Twelfth Night - William Shakespeare (online e book reading TXT) 📗

old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; as a
squash is before 't is a peascod, or a codling when 't is almost
an apple: 't is with him in standing water, between boy and man.
He is very well-favour'd, 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 loth to cast away my speech; for, besides that it is
excellently well penn'd, 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 't is poetical.

OLIVIA.
It is the more like to be feign'd; I pray you, keep it in. I
heard you were saucy at my gates, and allow'd your approach
rather to wonder at you than to hear you. If you be not mad, be
gone; if you have reason, be brief; 't is 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 appear'd in me have I learn'd 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.
'T is in grain, sir; 't will endure wind and weather.

VIOLA.
'T is 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 labell'd 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 recompens'd, 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 divulg'd, 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
Plac'd 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!

[Re-enter 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 II.

SCENE I. The sea-coast

[Enter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN.]

ANTONIO.
Will you stay no longer; nor will you not that I go with you?

SEBASTIAN.
By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over me: the
malignancy of my fate might perhaps distemper yours; therefore I
shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone: it
were a bad recompense for your love, to lay any of them on you.

ANTONIO.
Let me know of you whither you are bound.

SEBASTIAN.
No, sooth, sir; my determinate voyage is mere extravagancy. But I
perceive in you so excellent a touch of modesty that you will not
extort from me what I am willing to
keep in; therefore it charges me in manners the rather to express
myself. You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian,
which I called Roderigo. My father was that Sebastian of
Messaline whom I know you have heard of. He left behind him
myself and a sister, both born in an hour. If the heavens had
been pleas'd, would we had so ended! but you, sir, alter'd that;
for some hour before you took me from the breach of the sea was
my sister drown'd.

ANTONIO.
Alas the day!

SEBASTIAN.
A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembl'd me, was yet of
many accounted beautiful; but, though I could not, with such
estimable wonder, over-far believe that, yet thus far I will
boldly publish her: she bore mind that envy could not but call
fair. She is drown'd already, sir, with salt water, though I seem
to drown her remembrance again with more.

ANTONIO.
Pardon me, sir, your bad entertainment.

SEBASTIAN.
O good Antonio, forgive me your trouble!

ANTONIO.
If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your servant.

SEBASTIAN.
If you will not undo what you have done, that is, kill him whom
you have recover'd, desire it not. Fare ye well at once; my bosom
is full of kindness, and I am yet so near the manners of my
mother that upon the least occasion more mine eyes will tell
tales of me. I am bound to the Count Orsino's court; farewell.
[Exit.]

ANTONIO.
The gentleness of all the gods go with thee!
I have many enemies in Orsino's court,
Else would I very shortly see thee there.
But, come what may, I do adore thee so
That danger shall seem sport, and I will go.
[Exit.]


SCENE II. A street

[Enter VIOLA, MALVOLIO following.]

MALVOLIO.
Were you not ev'n now with the Countess Olivia?

VIOLA.
Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since arriv'd but
hither.

MALVOLIO.
She returns this ring to you, sir; you might have sav'd me my
pains, to have taken it away yourself. She adds, moreover, that
you should put your lord into a desperate assurance she will none
of him; and one thing more, that you be never so hardy to come
again in his affairs, unless it be to report your lord's taking
of this. Receive it so.

VIOLA.
She took the ring of me; I'll none of it.

MALVOLIO.
Come, sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is it
should be so return'd. If it be worth stooping for, there it lies
in your eye; if not, be it his that finds it.
[Exit.]

VIOLA.
I left no ring with her;