ACT I - Scene V Twelfth Night

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Olivia’s house.

	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 Lady 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 catechize 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	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.
Clown	Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou speakest well of fools!
	Reenter 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.
Olivia	By mine honour, half drunk. What is he at the gate, cousin?
Sir Toby	A gentleman.
Olivia	A gentleman! what gentleman?
Sir Toby	’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	Lechery! I defy lechery. There’s one at the gate.
Olivia	Ay, marry, what is he?
Sir Toby	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.
	Reenter 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 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.
Olivia	Let him approach: call in my gentlewoman.
Malvolio	Gentlewoman, my lady calls. Exit.
	Reenter 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 full 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 fervour, 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!
	Reenter 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.

ACT I - Scene V Twelfth Night

Short Story of the Day