by A. A. Milne
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 fervor, 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!
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
Part 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 yet 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 pleased,
would we had so ended! but you, sir, altered that;
for some hour before you took me from the breach of
the sea was my sister drowned.
* * *
ANTONIO
Alas the day!
* * *
SEBASTIAN
A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled
me, was yet of many accounted beautif
ul: but,
though I could not with such estimable wonder
overfar believe that, yet thus far I will boldly
publish her; she bore a mind that envy could not but
call fair. She is drowned 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 recovered, 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 not you even now with the Countess Olivia?
* * *
VIOLA
Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since
arrived but hither.
* * *
MALVOLIO
She returns this ring to you, sir: you might have
saved 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 returned: 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: what means this lady?
Fortune forbid my outside have not charm'd her!
She made good view of me; indeed, so much,
That sure methought her eyes had lost her tongue,
For she did speak in starts distractedly.
She loves me, sure; the cunning of her passion
Invites me in this churlish messenger.
None of my lord's ring! why, he sent her none.
I am the man: if it be so, as 'tis,
Poor lady, she were better love a dream.
Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness,
Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.
How easy is it for the proper-false
In women's waxen hearts to set their forms!
Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we!
For such as we are made of, such we be.
How will this fadge? my master loves her dearly;
And I, poor monster, fond as much on him;
And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.
What will become of this? As I am man,
My state is desperate for my master's love;
As I am woman,—now alas the day!—
What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!
O time! thou must untangle this, not I;
It is too hard a knot for me to untie!
Exit
Scene III. Olivia's House.
Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and SIR ANDREW
SIR TOBY BELCH
Approach, Sir Andrew: not to be abed after
midnight is to be up betimes; and 'diluculo
surgere,' thou know'st,—
* * *
SIR ANDREW
Nay, my troth, I know not: but I know, to be up
late is to be up late.
* * *
SIR TOBY BELCH
A false conclusion: I hate it as an unfilled can.
To be up after midnight and to go to bed then, is
early: so that to go to bed after midnight is to go
to bed betimes. Does not our life consist of the
four elements?
* * *
SIR ANDREW
Faith, so they say; but I think it rather consists
of eating and drinking.
* * *
SIR TOBY BELCH
Thou'rt a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink.
Marian, I say! a stoup of wine!
Enter Clown
* * *
SIR ANDREW
Here comes the fool, i' faith.
* * *
Clown
How now, my hearts! did you never see the picture
of 'we three'?
* * *
SIR TOBY BELCH
Welcome, ass. Now let's have a catch.
* * *
SIR ANDREW
By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I
had rather than forty shillings I had such a leg,
and so sweet a breath to sing, as the fool has. In
sooth, thou wast in very gracious fooling last
night, when thou spokest of Pigrogromitus, of the
Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus: 'twas
very good, i' faith. I sent thee sixpence for thy
leman: hadst it?
* * *
Clown
I did impeticos thy gratillity; for Malvolio's nose
is no whipstock: my lady has a white hand, and the
Myrmidons are no bottle-ale houses.
* * *
SIR ANDREW
Excellent! why, this is the best fooling, when all
is done. Now, a song.
* * *
SIR TOBY BELCH
Come on; there is sixpence for you: let's have a song.
* * *
SIR ANDREW
There's a testril of me too: if one knight give a—
* * *
Clown
Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life?
* * *
SIR TOBY BELCH
A love-song, a love-song.
* * *
SIR ANDREW
Ay, ay: I care not for good life.
* * *
Clown
[Sings]
O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.
* * *
SIR ANDREW
Excellent good, i' faith.
* * *
SIR TOBY BELCH
Good, good.
* * *
Clown
[Sings]
What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
* * *
SIR ANDREW
A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight.
* * *
SIR TOBY BELCH
A contagious breath.
* * *
SIR ANDREW
Very s
weet and contagious, i' faith.
* * *
SIR TOBY BELCH
To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion.
But shall we make the welkin dance indeed? shall we
rouse the night-owl in a catch that will draw three
souls out of one weaver? shall we do that?
* * *
SIR ANDREW
An you love me, let's do't: I am dog at a catch.
* * *
Clown
By'r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well.
* * *
SIR ANDREW
Most certain. Let our catch be, 'Thou knave.'
* * *
Clown
'Hold thy peace, thou knave,' knight? I shall be
constrained in't to call thee knave, knight.
* * *
SIR ANDREW
'Tis not the first time I have constrained one to
call me knave. Begin, fool: it begins 'Hold thy peace.'
