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,