The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  MALVOLIO My masters, are you mad? Or what are you? Have you no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night? Do ye make an alehouse of my lady’s house, that ye squeak out your coziers’ catches without any mitigation or remorse of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you?

  SIR TOBY We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up!

  MALVOLIO Sir Toby, I must be round with you. My lady bade me tell you that though she harbours you as her kinsman she’s nothing allied to your disorders. If you can separate yourself and your misdemeanours you are welcome to the house. If not, an it would please you to take leave of her she is very willing to bid you farewell.

  SIR TOBY

  ‘Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone.’

  MARIA Nay, good Sir Toby.

  FESTE

  ‘His eyes do show his days are almost done.’

  MALVOLIO Is’t even so?

  SIR TOBY

  ‘But I will never die.’

  FESTE

  ‘Sir Toby, there you lie.’

  MALVOLIO This is much credit to you.

  SIR TOBY

  ‘Shall I bid him go?’

  FESTE

  ‘What an if you do?’

  SIR TOBY

  ‘Shall I bid him go, and spare not?’

  FESTE

  ‘O no, no, no, no, you dare not.’

  SIR TOBY Out o’ tune, sir, ye lie. (To Malvolio) Art any more than a steward? Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?

  FESTE Yes, by Saint Anne, and ginger shall be hot i’th’ mouth, too.

  SIR TOBY Thou‘rt i’th’ right. (To Malvolio) Go, sir, rub your chain with crumbs. (To Maria) A stoup of wine, Maria.

  MALVOLIO Mistress Mary, if you prized my lady’s favour at anything more than contempt you would not give means for this uncivil rule. She shall know of it, by this hand. Exit

  MARIA Go shake your ears.

  SIR ANDREW ’Twere as good a deed as to drink when a man’s a-hungry to challenge him the field and then to break promise with him, and make a fool of him.

  SIR TOBY Do’t, knight. I’ll write thee a challenge, or I’ll deliver thy indignation to him by word of mouth.

  MARIA Sweet Sir Toby, be patient for tonight. Since the youth of the Count’s was today with my lady she is much out of quiet. For Monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him. If I do not gull him into a nayword and make him a common recreation, do not think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed. I know I can do it.

  SIR TOBY Possess us, possess us, tell us something of him.

  MARIA Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan.

  SIR ANDREW O, if I thought that I’d beat him like a dog.

  SIR TOBY What, for being a puritan? Thy exquisite reason, dear knight.

  SIR ANDREW I have no exquisite reason for’t, but I have reason good enough.

  MARIA The dev’l a puritan that he is, or anything constantly but a time-pleaser, an affectioned ass that cons state without book and utters it by great swathes; the best persuaded of himself, so crammed, as he thinks, with excellencies, that it is his grounds of faith that all that look on him love him; and on that vice in him will my revenge find notable cause to work.

  SIR TOBY What wilt thou do?

  MARIA I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of love, wherein by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and complexion, he shall find himself most feelingly personated. I can write very like my lady your niece; on a forgotten matter we can hardly make distinction of our hands.

  SIR TOBY Excellent, I smell a device.

  SIR ANDREW I have’t in my nose too.

  SIR TOBY He shall think by the letters that thou wilt drop that they come from my niece, and that she’s in love with him.

  MARIA My purpose is indeed a horse of that colour.

  SIR ANDREW And your horse now would make him an ass.

  MARIA Ass I doubt not.

  SIR ANDREW O, ’twill be admirable.

  MARIA Sport royal, I warrant you. I know my physic will work with him. I will plant you two—and let the fool make a third—where he shall find the letter. Observe his construction of it. For this night, to bed, and dream on the event. Farewell. Exit

  SIR TOBY Good night, Penthesilea.

  SIR ANDREW Before me, she’s a good wench.

  SIR TOBY She’s a beagle true bred, and one that adores me. What o’ that?

  SIR ANDREW I was adored once, too.

  SIR TOBY Let’s to bed, knight. Thou hadst need send for more money.

  SIR ANDREW If I cannot recover your niece, I am a foul way out.

  SIR TOBY Send for money, knight. If thou hast her not i’th’ end, call me cut.

  SIR ANDREW If I do not, never trust me, take it how you will.

  SIR TOBY Come, come, I’ll go burn some sack, ’tis too late to go to bed now. Come knight, come knight. Exeunt

  2.4 Enter the Duke, Viola as Cesario, Curio, and others

  ORSINO

  Give me some music. Now good morrow, friends.

  Now good Cesario, but that piece of song,

  That old and antic song we heard last night.

  Methought it did relieve my passion much,

  More than light airs and recollected terms

  Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times.

  Come, but one verse.

  CURIO He is not here, so please your lordship, that should sing it.

  ORSINO Who was it?

  CURIO Feste the jester, my lord, a fool that the lady Olivia’s father took much delight in. He is about the house.

  ORSINO

  Seek him out, and play the tune the while. Exit Curio

  Music plays

  (To Viola) Come hither, boy. If ever thou shalt love,

  In the sweet pangs of it remember me;

  For such as I am, all true lovers are,

  Unstaid and skittish in all motions else

  Save in the constant image of the creature

  That is beloved. How dost thou like this tune?

  VIOLA

  It gives a very echo to the seat

  Where love is throned.

  ORSINO

  Thou dost speak masterly.

  My life upon’t, young though thou art thine eye

  Hath stayed upon some favour that it loves.

  Hath it not, boy?

  VIOLA

  A little, by your favour.

  ORSINO

  What kind of woman is’t?

  VIOLA

  Of your complexion.

  ORSINO

  She is not worth thee then. What years, i’faith?

  VIOLA About your years, my lord.

  ORSINO

  Too old, by heaven. Let still the woman take

  An elder than herself. So wears she to him;

  So sways she level in her husband’s heart.

  For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,

  Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,

  More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,

  Than women’s are.

  VIOLA

  I think it well, my lord.

  ORSINO

  Then let thy love be younger than thyself,

  Or thy affection cannot hold the bent;

  For women are as roses, whose fair flower

  Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour.

  VIOLA

  And so they are. Alas that they are so:

  To die even when they to perfection grow.

  Enter Curio and Feste the clown

  ORSINO (to Feste)

  O fellow, come, the song we had last night.

  Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain.

  The spinsters, and the knitters in the sun,

  And the free maids that weave their thread with

  bones,

  Do use to chant it. It is silly sooth,

  A
nd dallies with the innocence of love,

  Like the old age.

  FESTE Are you ready, sir?

  ORSINO I prithee, sing.

  Music

  FESTE (sings)

  Come away, come away death,

  And in sad cypress let me be laid.

  Fie away, fie away breath,

  I am slain by a fair cruel maid.

  My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,

  O prepare it.

  My part of death no one so true

  Did share it.

  Not a flower, not a flower sweet

  On my black coffin let there be strewn.

  Not a friend, not a friend greet

  My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown.

  A thousand thousand sighs to save,

  Lay me O where

  Sad true lover never find my grave,

  To weep there.

  DUKE (giving money) There’s for thy pains.

  FESTE No pains, sir. I take pleasure in singing, sir.

  ORSINO I’ll pay thy pleasure then.

  FESTE Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid, one time or another.

  ORSINO Give me now leave to leave thee.

  FESTE Now the melancholy god protect thee, and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal. I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business might be everything, and their intent everywhere, for that’s it that always makes a good voyage of nothing. Farewell. Exit

  ORSINO

  Let all the rest give place: Exeunt Curio and others Once more, Cesario,

  Get thee to yon same sovereign cruelty.

  Tell her my love, more noble than the world,

  Prizes not quantity of dirty lands.

  The parts that fortune hath bestowed upon her

  Tell her I hold as giddily as fortune;

  But ’tis that miracle and queen of gems

  That nature pranks her in attracts my soul.

  VIOLA

  But if she cannot love you, sir?

  ORSINO

  I cannot be so answered.

  VIOLA Sooth, but you must.

  Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,

  Hath for your love as great a pang of heart

  As you have for Olivia. You cannot love her.

  You tell her so. Must she not then be answered?

  ORSINO

  There is no woman’s sides

  Can bide the beating of so strong a passion

  As love doth give my heart; no woman’s heart

  So big, to hold so much. They lack retention.

  Alas, their love may be called appetite,

  No motion of the liver, but the palate,

  That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt.

  But mine is all as hungry as the sea,

  And can digest as much. Make no compare

  Between that love a woman can bear me

  And that I owe Olivia.

  VIOLA Ay, but I know—

  ORSINO What dost thou know?

  VIOLA

  Too well what love women to men may owe.

  In faith, they are as true of heart as we.

  My father had a daughter loved a man

  As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman

  I should your lordship.

  ORSINO

  And what’s her history?

  VIOLA

  A blank, my lord. She never told her love,

  But let concealment, like a worm i’th’ bud,

  Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought,

  And with a green and yellow melancholy

  She sat like patience on a monument,

  Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?

  We men may say more, swear more, but indeed

  Our shows are more than will; for still we prove

  Much in our vows, but little in our love.

  ORSINO

  But died thy sister of her love, my boy?

  VIOLA

  I am all the daughters of my father’s house,

  And all the brothers too; and yet I know not.

  Sir, shall I to this lady?

  ORSINO

  Ay, that’s the theme,

  To her in haste. Give her this jewel. Say

  My love can give no place, bide no denay.

  Exeunt severally

  2.5 Enter Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Fabian

  SIR TOBY Come thy ways, Signor 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.

  Enter Maria with a letter

  SIR TOBY Here comes the little villain. 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!

  The men hide. Maria places the letter

  Lie thou there, 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 anyone else that follows her. What should I think on’t?

  SIR TOBY Here’s an overweening rogue.

  FABIAN O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkeycock 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 Strachey 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 ask 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—(touching his chain) some rich jewel. Toby approaches; curtsies 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 (seeing the letter) What employment have we here? FABIAN Now is the woodcock near the gin.

  SIR TOBY O peace, and the spirit of humours intimate reading aloud to him.

  MALVOLIO (taking up the letter) 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! (Opening the letter) 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

  ‘Jove knows I love,

  But who?

  Lips do not move,

  No man must know.’

  ‘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

  ‘I may command where I adore,

  But silence like a Lucrece knife

  With bloodless stroke my heart doth gore.

  M.O.A.I. doth sway my life.’

  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 checks 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.