OLIVIA From the Count Orsino, is it?

MARIA I know not, madam. ’Tis a fair young man, and well attended.

OLIVIA Who of my people hold him in delay?

MARIA Sir Toby, madam, your kinsman.

OLIVIA Fetch him off, I pray you, he speaks nothing but madman. Fie on him. 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.

FESTE 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—

Enter Sir Toby

one of thy kin has a most weak pia mater.

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

SIR TOBY A gentleman.

OLIVIA A gentleman? What gentleman?

SIR TOBY ’Tis a gentleman here. (He belches) A plague o’ these pickle herring! (To Feste) How now, sot?

FESTE Good Sir Toby.

OLIVIA Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this lethargy?

SIR TOBY Lechery? I defy lechery. There’s one at the gate. OLIVIA Ay, marry, what is he?

SIR TOBY Let him be the devil an he will, I care not. Give me faith, say I. Well, it’s all one.

Exit

OLIVIA What’s a drunken man like, fool?

FESTE 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.

OLIVIA Go thou and seek the coroner, and let him sit o’ my coz, for he’s in the third degree of drink, he’s drowned. Go look after him.

FESTE He is but mad yet, madonna, and the fool shall look to the madman.

Exit

Enter Malvolio

MALVOLIO Madam, yon 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.

OLIVIA Tell him he shall not speak with me.

MALVOLIO He’s been told so, and he says he’ll stand at your door like a sheriff’s post, and be the supporter to a bench, but he’ll speak with you.

OLIVIA What kind o’ man is he?

MALVOCIO Why, of mankind.

OLIVIA What manner of man?

MALVOLIO Of very ill manner: he’ll speak with you, will you or no.

OLIVIA Of what personage and years is he?

MALVOLIO Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; as a squash is before ‘tis a peascod, or a codling when ’tis almost an apple. ’Tis with him in 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.

OLIVIA

Let him approach. Call in my gentlewoman.

MALVOLIO Gentlewoman, my lady calls.

Exit

Enter Maria

OLIVIA

Give me my veil. Come, throw it o’er my face.

We’ll once more hear Orsino’s embassy.

Enter Viola as Cesario

VIOLA The honourable lady of the house, which is she?

OLIVIA Speak to me, I shall answer for her. Your will.

VIOLA Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty. —I 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 no scorn; I am very ’countable, even to the least sinister usage.

OLIVIA Whence came you, sir?

VIOLA 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.

OLIVIA Are you a comedian?

VIOLA 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?

OLIVIA If I do not usurp myself, I am.

VIOLA 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.

OLIVIA Come to what is important in’t, I forgive you the praise.

VIOLA Alas, I took great pains to study it, and ’tis poetical.

OLIVIA 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.

MARIA Will you hoist sail, sir? Here lies your way.

VIOLA No, good swabber, I am to hull here a little longer. (To Olivia) Some mollification for your giant, sweet lady. Tell me your mind, I am a messenger.

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

VIOLA 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.

OLIVIA Yet you began rudely. What are you? What would you?

VIOLA The rudeness that hath appeared in me have I learned from my entertainment. What I am and what I would are as secret as maidenhead; to your ears, divinity; to any others’, profanation.

OLIVIA (to Maria ⌈and attendants⌉) Give us the place alone, we will hear this divinity.

Exeunt Maria ⌈and attendants⌉

Now sir, what is your text?

VIOLA Most sweet lady—

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

VIOLA In Orsino’s bosom.

OLIVIA In his bosom? In what chapter of his bosom?

VIOLA To answer by the method, in the first of his heart.

OLIVIA O, I have read it. It is heresy. Have you no more to say?

VIOLA Good madam, let me see your face.

OLIVIA 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.

She unveils

Look you, sir, such a one I was this present. Is’t not well done?

VIOLA Excellently done, if God did all.

OLIVIA ‘Tis in grain, sir, ’twill endure wind and weather.

VIOLA

‘Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white

Nature’s own sweet and cunning hand laid on.

Lady, you are the cruell’st she alive

If you will lead these graces to the grave

And leave the world no copy.

OLIVIA 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 grey eyes, with lids to them; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth. Were you sent hither to praise me?

VIOLA

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 recompensed though you were crowned

The nonpareil of beauty.

OLIVIA

How does he love me?

VIOLA

With adorations, fertile tears,

With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.

OLIVIA

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, learned, and valiant,