William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

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.

‘T is in grain, sir; ‘t will endure wind and weather.

VIOLA.

‘T is 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 labell’d 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 recompens’d, 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 divulg’d, 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 fervour, like my master’s, be

Plac’d 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 tomorrow,

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.]

ACT II.

SCENE I. The seacoast

[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 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 pleas’d, would we had so ended! but you, sir, alter’d that; for some hour before you took me from the breach of the sea was my sister drown’d.

ANTONIO.

Alas the day!

SEBASTIAN. A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembl’d me, was yet of many accounted beautiful; but, though I could not, with such estimable wonder, over-far believe that, yet thus far I will boldly publish her: she bore mind that envy could not but call fair. She is drown’d 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 recover’d, 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 you not ev’n now with the Countess Olivia?

VIOLA. Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since arriv’d but hither.

MALVOLIO. She returns this ring to you, sir; you might have sav’d 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 return’d. 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, 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 ‘t is,