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.

Let her hang me: he that is well hanged in this world needs to fear no

colours.

Make that good.

He shall see none to fear.

A good lenten answer. I can tell thee where that saying was born, of I

fear no colours.

Where, good Mistress Mary?

In the wars, and that may you be bold to say in your foolery.

Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let

them use their talents.

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?

Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage; and for turning away, let

summer bear it out.

You are resolute then?

Not so, neither, but I am resolved on two points.

That if one break, the other will hold; or if both break, your gaskins

fall.

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.

Peace, you rogue, no more o’ that. Here comes my lady: make your excuse

wisely, you were best.

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!

Take the fool away.

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

Go to, y’are a dry fool; I’ll no more of you. Besides, you grow

dishonest.

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.

Sir, I bade them take away you.

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.

Can you do it?

Dexteriously, good madonna.

Make your proof.

I must catechize you for it, madonna. Good my mouse of virtue, answer

me.

Well sir, for want of other idleness, I’ll ’bide your proof.

Good madonna, why mourn’st thou?

Good fool, for my brother’s death.

I think his soul is in hell, madonna.

I know his soul is in heaven, fool.

The more fool you, madonna, to mourn for your brother’s soul being in

heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen.

What think you of this fool, Malvolio? doth he not mend?

Yes; and shall do, till the pangs of death shake him. Infirmity, that

decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool.

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.

How say you to that, 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.

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.

Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou speak’st well of fools!

Madam, there is at the gate a young gentleman much desires to speak

with you.

From the Count Orsino, is it?

I know not, madam; ’tis a fair young man, and well attended.

Who of my people hold him in delay?

Sir Toby, madam, your kinsman.

Fetch him off, I pray you; he speaks nothing but madman. Fie on him!

Go you, Malvolio. If it be a suit from the Count, I am sick, or not at

home. What you will, to dismiss it.

Now you see, sir, how your fooling grows old, and people dislike it.

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_.

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

A gentleman.

A gentleman? What gentleman?

’Tis a gentleman here. A plague o’ these pickle-herrings! How now, sot?

Good Sir Toby.

Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this lethargy?

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

Ay, marry, what is he?

Let him be the devil an he will, I care not: give me faith, say I.

Well, it’s all one.

What’s a drunken man like, fool?

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.

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.

He is but mad yet, madonna; and the fool shall look to the madman.

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.

Tell him, he shall not speak with me.

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.

What kind o’ man is he?

Why, of mankind.

What manner of man?

Of very ill manner; he’ll speak with you, will you or no.

Of what personage and years is he?

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.

Let him approach. Call in my gentlewoman.

Gentlewoman, my lady calls.

Give me my veil; come, throw it o’er my face.

We’ll once more hear Orsino’s embassy.

The honourable lady of the house, which is she?

Speak to me; I shall answer for her. Your will?

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.

Whence came you, sir?

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.

Are you a comedian?

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?

If I do not usurp myself, I am.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Sure, you have some hideous matter to deliver, when the courtesy of it

is so fearful. Speak your office.

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.

Yet you began rudely. What are you? What would you?

The rudeness that hath appeared in me have I learned from my

to your ears, divinity; to any other’s, profanation.

Give us the place alone: we will hear this divinity.

Now, sir, what is your text?

Most sweet lady—

A comfortable doctrine, and much may be said of it. Where lies your

text?

In Orsino’s bosom.

In his bosom? In what chapter of his bosom?

To answer by the method, in the first of his heart.

O, I have read it; it is heresy. Have you no more to say?

Good madam, let me see your face.

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?

Excellently done, if God did all.

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

’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.

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?

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!

How does he love me?

With adorations, fertile tears,

With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.

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.

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.

Why, what would you?

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.

You might do much.

What is your parentage?

Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:

I am a gentleman.

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.

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.

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!

Here, madam, at your service.

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.

Madam, I will.

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!

Come thy ways, Signior Fabian.

Nay, I’ll come. If I lose a scruple of this sport, let me be boiled to

death with melancholy.

Wouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly rascally sheep-biter

come by some notable shame?

I would exult, man. You know he brought me out o’ favour with my lady

about a bear-baiting here.

To anger him we’ll have the bear again, and we will fool him black and

blue, shall we not, Sir Andrew?

And we do not, it is pity of our lives.

Here comes the little villain. How now, my metal of India?

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! [_The men hide themselves._] Lie thou there; [_Throws down a

letter_] for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling.

’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 anyone else that follows her. What should I think

on’t?

Here’s an overweening rogue!

O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him; how he jets

under his advanced plumes!

’Slight, I could so beat the rogue!

Peace, I say.

To be Count Malvolio.

Ah, rogue!

Pistol him, pistol him.

Peace, peace.

There is example for’t. The lady of the Strachy married the yeoman of

the wardrobe.

Fie on him, Jezebel!

O, peace! now he’s deeply in; look how imagination blows him.

Having been three months married to her, sitting in my state—

O for a stone-bow to hit him in the eye!

Calling my officers about me, in my branched velvet gown; having come

from a day-bed, where I have left Olivia sleeping.

Fire and brimstone!

O, peace, peace.

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 should do theirs,

to ask for my kinsman Toby.

Bolts and shackles!

O, peace, peace, peace! Now, now.

Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make out for him. I frown

the while, and perchance wind up my watch, or play with some rich

jewel. Toby approaches; curtsies there to me—

Shall this fellow live?

Though our silence be drawn from us with cars, yet peace!

I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar smile with an

austere regard of control—

And does not Toby take you a blow o’ the lips then?

Saying ‘Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me on your niece, give me

this prerogative of speech—’

What, what?

‘You must amend your drunkenness.’

Out, scab!

Nay, patience, or we break the sinews of our plot.

‘Besides, you waste the treasure of your time with a foolish knight—’

That’s me, I warrant you.

‘One Sir Andrew.’

I knew ’twas I, for many do call me fool.

[_Taking up the letter._] What employment have we here?

Now is the woodcock near the gin.

O, peace! And the spirit of humours intimate reading aloud to him!

By my life, this is my lady’s hand: these be her very C’s, her U’s, and

her T’s, and thus makes she her great P’s. It is in contempt of

question, her hand.

Her C’s, her U’s, and her T’s. Why that?

[_Reads._] _To the unknown beloved, this, and my good wishes._ Her very

phrases! By your leave, wax. Soft! and the impressure her Lucrece, with

which she uses to seal: ’tis my lady. To whom should this be?

This wins him, liver and all.

_ Jove knows I love,

But who?

Lips, do not move,

No man must know._

‘No man must know.’ What follows? The numbers alter’d! ‘No man must

know.’—If this should be thee, Malvolio?

Marry, hang thee, brock!

_ I may command where I adore,

But silence, like a Lucrece knife,

With bloodless stroke my heart doth gore;

M.O.A.I. doth sway my life._

A fustian riddle!

Excellent wench, say I.

‘M.O.A.I. doth sway my life.’—Nay, but first let me see, let me see,

let me see.

What dish o’ poison has she dressed him!

And with what wing the staniel checks at it!

‘I may command where I adore.’ Why, she may command me: I serve her,

she is my lady. Why, this is evident to any formal capacity. There is

no obstruction in this. And the end—what should that alphabetical

position portend? If I could make that resemble something in me!

Softly! ‘M.O.A.I.’—

O, ay, make up that:—he is now at a cold scent.

Sowter will cry upon’t for all this, though it be as rank as a fox.

‘M’—Malvolio; ‘M!’ Why, that begins my name!

Did not I say he would work it out? The cur is excellent at faults.

‘M’—But then there is no consonancy in the sequel; that suffers under

probation: ‘A’ should follow, but ‘O’ does.

And ‘O’ shall end, I hope.

Ay, or I’ll cudgel him, and make him cry ‘O!’

And then ‘I’ comes behind.

Ay, and you had any eye behind you, you might see more detraction at

your heels than fortunes before you.

‘M.O.A.I.’ This simulation is not as the former: and yet, to crush this

a little, it would bow to me, for every one of these letters are in my

name. Soft, here follows prose.

[_Reads._] _If this fall into thy hand, revolve. In my stars I am above

thee, but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve

greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em. Thy fates open

their hands, let thy blood and spirit embrace them. And, to inure

thyself to what thou art like to be, cast thy humble slough and appear

fresh. Be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants. Let thy tongue

tang arguments of state; put thyself into the trick of singularity. She

thus advises thee that sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy

yellow stockings, and wished to see thee ever cross-gartered. I say,

remember. Go to, thou art made, if thou desir’st to be so. If not, let

me see thee a steward still, the fellow of servants, and not worthy to

touch Fortune’s fingers. Farewell. She that would alter services with

thee,

The Fortunate Unhappy._

Daylight and champian discovers not more! This is open. I will be

proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I will wash

off gross acquaintance, I will be point-device, the very man. I do not

now fool myself, to let imagination jade me; for every reason excites

to this, that my lady loves me. She did commend my yellow stockings of

late, she did praise my leg being cross-gartered, and in this she

manifests herself to my love, and with a kind of injunction, drives me

to these habits of her liking. I thank my stars, I am happy. I will be

strange, stout, in yellow stockings, and cross-gartered, even with the

swiftness of putting on. Jove and my stars be praised!—Here is yet a

postscript. [_Reads._] _Thou canst not choose but know who I am. If

thou entertain’st my love, let it appear in thy smiling; thy smiles

become thee well. Therefore in my presence still smile, dear my sweet,

I prithee._ Jove, I thank thee. I will smile, I will do everything that

thou wilt have me.

I will not give my part of this sport for a pension of thousands to be

paid from the Sophy.

I could marry this wench for this device.

So could I too.

And ask no other dowry with her but such another jest.

Nor I neither.

Here comes my noble gull-catcher.

Wilt thou set thy foot o’ my neck?

Or o’ mine either?

Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip, and become thy bond-slave?

I’ faith, or I either?

Why, thou hast put him in such a dream, that when the image of it

leaves him he must run mad.

Nay, but say true, does it work upon him?

Like aqua-vitae with a midwife.

If you will then see the fruits of the sport, mark his first approach

before my lady: he will come to her in yellow stockings, and ’tis a

colour she abhors, and cross-gartered, a fashion she detests; and he

will smile upon her, which will now be so unsuitable to her

disposition, being addicted to a melancholy as she is, that it cannot

but turn him into a notable contempt. If you will see it, follow me.

To the gates of Tartar, thou most excellent devil of wit!

I’ll make one too.