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OLIVIA's garden.
[Enter SIR TOBY BELCH, SIR ANDREW, and FABIAN]
SIR TOBY BELCH
Come thy ways Signior Fabian.
FABIAN
Nay I'll come: if I lose a scruple of this sport, let me be boiled to death
with melancholy.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Wouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly rascally sheep-biter, come by
some notable shame?
FABIAN
I would exult man: you know he brought me out of favor with my lady, about
a bear-baiting here.
SIR TOBY BELCH
To anger him we'll have the bear again, and we will fool him black and blue,
shall we not Sir Andrew?
SIR ANDREW
And we do not, it is pity of our lives.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Here comes the little villain:
How now my metal of India?
MARIA
Get ye all three into the box-tree: Malvolio's coming down this walk, he has
been yonder in the sun practicing behavior to his own shadow this half hour:
observe him for the love of mockery; for I know this letter will make a
contemplative idiot of him. Close in the name of jesting, Lie thou there:
for here comes the trout, that must be caught with tickling.
[Exit. Enter MALVOLIO]
MALVOLIO
'Tis but fortune, all is fortune. Maria once told me she did affect me, and
I have heard herself come thus near, that should she fancy, it should be
one of my complexion. Besides she uses me with a more exalted respect, than
any one else that follows her. What should I think on it?
SIR TOBY BELCH
Here's an overweening rogue.
FABIAN
Oh peace: Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him, how he jets under
his advanced plumes.
SIR ANDREW
Slight I could so beat the rogue.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Peace I say.
MALVOLIO
To be Count Malvolio.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Ah rogue.
SIR ANDREW
Pistol him, pistol him.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Peace, peace.
MALVOLIO
There is example for it: the lady of the Strachy, married the yeoman of the
wardrobe.
SIR ANDREW
Fie on him Jezebel.
FABIAN
O peace, now he's deeply in: look how imagination blows him.
MALVOLIO
Having been three months married to her, sitting in my state.
SIR TOBY BELCH
O for a stone-bow to hit him in the eye.
MALVOLIO
Calling my officers about me, in my branched velvet gown: having come from a
day-bed, where I have left Olivia sleeping.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Fire and brimstone.
FABIAN
O peace, peace.
MALVOLIO
And then to have the humor of state: and after a demure travel of regard:
telling them I know my place, as I would they should do theirs, to for my
kinsman Toby.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Bolts and shackles.
FABIAN
O peace, peace, peace, now, now.
MALVOLIO
Seven of my people with an obedient start, make out for him: I frown the
while, and perchance wind up watch, or play with my some rich jewel: Toby
approaches; courtesies there to me.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Shall this fellow live?
FABIAN
Though our silence be drawn from us with cars, yet peace.
MALVOLIO
I extend my hand to him thus: quenching my familiar smile with an austere
regard of control.
SIR TOBY BELCH
And does not Toby take you a blow of the lips, then?
MALVOLIO
Saying, Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me on your niece, give me this
prerogative of speech.
SIR TOBY BELCH
What, what?
MALVOLIO
You must amend your drunkenness.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Out scab.
FABIAN
Nay patience, or we break the sinews of our plot?
MALVOLIO
Besides, you waste the treasure of your time, with a foolish knight.
SIR ANDREW
That's me I warrant you.
MALVOLIO
One Sir Andrew.
SIR ANDREW
I knew 'twas I, for many do call me fool.
MALVOLIO
What employment have we here?
FABIAN
Now is the woodcock near the gin.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Oh peace, and the spirit of humors intimate reading aloud to him.
MALVOLIO
By my life this is my lady's hand: these be her very C's, her U's, and her
T's and thus makes she her great P's. It is in contempt of question her
hand.
SIR ANDREW
Her C's, her U's, and her T's: why that?
MALVOLIO
[Reads] To the unknown beloved, this, and my good wishes:
Her very
phrases: By your leave wax. Soft, and the impressure her Lucrece, with
which she uses to seal: 'tis my lady: To whom should this be?
FABIAN
This wins him, liver and all.
MALVOLIO
[Reads]
,
, , oo
Jove knows | I love,| But who,|
,
,
Lips do | not move,
,
,
No man | must know.
No man must know. What follows?
,
, , ,
__
The num|bers | altered:| No | man must | know,
, ,
, , _
If this | should be | thee, Mal|voli|o?
SIR TOBY BELCH
Marry hang thee brock.
MALVOLIO
[Reads]
,
, , ,
I may | command | where I | adore,
,
, . T T T
But sil|ence like | a Lucrece knife:
, ,
, ,
With blood|less stroke | my heart | doth gore,
, ,
, ,
M.^O.| A.^I.| doth sway | my life.
FABIAN
A fustian riddle.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Excellent wench, say I.
MALVOLIO
M. O. A. I. doth sway my life. Nay but first let me see, let me see, let
me see.
FABIAN
What dish of poison has she dressed him?
SIR TOBY BELCH
And with what wing the staniel checks at it?
MALVOLIO
I may command where I adore: Why she may command me: I serve her, she is
my lady. Why this is evident to any formal capacity. There is no
obstruction in this, and the end: what should that alphabetical position
portend, If I could make that resemble something in me? Softly, M. O. A. I.
SIR TOBY BELCH
O aye, make up that, he is now at a cold scent.
FABIAN
Sowter will cry upon it for all this, though it be as rank as a fox.
MALVOLIO
M. Malvolio, M. why that begins my name.
FABIAN
Did not I say he would work it out, the cur is excellent at faults.
MALVOLIO
M. But then there is no consonancy in the sequel that suffers under
probation: A. should follow, but O. does.
FABIAN
And O shall end, I hope.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Aye, or I'll cudgel him, and make him cry O.
MALVOLIO
And then I. comes behind.
FABIAN
Aye, and you had any eye behind you, you might see more detraction at your
heels, than fortunes before you.
MALVOLIO
M, O, A, I. This simulation is not as the former: and yet to crush this a
little, it would bow to me, for every one of these letters are in my name.
Soft, here follows prose: If this fall into thy hand, revolve. In my stars I am above thee, but be
not afraid of greatness: some are become great, some achieves greatness, and
some have greatness thrust upon 'em. Thy Fates open their hands, let thy
blood and spirit embrace them, and to inure thyself to what thou art like
to be: cast thy humble slough, and appear fresh. Be opposite with a kinsman,
surly with servants: let thy tongue tang arguments of state; put thyself
into the trick of singularity. She thus advises thee, that sighs for thee.
Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and wished to see thee ever
cross-gartered: I say remember, Go to, thou art made if thou desirst to
be so: if not, let me see thee a steward still, the fellow of servants, and
not worthy to touch Fortune's fingers. Farewell, She that would alter
services with thee, the Fortunate Unhappy. Daylight and champagne discovers
not more: this is open, I will be proud, I will read politic authors, I will
baffle Sir Toby, I will wash off gross acquaintance, I will be point-devise,
the very man. I do not now fool myself, to let imagination jade me; for
every reason excites to this, that my lady loves me. She did commend my
yellow stockings of late, she did praise my leg being cross-gartered, and in
this she manifests herself to my love, and with a kind of injunction drives
me to these habits of her liking. I thank my stars, I am happy: I will be
strange, stout, in yellow stockings, and cross-gartered, even with the
swiftness of putting on. Jove and my stars be praised. Here is yet a
postscript. Thou canst not choose but know who I am. If thou entertainst
my love, let it appear in thy smiling, thy smiles become thee well. Therefore in my presence still smile, dear my sweet, I prithee. Jove, I
thank thee, I will smile, I will do everything that thou wilt have me.
[Exit]
FABIAN
I will not give my part of this sport for a pension of thousands to be paid
from the Sophy.
SIR TOBY BELCH
I could marry this wench for this device.
SIR ANDREW
So could I too.
SIR TOBY BELCH
And ask no other dowry with her, but such another jest.
SIR ANDREW
Nor I neither.
FABIAN
Here comes my noble gull-catcher.
[Enter MARIA]
SIR TOBY BELCH
Wilt thou set thy foot on my neck.
SIR ANDREW
Or on mine either?
SIR TOBY BELCH
Shall I play my freedom at traytrip, and become thy bond-slave?
SIR ANDREW
In faith, or I either?
SIR TOBY BELCH
Why, thou hast put him in such a dream, that when the image of it leaves him,
he must run mad.
MARIA
Nay but say true, does it work upon him?
SIR TOBY BELCH
Like aqua-vitae with a midwife.
MARIA
If you will then see the fruits of the sport, mark his first approach before
my lady: he will come to her in yellow stockings, and 'tis a color she
abhors, and cross-gartered, a fashion she detests: and he will smile upon
her, which will now be so unsuitable to her disposition, being addicted to a
melancholy, as she is, that it cannot but turn him into a notable contempt:
If you will see it follow me.
SIR TOBY BELCH
To the gates of Tartar, thou most excellent devil of wit.
SIR ANDREW
I'll make one too.
[Exeunt]