William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Him will I tear out of that cruel eye,

Where he sits crowned in his master’s spite.

Come, boy, with me; my thoughts are ripe in mischief;

I ‘ll sacrifice the lamb that I do love,

To spite a raven’s heart within a dove.

VIOLA.

And I, most jocund, apt, and willingly,

To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die.

OLIVIA.

Where goes Cesario?

VIOLA.

After him I love

More than I love these eyes, more than my life,

More, by all mores, than ere I shall love wife.

If I do feign, you witnesses above,

Punish my life for tainting of my love!

OLIVIA.

Ay me, detested! how am I beguil’d!

VIOLA.

Who does beguile you? who does do you wrong?

OLIVIA.

Hast thou forgot thyself? is it so long?

Call forth the holy father.

DUKE.

Come, away!

OLIVIA.

Whither, my lord? Cesario, husband, stay.

DUKE.

Husband!

OLIVIA.

Ay, husband! can he that deny?

DUKE.

Her husband, sirrah!

VIOLA.

No, my lord, not I.

OLIVIA.

Alas, it is the baseness of thy fear

That makes thee strangle thy propriety.

Fear not, Cesario; take thy fortunes up;

Be that thou know’st thou art, and then thou art

As great as that thou fear’st.

[Enter PRIEST.]

O, welcome, father!

Father, I charge thee, by thy reverence,

Here to unfold, though lately we intended

To keep in darkness what occasion now

Reveals before ‘t is ripe, what thou dost know

Hath newly pass’d between this youth and me.

PRIEST.

A contract of eternal bond of love,

Confirm’d by mutual joinder of your hands,

Attested by the holy close of lips,

Strengthen’d by interchangement of your rings;

And all the ceremony of this compact

Seal’d in my function, by my testimony;

Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave

I have travell’d but two hours.

DUKE.

O thou dissembling cub! what wilt thou be

When time hath sow’d a grizzle on thy case?

Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow

That thine own trip shall be thine overthrow?

Farewell, and take her; but direct thy feet

Where thou and I henceforth may never meet.

VIOLA.

My lord, I do protest,—

OLIVIA.

O, do not swear!

Hold little faith, though thou has too much fear.

[Enter SIR ANDREW.]

SIR ANDREW.

For the love of God, a surgeon! Send one presently to Sir Toby.

OLIVIA.

What ‘s the matter?

SIR ANDREW. Has broke my head across and has given Sir Toby a bloody coxcomb too; for the love of God, your help! I had rather than forty pound I were at home.

OLIVIA.

Who has done this, Sir Andrew?

SIR ANDREW. The count’s gentleman, one Cesario; we took him for a coward, but he ‘s the very devil incardinate.

DUKE.

My gentleman Cesario?

SIR ANDREW. ‘Od’s lifelings, here he is! You broke my head for nothing; and that that I did, I was set on to do ‘t by Sir Toby.

VIOLA.

Why do you speak to me? I never hurt you.

You drew your sword upon me without cause;

But I bespake you fair, and hurt you not.

SIR ANDREW. If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me; I think you set nothing by a bloody coxcomb.

[Enter SIR TOBY and CLOWN.]

Here comes Sir Toby halting; you shall hear more: but if he had not been in drink, he would have tickl’d you othergates than he did.

DUKE.

How now, gentleman! how is ‘t with you?

SIR TOBY. That ‘s all one. Has hurt me, and there ‘s th’ end on ‘t. Sot, didst see Dick Surgeon, sot?

CLOWN. O, he ‘s drunk, Sir Toby, an hour agone; his eyes were set at eight i’ th’ morning.

SIR TOBY. Then he ‘s a rogue, and a passy measures pavin. I hate a drunken rogue.

OLIVIA.

Away with him! Who hath made this havoc with them?

SIR ANDREW.

I ‘ll help you, Sir Toby, because we ‘ll be dress’d together.

SIR TOBY. Will you help? an ass-head and a coxcomb and a knave! a thin-fac’d knave, a gull!

OLIVIA.

Get him to bed, and let his hurt be look’d to.

[Exeunt CLOWN, FABIAN, SIR TOBY, and SIR ANDREW.]

[Enter SEBASTIAN.]

SEBASTIAN.

I am sorry, madam, I have hurt your kinsman

But, had it been the brother of my blood,

I must have done no less with wit and safety.

You throw a strange regard upon me, and by that

I do perceive it hath offended you;

Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vows

We made each other but so late ago.

DUKE.

One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons,

A natural perspective, that is and is not!

SEBASTIAN.

Antonio, O my dear Antonio!

How have the hours rack’d and tortur’d me,

Since I have lost thee!

ANTONIO.

Sebastian are you?

SEBASTIAN.

Fear’st thou that, Antonio?

ANTONIO.

How have you made division of yourself?

An apple cleft in two is not more twin

Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?

OLIVIA.

Most wonderful!

SEBASTIAN.

Do I stand there? I never had a brother;

Nor can there be that deity in my nature,

Of here and everywhere. I had a sister,

Whom the blind waves and surges have devour’d.

Of charity, what kin are you to me?

What countryman? what name? what parentage?

VIOLA.

Of Messaline: Sebastian was my father;

Such a Sebastian was my brother too,

So went he suited to his watery tomb.

If spirits can assume both form and suit,

You come to fright us.

SEBASTIAN.

A spirit I am indeed;

But am in that dimension grossly clad

Which from the womb I did participate.

Were you a woman, as the rest goes even,

I should my tears let fall upon your cheek,

And say, ‘Thrice-welcome, drowned Viola!’

VIOLA.

My father had a mole upon his brow.

SEBASTIAN.

And so had mine.

VIOLA.

And died that day when Viola from her birth

Had numb’red thirteen years.

SEBASTIAN.

O, that record is lively in my soul!

He finished, indeed, his mortal act

That day that made my sister thirteen years.

VIOLA.

If nothing lets to make us happy both

But this my masculine usurp’d attire,

Do not embrace me till each circumstance

Of place, time, fortune, do cohere and jump

That I am Viola: which to confirm,

I ‘ll bring you to a captain in this town,

Where lie my maiden weeds; by whose gentle help

I was preserv’d to serve this noble count.

All the occurrence of my fortune since

Hath been between this lady and this lord.

SEBASTIAN.

[To OLIVIA] So comes it, lady, you have been mistook;

But nature to her bias drew in that.

You would have been contracted to a maid;

Nor are you therein, by my life, deceiv’d,

You are betroth’d both to a maid and man.

DUKE.

Be not amaz’d; right noble is his blood.

If this be so, as yet the glass seems true,

I shall have share in this most happy wreck.

[To VIOLA] Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times

Thou never shouldst love woman like to me.

VIOLA.

And all those sayings will I overswear;

And all those swearings keep as true in soul

As doth that orbed continent the fire

That severs day from night.

DUKE.

Give me thy hand;

And let me see thee in thy woman’s weeds.

VIOLA.

The captain that did bring me first on shore

Hath my maid’s garments; he, upon some action,

Is now in durance, at Malvolio’s suit,

A gentleman and follower of my lady’s.

OLIVIA.

He shall enlarge him. Fetch Malvolio hither;