Twelfth Night
Act V, Scene 1
A street before Olivia’s house.
- Enter Clown and Fabian.
Fabian
1- Now as thou lov’st me, let me see his letter.
Feste
2- Good Master Fabian, grant me another request.
Fabian
3- Any thing.
Feste
4- Do not desire to see this letter.
Fabian
5- This is to give a dog and in recompense desire my dog again.
- Enter Duke, Viola, Curio, and Lords.
Orsino
6- Belong you to the Lady Olivia, friends?
Feste
7- Ay, sir, we are some of her trappings.
Orsino
8- I know thee well; how dost thou, my good fellow?
Feste
9 - 10- Truly, sir, the better for my foes and the worse for my
- friends.
Orsino
11- Just the contrary: the better for thy friends.
Feste
12- No, sir, the worse.
Orsino
13- How can that be?
Feste
14 - 19- Marry, sir, they praise me, and make an ass of me. Now my
- foes tell me plainly I am an ass; so that by my foes, sir, I
- profit in the knowledge of myself, and by my friends I am
- abus’d; so that, conclusions to be as kisses, if your four
- negatives make your two affirmatives, why then the worse for
- my friends and the better for my foes.
Orsino
20- Why, this is excellent.
Feste
21 - 22- By my troth, sir, no; though it please you to be one of my
- friends.
Orsino
23- Thou shalt not be the worse for me, there’s gold.
Feste
24 - 25- But that it would be double-dealing, sir, I would you could
- make it another.
Orsino
26- O, you give me ill counsel.
Feste
27 - 28- Put your grace in your pocket, sir, for this once, and let
- your flesh and blood obey it.
Orsino
29 - 30- Well, I will be so much a sinner to be a double-dealer.
- There’s another.
Feste
31 - 34- Primo, secundo, tertio, is a good play, and the old saying
- is, the third pays for all. The triplex, sir, is a good
- tripping measure, or the bells of Saint Bennet, sir, may put
- you in mind—one, two, three.
Orsino
35 - 37- You can fool no more money out of me at this throw. If you
- will let your lady know I am here to speak with her, and
- bring her along with you, it may awake my bounty further.
Feste
38 - 41- Marry, sir, lullaby to your bounty till I come again. I go,
- sir, but I would not have you to think that my desire of
- having is the sin of covetousness; but as you say, sir, let
- your bounty take a nap, I will awake it anon.
- Exit.
- Enter Antonio and Officers.
Viola
42- Here comes the man, sir, that did rescue me.
Orsino
43 - 51- That face of his I do remember well,
- Yet when I saw it last, it was besmear’d
- As black as Vulcan in the smoke of war.
- A baubling vessel was he captain of,
- For shallow draught and bulk unprizable,
- With which such scathful grapple did he make
- With the most noble bottom of our fleet,
- That very envy, and the tongue of loss,
- Cried fame and honor on him. What’s the matter?
First Officer
52 - 57- Orsino, this is that Antonio
- That took the Phoenix and her fraught from Candy,
- And this is he that did the Tiger board,
- When your young nephew Titus lost his leg.
- Here in the streets, desperate of shame and state,
- In private brabble did we apprehend him.
Viola
58 - 60- He did me kindness, sir, drew on my side,
- But in conclusion put strange speech upon me.
- I know not what ’twas but distraction.
Orsino
61 - 64- Notable pirate, thou salt-water thief!
- What foolish boldness brought thee to their mercies
- Whom thou in terms so bloody and so dear
- Hast made thine enemies?
Antonio
65 - 85- Orsino, noble sir,
- Be pleas’d that I shake off these names you give me.
- Antonio never yet was thief or pirate,
- Though I confess, on base and ground enough,
- Orsino’s enemy. A witchcraft drew me hither:
- That most ingrateful boy there by your side
- From the rude sea’s enrag’d and foamy mouth
- Did I redeem; a wrack past hope he was.
- His life I gave him, and did thereto add
- My love, without retention or restraint,
- All his in dedication. For his sake
- Did I expose myself (pure for his love)
- Into the danger of this adverse town,
- Drew to defend him when he was beset;
- Where being apprehended, his false cunning
- (Not meaning to partake with me in danger)
- Taught him to face me out of his acquaintance,
- And grew a twenty years removed thing
- While one would wink; denied me mine own purse,
- Which I had recommended to his use
- Not half an hour before.
Viola
86- How can this be?
Orsino
87- When came he to this town?
Antonio
88 - 90- Today, my lord; and for three months before,
- No int’rim, not a minute’s vacancy,
- Both day and night did we keep company.
- Enter Olivia and Attendants.
Orsino
91 - 94- Here comes the Countess, now heaven walks on earth.
- But for thee, fellow—fellow, thy words are madness.
- Three months this youth hath tended upon me,
- But more of that anon. Take him aside.
Olivia
95 - 97- What would my lord, but that he may not have,
- Wherein Olivia may seem serviceable?
- Cesario, you do not keep promise with me.
Viola
98- Madam—
Orsino
99- Gracious Olivia—
Olivia
100- What do you say, Cesario? Good my lord—
Viola
101- My lord would speak, my duty hushes me.
Olivia
102 - 104- If it be aught to the old tune, my lord,
- It is as fat and fulsome to mine ear
- As howling after music.
Orsino
105- Still so cruel?
Olivia
106- Still so constant, lord.
Orsino
107 - 110- What, to perverseness? You uncivil lady,
- To whose ingrate and unauspicious altars
- My soul the faithfull’st off’rings have breath’d out
- That e’er devotion tender’d! What shall I do?
Olivia
111- Even what it please my lord, that shall become him.
Orsino
112 - 126- Why should I not (had I the heart to do it),
- Like to th’ Egyptian thief at point of death,
- Kill what I love? (a savage jealousy
- That sometime savors nobly), but hear me this:
- Since you to non-regardance cast my faith,
- And that I partly know the instrument
- That screws me from my true place in your favor,
- Live you the marble-breasted tyrant still.
- But this your minion, whom I know you love,
- And whom, by heaven I swear, I tender dearly,
- Him will I tear out of that cruel eye,
- Where he sits crowned in his master’s spite.
- Come, boy, with me, my thoughts are ripe in mischief.
- I’ll sacrifice the lamb that I do love,
- To spite a raven’s heart within a dove.
Viola
127 - 128- And I most jocund, apt, and willingly,
- To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die.
Olivia
129- Where goes Cesario?
Viola
130 - 134- After him I love
- More than I love these eyes, more than my life,
- More by all mores than e’er I shall love wife.
- If I do feign, you witnesses above
- Punish my life for tainting of my love!
Olivia
135- Ay me, detested! How am I beguil’d!
Viola
136- Who does beguile you? Who does do you wrong?
Olivia
137 - 138- Hast thou forgot thyself? Is it so long?
- Call forth the holy father.
Orsino
139- Come, away!
Olivia
140- Whither, my lord? Cesario, husband, stay.
Orsino
141- Husband?
Olivia
142- Ay, husband. Can he that deny?
Orsino
143- Her husband, sirrah?
Viola
144- No, my lord, not I.
Olivia
145 - 155- Alas, it is the baseness of thy fear
- That makes thee strangle thy propriety.
- Fear not, Cesario, take thy fortunes up,
- Be that thou know’st thou art, and then thou art
- As great as that thou fear’st.
- Enter Priest.
- O, welcome, father!
- Father, I charge thee by thy reverence
- Here to unfold, though lately we intended
- To keep in darkness what occasion now
- Reveals before ’tis ripe, what thou dost know
- Hath newly pass’d between this youth and me.
Priest
156 - 163- A contract of eternal bond of love,
- Confirm’d by mutual joinder of your hands,
- Attested by the holy close of lips,
- Strength’ned by interchangement of your rings,
- And all the ceremony of this compact
- Seal’d in my function, by my testimony;
- Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave
- I have travel’d but two hours.
Orsino
164 - 169- O thou dissembling cub! What wilt thou be
- When time hath sow’d a grizzle on thy case?
- Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow,
- That thine own trip shall be thine overthrow?
- Farewell, and take her, but direct thy feet
- Where thou and I (henceforth) may never meet.
Viola
170- My lord, I do protest—
Olivia
171 - 172- O, do not swear!
- Hold little faith, though thou hast too much fear.
- Enter Sir Andrew.
Sir Andrew
173 - 174- For the love of God, a surgeon! Send one presently to Sir
- Toby.
Olivia
175- What’s the matter?
Sir Andrew
176 - 178- H’as broke my head across, and has given Sir Toby a bloody
- coxcomb too. For the love of God, your help! I had rather
- than forty pound I were at home.
Olivia
179- Who has done this, Sir Andrew?
Sir Andrew
180 - 181- The Count’s gentleman, one Cesario. We took him for a
- coward, but he’s the very devil incardinate.
Orsino
182- My gentleman, Cesario?
Sir Andrew
183 - 184- ’Od’s lifelings, here he is! You broke my head for nothing,
- and that that I did, I was set on to do’t by Sir Toby.
Viola
185 - 187- Why do you speak to me? I never hurt you.
- I drew your sword upon me without cause,
- But I bespake you fair, and hurt you not.
- Enter Toby and Clown.
Sir Andrew
188 - 191- If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me. I think you
- set nothing by a bloody coxcomb. Here comes Sir Toby
- halting—you shall hear more. But if he had not been in
- drink, he would have tickled you othergates than he did.
Orsino
192- How now, gentleman? How is’t with you?
Sir Toby
193 - 194- That’s all one. H’as hurt me, and there’s th’ end on’t. Sot,
- didst see Dick surgeon, sot?
Feste
195 - 196- O, he’s drunk, Sir Toby, an hour agone; his eyes were set at
- eight i’ th’ morning.
Sir Toby
197 - 198- Then he’s a rogue, and a passy-measures pavin. I hate a
- drunken rogue.
Olivia
199- Away with him! Who hath made this havoc with them?
Sir Andrew
200- I’ll help you, Sir Toby, because we’ll be dress’d together.
Sir Toby
201 - 202- Will you help?—an ass-head and a coxcomb and a knave, a
- thin-fac’d knave, a gull!
Olivia
203- Get him to bed, and let his hurt be look’d to.
- Exeunt Clown, Fabian, Sir Toby, and Sir Andrew.
- Enter Sebastian.
Sebastian
204 - 210- I am sorry, madam, I have hurt your kinsman,
- But had it been the brother of my blood,
- I must have done no less with wit and safety.
- You throw a strange regard upon me, and by that
- I do perceive it hath offended you.
- Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vows
- We made each other but so late ago.
Orsino
211 - 212- One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons,
- A natural perspective, that is and is not!
Sebastian
213 - 215- Antonio, O my dear Antonio!
- How have the hours rack’d and tortur’d me,
- Since I have lost thee!
Antonio
216- Sebastian are you?
Sebastian
217- Fear’st thou that, Antonio?
Antonio
218 - 220- How have you made division of yourself?
- An apple, cleft in two, is not more twin
- Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?
Olivia
221- Most wonderful!
Sebastian
222 - 227- Do I stand there? I never had a brother;
- Nor can there be that deity in my nature
- Of here and every where. I had a sister,
- Whom the blind waves and surges have devour’d.
- Of charity, what kin are you to me?
- What countryman? What name? What parentage?
Viola
228 - 232- Of Messaline; Sebastian was my father,
- Such a Sebastian was my brother too;
- So went he suited to his watery tomb.
- If spirits can assume both form and suit,
- You come to fright us.
Sebastian
233 - 238- A spirit I am indeed,
- But am in that dimension grossly clad
- Which from the womb I did participate.
- Were you a woman, as the rest goes even,
- I should my tears let fall upon your cheek,
- And say, “Thrice welcome, drowned Viola!”
Viola
239- My father had a mole upon his brow.
Sebastian
240- And so had mine.
Viola
241 - 242- And died that day when Viola from her birth
- Had numb’red thirteen years.
Sebastian
243 - 245- O, that record is lively in my soul!
- He finished indeed his mortal act
- That day that made my sister thirteen years.
Viola
246 - 255- If nothing lets to make us happy both
- But this my masculine usurp’d attire,
- Do not embrace me till each circumstance
- Of place, time, fortune, do cohere and jump
- That I am Viola—which to confirm,
- I’ll bring you to a captain in this town,
- Where lie my maiden weeds; by whose gentle help
- I was preserv’d to serve this noble count.
- All the occurrence of my fortune since
- Hath been between this lady and this lord.
Sebastian
256 - 260- To Olivia.
- So comes it, lady, you have been mistook;
- But Nature to her bias drew in that.
- You would have been contracted to a maid,
- Nor are you therein, by my life, deceiv’d,
- You are betroth’d both to a maid and man.
Orsino
261 - 265- Be not amaz’d, right noble is his blood.
- If this be so, as yet the glass seems true,
- I shall have share in this most happy wrack.
- To Viola.
- Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times
- Thou never shouldst love woman like to me.
Viola
266 - 269- And all those sayings will I over swear,
- And all those swearings keep as true in soul
- As doth that orbed continent the fire
- That severs day from night.
Orsino
270 - 271- Give me thy hand,
- And let me see thee in thy woman’s weeds.
Viola
272 - 275- The captain that did bring me first on shore
- Hath my maid’s garments. He upon some action
- Is now in durance, at Malvolio’s suit,
- A gentleman, and follower of my lady’s.
Olivia
276 - 281- He shall enlarge him; fetch Malvolio hither.
- And yet, alas, now I remember me,
- They say, poor gentleman, he’s much distract.
- Enter Clown with a letter, and Fabian.
- A most extracting frenzy of mine own
- From my remembrance clearly banish’d his.
- How does he, sirrah?
Feste
282 - 286- Truly, madam, he holds Beelzebub at the stave’s end as well
- as a man in his case may do. H’as here writ a letter to you;
- I should have given’t you today morning. But as a madman’s
- epistles are no gospels, so it skills not much when they are
- deliver’d.
Olivia
287- Open’t and read it.
Feste
288 - 290- Look then to be well edified when the fool delivers the
- madman.
- Reads madly.
- “By the Lord, madam”—
Olivia
291- How now, art thou mad?
Feste
292 - 293- No, madam, I do but read madness. And your ladyship will
- have it as it ought to be, you must allow vox.
Olivia
294- Prithee read i’ thy right wits.
Feste
295 - 296- So I do, madonna; but to read his right wits is to read
- thus; therefore perpend, my princess, and give ear.
Olivia
297- To Fabian.
- Read it you, sirrah.
Fabian
298 - 306- Reads.
- “By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, and the world shall know
- it. Though you have put me into darkness, and given your
- drunken cousin rule over me, yet have I the benefit of my
- senses as well as your ladyship. I have your own letter that
- induc’d me to the semblance I put on; with the which I doubt
- not but to do myself much right, or you much shame. Think of
- me as you please. I leave my duty a little unthought of, and
- speak out of my injury.
- The madly-us’d Malvolio.”
Olivia
307- Did he write this?
Feste
308- Ay, madam.
Orsino
309- This savors not much of distraction.
Olivia
310 - 314- See him deliver’d, Fabian, bring him hither.
- Exit Fabian.
- My lord, so please you, these things further thought on,
- To think me as well a sister as a wife,
- One day shall crown th’ alliance on’t, so please you,
- Here at my house and at my proper cost.
Orsino
315 - 321- Madam, I am most apt t’ embrace your offer.
- To Viola.
- Your master quits you; and for your service done him,
- So much against the mettle of your sex,
- So far beneath your soft and tender breeding,
- And since you call’d me master for so long,
- Here is my hand—you shall from this time be
- Your master’s mistress.
Olivia
322- A sister! You are she.
- Enter Fabian with Malvolio.
Orsino
323- Is this the madman?
Olivia
324 - 325- Ay, my lord, this same.
- How now, Malvolio?
Malvolio
326 - 327- Madam, you have done me wrong,
- Notorious wrong.
Olivia
328- Have I, Malvolio? No.
Malvolio
329 - 343- Lady, you have. Pray you peruse that letter.
- You must not now deny it is your hand;
- Write from it if you can, in hand or phrase,
- Or say ’tis not your seal, not your invention.
- You can say none of this. Well, grant it then,
- And tell me, in the modesty of honor,
- Why you have given me such clear lights of favor,
- Bade me come smiling and cross-garter’d to you,
- To put on yellow stockings, and to frown
- Upon Sir Toby and the lighter people;
- And acting this in an obedient hope,
- Why have you suffer’d me to be imprison’d,
- Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,
- And made the most notorious geck and gull
- That e’er invention play’d on? Tell me why!
Olivia
344 - 354- Alas, Malvolio, this is not my writing,
- Though I confess much like the character;
- But out of question ’tis Maria’s hand.
- And now I do bethink me, it was she
- First told me thou wast mad. Then cam’st in smiling,
- And in such forms which here were presuppos’d
- Upon thee in the letter. Prithee be content.
- This practice hath most shrewdly pass’d upon thee;
- But when we know the grounds and authors of it,
- Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge
- Of thine own cause.
Fabian
355 - 368- Good madam, hear me speak,
- And let no quarrel nor no brawl to come
- Taint the condition of this present hour,
- Which I have wond’red at. In hope it shall not,
- Most freely I confess, myself and Toby
- Set this device against Malvolio here,
- Upon some stubborn and uncourteous parts
- We had conceiv’d against him. Maria writ
- The letter at Sir Toby’s great importance,
- In recompense whereof he hath married her.
- How with a sportful malice it was follow’d
- May rather pluck on laughter than revenge,
- If that the injuries be justly weigh’d
- That have on both sides pass’d.
Olivia
369- Alas, poor fool, how have they baffled thee!
Feste
370 - 376- Why, “some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some
- have greatness thrown upon them.” I was one, sir, in this
- enterlude—one Sir Topas, sir, but that’s all one. “By the
- Lord, fool, I am not mad.” But do you remember? “Madam, why
- laugh you at such a barren rascal? And you smile not, he’s
- gagg’d.” And thus the whirligig of time brings in his
- revenges.
Malvolio
377- I’ll be reveng’d on the whole pack of you.
- Exit.
Olivia
378- He hath been most notoriously abus’d.
Orsino
379 - 387- Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace;
- He hath not told us of the captain yet.
- When that is known, and golden time convents,
- A solemn combination shall be made
- Of our dear souls. Mean time, sweet sister,
- We will not part from hence. Cesario, come—
- For so you shall be while you are a man;
- But when in other habits you are seen,
- Orsino’s mistress, and his fancy’s queen.
- Exeunt all but Clown.
Feste
388 - 407- Clown sings.
- When that I was and a little tiny boy,
- With hey ho, the wind and the rain,
- A foolish thing was but a toy,
- For the rain it raineth every day.
- But when I came to man’s estate,
- With hey ho, etc.
- ’Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
- For the rain, etc.
- But when I came, alas, to wive,
- With hey ho, etc.
- By swaggering could I never thrive,
- For the rain, etc.
- But when I came unto my beds,
- With hey ho, etc.
- With toss-pots still had drunken heads,
- For the rain, etc.
- A great while ago the world begun,
- With hey ho, etc.
- But that’s all one, our play is done,
- And we’ll strive to please you every day.
- Exit.