SIR ANDREW If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me: I
think you set nothing by a bloody coxcomb.
Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and Clown
Here comes Sir Toby halting; you shall hear more:
but if he had not been in drink, he would have
tickled you othergates than he did.
DUKE ORSINO How now, gentleman! how is’t with you?
SIR TOBY BELCH That’s all one: has hurt me, and there’s the end
on’t. Sot, didst see Dick surgeon, sot?
Clown O, he’s drunk, Sir Toby, an hour agone; his eyes
were set at eight i’ the morning.
SIR TOBY BELCH Then he’s a rogue, and a passy measures panyn: I
hate a drunken rogue.
OLIVIA Away with him! Who hath made this havoc with them?
SIR ANDREW I’ll help you, Sir Toby, because well be dressed together.
SIR TOBY BELCH Will you help? an ass-head and a coxcomb and a
knave, a thin-faced knave, a gull!
OLIVIA Get him to bed, and let his hurt be look’d to.
Exeunt Clown, FABIAN, SIR TOBY BELCH, and SIR ANDREW
Enter SEBASTIAN
SEBASTIAN I am sorry, madam, I have hurt your kinsman:
But, had it been the brother of my blood,
I must have done no less with wit and safety.
You throw a strange regard upon me, and by that
I do perceive it hath offended you:
Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vows
We made each other but so late ago.
DUKE ORSINO One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons,
A natural perspective, that is and is not!
SEBASTIAN Antonio, O my dear Antonio!
How have the hours rack’d and tortured me,
Since I have lost thee!
ANTONIO Sebastian are you?
SEBASTIAN Fear’st thou that, Antonio?
ANTONIO How have you made division of yourself?
An apple, cleft in two, is not more twin
Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?
OLIVIA Most wonderful!
SEBASTIAN Do I stand there? I never had a brother;
Nor can there be that deity in my nature,
Of here and every where. I had a sister,
Whom the blind waves and surges have devour’d.
Of charity, what kin are you to me?
What countryman? what name? what parentage?
VIOLA Of Messaline: Sebastian was my father;
Such a Sebastian was my brother too,
So went he suited to his watery tomb:
If spirits can assume both form and suit
You come to fright us.
SEBASTIAN A spirit I am indeed;
But am in that dimension grossly clad
Which from the womb I did participate.
Were you a woman, as the rest goes even,
I should my tears let fall upon your cheek,
And say ‘Thrice-welcome, drowned Viola!’
VIOLA My father had a mole upon his brow.
SEBASTIAN And so had mine.
VIOLA And died that day when Viola from her birth
Had number’d thirteen years.
SEBASTIAN O, that record is lively in my soul!
He finished indeed his mortal act
That day that made my sister thirteen years.
VIOLA If nothing lets to make us happy both
But this my masculine usurp’d attire,
Do not embrace me till each circumstance
Of place, time, fortune, do cohere and jump
That I am Viola: which to confirm,
I’ll bring you to a captain in this town,
Where lie my maiden weeds; by whose gentle help
I was preserved to serve this noble count.
All the occurrence of my fortune since
Hath been between this lady and this lord.
SEBASTIAN [To OLIVIA]
So comes it, lady, you have been mistook:
But nature to her bias drew in that.
You would have been contracted to a maid;
Nor are you therein, by my life, deceived,
You are betroth’d both to a maid and man.
DUKE ORSINO Be not amazed; right noble is his blood.
If this be so, as yet the glass seems true,
I shall have share in this most happy wreck.
To VIOLA
Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times
Thou never shouldst love woman like to me.
VIOLA And all those sayings will I overswear;
And those swearings keep as true in soul
As doth that orbed continent the fire
That severs day from night.
DUKE ORSINO Give me thy hand;
And let me see thee in thy woman’s weeds.
VIOLA The captain that did bring me first on shore
Hath my maid’s garments: he upon some action
Is now in durance, at Malvolio’s suit,
A gentleman, and follower of my lady’s.
OLIVIA He shall enlarge him: fetch Malvolio hither:
And yet, alas, now I remember me,
They say, poor gentleman, he’s much distract.
Re-enter Clown with a letter, and FABIAN
A most extracting frenzy of mine own
From my remembrance clearly banish’d his.
How does he, sirrah?
Clown Truly, madam, he holds Belzebub at the staves’s end as
well as a man in his case may do: has here writ a
letter to you; I should have given’t you to-day
morning, but as a madman’s epistles are no gospels,
so it skills not much when they are delivered.
OLIVIA Open’t, and read it.
Clown Look then to be well edified when the fool delivers
the madman.
Reads
‘By the Lord, madam,’–
OLIVIA How now! art thou mad?
Clown No, madam, I do but read madness: an your ladyship
will have it as it ought to be, you must allow Vox.
OLIVIA Prithee, read i’ thy right wits.
Clown So I do, madonna; but to read his right wits is to
read thus: therefore perpend, my princess, and give ear.
OLIVIA Read it you, sirrah.
To FABIAN
FABIAN [Reads]
‘By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, and the
world shall know it: though you have put me into
darkness and given your drunken cousin rule over
me, yet have I the benefit of my senses as well as
your ladyship. I have your own letter that induced
me to the semblance I put on; with the which I doubt
not but to do myself much right, or you much shame.
Think of me as you please. I leave my duty a little
unthought of and speak out of my injury.
THE MADLY-USED MALVOLIO.’
OLIVIA Did he write this?
Clown Ay, madam.
DUKE ORSINO This savours not much of distraction.
OLIVIA See him deliver’d, Fabian; bring him hither.
Exit FABIAN
My lord so please you, these things further
thought on,
To think me as well a sister as a wife,
One day shall crown the alliance on’t, so please you,
Here at my house and at my proper cost.
DUKE ORSINO Madam, I am most apt to embrace your offer.
To VIOLA
Your master quits you; and for your service done him,
So much against the mettle of your sex,
So far beneath your soft and tender breeding,
And since you call’d me master for so long,
Here is my hand: you shall from this time be
Your master’s mistress.
OLIVIA A sister! you are she.
Re-enter FABIAN, with MALVOLIO
DUKE ORSINO Is this the madman?
OLIVIA Ay, my lord, this same.
How now, Malvolio!
MALVOLIO Madam, you have done me wrong,
Notorious wrong.
OLIVIA Have I, Malvolio? no.
MALVOLIO Lady, you have. Pray you, peruse that letter.
You must not now deny it is your hand:
Write from it, if you can, in hand or phrase;
Or say ’tis not your seal, nor your invention:
You can say none of this: well, grant it then
And tell me, in the modesty of honour,
Why you have given me such clear lights of favour,
Bade me come smiling and cross-garter’d to you,
To put on yellow stockings and to frown
Upon Sir Toby and the lighter people;
And, acting this in an obedient hope,
Why have you suffer’d me to be imprison’d,
Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,
And made the most notorious geck and gull
That e’er invention play’d on? tell me why.
OLIVIA Alas, Malvolio, this is not my writing,
Though, I confess, much like the character
But out of question ’tis Maria’s hand.
And now I do bethink me, it was she
First told me thou wast mad; then camest in smiling,
And in such forms which here were presupposed
Upon thee in the letter. Prithee, be content:
This practise hath most shrewdly pass’d upon thee;
But when we know the grounds and authors of it,
Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge
Of thine own cause.
FABIAN Good madam, hear me speak,
And let no quarrel nor no brawl to come
Taint the condition of this present hour,
Which I have wonder’d at. In hope it shall not,
Most freely I confess, myself and Toby
Set this device against Malvolio here,
Upon some stubborn and uncourteous parts
We had conceived against him: Maria writ
The letter at Sir Toby’s great importance;
In recompense whereof he hath married her.
How with a sportful malice it was follow’d,
May rather pluck on laughter than revenge;
If that the injuries be justly weigh’d
That have on both sides pass’d.