The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (book suggestions TXT) 📖

no fool, sir, till she be married; and fools are as like husbands as pilchers are to herrings-the husband’s the bigger. I am indeed not her fool, but her corrupter of words.

VIOLA. I saw thee late at the Count Orsino’s.

CLOWN. Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun-it shines everywhere. I would be sorry, sir, but the fool should be as oft with your master as with my mistress: think I saw your wisdom there.

VIOLA. Nay, an thou pass upon me, I’ll no more with thee.

Hold, there’s expenses for thee. [Giving a coin]

CLOWN. Now Jove, in his next commodity of hair, send the 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 begg’d.

[Giving another coin]

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 overworn.

Exit CLOWN

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, check at every feather That comes before his eye. This is a practice 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 and SIR ANDREW

 

SIR TOBY. Save you, gentleman!

VIOLA. And you, sir.

AGUECHEEK. Dieu vous garde, monsieur.

VIOLA. Et vous aussi; votre serviteur.

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

SIR TOBY. 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. 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. 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 accomplish’d lady, the heavens rain odours on you!

AGUECHEEK. That youth’s a rare courtier- ‘Rain odours’ well!

VIOLA. My matter hath no voice, lady, but to your own most pregnant and vouchsafed car.

AGUECHEEK. ‘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 all but OLIVIA and VIOLA] 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.

Y’are 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 th’ unmuzzled thoughts That tyrannous heart can think? To one of your receiving Enough is shown: a cypress, not a bosom, Hides 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 wife is like 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 think’st 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 murd’rous 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 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.

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

SCENE II.

OLIVIA’S house

 

Enter SIR TOBY, SIR ANDREW and FABIAN

 

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

SIR TOBY. Thy reason, dear venom, give thy reason.

FABIAN. You must needs yield your reason, Sir Andrew.

AGUECHEEK. Marry, I saw your niece do more favours to the Count’s servingman than ever she bestow’d upon me; I saw’t i’ th’

orchard.

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

AGUECHEEK. As plain as I see you now.

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

AGUECHEEK. ‘Slight! will you make an ass o’ me?

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

SIR TOBY. And they have been grand-jurymen 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 bang’d the youth into dumbness. This was look’d for at your hand, and this was baulk’d. The double gilt of this opportunity you let time wash off, and you are now sail’d into the north of my lady’s opinion; where you will hang like an icicle on Dutchman’s beard, unless you do redeem it by some laudable attempt either of valour or policy.

AGUECHEEK. 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. 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.

AGUECHEEK. Will either of you bear me a challenge to him?

SIR TOBY. Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief; it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and full of invention.

Taunt him with the license 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.

AGUECHEEK. Where shall I find you?

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

Exit SIR ANDREW

FABIAN. This is a dear manakin to you, Sir Toby.

SIR TOBY. 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. 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 open’d 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.

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

 

Enter MARIA

 

SIR TOBY. Look where the youngest wren of nine comes.

MARIA. If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourselves 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. And cross-garter’d?

MARIA. Most villainously; like a pedant that keeps a school i’ th’

church. I have dogg’d him like his murderer. He does obey every point of the letter that I dropp’d 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. Come, bring us, bring us where he is. Exeunt

SCENE 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 thanks; and oft good turns Are shuffl’d off with such uncurrent pay; But were my worth as is my conscience