Twelfth Night (11 page)

SIR TOBY
    Save you, gentleman.

VIOLA
    And you, sir.

SIR ANDREW
    
Dieu vous garde, monsieur
⁶⁸
.

VIOLA
    
Et vous aussi. Votre serviteur
⁶⁹
.

SIR ANDREW
    I hope, sir, you are, and I am yours.

SIR TOBY
    Will you
encounter
⁷¹
the house? My niece is desirous

you should enter, if your
trade
be
to
⁷²
her.

VIOLA
    I am
bound to
your niece, sir. I mean she is the
list
⁷³
of

my voyage.

SIR TOBY
    
Taste
⁷⁵
your legs, sir, put them to motion.

VIOLA
    My legs do better
understand
⁷⁶
me, sir, than I

understand what you mean by bidding me taste my legs.

SIR TOBY
    I mean, to go, sir, to enter.

VIOLA
    I will answer you with
gait and entrance.
⁷⁹
But we are

prevented.
⁸⁰

Most excellent accomplished lady,
the
heavens rain
odours
⁸¹

on you!

SIR ANDREW
    That youth’s a rare courtier. ‘Rain

odours’, well.

VIOLA
    My matter
hath no voice
⁸⁵
, lady, but to your own

most
pregnant
and
vouchsafed
⁸⁶
ear.

SIR ANDREW
    ‘Odours,’ ‘pregnant’ and ‘vouchsafed’.

I’ll get ’em all three
all ready.
⁸⁸

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

hearing.
⁹⁰
—

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
⁹⁵

Since
lowly feigning
was called
compliment.
⁹⁶

You’re servant to the count Orsino, youth.

VIOLA
    And he is
yours
, and
his
⁹⁸
must needs be yours:

Your servant’s servant is your servant, madam.

OLIVIA
    
For
¹⁰⁰
him, I think not on him: for his thoughts,

Would they were
blanks
¹⁰¹
, rather than filled 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
¹⁰⁶
,

I had rather hear you to
solicit
¹⁰⁷
that

Than
music from the spheres.
¹⁰⁸

VIOLA
    Dear lady—

OLIVIA
    Give me
leave
¹¹⁰
, beseech you. I did send,

After the last enchantment you did here,

A ring in chase of you: so did I
abuse
¹¹²

Myself, my servant and, I fear me, you.

Under your hard
construction
¹¹⁴
must I sit,

To force
¹¹⁵
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
¹¹⁷

And baited it with all th’unmuzzled thoughts

That tyrannous heart can think? To one of your
receiving
¹¹⁹

Enough is shown: a
cypress
¹²⁰
, not a bosom,

Hides my heart. So, let me hear you speak.

VIOLA
    I pity you.

OLIVIA
    That’s a
degree
¹²³
to love.

VIOLA
    No, not a
grize
, for ’tis a
vulgar proof
¹²⁴
,

That very oft we pity enemies.

OLIVIA
    Why, then, methinks ’tis time to
smile again.
¹²⁶

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
¹²⁹
than the wolf!

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 wife is like to reap a
proper
¹³³
man.

There lies your way, due west.

VIOLA
    Then westward-ho! Grace and good
disposition
¹³⁵

Attend your ladyship!

You’ll
¹³⁷
nothing, madam, to my lord by me?

OLIVIA
    Stay.

I prithee tell me what thou think’st of me.

VIOLA
    That you do think you are not
what you are.
¹⁴⁰

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.
¹⁴⁵

OLIVIA
    O, what a
deal
¹⁴⁶
of scorn looks beautiful

In the contempt and anger of his lip!

A murd’rous guilt shows not itself more soon

Than love that would seem hid:
love’s night is noon.
¹⁴⁹

Cesario, by the roses of the spring,

By
maidhood
¹⁵¹
, honour, truth and everything,

I love thee so that,
maugre
¹⁵²
all thy pride,

Nor
¹⁵³
wit nor reason can my passion hide.

Do not
extort thy reasons from this clause
¹⁵⁴
,

For that
I woo, thou therefore hast
no cause
¹⁵⁵
,

But rather
reason thus with reason fetter
¹⁵⁶
:

Love sought is good, but given unsought is 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.
¹⁶³

OLIVIA
    Yet come again, for thou perhaps mayst move

That heart which now abhors, to like his love.

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

SIR TOBY
    Thy reason, dear
venom
²
, 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 servingman than ever she bestowed upon me. I saw’t

i’th’orchard.
⁶

SIR TOBY
    Did she see thee
the while
⁷
, old boy? Tell me that.

SIR ANDREW
    As plain as I see you now.

FABIAN
    This was a great
argument
⁹
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
¹²
of

judgement and reason.

SIR TOBY
    And they have been grand-jurymen since before

Noah
¹⁵
was a sailor.

FABIAN
    She did show favour to the youth in your sight only

to exasperate you, to awake your
dormouse
¹⁷
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
¹⁹

from the mint, you should have
banged
²⁰
the youth into

dumbness. This was looked for at your hand, and this was

balked.
The
double gilt
²²
of this opportunity you let time wash

off, and you are now sailed into the
north
²³
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.
²⁶

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.
²⁸

SIR TOBY
    Why, then,
build me
²⁹
thy fortunes upon the basis of

valour.
Challenge me
³⁰
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
³²
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
    Go, write it in a
martial hand.
Be
curst
³⁷
and brief: it is

no matter how witty,
so
it be eloquent and full of
invention.
³⁸

Taunt him with the
licence of ink.
If thou
thou’st
³⁹
him some

thrice, it shall not be amiss. And as many
lies
⁴⁰
as will lie in thy

sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the

bed of Ware
⁴²
in England, set ’em down. Go, about it. Let there

be
gall
enough in thy ink, though thou write with a
goose-pen
⁴³
,

no matter. About it.

SIR ANDREW
    Where shall I find you?

SIR TOBY
    We’ll call thee at the
cubiculo
⁴⁶
. Go.

FABIAN
    This is a dear
manikin
⁴⁷
to you, Sir Toby.

SIR TOBY
    I have been
dear
to him, lad, some
two thousand
⁴⁸

strong, or so.

FABIAN
    We shall have a
rare
⁵⁰
letter from him; but you’ll not

deliver’t?

SIR TOBY
    Never trust me, then. And by all means stir on the

youth to an answer. I think oxen and
wainropes
cannot
hale
⁵³

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
th’anatomy.
⁵⁶

FABIAN
    And his
opposite
, the youth, bears in his
visage
⁵⁷
no

great
presage
⁵⁸
of cruelty.

SIR TOBY
    Look where the
youngest wren
⁵⁹
of mine comes.

MARIA
    If you desire the
spleen
⁶⁰
, and will laugh yourselves

into stitches, follow me. Yond
gull
⁶¹
Malvolio is turned

heathen, a very
renegado
⁶²
; for there is no Christian that

means to be saved by believing rightly can ever believe such

impossible
passages of grossness.
⁶⁴
He’s in yellow stockings.

SIR TOBY
    And cross-gartered?

MARIA
    Most
villainously
: like a
pedant
⁶⁶
that keeps a school

i’th’church. I have
dogged
⁶⁷
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
⁶⁹

with the augmentation of the Indies. You have not seen such

a thing as ’tis. I can hardly
forbear
⁷¹
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
    Come, bring us, bring us where he is.