Olivia’s father took much delight in. He is about the house.
DUKE ORSINO 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 beloved. How dost thou like this tune?
VIOLA It gives a very echo to the seat
Where Love is throned.
DUKE ORSINO 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 ORSINO What kind of woman is’t?
VIOLA Of your complexion.
DUKE ORSINO She is not worth thee, then. What years, i’ faith?
VIOLA About your years, my lord.
DUKE ORSINO 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 worn,
Than women’s are.
VIOLA I think it well, my lord.
DUKE ORSINO Then let thy love be younger than thyself,
Or thy affection cannot hold the bent;
For women are as roses, whose fair flower
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 ORSINO 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 ORSINO Ay; prithee, sing.
Music
SONG.
Clown 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 sighs to save,
Lay me, O, where
Sad true lover never find my grave,
To weep there!
DUKE ORSINO There’s for thy pains.
Clown No pains, sir: I take pleasure in singing, sir.
DUKE ORSINO I’ll pay thy pleasure then.
Clown Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid, one time or another.
DUKE ORSINO 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
every thing and their intent every where; for that’s
it that always makes a good voyage of nothing. Farewell.
Exit
DUKE ORSINO Let all the rest give place.
CURIO and Attendants retire
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 ORSINO I cannot be so answer’d.
VIOLA Sooth, but you must.
Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,
Hath for your love a 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 ORSINO 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 ORSINO 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 loved a man,
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship.
DUKE ORSINO And what’s her history?
VIOLA A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined 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 ORSINO 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 ORSINO 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 5
OLIVIA’s garden.
Enter SIR TOBY BELCH, SIR ANDREW, and FABIAN
SIR TOBY BELCH Come thy ways, Signior Fabian.
FABIAN Nay, I’ll come: if I lose a scruple of this sport,
let me be boiled to death with melancholy.
SIR TOBY BELCH 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 BELCH To anger him we’ll have the bear again; and we will
fool him black and blue: shall we not, Sir Andrew?
SIR ANDREW An we do not, it is pity of our lives.
SIR TOBY BELCH Here comes the little villain.
Enter MARIA
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 behavior 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! Lie thou there,
Throws down a letter
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 BELCH Here’s an overweening rogue!
FABIAN O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock
of him: how he jets under his advanced plumes!
SIR ANDREW ‘Slight, I could so beat the rogue!
SIR TOBY BELCH Peace, I say.
MALVOLIO To be Count Malvolio!
SIR TOBY BELCH Ah, rogue!
SIR ANDREW Pistol him, pistol him.
SIR TOBY BELCH Peace, peace!
MALVOLIO There is example for’t; the lady of the Strachy
married the yeoman of the wardrobe.
SIR ANDREW 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 BELCH O, for a stone-bow, to hit him in the eye!
MALVOLIO Calling my officers about me, in my branched velvet
gown; having come from a day-bed, where I have left
Olivia sleeping,–
SIR TOBY BELCH 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 should do theirs, to for my
kinsman Toby,–
SIR TOBY BELCH Bolts and shackles!
FABIAN O peace, peace, peace! now, now.
MALVOLIO Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make
out for him: I frown the while; and perchance wind
up watch, or play with my–some rich jewel. Toby
approaches; courtesies there to me,–
SIR TOBY BELCH Shall this fellow live?
FABIAN Though our silence be drawn from us with cars, yet peace.
MALVOLIO I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar
smile with an austere regard of control,–
SIR TOBY BELCH And does not Toby take you a blow o’ the lips then?
MALVOLIO Saying, ‘Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me on
your niece give me this prerogative of speech,’–