William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Good fool, for my brother’s death.

CLOWN.

I think his soul is in hell, madonna.

OLIVIA.

I know his soul is in heaven, fool.

CLOWN. The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother’s soul being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen.

OLIVIA.

What think you of this fool, Malvolio? doth he not mend?

MALVOLIO. Yes, and shall do till the pangs of death shake him. Infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool.

CLOWN. God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity, for the better increasing your folly! Sir Toby will be sworn that I am no fox; but he will not pass his word for twopence that you are no fool.

OLIVIA.

How say you to that, Malvolio?

MALVOLIO. I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal; I saw him put down the other day with an ordinary fool that has no more brain than a stone. Look you now, he’s out of his guard already; unless you laugh and minister occasion to him, he is gagg’d. I protest, I take these wise men, that crow so at these set kind of fools, no better than the fools’ zanies.

OLIVIA. O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a distemper’d appetite. To be generous, guiltless, and of free disposition, is to take those things for birdbolts that you deem cannon bullets. There is no slander in an allow’d fool, though he do nothing but rail; nor no railing in a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove.

CLOWN. Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou speak’st well of fools!

[Re-enter MARIA.]

MARIA. Madam, there is at the gate a young gentleman much desires to speak with you.

OLIVIA.

From the Count Orsino, is it?

MARIA.

I know not, madam; ‘t is a fair young man, and well attended.

OLIVIA.

Who of my people hold him in delay?

MARIA.

Sir Toby, madam, your kinsman.

OLIVIA. Fetch him off, I pray you; he speaks nothing but madman: fie on him! [Exit MARIA.] Go you, Malvolio: if it be a suit from the count, I am sick, or not at home; what you will, to dismiss it. [Exit MALVOLIO.] Now you see, sir, how your fooling grows old, and people dislike it.

CLOWN. Thou hast spoke for us, madonna, as if thy eldest son should be a fool; whose skull Jove cram with brains! for— here he comes—

[Enter SIR TOBY.]

one of thy kin has a most weak pia mater.

OLIVIA.

By mine honour, half drunk. What is he at the gate, cousin?

SIR TOBY.

A gentleman.

OLIVIA.

A gentleman! what gentleman?

SIR TOBY. ‘T is a gentleman here — a plague o’ these pickle-herring! How now, sot!

CLOWN.

Good Sir Toby!

OLIVIA.

Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this lethargy?

SIR TOBY.

Lechery! I defy lechery. There’s one at the gate.

OLIVIA.

Ay, marry, what is he?

SIR TOBY.

Let him be the devil, and he will, I care not; give me faith, say

I. Well, it’s all one.

[Exit.]

OLIVIA.

What’s a drunken man like, fool?

CLOWN. Like a drown’d man, a fool, and a madman: one draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns him.

OLIVIA. Go thou and seek the crowner, and let him sit o’ my coz; for he’s in the third degree of drink, he’s drown’d: go look after him.

CLOWN.

He is but mad yet, madonna; and the fool shall look to the

madman.

[Exit.]

[Re-enter MALVOLIO.]

MALVOLIO. Madam, yond young fellow swears he will speak with you. I told him you were sick; he takes on him to understand so much, and therefore comes to speak with you. I told him you were asleep; he seems to have a foreknowledge of that too, and therefore comes to speak with you. What is to be said to him, lady? he’s fortified against any denial.

OLIVIA.

Tell him he shall not speak with me.

MALVOLIO. Has been told so; and he says, he’ll stand at your door like a sheriff’s post, and be the supporter to a bench, but he’ll speak with you.

OLIVIA.

What kind o’ man is he?

MALVOLIO.

Why, of mankind.

OLIVIA.

What manner of man?

MALVOLIO.

Of very ill manner; he’ll speak with you, will you or no.

OLIVIA.

Of what personage and years is he?

MALVOLIO. Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; as a squash is before ‘t is a peascod, or a codling when ‘t is almost an apple: ‘t is with him in standing water, between boy and man. He is very well-favour’d, and he speaks very shrewishly; one would think his mother’s milk were scarce out of him.

OLIVIA.

Let him approach. Call in my gentlewoman.

MALVOLIO.

Gentlewoman, my lady calls.

[Exit.]

[Re-enter MARIA.]

OLIVIA.

Give me my veil; come, throw it o’er my face;

We’ll once more hear Orsino’s embassy.

[Enter VIOLA, and ATTENDANTS.]

VIOLA.

The honourable lady of the house, which is she?

OLIVIA.

Speak to me; I shall answer for her. Your will?

VIOLA. Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty,— I pray you, tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her: I would be loth to cast away my speech; for, besides that it is excellently well penn’d, I have taken great pains to con it. Good beauties, let me sustain no scorn; I am very comptible, even to the least sinister usage.

OLIVIA.

Whence came you, sir?

VIOLA. I can say little more than I have studied, and that question’s out of my part. Good gentle one, give me modest assurance if you be the lady of the house, that I may proceed in my speech.

OLIVIA.

Are you a comedian?

VIOLA. No, my profound heart; and yet, by the very fangs of malice I swear, I am not that I play. Are you the lady of the house?

OLIVIA.

If I do not usurp myself, I am.

VIOLA. Most certain, if you are she, you do usurp yourself; for what is yours to bestow is not yours to reserve. But this is from my commission. I will on with my speech in your praise, and then show you the heart of my message.

OLIVIA.

Come to what is important in’t; I forgive you the praise.

VIOLA.

Alas, I took great pains to study it, and ‘t is poetical.

OLIVIA. It is the more like to be feign’d; I pray you, keep it in. I heard you were saucy at my gates, and allow’d your approach rather to wonder at you than to hear you. If you be not mad, be gone; if you have reason, be brief; ‘t is not that time of moon with me to make one in so skipping a dialogue.

MARIA.

Will you hoist sail, sir? here lies your way.

VIOLA. No, good swabber; I am to hull here a little longer. Some mollification for your giant, sweet lady. Tell me your mind; I am a messenger.

OLIVIA. Sure, you have some hideous matter to deliver, when the courtesy of it is so fearful. Speak your office.

VIOLA. It alone concerns your ear. I bring no overture of war, no taxation of homage: I hold the olive in my hand; my words are as full of peace as matter.

OLIVIA.

Yet you began rudely. What are you? what would you?

VIOLA. The rudeness that hath appear’d in me have I learn’d from my entertainment. What I am, and what I would, are as secret as maidenhead; to your ears, divinity; to any other’s, profanation.

OLIVIA.

Give us the place alone; we will hear this divinity.

[Exeunt MARIA and ATTENDANTS.] Now, sir, what is your text?

VIOLA.

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.