ACT II - Scene V Twelfth Night
Olivia’s garden.
| Enter Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Fabian. | |
| Sir Toby | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 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! 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 | 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 | Peace, I say. |
| Malvolio | To be Count Malvolio! |
| Sir Toby | Ah, rogue! |
| Sir Andrew | Pistol him, pistol him. |
| Sir Toby | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 my watch, or play with my—some rich jewel. Toby approaches; courtesies there to me— |
| Sir Toby | 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 | 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,”— |
| Sir Toby | What, what? |
| Malvolio | “You must amend your drunkenness.” |
| Sir Toby | Out, scab! |
| Fabian | Nay, patience, or we break the sinews of our plot. |
| Malvolio | “Besides, you waste the treasure of your time with a foolish knight,”— |
| Sir Andrew | That’s me, I warrant you. |
| Malvolio | “One Sir Andrew,”— |
| Sir Andrew | I knew ’twas I; for many do call me fool. |
| Malvolio | What employment have we here? Taking up the letter. |
| Fabian | Now is the woodcock near the gin. |
| Sir Toby | O, peace! and the spirit of humours intimate reading aloud to him! |
| Malvolio | 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. |
| Sir Andrew | Her c’s, her u’s and her t’s: why that? |
| Malvolio | 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? |
| Fabian | This wins him, liver and all. |
| Malvolio |
Reads.
“No man must know.” What follows? the numbers altered! “No man must know:” if this should be thee, Malvolio? |
| Sir Toby | Marry, hang thee, brock! |
| Malvolio |
Reads.
|
| Fabian | A fustian riddle! |
| Sir Toby | Excellent wench, say I. |
| Malvolio | “M, O, A, I, doth sway my life.” Nay, but first, let me see, let me see, let me see. |
| Fabian | What dish o’ poison has she dressed him! |
| Sir Toby | And with what wing the staniel cheques at it! |
| Malvolio | “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— |
| Sir Toby | O, ay, make up that: he is now at a cold scent. |
| Fabian | Sowter will cry upon’t for all this, though it be as rank as a fox. |
| Malvolio | M—Malvolio; M—why, that begins my name. |
| Fabian | Did not I say he would work it out? the cur is excellent at faults. |
| Malvolio | M—but then there is no consonancy in the sequel; that suffers under probation: a should follow, but o does. |
| Fabian | And o shall end, I hope. |
| Sir Toby | Ay, or I’ll cudgel him, and make him cry O! |
| Malvolio | And then I comes behind. |
| Fabian | Ay, an you had any eye behind you, you might see more detraction at your heels than fortunes before you. |
| Malvolio |
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.
Daylight and champain 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-devise 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.
Jove, I thank thee: I will smile; I will do everything that thou wilt have me. Exit. |
| Fabian | I will not give my part of this sport for a pension of thousands to be paid from the Sophy. |
| Sir Toby | I could marry this wench for this device. |
| Sir Andrew | So could I too. |
| Sir Toby | And ask no other dowry with her but such another jest. |
| Sir Andrew | Nor I neither. |
| Fabian | Here comes my noble gull-catcher. |
| Reenter Maria. | |
| Sir Toby | Wilt thou set thy foot o’ my neck? |
| Sir Andrew | Or o’ mine either? |
| Sir Toby | Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip, and become thy bondslave? |
| Sir Andrew | I’ faith, or I either? |
| Sir Toby | Why, thou hast put him in such a dream, that when the image of it leaves him he must run mad. |
| Maria | Nay, but say true; does it work upon him? |
| Sir Toby | Like aqua-vitae with a midwife. |
| Maria | 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. |
| Sir Toby | To the gates of Tartar, thou most excellent devil of wit! |
| Sir Andrew | I’ll make one too. Exeunt. |