Fabian

Now, as thou lovest me, let me see his letter.

Feste

Good Master Fabian, grant me another request.

Fabian

Any thing.

Feste

Do not desire to see this letter.

Fabian

This is, to give a dog, and in recompense desire my dog again.

Orsino

Belong you to the Lady Olivia, friends?

Feste

Ay, sir; we are some of her trappings.

Orsino

I know thee well: how dost thou, my good fellow?

Feste

Truly, sir, the better for my foes and the worse for my friends.

Orsino

Just the contrary; the better for thy friends.

Feste

No, sir, the worse.

Orsino

How can that be?

Feste

Marry, sir, they praise me and make an ass of me; now my foes tell me plainly I am an ass: so that by my foes, sir, I profit in the knowledge of myself, and by my friends I am abused: so that, conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make your two affirmatives, why then, the worse for my friends and the better for my foes.

Orsino

Why, this is excellent.

Feste

By my troth, sir, no; though it please you to be one of my friends.

Orsino

Thou shalt not be the worse for me: there's gold.

Feste

But that it would be double-dealing, sir, I would you could make it another.

Orsino

O, you give me ill counsel.

Feste

Put your grace in your pocket, sir, for this once, and let your flesh and blood obey it.

Orsino

Well, I will be so much a sinner, to be a double-dealer: there's another.

Feste

Primo, secundo, tertio, is a good play; and the old saying is, the third pays for all: the triplex, sir, is a good tripping measure; or the bells of Saint Bennet, sir, may put you in mind; one, two, three.

Orsino

You can fool no more money out of me at this throw: if you will let your lady know I am here to speak with her, and bring her along with you, it may awake my bounty further.

Feste

Marry, sir, lullaby to your bounty till I come again. I go, sir; but I would not have you to think that my desire of having is the sin of covetousness: but, as you say, sir, let your bounty take a nap, I will awake it anon.

Viola

Here comes the man, sir, that did rescue me. Enter ANTONIO and Officers.

Orsino

That face of his I do remember well;

Yet, when I saw it last, it was besmeared

As black as Vulcan in the smoke of war:

A baubling vessel was he captain of,

For shallow draught and bulk unprizable;

With which such scathful grapple did he make

With the most noble bottom of our fleet,

That very envy and the tongue of loss

Cried fame and honour on him. What's the matter?

First Officer

Orsino, this is that Antonio

That took the Phoenix and her fraught from Candy;

And this is he that did the Tiger board,

When your young nephew Titus lost his leg:

Here in the streets, desperate of shame and state,

In private brabble did we apprehend him

Viola

He did me kindness, sir, drew on my side;

But in conclusion put strange speech upon me:

I know not what 'twas but distraction.

Orsino

Notable pirate! thou salt-water thief!

What foolish boldness brought thee to their mercies,

Whom thou, in terms so bloody and so dear,

Hast made thine enemies?

Antonio

Orsino, noble sir,

Be pleased that I shake off these names you give me:

Antonio never yet was thief or pirate,

Though I confess, on base and ground enough,

Orsino's enemy. A witchcraft drew me hither:

That most ingrateful boy there by your side

From the rude sea's enraged and foamy mouth

Did I redeem; a wrack past hope he was:

His life I gave him and did thereto add

My love, without retention or restraint,

All his in dedication; for his sake

Did I expose myself, pure for his love,

Into the danger of this adverse town;

Drew to defend him when he was beset:

Where being apprehended, his false cunning,

Not meaning to partake with me in danger,

Taught him to face me out of his acquaintance,

And grew a twenty years removed thing

While one would wink; denied me mine own purse,

Which I had recommended to his use

Not half an hour before.

Viola

How can this be?

Orsino

When came he to this town?

Antonio

to-day, my lord; and for three months before,

No interim, not a minute's vacancy,

Both day and night did we keep company. Enter OLIVIA and Attendants.

Orsino

Here comes the countess: now heaven walks on earth.

But for thee, fellow; fellow, thy words are madness:

Three months this youth hath tended upon me;

But more of that anon. Take him aside.

Olivia

What would my lord, but that he may not have,

Wherein Olivia may seem serviceable?

Cesario, you do not keep promise with me.

Viola

Madam!

Orsino

Gracious Olivia,

Olivia

What do you say, Cesario? Good my lord,

Viola

My lord would speak; my duty hushes me.

Olivia

If it be aught to the old tune, my lord,

It is as fat and fulsome to mine ear

As howling after music.

Orsino

Still so cruel?

Olivia

Still so constant, lord.

Orsino

What, to perverseness? you uncivil lady,

To whose ingrate and unauspicious altars

My soul the faithfull'st offerings have breathed out

That e'er devotion tendered! What shall I do?

Olivia

Even what it please my lord, that shall become him.

Orsino

Why should I not, had I the heart to do it,

Like to the Egyptian thief at point of death,

Kill what I love? — a savage jealousy

That sometime savours nobly. But hear me this:

Since you to non-regardance cast my faith,

And that I partly know the instrument

That screws me from my true place in your favour,

Live you the marble-breasted tyrant still;

But this your minion, whom I know you love,

And whom, by heaven I swear, I tender dearly,

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 e'er 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 beguiled!

Viola

Who does beguile you? who does do you wrong?

Olivia

Hast thou forgot thyself? is it so long?

Call forth the holy father.

Orsino

Come, away!

Olivia

Whither, my lord? Cesario, husband, stay.

Orsino

Husband!

Olivia

Ay, husband: can he that deny?

Orsino

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 'tis ripe, what thou dost know

Hath newly passed between this youth and me.

Priests

A contract of eternal bond of love,

Confirmed by mutual joinder of your hands,

Attested by the holy close of lips,

Strengthened 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.”

Orsino

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 hast 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

He's 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.

Orsino

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. 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.

Orsino

How now, gentleman! how is't with you?

Sir Toby

That's all one: he's hurt me, and there's the end on't. Sot, didst see Dick surgeon, sot?

Feste

O, he's drunk, Sir Toby, an hour agone; his eyes were set at eight i' the morning.

Sir Toby

Then he's a rogue, and a passy-measures pavane: 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.

Orsino

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 racked and tortured 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 every where. 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 usurped 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 preserved 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 betrothed both to a maid and man.

Orsino

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 wrack. 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.

Orsino

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. Re-enter CLOWN with a letter, and FABIAN.

A most extracting frenzy of mine own

From my remembrance clearly banished his.

How does he, sirrah?

Feste

Truly, madam, he holds Beelzebub at the stave's end as well as a man in his case may do: he's here writ a letter to you; I should have given't you to-day 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.

Feste

Look then to be well edified when the fool delivers the madman. “By the Lord, madam,”

Olivia

How now! art thou mad?

Feste

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.

Feste

So I do, madonna; but to read his right wits is to read thus: therefore perpend, my princess, and give ear.

Olivia

Read it you, sirrah.

Fabian

“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?

Feste

Ay, madam.

Orsino

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 the alliance on't, so please you,

Here at my house and at my proper cost.

Orsino

Madam, I am most apt to 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 called me master for so long,

Here is my hand: you shall from this time be

Your master's mistress.

Olivia

A sister! you are she. Re-enter FABIAN, with MALVOLIO.

Orsino

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-gartered 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 suffered me to be imprisoned,

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 camest in smiling,

And in such forms which here were presupposed

Upon thee in the letter. Prithee, be content:

This practice hath most shrewdly passed 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 wondered 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 conceived 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 followed,

May rather pluck on laughter than revenge;

If that the injuries be justly weighed

That have on both sides passed.

Olivia

Alas, poor fool, how have they baffled thee!

Feste

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? an 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.

Olivia

He hath been most notoriously abused.

Orsino

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 all, except Clown.

Feste