Enter Maria and ⌜Feste, the Fool.⌝MARIA Nay, either tell me where thou hast been, or I will not open my lips so wide as a bristle may enter
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in way of thy excuse. My lady will hang thee for thy absence.FOOL 5Let her hang me. He that is well hanged in this world needs to fear no colors.MARIA Make that good.FOOL He shall see none to fear.MARIA A good Lenten answer. I can tell thee where10 that saying was born, of “I fear no colors.”FOOL Where, good Mistress Mary?MARIA In the wars; and that may you be bold to say in your foolery.FOOL Well, God give them wisdom that have it, and15 those that are Fools, let them use their talents.MARIA Yet you will be hanged for being so long absent. Or to be turned away, is not that as good as a hanging to you?FOOL Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage,20 and, for turning away, let summer bear it out.MARIA You are resolute, then?FOOL Not so, neither, but I am resolved on two points.MARIA That if one break, the other will hold, or if both break, your gaskins fall.FOOL 25Apt, in good faith, very apt. Well, go thy way. If Sir Toby would leave drinking, thou wert as witty a piece of Eve’s flesh as any in Illyria.MARIA Peace, you rogue. No more o’ that. Here comes my lady. Make your excuse wisely, you were best.⌜She exits.⌝Enter Lady Olivia with Malvolio ⌜and Attendants.⌝FOOL, ⌜aside⌝ 30Wit, an ’t be thy will, put me into good fooling! Those wits that think they have thee do very oft prove fools, and I that am sure I lack thee may pass for a wise man. For what says Quinapalus? “Better a witty Fool than a foolish wit.”—God bless35 thee, lady!
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OLIVIA Take the Fool away.FOOL Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the Lady.OLIVIA Go to, you’re a dry Fool. I’ll no more of you. Besides, you grow dishonest.FOOL 40Two faults, madonna, that drink and good counsel will amend. For give the dry Fool drink, then is the Fool not dry. Bid the dishonest man mend himself; if he mend, he is no longer dishonest; if he cannot, let the botcher mend him. Anything that’s45 mended is but patched; virtue that transgresses is but patched with sin, and sin that amends is but patched with virtue. If that this simple syllogism will serve, so; if it will not, what remedy? As there is no true cuckold but calamity, so beauty’s a flower.50 The Lady bade take away the Fool. Therefore, I say again, take her away.OLIVIA Sir, I bade them take away you.FOOL Misprision in the highest degree! Lady, cucullus
non facit monachum. That’s as much to say as, I55 wear not motley in my brain. Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.OLIVIA Can you do it?FOOL Dexteriously, good madonna.OLIVIA Make your proof.FOOL 60I must catechize you for it, madonna. Good my mouse of virtue, answer me.OLIVIA Well, sir, for want of other idleness, I’ll bide your proof.FOOL Good madonna, why mourn’st thou?OLIVIA 65Good Fool, for my brother’s death.FOOL I think his soul is in hell, madonna.OLIVIA I know his soul is in heaven, Fool.FOOL The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother’s soul, being in heaven. Take away the fool,70 gentlemen.OLIVIA What think you of this Fool, Malvolio? Doth he not mend?
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MALVOLIO Yes, and shall do till the pangs of death shake him. Infirmity, that decays the wise, doth75 ever make the better Fool.FOOL God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity, for the better increasing your folly! Sir Toby will be sworn that I am no fox, but he will not pass his word for twopence that you are no fool.OLIVIA 80How say you to that, Malvolio?MALVOLIO I marvel your Ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal. I saw him put down the other day with an ordinary fool that has no more brain than a stone. Look you now, he’s out of his guard85 already. Unless you laugh and minister occasion to him, he is gagged. I protest I take these wise men that crow so at these set kind of Fools no better than the Fools’ zanies.OLIVIA O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste90 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 discreet95 man, though he do nothing but reprove.FOOL Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou speak’st well of Fools!Enter Maria.MARIA Madam, there is at the gate a young gentleman much desires to speak with you.OLIVIA 100From 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 105Fetch him off, I pray you. He speaks nothing but madman. Fie on him! ⌜Maria exits.⌝ Go you, Malvolio. If it be a suit from the Count, I am sick,
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or not at home; what you will, to dismiss it. (Malvolio
exits.) Now you see, sir, how your fooling110 grows old, and people dislike it.FOOL 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.OLIVIA 115By mine honor, half drunk!—What is he at the gate, cousin?TOBY A gentleman.OLIVIA A gentleman? What gentleman?TOBY ’Tis a gentleman here—a plague o’ these pickle120 herring!—How now, sot?FOOL Good Sir Toby.OLIVIA Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this lethargy?TOBY Lechery? I defy lechery. There’s one at the gate.OLIVIA 125Ay, marry, what is he?TOBY Let him be the devil an he will, I care not. Give me faith, say I. Well, it’s all one.He exits.OLIVIA What’s a drunken man like, Fool?FOOL Like a drowned man, a fool, and a madman. One130 draught above heat makes him a fool, the second mads him, and a third drowns him.OLIVIA Go thou and seek the crowner and let him sit o’ my coz, for he’s in the third degree of drink: he’s drowned. Go look after him.FOOL 135He is but mad yet, madonna, and the Fool shall look to the madman.⌜He exits.⌝Enter Malvolio.MALVOLIO Madam, yond young fellow swears he will speak with you. I told him you were sick; he takes
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on him to understand so much, and therefore140 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 145Tell him he shall not speak with me.MALVOLIO Has 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?MALVOLIO 150Why, 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 155Not 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-favored, and he speaks very shrewishly.160 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.He exits.Enter Maria.OLIVIA Give me my veil. Come, throw it o’er my face.⌜Olivia veils.⌝165 We’ll once more hear Orsino’s embassy.Enter ⌜Viola.⌝VIOLA The honorable lady of the house, which is she?
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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 the170 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 comptible even to the least sinister usage.OLIVIA 175Whence 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 180Are 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 185Most 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 190Come 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,195 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, begone; if you have reason, be brief. ’Tis not that time of moon with me to make one in so skipping a dialogue.MARIA 200Will you hoist sail, sir? Here lies your way.VIOLA No, good swabber, I am to hull here a little
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longer.—Some mollification for your giant, sweet lady.⌜OLIVIA⌝ Tell me your mind.⌜VIOLA⌝ 205I 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 overture210 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 I215 learned from my entertainment. What I am and what I would are as secret as maidenhead: to your ears, divinity; to any other’s, profanation.OLIVIA Give us the place alone. We will hear this divinity. ⌜Maria and Attendants exit.⌝ Now, sir, what220 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 225In 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 230Have 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 removes her veil.⌝ Look you, sir, such a one I was this present. Is ’t not well done?VIOLA 235Excellently done, if God did all.OLIVIA ’Tis in grain, sir; ’twill endure wind and weather.
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VIOLA ’Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white Nature’s own sweet and cunning hand laid on.240 Lady, you are the cruel’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 be245 inventoried and every particle and utensil labeled 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?VIOLA 250 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 crowned255 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.260 Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble, Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth; In voices well divulged, free, learned, and valiant, And in dimension and the shape of nature A gracious person. But yet I cannot love him.265 He might have took his answer long ago.VIOLA If I did love you in my master’s flame, With such a suff’ring, such a deadly life, In your denial I would find no sense. I would not understand it.
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OLIVIA 270 Why, what would you?VIOLA Make me a willow cabin at your gate And call upon my soul within the house, Write loyal cantons of contemnèd love And sing them loud even in the dead of night,275 Hallow 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.OLIVIA 280 You might do much. What is your parentage?VIOLA Above my fortunes, yet my state is well. I am a gentleman.OLIVIA Get you to your lord.285 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.⌜She offers money.⌝VIOLA I am no fee’d post, lady. Keep your purse.290 My master, not myself, lacks recompense. Love make his heart of flint that you shall love, And let your fervor, like my master’s, be Placed in contempt. Farewell, fair cruelty.She exits.OLIVIA “What is your parentage?”295 “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. Not too fast! Soft, soft!300 Unless the master were the man. How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
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Methinks I feel this youth’s perfections With an invisible and subtle stealth To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.—305 What ho, Malvolio!Enter Malvolio.MALVOLIO Here, madam, at your service.OLIVIA 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.⌜She hands him a ring.⌝310 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 tomorrow, I’ll give him reasons for ’t. Hie thee, Malvolio.MALVOLIO Madam, I will.He exits.OLIVIA 315 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.⌜She exits.⌝
Twelfth Night: 
