy-queller, show thy face; Know what it is to meet Achilles angry. Hector! where’s Hector? I will none but Hector. Exeunt
ACT V. SCENE 6.
Another part of the plain
Enter AJAX
AJAX. Troilus, thou coward Troilus, show thy head.
Enter DIOMEDES
DIOMEDES. Troilus, I say! Where’s Troilus? AJAX. What wouldst thou?
DIOMEDES. I would correct him.
AJAX. Were I the general, thou shouldst have my office Ere that correction. Troilus, I say! What, Troilus!
Enter TROILUS
TROILUS. O traitor Diomed! Turn thy false face, thou traitor, And pay thy life thou owest me for my horse. DIOMEDES. Ha! art thou there?
AJAX. I’ll fight with him alone. Stand, Diomed. DIOMEDES. He is my prize. I will not look upon. TROILUS. Come, both, you cogging Greeks; have at you Exeunt fighting
Enter HECTOR
HECTOR. Yea, Troilus? O, well fought, my youngest brother!
Enter ACHILLES
ACHILLES. Now do I see thee, ha! Have at thee, Hector! HECTOR. Pause, if thou wilt.
ACHILLES. I do disdain thy courtesy, proud Troyan. Be happy that my arms are out of use;
My rest and negligence befriends thee now, But thou anon shalt hear of me again;
Till when, go seek thy fortune. Exit HECTOR. Fare thee well.
I would have been much more a fresher man, Had I expected thee.
Re-enter TROILUS
How now, my brother!
TROILUS. Ajax hath ta’en Aeneas. Shall it be? No, by the flame of yonder glorious heaven, He shall not carry him; I’ll be ta’en too, Or bring him off. Fate, hear me what I say: I reck not though thou end my life to-day. Exit
Enter one in armour
HECTOR. Stand, stand, thou Greek; thou art a goodly mark. No? wilt thou not? I like thy armour well; I’ll frush it and unlock the rivets all But I’ll be master of it. Wilt thou not, beast, abide? Why then, fly on; I’ll hunt thee for thy hide. Exeunt
ACT V. SCENE 7.
Another part of the plain
Enter ACHILLES, with Myrmidons
ACHILLES. Come here about me, you my Myrmidons; Mark what I say. Attend me where I wheel; Strike not a stroke, but keep yourselves in breath; And when I have the bloody Hector found, Empale him with your weapons round about; In fellest manner execute your arms.
Follow me, sirs, and my proceedings eye. It is decreed Hector the great must die. Exeunt
Enter MENELAUS and PARIS, fighting; then THERSITES
THERSITES. The cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it. Now, bull! now, dog! ‘Loo, Paris, ‘loo! now my double-horn’d Spartan! ‘loo, Paris, ‘loo! The bull has the game. Ware horns, ho! Exeunt PARIS and MENELAUS
Enter MARGARELON
MARGARELON. Turn, slave, and fight.
THERSITES. What art thou?
MARGARELON. A bastard son of Priam’s. THERSITES. I am a bastard too; I love bastards. I am a bastard begot, bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valour, in everything illegitimate. One bear will not bite another, and wherefore should one bastard? Take heed, the quarrel’s most ominous to us: if the son of a whore fight for a whore, he tempts judgment. Farewell, bastard.
Exit
MARGARELON. The devil take thee, coward! Exit
ACT V. SCENE 8.
Another part of the plain
Enter HECTOR
HECTOR. Most putrified core so fair without, Thy goodly armour thus hath cost thy life. Now is my day’s work done; I’ll take good breath: Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death! [Disarms]
Enter ACHILLES and his Myrmidons
ACHILLES. Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set; How ugly night comes breathing at his heels; Even with the vail and dark’ning of the sun, To close the day up, Hector’s life is done. HECTOR. I am unarm’d; forego this vantage, Greek. ACHILLES. Strike, fellows, strike; this is the man I seek. [HECTOR falls] So, Ilion, fall thou next! Come, Troy, sink down; Here lies thy heart, thy sinews, and thy bone. On, Myrmidons, and cry you an amain
‘Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain.’ [A retreat sounded] Hark! a retire upon our Grecian part.
MYRMIDON. The Troyan trumpets sound the like, my lord. ACHILLES. The dragon wing of night o’erspreads the earth And, stickler-like, the armies separates. My half-supp’d sword, that frankly would have fed, Pleas’d with this dainty bait, thus goes to bed. [Sheathes his sword] Come, tie his body to my horse’s tail; Along the field I will the Troyan trail. Exeunt
ACT V. SCENE 9.
Another part of the plain
Sound retreat. Shout. Enter AGAMEMNON, AJAX, MENELAUS, NESTOR, DIOMEDES, and the rest, marching
AGAMEMNON. Hark! hark! what shout is this? NESTOR. Peace, drums!
SOLDIERS. [Within] Achilles! Achilles! Hector’s slain. Achilles! DIOMEDES. The bruit is Hector’s slain, and by Achilles. AJAX. If it be so, yet bragless let it be; Great Hector was as good a man as he.
AGAMEMNON. March patiently along. Let one be sent To pray Achilles see us at our tent.
If in his death the gods have us befriended; Great Troy is ours, and our sharp wars are ended. Exeunt
ACT V. SCENE 10.
Another part of the plain
Enter AENEAS, PARIS, ANTENOR, and DEIPHOBUS
AENEAS. Stand, ho! yet are we masters of the field. Never go home; here starve we out the night.
Enter TROILUS
TROILUS. Hector is slain.
ALL. Hector! The gods forbid!
TROILUS. He’s dead, and at the murderer’s horse’s tail, In beastly sort, dragg’d through the shameful field. Frown on, you heavens, effect your rage with speed. Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smile at Troy. I say at once let your brief plagues be mercy, And linger not our sure destructions on. AENEAS. My lord, you do discomfort all the host. TROILUS. You understand me not that tell me so. I do not speak of flight, of fear of death, But dare all imminence that gods and men Address their dangers in. Hector is gone. Who shall tell Priam so, or Hecuba?
Let him that will a screech-owl aye be call’d Go in to Troy, and say there ‘Hector’s dead.’ There is a word will Priam turn to stone; Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives, Cold statues of the youth; and, in a word, Scare Troy out of itself. But, march away; Hector is dead; there is no more to say. Stay yet. You vile abominable tents,
Thus proudly pight upon our Phrygian plains, Let Titan rise as early as he dare,
I’ll through and through you. And, thou great-siz’d coward, No space of earth shall sunder our two hates; I’ll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still, That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy’s thoughts. Strike a free march to Troy. With comfort go; Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe.
Enter PANDARUS
PANDARUS. But hear you, hear you!
TROILUS. Hence, broker-lackey. Ignominy and shame Pursue thy life and live aye with thy name! Exeunt all but PANDARUS PANDARUS. A goodly medicine for my aching bones! world! world! thus is the poor agent despis’d! traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a work, and how ill requited! Why should our endeavour be so lov’d, and the performance so loathed? What verse for it? What instance for it? Let me see-
Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing Till he hath lost his honey and his sting; And being once subdu’d in armed trail, Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.
Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted cloths. As many as be here of pander’s hall, Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar’s fall; Or, if you cannot weep, yet give some groans, Though not for me, yet for your aching bones. Brethren and sisters of the hold-door trade, Some two months hence my will shall here be made. It should be now, but that my fear is this, Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss. Till then I’ll sweat and seek about for eases, And at that time bequeath you my diseases. Exit
THE END
<
1602
TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL
by William Shakespeare
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
ORSINO, Duke of Illyria
SEBASTIAN, brother of Viola
ANTONIO, a sea captain, friend of Sebastian A SEA CAPTAIN, friend of Viola
VALENTINE, gentleman attending on the Duke CURIO, gentleman attending on the Duke
SIR TOBY BELCH, uncle of Olivia
SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK
MALVOLIO, steward to Olivia
FABIAN, servant to Olivia
FESTE, a clown, servant to Olivia
OLIVIA, a rich countess
VIOLA, sister of Sebastian
MARIA, Olivia’s waiting woman
Lords, Priests, Sailors, Officers, Musicians, and Attendants
<
SCENE:
A city in Illyria; and the sea-coast near it
ACT I. SCENE I.
The DUKE’S palace
Enter ORSINO, Duke of Illyria, CURIO, and other LORDS; MUSICIANS attending
DUKE. If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken and so die.
That strain again! It had a dying fall; O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough, no more; ‘Tis not so sweet now as it was before. O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou! That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there, Of what validity and pitch soe’er,
But falls into abatement and low price Even in a minute. So full of shapes is fancy, That it alone is high fantastical.
CURIO. Will you go hunt, my lord? DUKE. What, Curio?
CURIO. The hart.
DUKE. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have. O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, Methought she purg’d the air of pestilence! That instant was I turn’d into a hart, And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, E’er since pursue me.
Enter VALENTINE
How now! what news from her?
VALENTINE. So please my lord, I might not be admitted, But from her handmaid do return this answer: The element itself, till seven years’ heat, Shall not behold her face at ample view; But like a cloistress she will veiled walk, And water once a day her chamber round With eye-offending brine; all this to season A brother’s dead love, which she would keep fresh And lasting in her sad remembrance.
DUKE. O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame To pay this debt of love but to a brother, How will she love when the rich golden shaft Hath kill’d the flock of all affections else That live in her; when liver, brain, and heart, These sovereign thrones, are all supplied and fill’d, Her sweet perfections, with one self king! Away before me to sweet beds of flow’rs: Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bow’rs. Exeunt
SCENE II.
The sea-coast
Enter VIOLA, a CAPTAIN, and SAILORS
VIOLA. What country, friends, is this? CAPTAIN. This is Illyria, lady.
VIOLA. And what should I do in Illyria? My brother he is in Elysium.
Perchance he is not drown’d- what think you, sailors? CAPTAIN. It is perchance that you yourself were saved. VIOLA. O my poor brother! and so perchance may he be. CAPTAIN. True, madam, and, to comfort you with chance, Assure yourself, after our ship did split, When you, and those poor number saved with you, Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother, Most provident in peril, bind himself- Courage and hope both teaching him the practice- To a strong mast that liv’d upon the sea; Where, like Arion on the dolphin’s back, I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves So long as I could see.
VIOLA. For saying so, there’s gold. Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope,
Whereto thy speech serves for authority, The like of him. Know’st thou this country? CAPTAIN. Ay, madam, well; for I was bred and born Not three hours’ travel from this very place. VIOLA. Who governs here?
CAPTAIN. A noble duke, in nature as in name. VIOLA. What is his name?
CAPTAIN. Orsino.
VIOLA. Orsino! I have heard my father name him. He was a bachelor then.
CAPTAIN. And so is now, or was so very late; For but a month ago I went from hence, And then ’twas fresh in murmur- as, you know, What great ones do the less will prattle of- That he did seek the love of fair Olivia. VIOLA. What’s she?
CAPTAIN. A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count That died some twelvemonth since, then leaving her In the protection of his son, her brother, Who shortly also died; for whose dear love, They say, she hath abjur’d the company And sight of men.
VIOLA. O that I serv’d that lady,
And might not be delivered to the world, Till I had made mine own occasion mellow, What my estate is!
CAPTAIN. That were hard to compass, Because she will admit no kind of suit- No, not the Duke’s.
VIOLA. There is a fair behaviour in thee, Captain; And though that nature with a beauteous wall Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee I will believe thou hast a mind that suits With this thy fair and outward character. I prithee, and I’ll pay thee bounteously, Conceal me what I am, and be my aid
For such disguise as haply shall become The form of my intent. I’ll serve this duke: Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him; It may be worth thy pains, for I can sing And speak to him in many sorts of music, That will allow me very worth his service. What else may hap to time I will commit; Only shape thou silence to my wit.
CAPTAIN. Be you his eunuch and your mute I’ll be; When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see. VIOLA. I thank thee. Lead me on. Exeunt
SCENE III.
OLIVIA’S house
Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and MARIA
SIR TOBY. What a plague means my niece to take the death of her brother thus? I am sure care’s an enemy to life. MARIA. By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o’ nights; your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours. SIR TOBY. Why, let her except before excepted. MARIA. Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits of order.
SIR TOBY. Confine! I’ll confine myself no finer than I am. These clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too; an they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps. MARIA. That quaffing and drinking will undo you; I heard my lady talk of it yesterday, and of a foolish knight that you brought in one night here to be her wooer.
SIR TOBY. Who? Sir Andrew Aguecheek? MARIA. Ay, he.
SIR TOBY. He’s as tall a man as any’s in Illyria. MARIA. What’s that to th’ purpose?
SIR TOBY. Why, he has three thousand ducats a year. MARIA. Ay, but he’ll have but a year in all these ducats; he’s a very fool and a prodigal.
SIR TOBY. Fie that you’ll say so! He plays o’ th’ viol-de-gamboys, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature. MARIA. He hath indeed, almost natural; for, besides that he’s a fool, he’s a great quarreller; and but that he hath the gift of a coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrelling, ’tis thought among the prudent he would quickly have the gift of a grave. SIR TOBY. By this hand, they are scoundrels and subtractors that say so of him. Who are they?
MARIA. They that add, moreover, he’s drunk nightly in your company. SIR TOBY. With drinking healths to my niece; I’ll drink to her as long as there is a passage in my throat and drink in Illyria. He’s a coward and a coystrill that will not drink to my niece till his brains turn o’ th’ toe like a parish-top. What, wench! Castiliano vulgo! for here comes Sir Andrew Agueface.
Enter SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK
AGUECHEEK. Sir Toby Belch! How now, Sir Toby Belch! SIR TOBY. Sweet Sir Andrew!
AGUECHEEK. Bless you, fair shrew.
MARIA. And you too, sir.
SIR TOBY. Accost, Sir Andrew, accost. AGUECHEEK. What’s that?
SIR TOBY. My niece’s chambermaid.
AGUECHEEK. Good Mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance. MARIA. My name is Mary, sir.
AGUECHEEK. Good Mistress Mary Accost- SIR Toby. You mistake, knight. ‘Accost’ is front her, board her, woo her, assail her.
AGUECHEEK. By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company. Is that the meaning of ‘accost’?
MARIA. Fare you well, gentlemen.
SIR TOBY. An thou let part so, Sir Andrew, would thou mightst never draw sword again!
AGUECHEEK. An you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw sword again. Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand? MARIA. Sir, I have not you by th’ hand. AGUECHEEK. Marry, but you shall have; and here’s my hand. MARIA. Now, sir, thought is free. I pray you, bring your hand to th’ buttry-bar and let it drink.
AGUECHEEK. Wherefore, sweetheart? What’s your metaphor? MARIA. It’s dry, sir.
AGUECHEEK. Why, I think so; I am not such an ass but I can keep my hand dry. But what’s your jest?
MARIA. A dry jest, sir.
AGUECHEEK. Are you full of them?
MARIA. Ay, sir, I have them at my fingers’ ends; marry, now I let go your hand, I am barren. Exit MARIA SIR TOBY. O knight, thou lack’st a cup of canary! When did I see thee so put down?
AGUECHEEK. Never in your life, I think; unless you see canary put me down. Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man has; but I am great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.
SIR TOBY. No question.
AGUECHEEK. An I thought that, I’d forswear it. I’ll ride home to-morrow, Sir Toby.
SIR TOBY. Pourquoi, my dear knight? AGUECHEEK. What is ‘pourquoi’- do or not do? I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing, and bear-baiting. Oh, had I but followed the arts! SIR TOBY. Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair. AGUECHEEK. Why, would that have mended my hair? SIR TOBY. Past question; for thou seest it will not curl by nature. AGUECHEEK. But it becomes me well enough, does’t not? SIR TOBY. Excellent; it hangs like flax on a distaff, and I hope to see a huswife take thee between her legs and spin it off. AGUECHEEK. Faith, I’ll home to-morrow, Sir Toby. Your niece will not be seen, or if she be, it’s four to one she’ll none of me; the Count himself here hard by woos her. SIR TOBY. She’ll none o’ th’ Count; she’ll not match above her degree, neither in estate, years, nor wit; I have heard her swear’t. Tut, there’s life in’t, man.
AGUECHEEK. I’ll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o’ th’ strangest mind i’ th’ world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether.
SIR TOBY. Art thou good at these kickshawses, knight? AGUECHEEK. As any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be, under the degree of my betters; and yet I will not compare with an old man. SIR TOBY. What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight? AGUECHEEK. Faith, I can cut a caper.
SIR TOBY. And I can cut the mutton to’t. AGUECHEEK. And I think I have the back-trick simply as strong as any man in Illyria.
SIR TOBY. Wherefore are these things hid? Wherefore have these gifts a curtain before ’em? Are they like to take dust, like Mistress Mall’s picture? Why dost thou not go to church in a galliard and come home in a coranto? My very walk should be a jig; I would not so much as make water but in a sink-a-pace. What dost thou mean? Is it a world to hide virtues in? I did think, by the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was form’d under the star of a galliard.
AGUECHEEK. Ay, ’tis strong, and it does indifferent well in flame-colour’d stock. Shall we set about some revels? SIR TOBY. What shall we do else? Were we not born under Taurus? AGUECHEEK. Taurus? That’s sides and heart. SIR TOBY. No, sir; it is legs and thighs. Let me see the caper. Ha, higher! Ha, ha, excellent! Exeunt
SCENE IV.
The DUKE’S palace
Enter VALENTINE, and VIOLA in man’s attire
VALENTINE. If the Duke continue these favours towards you, Cesario, you are like to be much advanc’d; he hath known you but three days, and already you are no stranger. VIOLA. You either fear his humour or my negligence, that you call in question the continuance of his love. Is he inconstant, sir, in his favours?
VALENTINE. No, believe me.
Enter DUKE, CURIO, and ATTENDANTS
VIOLA. I thank you. Here comes the Count. DUKE. Who saw Cesario, ho?
VIOLA. On your attendance, my lord, here. DUKE. Stand you awhile aloof. Cesario,
Thou know’st no less but all; I have unclasp’d To thee the book even of my secret soul. Therefore, good youth, address thy gait unto her; Be not denied access, stand at her doors, And tell them there thy fixed foot shall grow Till thou have audience.
VIOLA. Sure, my noble lord,
If she be so abandon’d to her sorrow As it is spoke, she never will admit me. DUKE. Be clamorous and leap all civil bounds, Rather than make unprofited return.
VIOLA. Say I do speak with her, my lord, what then? DUKE. O, then unfold the passion of my love, Surprise her with discourse of my dear faith! It shall become thee well to act my woes: She will attend it better in thy youth Than in a nuncio’s of more grave aspect. VIOLA. I think not so, my lord.
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.
SCENE V.
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 hang’d 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 hang’d for being so long absent; or to be turn’d 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 resolv’d 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, 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.’ 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 patch’d; virtue that transgresses is but patch’d with sin, and sin that amends is but patch’d 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 as 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, 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 gagg’d. 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 distemper’d 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 allow’d 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 speak’st 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
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. [Hiccups] A plague o’ these pickle-herring! 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 drown’d 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 crowner, and let him sit o’ my coz; for he’s in the third degree of drink, he’s drown’d; go look after him.
CLOWN. He is but mad yet, madonna, and the fool shall look to the madman. Exit
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 to 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-favour’d, 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 penn’d, 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 allow’d 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 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 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 cars, divinity; to any other’s, profanation. OLIVIA. Give us the place alone; we will hear this divinity. [Exeunt MARIA and ATTENDANTS] 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 cruell’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 labell’d 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; Halloo your name to the reverberate hals, 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!
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
<
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 call’d 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 pleas’d, would we had so ended! But you, sir, alter’d that; for some hour before you took me from the breach of the sea was my sister drown’d.
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 mind that envy could not but call fair. She is drown’d 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 recover’d-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 cnemies 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 and MALVOLIO at several doors
MALVOLIO. Were you not ev’n now with the Countess Olivia? VIOLA. Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since arriv’d 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 return’d. 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.
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- AGUECHEEK. 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 unfill’d 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?
AGUECHEEK. 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
AGUECHEEK. 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. AGUECHEEK. 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.
AGUECHEEK. 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. AGUECHEEK. 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.
AGUECHEEK. 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.
AGUECHEEK. Excellent good, i’ faith! SIR TOBY. Good, good!
CLOWN sings
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.
AGUECHEEK. A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight. SIR TOBY. A contagious breath.
AGUECHEEK. 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?
AGUECHEEK. An you love me, let’s do’t. I am dog at a catch. CLOWN. By’r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well. AGUECHEEK. 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.
AGUECHEEK. ‘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. AGUECHEEK. Good, i’ faith! Come, begin. [Catch sung]
Enter MARIA
MARIA. What a caterwauling do you keep here! If my lady have not call’d 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. [Sings]
There dwelt a man in Babylon, Lady, lady.
CLOWN. Beshrew me, the knight’s in admirable fooling. AGUECHEEK. Ay, he does well enough if he be dispos’d, 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 kins-man, 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. [Falls down] 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 an 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. [Rising] 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’ th’ mouth too.
SIR TOBY. Th’ art i’ th’ right. Go, sir, rub your chain with crumbs. A stoup of wine, Maria!
MALVOLIO. Mistress Mary, if you priz’d my lady’s favour at anything more than contempt, you would not give means for this uncivil rule; she shall know of it, by this hand. Exit
MARIA. Go shake your ears.
AGUECHEEK. ‘Twere as good a deed as to drink when a man’s ahungry, to challenge him the field, and then to break promise with him and make a fool of him.
SIR TOBY. Do’t, knight. I’ll write thee a challenge; or I’ll deliver thy indignation to him by word of mouth. MARIA. Sweet Sir Toby, be patient for to-night; since the youth of the Count’s was to-day with my lady, she is much out of quiet. For Monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him; if I do not gull him into a nayword, and make him a common recreation, do not think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed. I know I can do it.
SIR TOBY. Possess us, possess us; tell us something of him. MARIA. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan. AGUECHEEK. O, if I thought that, I’d beat him like a dog. SIR TOBY. What, for being a Puritan? Thy exquisite reason, dear knight?
AGUECHEEK. I have no exquisite reason for’t, but I have reason good enough.
MARIA. The devil a Puritan that he is, or anything constantly but a time-pleaser; an affection’d ass that cons state without book and utters it by great swarths; the best persuaded of himself, so cramm’d, as he thinks, with excellencies that it is his grounds of faith that all that look on him love him; and on that vice in him will my revenge find notable cause to work. SIR TOBY. What wilt thou do?
MARIA. I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of love; wherein, by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and complexion, he shall find himself most feelingly personated. I can write very like my lady, your niece; on forgotten matter we can hardly make distinction of our hands. SIR TOBY. Excellent! I smell a device.
AGUECHEEK. I have’t in my nose too. SIR TOBY. He shall think, by the letters that thou wilt drop, that they come from my niece, and that she’s in love with him. MARIA. My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour. AGUECHEEK. And your horse now would make him an ass. MARIA. Ass, I doubt not.
AGUECHEEK. O, ’twill be admirable! MARIA. Sport royal, I warrant you. I know my physic will work with him. I will plant you two, and let the fool make a third, where he shall find the letter; observe his construction of it. For this night, to bed, and dream on the event. Farewell. Exit
SIR TOBY. Good night, Penthesilea. AGUECHEEK. Before me, she’s a good wench. SIR TOBY. She’s a beagle true-bred, and one that adores me. What o’ that?
AGUECHEEK. I was ador’d once too. SIR TOBY. Let’s to bed, knight. Thou hadst need send for more money.
AGUECHEEK. If I cannot recover your niece, I am a foul way out. SIR TOBY. Send for money, knight; if thou hast her not i’ th’ end, call me Cut.
AGUECHEEK. If I do not, never trust me; take it how you will. SIR TOBY. Come, come, I’ll go burn some sack; ’tis too late to go to bed now. Come, knight; come, knight. Exeunt
SCENE IV.
The DUKE’S palace
Enter DUKE, VIOLA, CURIO, and OTHERS
DUKE. Give me some music. Now, good morrow, friends. Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song, That old and antique song we heard last night; Methought it did relieve my passion much, More than light airs and recollected terms Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times. Come, but one verse.
CURIO. He is not here, so please your lordship, that should sing it.
DUKE. Who was it?
CURIO. Feste, the jester, my lord; a fool that the Lady Olivia’s father took much delight in. He is about the house. DUKE. Seek him out, and play the tune the while. Exit CURIO. [Music plays] Come hither, boy. If ever thou shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it remember me;
For such as I am all true lovers are, Unstaid and skittish in all motions else Save in the constant image of the creature That is belov’d. How dost thou like this tune? VIOLA. It gives a very echo to the seat Where Love is thron’d.
DUKE. Thou dost speak masterly.
My life upon’t, young though thou art, thine eye Hath stay’d upon some favour that it loves; Hath it not, boy?
VIOLA. A little, by your favour.
DUKE. What kind of woman is’t?
VIOLA. Of your complexion.
DUKE. She is not worth thee, then. What years, i’ faith? VIOLA. About your years, my lord.
DUKE. Too old, by heaven! Let still the woman take An elder than herself; so wears she to him, So sways she level in her husband’s heart. For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won, Than women’s are.
VIOLA. I think it well, my lord.
DUKE. Then let thy love be younger than thyself, Or thy affection cannot hold the bent; For women are as roses, whose fair flow’r Being once display’d doth fall that very hour. VIOLA. And so they are; alas, that they are so! To die, even when they to perfection grow!
Re-enter CURIO and CLOWN
DUKE. O, fellow, come, the song we had last night. Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain; The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids that weave their thread with bones, Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth, And dallies with the innocence of love, Like the old age.
CLOWN. Are you ready, sir?
DUKE. Ay; prithee, sing. [Music]
FESTE’S SONG
Come away, come away, death;
And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath,
I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O, prepare it!
My part of death no one so true Did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet, On my black coffin let there be strown; Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse where my bones shall be thrown; A thousand thousand to save,
Lay me, O, where
Sad true lover never find my grave, To weep there!
DUKE. There’s for thy pains.
CLOWN. No pains, sir; I take pleasure in singing, sir. DUKE. I’ll pay thy pleasure, then.
CLOWN. Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid one time or another. DUKE. Give me now leave to leave thee.
CLOWN. Now the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal. I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business might be everything, and their intent everywhere: for that’s it that always makes a good voyage of nothing. Farewell. Exit CLOWN
DUKE. Let all the rest give place. Exeunt CURIO and ATTENDANTS Once more, Cesario,
Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty. Tell her my love, more noble than the world, Prizes not quantity of dirty lands;
The parts that fortune hath bestow’d upon her, Tell her I hold as giddily as Fortune; But ’tis that miracle and queen of gems That Nature pranks her in attracts my soul. VIOLA. But if she cannot love you, sir? DUKE. I cannot be so answer’d.
VIOLA. Sooth, but you must.
Say that some lady, as perhaps there is, Hath for your love as great a pang of heart As you have for Olivia. You cannot love her; You tell her so. Must she not then be answer’d? DUKE. There is no woman’s sides
Can bide the beating of so strong a passion As love doth give my heart; no woman’s heart So big to hold so much; they lack retention. Alas, their love may be call’d appetite- No motion of the liver, but the palate- That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt; But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
And can digest as much. Make no compare Between that love a woman can bear me
And that I owe Olivia.
VIOLA. Ay, but I know-
DUKE. What dost thou know?
VIOLA. Too well what love women to men may owe. In faith, they are as true of heart as we. My father had a daughter lov’d a man,
As it might be perhaps, were I a woman, I should your lordship.
DUKE. And what’s her history?
VIOLA. A blank, my lord. She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i’ th’ bud, Feed on her damask cheek. She pin’d in thought; And with a green and yellow melancholy She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed? We men may say more, swear more, but indeed Our shows are more than will; for still we prove Much in our vows, but little in our love. DUKE. But died thy sister of her love, my boy? VIOLA. I am all the daughters of my father’s house, And all the brothers too- and yet I know not. Sir, shall I to this lady?
DUKE. Ay, that’s the theme.
To her in haste. Give her this jewel; say My love can give no place, bide no denay. Exeunt
SCENE V.
OLIVIA’S garden
Enter SIR TOBY, SIR ANDREW, 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 boil’d 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? AGUECHEEK. And we do not, it is pity of our lives.
Enter MARIA
SIR TOBY. Here comes the little villain. How now, my metal 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! [As the men hide she drops a letter] Lie thou there; for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling.
Exit
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 advanc’d plumes! AGUECHEEK. ‘Slight, I could so beat the rogue- SIR TOBY. Peace, I say.
MALVOLIO. To be Count Malvolio!
SIR TOBY. Ah, rogue!
AGUECHEEK. 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.
AGUECHEEK. 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 branch’d 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