Twelfth Night

Act 1, Scene V

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

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.'

Enter OLIVIA with MALVOLIO

God bless thee, lady!

OLIVIA

Take the fool away.

Clown

Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady.

OLIVIA

Go to, you're a dry fool; I'll no more of you:

besides, you grow dishonest.

Clown

Two faults, madonna, that drink and good counsel

will amend: for give the dry fool drink, then is

the fool not dry: bid the dishonest man mend

himself; if he mend, he is no longer dishonest; if

he cannot, let the botcher mend him. Any thing

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 as I wear not

motley in my brain. Good madonna, give me leave to

prove you a fool.

OLIVIA

Can you do it?

Clown

Dexterously, good madonna.

OLIVIA

Make your proof.

Clown

I must catechise 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 mournest 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 two pence 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

Oh, 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

speakest well of fools!

Re-enter MARIA

MARIA

Madam, there is at the gate a young gentleman much

desires to speak with you.

OLIVIA

From the Count Orsino, is it?

MARIA

I know not, madam: 'tis a fair young man, and well attended.

OLIVIA

Who of my people hold him in delay?

MARIA

Sir Toby, madam, your kinsman.

OLIVIA

Fetch him off, I pray you; he speaks nothing but

madman: fie on him!

Exit MARIA

Go you, Malvolio: if it be a suit from the count, I

am sick, or not at home; what you will, to dismiss it.

Exit MALVOLIO

Now you see, sir, how your fooling grows old, and

people dislike it.

Clown

Thou hast spoke for us, madonna, as if thy eldest

son should be a fool; whose skull Jove cram with

brains! for,--here he comes,--one of thy kin has a

most weak pia mater.

Enter SIR TOBY BELCH

OLIVIA

By mine honour, half drunk. What is he at the gate, cousin?

SIR TOBY BELCH

A gentleman.

OLIVIA

A gentleman! what gentleman?

SIR TOBY BELCH

'Tis a gentle man here--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 BELCH

Lechery! I defy lechery. There's one at the gate.

OLIVIA

Ay, marry, what is he?

SIR TOBY BELCH

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 mad man: 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

drowned: 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

cooling 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

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, and Attendants

VIOLA

The honourable lady of the house, which is she?

OLIVIA

Speak to me; I shall answer for her.

Your will?

VIOLA

Most radiant, exquisite and unmatchable beauty,--I

pray you, tell me if this be the lady of the house,

for I never saw her: I would be loath to cast away

my speech, for besides that it is excellently well

penned, I have taken great pains to con it. Good

beauties, let me sustain no scorn; I am very

comptible, even to the least sinister usage.

OLIVIA

Whence came you, sir?

VIOLA

I can say little more than I have studied, and that

question's out of my part. Good gentle one, give me

modest assurance if you be the lady of the house,

that I may proceed in my speech.

OLIVIA

Are you a comedian?

VIOLA

No, my profound heart: and yet, by the very fangs

of malice I swear, I am not that I play. Are you

the lady of the house?

OLIVIA

If I do not usurp myself, I am.

VIOLA

Most certain, if you are she, you do usurp

yourself; for what is yours to bestow is not yours

to reserve. But this is from my commission: I will

on with my speech in your praise, and then show you

the heart of my message.

OLIVIA

Come to what is important in't: I forgive you the praise.

VIOLA

Alas, I took great pains to study it, and 'tis poetical.

OLIVIA

It is the more like to be feigned: I pray you,

keep it in. I heard you were saucy at my gates,

and allowed your approach rather to wonder at you

than to hear you. If you be not mad, be gone; if

you have reason, be brief: 'tis not that time of

moon with me to make one in so skipping a dialogue.

MARIA

Will you hoist sail, sir? here lies your way.

VIOLA

No, good swabber; I am to hull here a little

longer. Some mollification for your giant, sweet

lady. 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 fun 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.

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.

Look you, sir, such a one I was this present: is't

not well done?

Unveiling

VIOLA

Excellently done, if God did all.

OLIVIA

'Tis in grain, sir; 'twill endure wind and weather.

VIOLA

'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white

Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on:

Lady, you are the 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

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 recompensed, though you were crown'd

The nonpareil of beauty!

OLIVIA

How does he love me?

VIOLA

With adorations, fertile tears,

With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.

OLIVIA

Your lord does know my mind; I cannot love him:

Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble,

Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth;

In voices well divulged, free, learn'd and valiant;

And in dimension and the shape of nature

A gracious person: but yet I cannot love him;

He might have took his answer long ago.

VIOLA

If I did love you in my master's flame,

With such a suffering, such a deadly life,

In your denial I would find no sense;

I would not understand it.

OLIVIA

Why, what would you?

VIOLA

Make me a willow cabin at your gate,

And call upon my soul within the house;

Write loyal cantons of contemned love

And sing them loud even in the dead of night;

Halloo 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 fervor, like my master's, be

Placed in contempt! Farewell, fair cruelty.

Exit

OLIVIA

'What is your parentage?'

'Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:

I am a gentleman.' I'll be sworn thou art;

Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit,

Do give thee five-fold blazon: not too fast:

soft, soft!

Unless the master were the man. How now!

Even so quickly may one catch the plague?

Methinks I feel this youth's perfections

With an invisible and subtle stealth

To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.

What ho, Malvolio!

Re-enter MALVOLIO

MALVOLIO

Here, madam, at your service.

OLIVIA

Run after that same peevish messenger,

The county's man: he left this ring behind him,

Would I or not: tell him I'll none of it.

Desire him not to flatter with his lord,

Nor hold him up with hopes; I am not for him:

If that the youth will come this way to-morrow,

I'll give him reasons for't: hie thee, Malvolio.

MALVOLIO

Madam, I will.

Exit

OLIVIA

I do I know not what, and fear to find

Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.

Fate, show thy force: ourselves we do not owe;

What is decreed must be, and be this so.

Exit