Complete Plays, The (420 page)

Viola

Nay, an thou pass upon me, I’ll no more with thee.
Hold, there’s expenses for thee.

Clown

Now Jove, in his next commodity of hair, send thee a beard!

Viola

By my troth, I’ll tell thee, I am almost sick for one;

Aside

though I would not have it grow on my chin. Is thy lady within?

Clown

Would not a pair of these have bred, sir?

Viola

Yes, being kept together and put to use.

Clown

I would play Lord Pandarus of Phrygia, sir, to bring a Cressida to this Troilus.

Viola

I understand you, sir; ’tis well begged.

Clown

The matter, I hope, is not great, sir, begging but a beggar: Cressida was a beggar. My lady is within, sir. I will construe to them whence you come; who you are and what you would are out of my welkin, I might say ‘element,’ but the word is over-worn.

Exit

Viola

This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;
And to do that well craves a kind of wit:
He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons, and the time,
And, like the haggard, cheque at every feather
That comes before his eye. This is a practise
As full of labour as a wise man’s art
For folly that he wisely shows is fit;
But wise men, folly-fall’n, quite taint their wit.

Enter Sir Toby Belch, and Sir Andrew

Sir Toby Belch

Save you, gentleman.

Viola

And you, sir.

Sir Andrew

Dieu vous garde, monsieur.

Viola

Et vous aussi; votre serviteur.

Sir Andrew

I hope, sir, you are; and I am yours.

Sir Toby Belch

Will you encounter the house? my niece is desirous you should enter, if your trade be to her.

Viola

I am bound to your niece, sir; I mean, she is the list of my voyage.

Sir Toby Belch

Taste your legs, sir; put them to motion.

Viola

My legs do better understand me, sir, than I understand what you mean by bidding me taste my legs.

Sir Toby Belch

I mean, to go, sir, to enter.

Viola

I will answer you with gait and entrance. But we are prevented.

Enter Olivia and Maria

Most excellent accomplished lady, the heavens rain odours on you!

Sir Andrew

That youth’s a rare courtier: ‘Rain odours;’ well.

Viola

My matter hath no voice, to your own most pregnant and vouchsafed ear.

Sir Andrew

‘Odours,’ ‘pregnant’ and ‘vouchsafed:’ I’ll get ’em all three all ready.

Olivia

Let the garden door be shut, and leave me to my hearing.

Exeunt Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew, and Maria

Give me your hand, sir.

Viola

My duty, madam, and most humble service.

Olivia

What is your name?

Viola

Cesario is your servant’s name, fair princess.

Olivia

My servant, sir! ’Twas never merry world
Since lowly feigning was call’d compliment:
You’re servant to the Count Orsino, youth.

Viola

And he is yours, and his must needs be yours:
Your servant’s servant is your servant, madam.

Olivia

For him, I think not on him: for his thoughts,
Would they were blanks, rather than fill’d with me!

Viola

Madam, I come to whet your gentle thoughts
On his behalf.

Olivia

 
O, by your leave, I pray you,
I bade you never speak again of him:
But, would you undertake another suit,
I had rather hear you to solicit that
Than music from the spheres.

Viola

Dear lady,—

Olivia

Give me leave, beseech you. I did send,
After the last enchantment you did here,
A ring in chase of you: so did I abuse
Myself, my servant and, I fear me, you:
Under your hard construction must I sit,
To force that on you, in a shameful cunning,
Which you knew none of yours: what might you think?
Have you not set mine honour at the stake
And baited it with all the unmuzzled thoughts
That tyrannous heart can think? To one of your receiving
Enough is shown: a cypress, not a bosom,
Hideth my heart. So, let me hear you speak.

Viola

I pity you.

Olivia

 
That’s a degree to love.

Viola

No, not a grize; for ’tis a vulgar proof,
That very oft we pity enemies.

Olivia

Why, then, methinks ’tis time to smile again.
O, world, how apt the poor are to be proud!
If one should be a prey, how much the better
To fall before the lion than the wolf!

Clock strikes

The clock upbraids me with the waste of time.
Be not afraid, good youth, I will not have you:
And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest,
Your were is alike to reap a proper man:
There lies your way, due west.

Viola

Then westward-ho! Grace and good disposition
Attend your ladyship!
You’ll nothing, madam, to my lord by me?

Olivia

Stay:
I prithee, tell me what thou thinkest of me.

Viola

That you do think you are not what you are.

Olivia

If I think so, I think the same of you.

Viola

Then think you right: I am not what I am.

Olivia

I would you were as I would have you be!

Viola

Would it be better, madam, than I am?
I wish it might, for now I am your fool.

Olivia

O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful
In the contempt and anger of his lip!
A murderous guilt shows not itself more soon
Than love that would seem hid: love’s night is noon.
Cesario, by the roses of the spring,
By maidhood, honour, truth and every thing,
I love thee so, that, maugre all thy pride,
Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide.
Do not extort thy reasons from this clause,
For that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause,
But rather reason thus with reason fetter,
Love sought is good, but given unsought better.

Viola

By innocence I swear, and by my youth
I have one heart, one bosom and one truth,
And that no woman has; nor never none
Shall mistress be of it, save I alone.
And so adieu, good madam: never more
Will I my master’s tears to you deplore.

Olivia

Yet come again; for thou perhaps mayst move
That heart, which now abhors, to like his love.

Exeunt

S
CENE
II. O
LIVIA
’
S
HOUSE
.

Enter Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew, and Fabian

Sir Andrew

No, faith, I’ll not stay a jot longer.

Sir Toby Belch

Thy reason, dear venom, give thy reason.

Fabian

You must needs yield your reason, Sir Andrew.

Sir Andrew

Marry, I saw your niece do more favours to the count’s serving-man than ever she bestowed upon me; I saw’t i’ the orchard.

Sir Toby Belch

Did she see thee the while, old boy? tell me that.

Sir Andrew

As plain as I see you now.

Fabian

This was a great argument of love in her toward you.

Sir Andrew

’Slight, will you make an ass o’ me?

Fabian

I will prove it legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of judgment and reason.

Sir Toby Belch

And they have been grand-jury-men since before Noah was a sailor.

Fabian

She did show favour to the youth in your sight only to exasperate you, to awake your dormouse valour, to put fire in your heart and brimstone in your liver. You should then have accosted her; and with some excellent jests, fire-new from the mint, you should have banged the youth into dumbness. This was looked for at your hand, and this was balked: the double gilt of this opportunity you let time wash off, and you are now sailed into the north of my lady’s opinion; where you will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman’s beard, unless you do redeem it by some laudable attempt either of valour or policy.

Sir Andrew

An’t be any way, it must be with valour; for policy I hate: I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician.

Sir Toby Belch

Why, then, build me thy fortunes upon the basis of valour. Challenge me the count’s youth to fight with him; hurt him in eleven places: my niece shall take note of it; and assure thyself, there is no love-broker in the world can more prevail in man’s commendation with woman than report of valour.

Fabian

There is no way but this, Sir Andrew.

Sir Andrew

Will either of you bear me a challenge to him?

Sir Toby Belch

Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief; it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and fun of invention: taunt him with the licence of ink: if thou thou’st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss; and as many lies as will lie in thy sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in England, set ’em down: go, about it. Let there be gall enough in thy ink, though thou write with a goose-pen, no matter: about it.

Sir Andrew

Where shall I find you?

Sir Toby Belch

We’ll call thee at the cubiculo: go.

Exit Sir Andrew

Fabian

This is a dear manikin to you, Sir Toby.

Sir Toby Belch

I have been dear to him, lad, some two thousand strong, or so.

Fabian

We shall have a rare letter from him: but you’ll not deliver’t?

Sir Toby Belch

Never trust me, then; and by all means stir on the youth to an answer. I think oxen and wainropes cannot hale them together. For Andrew, if he were opened, and you find so much blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I’ll eat the rest of the anatomy.

Fabian

And his opposite, the youth, bears in his visage no great presage of cruelty.

Enter Maria

Sir Toby Belch

Look, where the youngest wren of nine comes.

Maria

If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourself into stitches, follow me. Yond gull Malvolio is turned heathen, a very renegado; for there is no Christian, that means to be saved by believing rightly, can ever believe such impossible passages of grossness. He’s in yellow stockings.

Sir Toby Belch

And cross-gartered?

Maria

Most villanously; like a pedant that keeps a school i’ the church. I have dogged him, like his murderer. He does obey every point of the letter that I dropped to betray him: he does smile his face into more lines than is in the new map with the augmentation of the Indies: you have not seen such a thing as ’tis. I can hardly forbear hurling things at him. I know my lady will strike him: if she do, he’ll smile and take’t for a great favour.

Sir Toby Belch

Come, bring us, bring us where he is.

Exeunt

S
CENE
III. A
STREET
.

Enter Sebastian and Antonio

Sebastian

I would not by my will have troubled you;
But, since you make your pleasure of your pains,
I will no further chide you.

Antonio

I could not stay behind you: my desire,
More sharp than filed steel, did spur me forth;
And not all love to see you, though so much
As might have drawn one to a longer voyage,
But jealousy what might befall your travel,
Being skilless in these parts; which to a stranger,
Unguided and unfriended, often prove
Rough and unhospitable: my willing love,
The rather by these arguments of fear,
Set forth in your pursuit.

Sebastian

My kind Antonio,
I can no other answer make but thanks,
And thanks; and ever [ ... ] oft good turns
Are shuffled off with such uncurrent pay:
But, were my worth as is my conscience firm,
You should find better dealing. What’s to do?
Shall we go see the reliques of this town?

Antonio

To-morrow, sir: best first go see your lodging.

Sebastian

I am not weary, and ’tis long to night:
I pray you, let us satisfy our eyes
With the memorials and the things of fame
That do renown this city.

Antonio

Would you’ld pardon me;
I do not without danger walk these streets:
Once, in a sea-fight, ’gainst the count his galleys
I did some service; of such note indeed,
That were I ta’en here it would scarce be answer’d.

Sebastian

Belike you slew great number of his people.

Antonio

The offence is not of such a bloody nature;
Albeit the quality of the time and quarrel
Might well have given us bloody argument.
It might have since been answer’d in repaying
What we took from them; which, for traffic’s sake,
Most of our city did: only myself stood out;
For which, if I be lapsed in this place,
I shall pay dear.

Sebastian

 
Do not then walk too open.

Antonio

It doth not fit me. Hold, sir, here’s my purse.
In the south suburbs, at the Elephant,
Is best to lodge: I will bespeak our diet,
Whiles you beguile the time and feed your knowledge
With viewing of the town: there shall you have me.

Sebastian

Why I your purse?

Antonio

Haply your eye shall light upon some toy
You have desire to purchase; and your store,
I think, is not for idle markets, sir.