Oli. O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite. To be generous, guiltless, and of free disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon-bullets. There is no slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail; nor no railing in a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove. Clo. Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou speakest well of fools!

Re-enter MARIA.

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

Oli. From the Count Orsino, is it?

Mar. I know not, madam; 'tis a fair young man, and well attended.

Oli. Who of my people hold him in delay?

Mar. Sir Toby, madam, your kinsman.

Oli. 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.

Clo. 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, one of thy kin, has a most weak pia mater.

Enter Sir TOBY BELCH.

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

Sir To. A gentleman.

Oli. A gentleman? What gentleman?

Sir To. 'Tis a gentleman here.-A plague o' these pickleherrings! How now, sot?

Clo. Good Sir Toby,

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

Sir To. Lechery! I defy lechery.
Oli. Ay, marry; what is he?

There's one at the gate.

Sir To. Let him be the devil an he will, I care not: give

me faith, say I. Well, it's all one.

Oli. What's a drunken man like, fool?

[Exit.

Clo. Like a drowned man, a fool, and a madman: one draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns him.

Oli. Go thou and seek the coroner, and let him sit o' my

coz; for he is in the third degree of drink; he's drowned: go, look after him.

Clo. He is but mad yet, madonna; and the fool shall look to the madman. [Exit CLOWN.

Re-enter MALVOLIO.

Mal. 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.

Oli. Tell him, he shall not speak with me.

Mal. He has been told so; and he says he'll stand at your door like a sheriff's post, and be the supporter of a bench, but he'll speak with you.

Oli. What kind of man is he?

Mal. Why, of mankind.

Oli. What manner of man?

Mal. Of very ill manner; he'll speak with you, will you

or no.

Oli. Of what personage and years is he?

Mal. Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; as a squash is before 'tis a peas-cod, or a codling when 'tis almost an apple: 'tis with him e'en standing water, between boy and man. He is very well-favoured, and he speaks very shrewishly; one would think his mother's milk were scarce out of him.

Oli. Let him approach. Call in my gentlewoman.
Mal. Gentlewoman, my lady calls.

Re-enter MARIA.

Oli. Give me my veil: come, throw it o'er my face; We'll once more hear Orsino's embassy.

Enter VIOLA.

[Exit.

Vio. The honourable lady of the house, which is she? Oli. Speak to me, I shall answer for her. Your will? Vio. Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty, pray you, tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her: I would be loath to cast away my speech; for, besides that it is excellently well penned, I have taken great pains to con it. Good beauties, let me sustain ne scorn; I am very comptible, even to the least sinister usage. Oli. Whence came you, sir?

Vio. 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.

Oli. Are you a comedian?

Vio. 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?

Oli. If I do not usurp myself, I am. Vio. 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.

Oli. Come to what is important in't: I forgive you the praise.

Vio. Alas, I took great pains to study it, and 'tis poetical.

Oli. It is the more like to be feigned; I pray you keep it in. I heard you were saucy at my gates; and allowed your approach, rather to wonder at you than to hear you. If you be not mad, be gone; if you have reason, be brief: 'tis not that time of moon with me to make one in so skipping a dialogue.

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

Vio. No, good swabber; I am to hull here a little longer. -Some mollification for your giant, sweet lady.

Oli. Tell me your mind.

Vio. I am a messenger.

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

Vio. 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.

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

Vio. The rudeness that hath appeared in me have I learned from my entertainment. What I am and what I would are as sacred as maidenhead: to your ears, divinity; to any other's, profanation.

Oli. Give us the place alone: we will hear this divinity. [Exit MARIA.] Now, sir, what is your text?

Vio. Most sweet lady,

Oli. A comfortable doctrine, and much may be said of it. Where lies your text?

Vio. In Orsino's bosom.

Oli. In his bosom? In what chapter of his bosom?

Vio. To answer by the method, in the first of his heart. Oli. O, I have read it; it is heresy. Have you no more

to say?

Vio. Good madam, let me see your face.

Oli. 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 as I was this present. Is't not well done? [Unveiling.

Vio. Excellently done, if God did all.

Oli. 'Tis in grain, sir; 'twill endure wind and weather. Vio. 'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on:

Lady, you are the cruel'st she alive,

If you will lead these graces to the grave,

And leave the world no copy.

Oli. 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 labelled to my will: as, item, two lips indifferent red; item, two gray eyes; with lids to them; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth. Were you

sent hither to 'praise me?

Vio. 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!

Oli.

How does he love me?

Vio. With adorations, with fertile tears,

With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.

Oli. 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 divulged, 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.
Vio. 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.

Oli.

Why, what would you?

Vio. 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;

Holla 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.
Oli. You might do much.

What is your parentage?
Vio. Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:
I am a gentleman.

Oli.

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.
Vio. 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
Placed in contempt! Farewell, fair cruelty.
Oli. 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 fivefold blazon.

[Exit.

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!—

Mal.

Re-enter MALVOLIO.

Here, madam, at

your

service.

Oli. 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 to-morrow,
I'll give him reasons for't. Hie thee, Malvolio.
Mal. Madam, I will.

[Exit.

Oli. 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.