Complete Plays, The (418 page)

[Sings]
What is love? ’tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What’s to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth’s a stuff will not endure.

Sir Andrew

A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight.

Sir Toby Belch

A contagious breath.

Sir Andrew

Very sweet and contagious, i’ faith.

Sir Toby Belch

To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion. But shall we make the welkin dance indeed? shall we rouse the night-owl in a catch that will draw three souls out of one weaver? shall we do that?

Sir Andrew

An you love me, let’s do’t: I am dog at a catch.

Clown

By’r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well.

Sir Andrew

Most certain. Let our catch be, ‘Thou knave.’

Clown

‘Hold thy peace, thou knave,’ knight? I shall be constrained in’t to call thee knave, knight.

Sir Andrew

’Tis not the first time I have constrained one to call me knave. Begin, fool: it begins ‘Hold thy peace.’

Clown

I shall never begin if I hold my peace.

Sir Andrew

Good, i’ faith. Come, begin.

Catch sung

Enter Maria

Maria

What a caterwauling do you keep here! If my lady have not called up her steward Malvolio and bid him turn you out of doors, never trust me.

Sir Toby Belch

My lady’s a Cataian, we are politicians, Malvolio’s a Peg-a-Ramsey, and ‘Three merry men be we.’ Am not I consanguineous? am I not of her blood? Tillyvally. Lady!

Sings

‘There dwelt a man in Babylon, lady, lady!’

Clown

Beshrew me, the knight’s in admirable fooling.

Sir Andrew

Ay, he does well enough if he be disposed, and so do I too: he does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural.

Sir Toby Belch

[Sings]
 
‘O, the twelfth day of December,’—

Maria

For the love o’ God, peace!

Enter Malvolio

Malvolio

My masters, are you mad? or what are you? Have ye no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night? Do ye make an alehouse of my lady’s house, that ye squeak out your coziers’ catches without any mitigation or remorse of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you?

Sir Toby Belch

We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up!

Malvolio

Sir Toby, I must be round with you. My lady bade me tell you, that, though she harbours you as her kinsman, she’s nothing allied to your disorders. If you can separate yourself and your misdemeanors, you are welcome to the house; if not, an it would please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you farewell.

Sir Toby Belch

‘Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone.’

Maria

Nay, good Sir Toby.

Clown

‘His eyes do show his days are almost done.’

Malvolio

Is’t even so?

Sir Toby Belch

‘But I will never die.’

Clown

Sir Toby, there you lie.

Malvolio

This is much credit to you.

Sir Toby Belch

‘shall I bid him go?’

Clown

‘What an if you do?’

Sir Toby Belch

‘shall I bid him go, and spare not?’

Clown

‘O no, no, no, no, you dare not.’

Sir Toby Belch

Out o’ tune, sir: ye lie. Art any more than a steward? Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?

Clown

Yes, by Saint Anne, and ginger shall be hot i’ the mouth too.

Sir Toby Belch

Thou’rt i’ the right. Go, sir, rub your chain with crumbs. A stoup of wine, Maria!

Malvolio

Mistress Mary, if you prized my lady’s favour at any thing more than contempt, you would not give means for this uncivil rule: she shall know of it, by this hand.

Exit

Maria

Go shake your ears.

Sir Andrew

’Twere as good a deed as to drink when a man’s a-hungry, to challenge him the field, and then to break promise with him and make a fool of him.

Sir Toby Belch

Do’t, knight: I’ll write thee a challenge: or I’ll deliver thy indignation to him by word of mouth.

Maria

Sweet Sir Toby, be patient for tonight: since the youth of the count’s was today with thy lady, she is much out of quiet. For Monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him: if I do not gull him into a nayword, and make him a common recreation, do not think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed: I know I can do it.

Sir Toby Belch

Possess us, possess us; tell us something of him.

Maria

Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan.

Sir Andrew

O, if I thought that I’ld beat him like a dog!

Sir Toby Belch

What, for being a puritan? thy exquisite reason, dear knight?

Sir Andrew

I have no exquisite reason for’t, but I have reason good enough.

Maria

The devil a puritan that he is, or any thing constantly, but a time-pleaser; an affectioned ass, that cons state without book and utters it by great swarths: the best persuaded of himself, so crammed, as he thinks, with excellencies, that it is his grounds of faith that all that look on him love him; and on that vice in him will my revenge find notable cause to work.

Sir Toby Belch

What wilt thou do?

Maria

I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of love; wherein, by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and complexion, he shall find himself most feelingly personated. I can write very like my lady your niece: on a forgotten matter we can hardly make distinction of our hands.

Sir Toby Belch

Excellent! I smell a device.

Sir Andrew

I have’t in my nose too.

Sir Toby Belch

He shall think, by the letters that thou wilt drop, that they come from my niece, and that she’s in love with him.

Maria

My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour.

Sir Andrew

And your horse now would make him an ass.

Maria

Ass, I doubt not.

Sir Andrew

O, ’twill be admirable!

Maria

Sport royal, I warrant you: I know my physic will work with him. I will plant you two, and let the fool make a third, where he shall find the letter: observe his construction of it. For this night, to bed, and dream on the event. Farewell.

Exit

Sir Toby Belch

Good night, Penthesilea.

Sir Andrew

Before me, she’s a good wench.

Sir Toby Belch

She’s a beagle, true-bred, and one that adores me: what o’ that?

Sir Andrew

I was adored once too.

Sir Toby Belch

Let’s to bed, knight. Thou hadst need send for more money.

Sir Andrew

If I cannot recover your niece, I am a foul way out.

Sir Toby Belch

Send for money, knight: if thou hast her not i’ the end, call me cut.

Sir Andrew

If I do not, never trust me, take it how you will.

Sir Toby Belch

Come, come, I’ll go burn some sack; ’tis too late to go to bed now: come, knight; come, knight.

Exeunt

S
CENE
IV. D
UKE
O
RSINO
’
S
PALACE
.

Enter Duke Orsino, Viola, Curio, and others

Duke Orsino

Give me some music. Now, good morrow, friends.
Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song,
That old and antique song we heard last night:
Methought it did relieve my passion much,
More than light airs and recollected terms
Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times:
Come, but one verse.

Curio

He is not here, so please your lordship that should sing it.

Duke Orsino

Who was it?

Curio

Feste, the jester, my lord; a fool that the lady
Olivia’s father took much delight in. He is about the house.

Duke Orsino

Seek him out, and play the tune the while.

Exit Curio. Music plays

Come hither, boy: if ever thou shalt love,
In the sweet pangs of it remember me;
For such as I am all true lovers are,
Unstaid and skittish in all motions else,
Save in the constant image of the creature
That is beloved. How dost thou like this tune?

Viola

It gives a very echo to the seat
Where Love is throned.

Duke Orsino

Thou dost speak masterly:
My life upon’t, young though thou art, thine eye
Hath stay’d upon some favour that it loves:
Hath it not, boy?

Viola

 
A little, by your favour.

Duke Orsino

What kind of woman is’t?

Viola

Of your complexion.

Duke Orsino

She is not worth thee, then. What years, i’ faith?

Viola

About your years, my lord.

Duke Orsino

Too old by heaven: let still the woman take
An elder than herself: so wears she to him,
So sways she level in her husband’s heart:
For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,
Than women’s are.

Viola

 
I think it well, my lord.

Duke Orsino

Then let thy love be younger than thyself,
Or thy affection cannot hold the bent;
For women are as roses, whose fair flower
Being once display’d, doth fall that very hour.

Viola

And so they are: alas, that they are so;
To die, even when they to perfection grow!

Re-enter Curio and Clown

Duke Orsino

O, fellow, come, the song we had last night.
Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain;
The spinsters and the knitters in the sun
And the free maids that weave their thread with bones
Do use to chant it: it is silly sooth,
And dallies with the innocence of love,
Like the old age.

Clown

Are you ready, sir?

Duke Orsino

Ay; prithee, sing.

Music

Song.

Clown

Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O, prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown:
A thousand thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, O, where
Sad true lover never find my grave,
To weep there!

Duke Orsino

There’s for thy pains.

Clown

No pains, sir: I take pleasure in singing, sir.

Duke Orsino

I’ll pay thy pleasure then.

Clown

Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid, one time or another.

Duke Orsino

Give me now leave to leave thee.

Clown

Now, the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal. I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business might be every thing and their intent every where; for that’s it that always makes a good voyage of nothing. Farewell.

Exit

Duke Orsino

Let all the rest give place.

Curio and Attendants retire

Once more, Cesario,
Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty:
Tell her, my love, more noble than the world,
Prizes not quantity of dirty lands;
The parts that fortune hath bestow’d upon her,
Tell her, I hold as giddily as fortune;
But ’tis that miracle and queen of gems
That nature pranks her in attracts my soul.

Viola

But if she cannot love you, sir?

Duke Orsino

I cannot be so answer’d.

Viola

Sooth, but you must.
Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,
Hath for your love a great a pang of heart
As you have for Olivia: you cannot love her;
You tell her so; must she not then be answer’d?

Duke Orsino

There is no woman’s sides
Can bide the beating of so strong a passion
As love doth give my heart; no woman’s heart
So big, to hold so much; they lack retention
Alas, their love may be call’d appetite,
No motion of the liver, but the palate,
That suffer surfeit, cloyment and revolt;
But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
And can digest as much: make no compare
Between that love a woman can bear me
And that I owe Olivia.

Viola

Ay, but I know —

Duke Orsino

What dost thou know?

Viola

Too well what love women to men may owe:
In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
My father had a daughter loved a man,
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship.

Duke Orsino

And what’s her history?

Viola

A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
We men may say more, swear more: but indeed
Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
Much in our vows, but little in our love.