Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will - 5

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 ’tis ripe—what thou dost know
Hath newly passed between this youth and me.
PRIEST.
A contract of eternal bond of love,
Confirmed 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
Sealed in my function, by my testimony;
Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave,
I have travelled but two hours.
DUKE.
O thou dissembling cub! What wilt thou be
When time hath sowed 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.
Enter Sir Toby, drunk, led by the Clown.
SIR ANDREW.
If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me. I think you set
nothing by a bloody coxcomb. Here comes Sir Toby halting, you shall
hear more: but if he had not been in drink, he would have tickled 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 dressed together.
SIR TOBY.
Will you help? An ass-head, and a coxcomb, and a knave, a thin-faced
knave, a gull?
OLIVIA.
Get him to bed, and let his hurt be looked 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 devoured.
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 numbered 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, deceived:
You are betroth’d both to a maid and man.
DUKE.
Be not amazed; 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 over-swear,
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.
And yet, alas, now I remember me,
They say, poor gentleman, he’s much distract.
Enter Clown, with a letter and Fabian.
A most extracting frenzy of mine own
From my remembrance clearly banished his.
How does he, sirrah?
CLOWN.
Truly, madam, he holds Belzebub at the stave’s end as well as a man in
his case may do. Has here writ a letter to you. I should have given it
you today morning, but as a madman’s epistles are no gospels, so it
skills not much when they are delivered.
OLIVIA.
Open ’t, and read it.
CLOWN.
Look then to be well edified, when the fool delivers the madman. _By
the Lord, madam,—_
OLIVIA.
How now, art thou mad?
CLOWN.
No, madam, I do but read madness: an your ladyship will have it as it
ought to be, you must allow _vox_.
OLIVIA.
Prithee, read i’ thy right wits.
CLOWN.
So I do, madonna. But to read his right wits is to read thus; therefore
perpend, my princess, and give ear.
OLIVIA.
[_To Fabian._] Read it you, sirrah.
FABIAN.
[_Reads._] _By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, and the world shall know
it. Though you have put me into darkness and given your drunken cousin
rule over me, yet have I the benefit of my senses as well as your
ladyship. I have your own letter that induced me to the semblance I put
on; with the which I doubt not but to do myself much right or you much
shame. Think of me as you please. I leave my duty a little unthought
of, and speak out of my injury.
The madly-used Malvolio._
OLIVIA.
Did he write this?
CLOWN.
Ay, madam.
DUKE.
This savours not much of distraction.
OLIVIA.
See him delivered, Fabian, bring him hither.
[_Exit Fabian._]
My lord, so please you, these things further thought on,
To think me as well a sister, as a wife,
One day shall crown th’ alliance on’t, so please you,
Here at my house, and at my proper cost.
DUKE.
Madam, I am most apt t’ embrace your offer.
[_To Viola._] Your master quits you; and for your service done him,
So much against the mettle of your sex,
So far beneath your soft and tender breeding,
And since you call’d me master for so long,
Here is my hand; you shall from this time be
You master’s mistress.
OLIVIA.
A sister? You are she.
Enter Fabian and Malvolio.
DUKE.
Is this the madman?
OLIVIA.
Ay, my lord, this same.
How now, Malvolio?
MALVOLIO.
Madam, you have done me wrong,
Notorious wrong.
OLIVIA.
Have I, Malvolio? No.
MALVOLIO.
Lady, you have. Pray you peruse that letter.
You must not now deny it is your hand,
Write from it, if you can, in hand, or phrase,
Or say ’tis not your seal, not your invention:
You can say none of this. Well, grant it then,
And tell me, in the modesty of honour,
Why you have given me such clear lights of favour,
Bade me come smiling and cross-garter’d to you,
To put on yellow stockings, and to frown
Upon Sir Toby, and the lighter people;
And acting this in an obedient hope,
Why have you suffer’d me to be imprison’d,
Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,
And made the most notorious geck and gull
That e’er invention played on? Tell me why?
OLIVIA.
Alas, Malvolio, this is not my writing,
Though I confess, much like the character:
But out of question, ’tis Maria’s hand.
And now I do bethink me, it was she
First told me thou wast mad; then cam’st in smiling,
And in such forms which here were presuppos’d
Upon thee in the letter. Prithee, be content.
This practice hath most shrewdly pass’d upon thee.
But when we know the grounds and authors of it,
Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge
Of thine own cause.
FABIAN.
Good madam, hear me speak,
And let no quarrel, nor no brawl to come,
Taint the condition of this present hour,
Which I have wonder’d at. In hope it shall not,
Most freely I confess, myself and Toby
Set this device against Malvolio here,
Upon some stubborn and uncourteous parts
We had conceiv’d against him. Maria writ
The letter, at Sir Toby’s great importance,
In recompense whereof he hath married her.
How with a sportful malice it was follow’d
May rather pluck on laughter than revenge,
If that the injuries be justly weigh’d
That have on both sides passed.
OLIVIA.
Alas, poor fool, how have they baffled thee!
CLOWN.
Why, ‘some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have
greatness thrown upon them.’ I was one, sir, in this interlude, one Sir
Topas, sir, but that’s all one. ‘By the Lord, fool, I am not mad.’ But
do you remember? ‘Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal? And you
smile not, he’s gagged’? And thus the whirligig of time brings in his
revenges.
MALVOLIO.
I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you.
[_Exit._]
OLIVIA.
He hath been most notoriously abus’d.
DUKE.
Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace:
He hath not told us of the captain yet.
When that is known, and golden time convents,
A solemn combination shall be made
Of our dear souls.—Meantime, sweet sister,
We will not part from hence.—Cesario, come:
For so you shall be while you are a man;
But when in other habits you are seen,
Orsino’s mistress, and his fancy’s queen.
[_Exeunt._]
Clown sings.
_ When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day._
_ But when I came to man’s estate,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
’Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
For the rain it raineth every day._
_ But when I came, alas, to wive,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
By swaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain it raineth every day._
_ But when I came unto my beds,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
With toss-pots still had drunken heads,
For the rain it raineth every day._
_ A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
But that’s all one, our play is done,
And we’ll strive to please you every day._
[_Exit._]