Act IV, Scene V — The Grecian camp. Lists set out
Enter Ajax, armed; Agamemnon, Achilles, Patroclus, Menelaus, Ulysses, Nestor and others.
AGAMEMNON. Here art thou in appointment fresh and fair, Anticipating time with starting courage. Give with thy trumpet a loud note to Troy, Thou dreadful Ajax, that the appalled air May pierce the head of the great combatant, And hale him hither.
AJAX. Thou, trumpet, there’s my purse. Now crack thy lungs and split thy brazen pipe; Blow, villain, till thy sphered bias cheek Out-swell the colic of puff’d Aquilon. Come, stretch thy chest, and let thy eyes spout blood: Thou blowest for Hector.
[Trumpet sounds.]
ULYSSES. No trumpet answers.
ACHILLES. ’Tis but early days.
AGAMEMNON. Is not yond Diomed, with Calchas’ daughter?
ULYSSES. ’Tis he, I ken the manner of his gait: He rises on the toe. That spirit of his In aspiration lifts him from the earth.
Enter Diomedes and Cressida.
AGAMEMNON. Is this the Lady Cressid?
DIOMEDES. Even she.
AGAMEMNON. Most dearly welcome to the Greeks, sweet lady.
NESTOR. Our general doth salute you with a kiss.
ULYSSES. Yet is the kindness but particular; ’Twere better she were kiss’d in general.
NESTOR. And very courtly counsel: I’ll begin. So much for Nestor.
ACHILLES. I’ll take that winter from your lips, fair lady. Achilles bids you welcome.
MENELAUS. I had good argument for kissing once.
PATROCLUS. But that’s no argument for kissing now; For thus popp’d Paris in his hardiment, And parted thus you and your argument.
ULYSSES. O deadly gall, and theme of all our scorns! For which we lose our heads to gild his horns.
PATROCLUS. The first was Menelaus’ kiss; this, mine: Patroclus kisses you.
MENELAUS. O, this is trim!
PATROCLUS. Paris and I kiss evermore for him.
MENELAUS. I’ll have my kiss, sir. Lady, by your leave.
CRESSIDA. In kissing, do you render or receive?
PATROCLUS. Both take and give.
CRESSIDA. I’ll make my match to live, The kiss you take is better than you give; Therefore no kiss.
MENELAUS. I’ll give you boot; I’ll give you three for one.
CRESSIDA. You are an odd man; give even or give none.
MENELAUS. An odd man, lady! Every man is odd.
CRESSIDA. No, Paris is not; for you know ’tis true That you are odd, and he is even with you.
MENELAUS. You fillip me o’ th’head.
CRESSIDA. No, I’ll be sworn.
ULYSSES. It were no match, your nail against his horn. May I, sweet lady, beg a kiss of you?
CRESSIDA. You may.
ULYSSES. I do desire it.
CRESSIDA. Why, beg then.
ULYSSES. Why then, for Venus’ sake give me a kiss When Helen is a maid again, and his.
CRESSIDA. I am your debtor; claim it when ’tis due.
ULYSSES. Never’s my day, and then a kiss of you.
DIOMEDES. Lady, a word. I’ll bring you to your father.
[Exit with Cressida.]
NESTOR. A woman of quick sense.
ULYSSES. Fie, fie upon her! There’s language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out At every joint and motive of her body. O! these encounterers so glib of tongue That give a coasting welcome ere it comes, And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts To every tickling reader! Set them down For sluttish spoils of opportunity, And daughters of the game.
[Trumpet within.]
ALL. The Trojans’ trumpet.
AGAMEMNON. Yonder comes the troop.
Enter Hector, armed; Aeneas, Troilus, Paris, Deiphobus and other Trojans, with attendants.
AENEAS. Hail, all you state of Greece! What shall be done To him that victory commands? Or do you purpose A victor shall be known? Will you the knights Shall to the edge of all extremity Pursue each other, or shall be divided By any voice or order of the field? Hector bade ask.
AGAMEMNON. Which way would Hector have it?
AENEAS. He cares not; he’ll obey conditions.
AGAMEMNON. ’Tis done like Hector.
ACHILLES. But securely done, A little proudly, and great deal misprising The knight oppos’d.
AENEAS. If not Achilles, sir, What is your name?
ACHILLES. If not Achilles, nothing.
AENEAS. Therefore Achilles. But whate’er, know this: In the extremity of great and little Valour and pride excel themselves in Hector; The one almost as infinite as all, The other blank as nothing. Weigh him well, And that which looks like pride is courtesy. This Ajax is half made of Hector’s blood; In love whereof half Hector stays at home; Half heart, half hand, half Hector comes to seek This blended knight, half Trojan and half Greek.
ACHILLES. A maiden battle then? O! I perceive you.
Re-enter Diomedes.
AGAMEMNON. Here is Sir Diomed. Go, gentle knight, Stand by our Ajax. As you and Lord Aeneas Consent upon the order of their fight, So be it; either to the uttermost, Or else a breath. The combatants being kin Half stints their strife before their strokes begin.
Ajax and Hector enter the lists.
ULYSSES. They are oppos’d already.
AGAMEMNON. What Trojan is that same that looks so heavy?
ULYSSES. The youngest son of Priam, a true knight; Not yet mature, yet matchless; firm of word; Speaking in deeds and deedless in his tongue; Not soon provok’d, nor being provok’d soon calm’d; His heart and hand both open and both free; For what he has he gives, what thinks he shows, Yet gives he not till judgement guide his bounty, Nor dignifies an impure thought with breath; Manly as Hector, but more dangerous; For Hector in his blaze of wrath subscribes To tender objects, but he in heat of action Is more vindicative than jealous love. They call him Troilus, and on him erect A second hope as fairly built as Hector. Thus says Aeneas, one that knows the youth Even to his inches, and, with private soul, Did in great Ilion thus translate him to me.
[Alarum. Hector and Ajax fight.]
AGAMEMNON. They are in action.
NESTOR. Now, Ajax, hold thine own!
TROILUS. Hector, thou sleep’st; awake thee!
AGAMEMNON. His blows are well dispos’d. There, Ajax!
[Trumpets cease.]
DIOMEDES. You must no more.
AENEAS. Princes, enough, so please you.
AJAX. I am not warm yet; let us fight again.
DIOMEDES. As Hector pleases.
HECTOR. Why, then will I no more. Thou art, great lord, my father’s sister’s son, A cousin-german to great Priam’s seed; The obligation of our blood forbids A gory emulation ’twixt us twain: Were thy commixtion Greek and Trojan so That thou could’st say ‘This hand is Grecian all, And this is Trojan; the sinews of this leg All Greek, and this all Troy; my mother’s blood Runs on the dexter cheek, and this sinister Bounds in my father’s; by Jove multipotent, Thou shouldst not bear from me a Greekish member Wherein my sword had not impressure made Of our rank feud; but the just gods gainsay That any drop thou borrow’dst from thy mother, My sacred aunt, should by my mortal sword Be drained! Let me embrace thee, Ajax. By him that thunders, thou hast lusty arms; Hector would have them fall upon him thus. Cousin, all honour to thee!
AJAX. I thank thee, Hector. Thou art too gentle and too free a man. I came to kill thee, cousin, and bear hence A great addition earned in thy death.
HECTOR. Not Neoptolemus so mirable, On whose bright crest Fame with her loud’st Oyes Cries ‘This is he!’ could promise to himself A thought of added honour torn from Hector.
AENEAS. There is expectance here from both the sides What further you will do.
HECTOR. We’ll answer it: The issue is embracement. Ajax, farewell.
AJAX. If I might in entreaties find success, As seld’ I have the chance, I would desire My famous cousin to our Grecian tents.
DIOMEDES. ’Tis Agamemnon’s wish; and great Achilles Doth long to see unarm’d the valiant Hector.
HECTOR. Aeneas, call my brother Troilus to me, And signify this loving interview To the expecters of our Trojan part; Desire them home. Give me thy hand, my cousin; I will go eat with thee, and see your knights.
Agamemnon and the rest of the Greeks come forward.
AJAX. Great Agamemnon comes to meet us here.
HECTOR. The worthiest of them tell me name by name; But for Achilles, my own searching eyes Shall find him by his large and portly size.
AGAMEMNON. Worthy all arms! as welcome as to one That would be rid of such an enemy. But that’s no welcome. Understand more clear, What’s past and what’s to come is strew’d with husks And formless ruin of oblivion; But in this extant moment, faith and troth, Strain’d purely from all hollow bias-drawing, Bids thee with most divine integrity, From heart of very heart, great Hector, welcome.
HECTOR. I thank thee, most imperious Agamemnon.
AGAMEMNON. [To Troilus.] My well-fam’d lord of Troy, no less to you.
MENELAUS. Let me confirm my princely brother’s greeting. You brace of warlike brothers, welcome hither.
HECTOR. Who must we answer?
AENEAS. The noble Menelaus.
HECTOR. O you, my lord? By Mars his gauntlet, thanks! Mock not that I affect the untraded oath; Your quondam wife swears still by Venus’ glove. She’s well, but bade me not commend her to you.
MENELAUS. Name her not now, sir; she’s a deadly theme.
HECTOR. O, pardon; I offend.
NESTOR. I have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee oft, Labouring for destiny, make cruel way Through ranks of Greekish youth; and I have seen thee, As hot as Perseus, spur thy Phrygian steed, Despising many forfeits and subduements, When thou hast hung thy advanced sword i’ th’air, Not letting it decline on the declined; That I have said to some my standers-by ‘Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life!’ And I have seen thee pause and take thy breath, When that a ring of Greeks have shrap’d thee in, Like an Olympian wrestling. This have I seen; But this thy countenance, still lock’d in steel, I never saw till now. I knew thy grandsire, And once fought with him. He was a soldier good, But, by great Mars, the captain of us all, Never like thee. O, let an old man embrace thee; And, worthy warrior, welcome to our tents.
AENEAS. ’Tis the old Nestor.
HECTOR. Let me embrace thee, good old chronicle, That hast so long walk’d hand in hand with time. Most reverend Nestor, I am glad to clasp thee.
NESTOR. I would my arms could match thee in contention As they contend with thee in courtesy.
HECTOR. I would they could.
NESTOR. Ha! By this white beard, I’d fight with thee tomorrow. Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the time.
ULYSSES. I wonder now how yonder city stands, When we have here her base and pillar by us.
HECTOR. I know your favour, Lord Ulysses, well. Ah, sir, there’s many a Greek and Trojan dead, Since first I saw yourself and Diomed In Ilion on your Greekish embassy.
ULYSSES. Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue. My prophecy is but half his journey yet; For yonder walls, that pertly front your town, Yon towers, whose wanton tops do buss the clouds, Must kiss their own feet.
HECTOR. I must not believe you. There they stand yet; and modestly I think The fall of every Phrygian stone will cost A drop of Grecian blood. The end crowns all; And that old common arbitrator, Time, Will one day end it.
ULYSSES. So to him we leave it. Most gentle and most valiant Hector, welcome. After the General, I beseech you next To feast with me and see me at my tent.
ACHILLES. I shall forestall thee, Lord Ulysses, thou! Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes on thee; I have with exact view perus’d thee, Hector, And quoted joint by joint.
HECTOR. Is this Achilles?
ACHILLES. I am Achilles.
HECTOR. Stand fair, I pray thee; let me look on thee.
ACHILLES. Behold thy fill.
HECTOR. Nay, I have done already.
ACHILLES. Thou art too brief. I will the second time, As I would buy thee, view thee limb by limb.
HECTOR. O, like a book of sport thou’lt read me o’er; But there’s more in me than thou understand’st. Why dost thou so oppress me with thine eye?
ACHILLES. Tell me, you heavens, in which part of his body Shall I destroy him? Whether there, or there, or there? That I may give the local wound a name, And make distinct the very breach whereout Hector’s great spirit flew. Answer me, heavens.
HECTOR. It would discredit the blest gods, proud man, To answer such a question. Stand again. Think’st thou to catch my life so pleasantly As to prenominate in nice conjecture Where thou wilt hit me dead?
ACHILLES. I tell thee yea.
HECTOR. Wert thou an oracle to tell me so, I’d not believe thee. Henceforth guard thee well; For I’ll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there; But, by the forge that stithied Mars his helm, I’ll kill thee everywhere, yea, o’er and o’er. You wisest Grecians, pardon me this brag. His insolence draws folly from my lips; But I’ll endeavour deeds to match these words, Or may I never—
AJAX. Do not chafe thee, cousin; And you, Achilles, let these threats alone Till accident or purpose bring you to’t. You may have every day enough of Hector, If you have stomach. The general state, I fear, Can scarce entreat you to be odd with him.
HECTOR. I pray you let us see you in the field; We have had pelting wars since you refus’d The Grecians’ cause.
ACHILLES. Dost thou entreat me, Hector? Tomorrow do I meet thee, fell as death; Tonight all friends.
HECTOR. Thy hand upon that match.
AGAMEMNON. First, all you peers of Greece, go to my tent; There in the full convive we; afterwards, As Hector’s leisure and your bounties shall Concur together, severally entreat him. Beat loud the tambourines, let the trumpets blow, That this great soldier may his welcome know.
[Exeunt all but Troilus and Ulysses.]
TROILUS. My Lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you, In what place of the field doth Calchas keep?
ULYSSES. At Menelaus’ tent, most princely Troilus. There Diomed doth feast with him tonight, Who neither looks upon the heaven nor earth, But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view On the fair Cressid.
TROILUS. Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to you so much, After we part from Agamemnon’s tent, To bring me thither?
ULYSSES. You shall command me, sir. As gentle tell me of what honour was This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there That wails her absence?
TROILUS. O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord? She was belov’d, she lov’d; she is, and doth; But still sweet love is food for fortune’s tooth.
[Exeunt.]
Act V, Scene I — The Grecian camp. Before the tent of Achilles
Enter Achilles and Patroclus.
ACHILLES. I’ll heat his blood with Greekish wine tonight, Which with my scimitar I’ll cool tomorrow. Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.
PATROCLUS. Here comes Thersites.
Enter Thersites.
ACHILLES. How now, thou core of envy! Thou crusty batch of nature, what’s the news?
THERSITES. Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, and idol of idiot worshippers, here’s a letter for thee.
ACHILLES. From whence, fragment?
THERSITES. Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.
PATROCLUS. Who keeps the tent now?
THERSITES. The surgeon’s box or the patient’s wound.
PATROCLUS. Well said, adversity! And what needs these tricks?
THERSITES. Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk; thou art said to be Achilles’ male varlet.
PATROCLUS. Male varlet, you rogue! What’s that?
THERSITES. Why, his masculine whore. Now, the rotten diseases of the south, the guts-griping ruptures, catarrhs, loads o’ gravel in the back, lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, lime-kilns i’ th’ palm, incurable bone-ache, and the rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous discoveries!
PATROCLUS. Why, thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest thou to curse thus?
THERSITES. Do I curse thee?
PATROCLUS. Why, no, you ruinous butt; you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no.
THERSITES. No! Why art thou, then, exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein of sleave silk, thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal’s purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is pestered with such water-flies, diminutives of nature!
PATROCLUS. Out, gall!
THERSITES. Finch egg!
ACHILLES. My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite From my great purpose in tomorrow’s battle. Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba, A token from her daughter, my fair love, Both taxing me and gaging me to keep An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it. Fall Greeks; fail fame; honour or go or stay; My major vow lies here, this I’ll obey. Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent; This night in banqueting must all be spent. Away, Patroclus!
[Exit with Patroclus.]
THERSITES. With too much blood and too little brain these two may run mad; but, if with too much brain and too little blood they do, I’ll be a curer of madmen. Here’s Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough, and one that loves quails, but he has not so much brain as ear-wax; and the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, his brother, the bull, the primitive statue and oblique memorial of cuckolds, a thrifty shoeing-horn in a chain at his brother’s leg, to what form but that he is, should wit larded with malice, and malice forced with wit, turn him to? To an ass, were nothing: he is both ass and ox. To an ox, were nothing: he is both ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchook, a toad, a lizard, an owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care; but to be Menelaus, I would conspire against destiny. Ask me not what I would be, if I were not Thersites; for I care not to be the louse of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus. Hey-day! sprites and fires!
Enter Hector, Troilus, Ajax, Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Menelaus and Diomedes with lights.
AGAMEMNON. We go wrong, we go wrong.
AJAX. No, yonder ’tis; There, where we see the lights.
HECTOR. I trouble you.
AJAX. No, not a whit.
ULYSSES. Here comes himself to guide you.
Re-enter Achilles.
ACHILLES. Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, Princes all.
AGAMEMNON. So now, fair Prince of Troy, I bid good night; Ajax commands the guard to tend on you.
HECTOR. Thanks, and good night to the Greeks’ general.
MENELAUS. Good night, my lord.
HECTOR. Good night, sweet Lord Menelaus.
THERSITES. Sweet draught! ‘Sweet’ quoth a’! Sweet sink, sweet sewer!
ACHILLES. Good night and welcome, both at once, to those That go or tarry.
AGAMEMNON. Good night.
[Exeunt Agamemnon and Menelaus.]
ACHILLES. Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed, Keep Hector company an hour or two.
DIOMEDES. I cannot, lord; I have important business, The tide whereof is now. Good night, great Hector.
HECTOR. Give me your hand.
ULYSSES. [Aside to Troilus.] Follow his torch; he goes to Calchas’ tent; I’ll keep you company.
TROILUS. Sweet sir, you honour me.
HECTOR. And so, good night.
[Exit Diomedes, Ulysses and Troilus following.]
ACHILLES. Come, come, enter my tent.
[Exeunt all but Thersites.]
THERSITES. That same Diomed’s a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust knave; I will no more trust him when he leers than I will a serpent when he hisses. He will spend his mouth and promise, like Brabbler the hound; but when he performs, astronomers foretell it: it is prodigious, there will come some change; the sun borrows of the moon when Diomed keeps his word. I will rather leave to see Hector than not to dog him. They say he keeps a Trojan drab, and uses the traitor Calchas’ tent. I’ll after. Nothing but lechery! All incontinent varlets!
[Exit.]
Act V, Scene II — The Grecian camp. Before Calchas’ tent
Enter Diomedes.
DIOMEDES. What, are you up here, ho! Speak.
CALCHAS. [Within.] Who calls?
DIOMEDES. Diomed. Calchas, I think. Where’s your daughter?
CALCHAS. [Within.] She comes to you.
Enter Troilus and Ulysses, at a distance; after them Thersites.
ULYSSES. Stand where the torch may not discover us.
Enter Cressida.
TROILUS. Cressid comes forth to him.
DIOMEDES. How now, my charge!
CRESSIDA. Now, my sweet guardian! Hark, a word with you.
[Whispers.]
TROILUS. Yea, so familiar?
ULYSSES. She will sing any man at first sight.
THERSITES. And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff; she’s noted.
DIOMEDES. Will you remember?
CRESSIDA. Remember! Yes.
DIOMEDES. Nay, but do, then; And let your mind be coupled with your words.
TROILUS. What should she remember?
ULYSSES. List!
CRESSIDA. Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.
THERSITES. Roguery!
DIOMEDES. Nay, then—
CRESSIDA. I’ll tell you what—
DIOMEDES. Fo, fo! come, tell a pin; you are a forsworn.
CRESSIDA. In faith, I cannot. What would you have me do?
THERSITES. A juggling trick, to be secretly open.
DIOMEDES. What did you swear you would bestow on me?
CRESSIDA. I prithee, do not hold me to mine oath; Bid me do anything but that, sweet Greek.
DIOMEDES. Good night.
TROILUS. Hold, patience!
ULYSSES. How now, Trojan!
CRESSIDA. Diomed!
DIOMEDES. No, no, good night; I’ll be your fool no more.
TROILUS. Thy better must.
CRESSIDA. Hark! a word in your ear.
TROILUS. O plague and madness!
ULYSSES. You are moved, Prince; let us depart, I pray, Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself To wrathful terms. This place is dangerous; The time right deadly; I beseech you, go.
TROILUS. Behold, I pray you.
ULYSSES. Nay, good my lord, go off; You flow to great distraction; come, my lord.
TROILUS. I pray thee stay.
ULYSSES. You have not patience; come.
TROILUS. I pray you, stay; by hell and all hell’s torments, I will not speak a word.
DIOMEDES. And so, good night.
CRESSIDA. Nay, but you part in anger.
TROILUS. Doth that grieve thee? O withered truth!
ULYSSES. How now, my lord?
TROILUS. By Jove, I will be patient.
CRESSIDA. Guardian! Why, Greek!
DIOMEDES. Fo, fo! adieu! you palter.
CRESSIDA. In faith, I do not. Come hither once again.
ULYSSES. You shake, my lord, at something; will you go? You will break out.
TROILUS. She strokes his cheek.
ULYSSES. Come, come.
TROILUS. Nay, stay; by Jove, I will not speak a word: There is between my will and all offences A guard of patience. Stay a little while.
THERSITES. How the devil Luxury, with his fat rump and potato finger, tickles these together! Fry, lechery, fry!
DIOMEDES. But will you, then?
CRESSIDA. In faith, I will, la; never trust me else.
DIOMEDES. Give me some token for the surety of it.
CRESSIDA. I’ll fetch you one.
[Exit.]
ULYSSES. You have sworn patience.
TROILUS. Fear me not, my lord; I will not be myself, nor have cognition Of what I feel. I am all patience.
Re-enter Cressida.
THERSITES. Now the pledge; now, now, now!
CRESSIDA. Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.
TROILUS. O beauty! where is thy faith?
ULYSSES. My lord!
TROILUS. I will be patient; outwardly I will.
CRESSIDA. You look upon that sleeve; behold it well. He lov’d me—O false wench!—Give’t me again.
DIOMEDES. Whose was’t?
CRESSIDA. It is no matter, now I have’t again. I will not meet with you tomorrow night. I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.
THERSITES. Now she sharpens. Well said, whetstone.
DIOMEDES. I shall have it.
CRESSIDA. What, this?
DIOMEDES. Ay, that.
CRESSIDA. O all you gods! O pretty, pretty pledge! Thy master now lies thinking on his bed Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove, And gives memorial dainty kisses to it, As I kiss thee. Nay, do not snatch it from me; He that takes that doth take my heart withal.
DIOMEDES. I had your heart before; this follows it.
TROILUS. I did swear patience.
CRESSIDA. You shall not have it, Diomed; faith, you shall not; I’ll give you something else.
DIOMEDES. I will have this. Whose was it?
CRESSIDA. It is no matter.
DIOMEDES. Come, tell me whose it was.
CRESSIDA. ’Twas one’s that lov’d me better than you will. But, now you have it, take it.
DIOMEDES. Whose was it?
CRESSIDA. By all Diana’s waiting women yond, And by herself, I will not tell you whose.
DIOMEDES. Tomorrow will I wear it on my helm, And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it.
TROILUS. Wert thou the devil and wor’st it on thy horn, It should be challeng’d.
CRESSIDA. Well, well, ’tis done, ’tis past; and yet it is not; I will not keep my word.
DIOMEDES. Why, then farewell; Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.
CRESSIDA. You shall not go. One cannot speak a word But it straight starts you.
DIOMEDES. I do not like this fooling.
THERSITES. Nor I, by Pluto; but that that likes not you Pleases me best.
DIOMEDES. What, shall I come? The hour?
CRESSIDA. Ay, come; O Jove! Do come. I shall be plagu’d.
DIOMEDES. Farewell till then.
CRESSIDA. Good night. I prithee come.
[Exit Diomedes.]
Troilus, farewell! One eye yet looks on thee; But with my heart the other eye doth see. Ah, poor our sex! this fault in us I find, The error of our eye directs our mind. What error leads must err; O, then conclude, Minds sway’d by eyes are full of turpitude.
[Exit.]
THERSITES. A proof of strength she could not publish more, Unless she said ‘My mind is now turn’d whore.’
ULYSSES. All’s done, my lord.
TROILUS. It is.
ULYSSES. Why stay we, then?
TROILUS. To make a recordation to my soul Of every syllable that here was spoke. But if I tell how these two did co-act, Shall I not lie in publishing a truth? Sith yet there is a credence in my heart, An esperance so obstinately strong, That doth invert th’attest of eyes and ears; As if those organs had deceptious functions Created only to calumniate. Was Cressid here?
ULYSSES. I cannot conjure, Trojan.
TROILUS. She was not, sure.
ULYSSES. Most sure she was.
TROILUS. Why, my negation hath no taste of madness.
ULYSSES. Nor mine, my lord. Cressid was here but now.
TROILUS. Let it not be believ’d for womanhood. Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage To stubborn critics, apt, without a theme, For depravation, to square the general sex By Cressid’s rule. Rather think this not Cressid.
ULYSSES. What hath she done, Prince, that can soil our mothers?
TROILUS. Nothing at all, unless that this were she.
THERSITES. Will he swagger himself out on’s own eyes?
TROILUS. This she? No; this is Diomed’s Cressida. If beauty have a soul, this is not she; If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimonies, If sanctimony be the god’s delight, If there be rule in unity itself, This was not she. O madness of discourse, That cause sets up with and against itself! Bi-fold authority! where reason can revolt Without perdition, and loss assume all reason Without revolt: this is, and is not, Cressid. Within my soul there doth conduce a fight Of this strange nature, that a thing inseparate Divides more wider than the sky and earth; And yet the spacious breadth of this division Admits no orifice for a point as subtle As Ariachne’s broken woof to enter. Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto’s gates: Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven. Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself: The bonds of heaven are slipp’d, dissolv’d, and loos’d; And with another knot, five-finger-tied, The fractions of her faith, orts of her love, The fragments, scraps, the bits, and greasy relics Of her o’er-eaten faith, are given to Diomed.
ULYSSES. May worthy Troilus be half attach’d With that which here his passion doth express?
TROILUS. Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well In characters as red as Mars his heart Inflam’d with Venus. Never did young man fancy With so eternal and so fix’d a soul. Hark, Greek: as much as I do Cressid love, So much by weight hate I her Diomed. That sleeve is mine that he’ll bear on his helm; Were it a casque compos’d by Vulcan’s skill My sword should bite it. Not the dreadful spout Which shipmen do the hurricano call, Constring’d in mass by the almighty sun, Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune’s ear In his descent than shall my prompted sword Falling on Diomed.
THERSITES. He’ll tickle it for his concupy.
TROILUS. O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false! Let all untruths stand by thy stained name, And they’ll seem glorious.
ULYSSES. O, contain yourself; Your passion draws ears hither.
Enter Aeneas.
AENEAS. I have been seeking you this hour, my lord. Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy; Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.
TROILUS. Have with you, Prince. My courteous lord, adieu. Fairwell, revolted fair! and, Diomed, Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head.
ULYSSES. I’ll bring you to the gates.
TROILUS. Accept distracted thanks.
[Exeunt Troilus, Aeneas and Ulysses.]
THERSITES. Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me anything for the intelligence of this whore; the parrot will not do more for an almond than he for a commodious drab. Lechery, lechery! Still wars and lechery! Nothing else holds fashion. A burning devil take them!
[Exit.]
Act V, Scene III — Troy. Before Priam’s palace
Enter Hector and Andromache.
ANDROMACHE. When was my lord so much ungently temper’d To stop his ears against admonishment? Unarm, unarm, and do not fight today.
HECTOR. You train me to offend you; get you in. By all the everlasting gods, I’ll go.
ANDROMACHE. My dreams will, sure, prove ominous to the day.
HECTOR. No more, I say.
Enter Cassandra.
CASSANDRA. Where is my brother Hector?
ANDROMACHE. Here, sister, arm’d, and bloody in intent. Consort with me in loud and dear petition, Pursue we him on knees; for I have dreamt Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter.
CASSANDRA. O, ’tis true!
HECTOR. Ho! bid my trumpet sound.
CASSANDRA. No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet brother!
HECTOR. Be gone, I say. The gods have heard me swear.
CASSANDRA. The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows; They are polluted off’rings, more abhorr’d Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.
ANDROMACHE. O, be persuaded! Do not count it holy To hurt by being just. It is as lawful, For we would give much, to use violent thefts And rob in the behalf of charity.
CASSANDRA. It is the purpose that makes strong the vow; But vows to every purpose must not hold. Unarm, sweet Hector.
HECTOR. Hold you still, I say. Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate. Life every man holds dear; but the dear man Holds honour far more precious dear than life.
Enter Troilus.
How now, young man! Mean’st thou to fight today?
ANDROMACHE. Cassandra, call my father to persuade.
[Exit Cassandra.]
HECTOR. No, faith, young Troilus; doff thy harness, youth; I am today i’ th’vein of chivalry. Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong, And tempt not yet the brushes of the war. Unarm thee, go; and doubt thou not, brave boy, I’ll stand today for thee and me and Troy.
TROILUS. Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you, Which better fits a lion than a man.
HECTOR. What vice is that? Good Troilus, chide me for it.
TROILUS. When many times the captive Grecian falls, Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword, You bid them rise and live.
HECTOR. O, ’tis fair play!
TROILUS. Fool’s play, by heaven, Hector.
HECTOR. How now? how now?
TROILUS. For th’ love of all the gods, Let’s leave the hermit Pity with our mother; And when we have our armours buckled on, The venom’d vengeance ride upon our swords, Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth!
HECTOR. Fie, savage, fie!
TROILUS. Hector, then ’tis wars.
HECTOR. Troilus, I would not have you fight today.
TROILUS. Who should withhold me? Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars Beckoning with fiery truncheon my retire; Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees, Their eyes o’er-galled with recourse of tears; Nor you, my brother, with your true sword drawn, Oppos’d to hinder me, should stop my way, But by my ruin.
Re-enter Cassandra with Priam.
CASSANDRA. Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast; He is thy crutch; now if thou lose thy stay, Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee, Fall all together.
PRIAM. Come, Hector, come, go back. Thy wife hath dreamt; thy mother hath had visions; Cassandra doth foresee; and I myself Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt To tell thee that this day is ominous. Therefore, come back.
HECTOR. Aeneas is a-field; And I do stand engag’d to many Greeks, Even in the faith of valour, to appear This morning to them.
PRIAM. Ay, but thou shalt not go.
HECTOR. I must not break my faith. You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir, Let me not shame respect; but give me leave To take that course by your consent and voice Which you do here forbid me, royal Priam.
CASSANDRA. O Priam, yield not to him!
ANDROMACHE. Do not, dear father.
HECTOR. Andromache, I am offended with you. Upon the love you bear me, get you in.
[Exit Andromache.]
TROILUS. This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl Makes all these bodements.
CASSANDRA. O, farewell, dear Hector! Look how thou diest. Look how thy eye turns pale. Look how thy wounds do bleed at many vents. Hark how Troy roars; how Hecuba cries out; How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth; Behold distraction, frenzy, and amazement, Like witless antics, one another meet, And all cry, ‘Hector! Hector’s dead! O Hector!’
TROILUS. Away, away!
CASSANDRA. Farewell! yet, soft! Hector, I take my leave. Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive.
[Exit.]
HECTOR. You are amaz’d, my liege, at her exclaim. Go in, and cheer the town; we’ll forth, and fight, Do deeds worth praise and tell you them at night.
PRIAM. Farewell. The gods with safety stand about thee!
[Exeunt severally Priam and Hector. Alarums.]
TROILUS. They are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe, I come to lose my arm or win my sleeve.
Enter Pandarus.
PANDARUS. Do you hear, my lord? Do you hear?
TROILUS. What now?
PANDARUS. Here’s a letter come from yond poor girl.
TROILUS. Let me read.
PANDARUS. A whoreson tisick, a whoreson rascally tisick, so troubles me, and the foolish fortune of this girl, and what one thing, what another, that I shall leave you one o’ these days; and I have a rheum in mine eyes too, and such an ache in my bones that unless a man were curs’d I cannot tell what to think on’t. What says she there?
TROILUS. Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart; Th’effect doth operate another way.
[Tearing the letter.]
Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change together. My love with words and errors still she feeds, But edifies another with her deeds.
[Exeunt severally.]
Act V, Scene IV — The plain between Troy and the Grecian camp
Alarums. Excursions. Enter Thersites.
THERSITES. Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I’ll go look on. That dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy doting foolish young knave’s sleeve of Troy there in his helm. I would fain see them meet, that that same young Trojan ass that loves the whore there might send that Greekish whoremasterly villain with the sleeve back to the dissembling luxurious drab of a sleeve-less errand. O’ the other side, the policy of those crafty swearing rascals that stale old mouse-eaten dry cheese, Nestor, and that same dog-fox, Ulysses, is not prov’d worth a blackberry. They set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur, Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles; and now is the cur, Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm today; whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy grows into an ill opinion.
Enter Diomedes, Troilus following.
Soft! here comes sleeve, and t’other.
TROILUS. Fly not; for shouldst thou take the river Styx, I would swim after.
DIOMEDES. Thou dost miscall retire. I do not fly; but advantageous care Withdrew me from the odds of multitude. Have at thee!
THERSITES. Hold thy whore, Grecian; now for thy whore, Trojan! now the sleeve, now the sleeve!
[Exeunt Troilus and Diomedes fighting.]
Enter Hector.
HECTOR. What art thou, Greek? Art thou for Hector’s match? Art thou of blood and honour?
THERSITES. No, no I am a rascal; a scurvy railing knave; a very filthy rogue.
HECTOR. I do believe thee. Live.
[Exit.]
THERSITES. God-a-mercy, that thou wilt believe me; but a plague break thy neck for frighting me! What’s become of the wenching rogues? I think they have swallowed one another. I would laugh at that miracle. Yet, in a sort, lechery eats itself. I’ll seek them.
[Exit.]
Act V, Scene V — Another part of the plain
Enter Diomedes and a Servant.
DIOMEDES. Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus’ horse; Present the fair steed to my lady Cressid. Fellow, commend my service to her beauty; Tell her I have chastis’d the amorous Trojan, And am her knight by proof.
SERVANT. I go, my lord.
[Exit.]
Enter Agamemnon.
AGAMEMNON. Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamas Hath beat down Menon; bastard Margarelon Hath Doreus prisoner, And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam, Upon the pashed corses of the kings Epistrophus and Cedius. Polixenes is slain; Amphimacus and Thoas deadly hurt; Patroclus ta’en, or slain; and Palamedes Sore hurt and bruis’d. The dreadful Sagittary Appals our numbers. Haste we, Diomed, To reinforcement, or we perish all.
Enter Nestor.
NESTOR. Go, bear Patroclus’ body to Achilles, And bid the snail-pac’d Ajax arm for shame. There is a thousand Hectors in the field; Now here he fights on Galathe his horse, And there lacks work; anon he’s there afoot, And there they fly or die, like scaled sculls Before the belching whale; then is he yonder, And there the strawy Greeks, ripe for his edge, Fall down before him like the mower’s swath. Here, there, and everywhere, he leaves and takes; Dexterity so obeying appetite That what he will he does, and does so much That proof is call’d impossibility.
Enter Ulysses.
ULYSSES. O, courage, courage, courage, Princes! Great Achilles Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance. Patroclus’ wounds have rous’d his drowsy blood, Together with his mangled Myrmidons, That noseless, handless, hack’d and chipp’d, come to him, Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend And foams at mouth, and he is arm’d and at it, Roaring for Troilus; who hath done today Mad and fantastic execution, Engaging and redeeming of himself With such a careless force and forceless care As if that lust, in very spite of cunning, Bade him win all.
Enter Ajax.
AJAX. Troilus! thou coward Troilus!
[Exit.]
DIOMEDES. Ay, there, there.
NESTOR. So, so, we draw together.
[Exit.]
Enter Achilles.
ACHILLES. Where is this Hector? Come, come, thou boy-queller, show thy face; Know what it is to meet Achilles angry. Hector! where’s Hector? I will none but Hector.
[Exeunt.]
Act V, Scene VI — Another part of the plain
Enter Ajax.
AJAX. Troilus, thou coward Troilus, show thy head.
Enter Diomedes.
DIOMEDES. Troilus, I say! Where’s Troilus?
AJAX. What wouldst thou?
DIOMEDES. I would correct him.
AJAX. Were I the general, thou shouldst have my office Ere that correction. Troilus, I say! What, Troilus!
Enter Troilus.
TROILUS. O traitor Diomed! Turn thy false face, thou traitor, And pay thy life thou owest me for my horse.
DIOMEDES. Ha! art thou there?
AJAX. I’ll fight with him alone. Stand, Diomed.
DIOMEDES. He is my prize. I will not look upon.
TROILUS. Come, both, you cogging Greeks; have at you both!
[Exeunt fighting.]
Enter Hector.
HECTOR. Yea, Troilus? O, well fought, my youngest brother!
Enter Achilles.
ACHILLES. Now do I see thee. Ha! have at thee, Hector!
HECTOR. Pause, if thou wilt.
ACHILLES. I do disdain thy courtesy, proud Trojan. Be happy that my arms are out of use; My rest and negligence befriend thee now, But thou anon shalt hear of me again; Till when, go seek thy fortune.
[Exit.]
HECTOR. Fare thee well. I would have been much more a fresher man, Had I expected thee.
Re-enter Troilus.
How now, my brother!
TROILUS. Ajax hath ta’en Aeneas. Shall it be? No, by the flame of yonder glorious heaven, He shall not carry him; I’ll be ta’en too, Or bring him off. Fate, hear me what I say: I reck not though thou end my life today.
[Exit.]
Enter one in armour.
HECTOR. Stand, stand, thou Greek; thou art a goodly mark. No? wilt thou not? I like thy armour well; I’ll frush it and unlock the rivets all But I’ll be master of it. Wilt thou not, beast, abide? Why then, fly on; I’ll hunt thee for thy hide.
[Exeunt.]
Act V, Scene VII — Another part of the plain
Enter Achilles with Myrmidons.
ACHILLES. Come here about me, you my Myrmidons; Mark what I say. Attend me where I wheel; Strike not a stroke, but keep yourselves in breath; And when I have the bloody Hector found, Empale him with your weapons round about; In fellest manner execute your arms. Follow me, sirs, and my proceedings eye. It is decreed Hector the great must die.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Menelaus and Paris, fighting; then Thersites.
THERSITES. The cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it. Now, bull! Now, dog! ’Loo, Paris, ’loo! now my double-hen’d Spartan! ’loo, Paris, ’loo! The bull has the game. ’Ware horns, ho!
[Exeunt Paris and Menelaus.]
Enter Margarelon.
MARGARELON. Turn, slave, and fight.
THERSITES. What art thou?
MARGARELON. A bastard son of Priam’s.
THERSITES. I am a bastard too; I love bastards. I am a bastard begot, bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valour, in everything illegitimate. One bear will not bite another, and wherefore should one bastard? Take heed, the quarrel’s most ominous to us: if the son of a whore fight for a whore, he tempts judgement. Farewell, bastard.
[Exit.]
MARGARELON. The devil take thee, coward!
[Exit.]
Act V, Scene VIII — Another part of the plain
Enter Hector.
HECTOR. Most putrified core so fair without, Thy goodly armour thus hath cost thy life. Now is my day’s work done; I’ll take my breath: Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death!
[Disarms.]
Enter Achilles and Myrmidons.
ACHILLES. Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set, How ugly night comes breathing at his heels; Even with the vail and dark’ning of the sun, To close the day up, Hector’s life is done.
HECTOR. I am unarm’d; forego this vantage, Greek.
ACHILLES. Strike, fellows, strike; this is the man I seek.
[Hector falls.]
So, Ilion, fall thou next! Now, Troy, sink down; Here lies thy heart, thy sinews, and thy bone. On, Myrmidons, and cry you all amain ‘Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain.’
[A retreat sounded.]
Hark! a retire upon our Grecian part.
MYRMIDON. The Trojan trumpets sound the like, my lord.
ACHILLES. The dragon wing of night o’erspreads the earth And, stickler-like, the armies separates. My half-supp’d sword, that frankly would have fed, Pleas’d with this dainty bait, thus goes to bed.
[Sheathes his sword.]
Come, tie his body to my horse’s tail; Along the field I will the Trojan trail.
[Exeunt.]
Act V, Scene IX — Another part of the plain
Sound retreat. Shout. Enter Agamemnon, Ajax, Menelaus, Nestor, Diomedes and the rest, marching.
AGAMEMNON. Hark! hark! what shout is this?
NESTOR. Peace, drums!
SOLDIERS. [Within.] Achilles! Achilles! Hector’s slain. Achilles!
DIOMEDES. The bruit is, Hector’s slain, and by Achilles.
AJAX. If it be so, yet bragless let it be; Great Hector was as good a man as he.
AGAMEMNON. March patiently along. Let one be sent To pray Achilles see us at our tent. If in his death the gods have us befriended; Great Troy is ours, and our sharp wars are ended.
[Exeunt.]
Act V, Scene X — Another part of the plain
Enter Aeneas, Paris, Antenor and Deiphobus.
AENEAS. Stand, ho! yet are we masters of the field. Never go home; here starve we out the night.
Enter Troilus.
TROILUS. Hector is slain.
ALL. Hector! The gods forbid!
TROILUS. He’s dead, and at the murderer’s horse’s tail, In beastly sort, dragg’d through the shameful field. Frown on, you heavens, effect your rage with speed. Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smile at Troy. I say at once let your brief plagues be mercy, And linger not our sure destructions on.
AENEAS. My lord, you do discomfort all the host.
TROILUS. You understand me not that tell me so. I do not speak of flight, of fear of death, But dare all imminence that gods and men Address their dangers in. Hector is gone. Who shall tell Priam so, or Hecuba? Let him that will a screech-owl aye be call’d Go in to Troy, and say there ‘Hector’s dead.’ There is a word will Priam turn to stone; Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives, Cold statues of the youth; and, in a word, Scare Troy out of itself. But, march away; Hector is dead; there is no more to say. Stay yet. You vile abominable tents, Thus proudly pight upon our Phrygian plains, Let Titan rise as early as he dare, I’ll through and through you. And, thou great-siz’d coward, No space of earth shall sunder our two hates; I’ll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still, That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy’s thoughts. Strike a free march to Troy. With comfort go; Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe.
Enter Pandarus.
PANDARUS. But hear you, hear you!
TROILUS. Hence, broker-lackey. Ignominy and shame Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name!
[Exeunt all but Pandarus.]
PANDARUS. A goodly medicine for my aching bones! O world! world! Thus is the poor agent despis’d! O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a-work, and how ill requited! Why should our endeavour be so lov’d, and the performance so loathed? What verse for it? What instance for it? Let me see—
Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing Till he hath lost his honey and his sting; And being once subdu’d in armed trail, Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.
Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted cloths. As many as be here of Pandar’s hall, Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar’s fall; Or, if you cannot weep, yet give some groans, Though not for me, yet for your aching bones. Brethren and sisters of the hold-door trade, Some two months hence my will shall here be made. It should be now, but that my fear is this, Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss. Till then I’ll sweat and seek about for eases, And at that time bequeath you my diseases.
[Exit.]
TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL
Dramatis Personæ
ORSINO, Duke of Illyria. VALENTINE, Gentleman attending on the Duke CURIO, Gentleman attending on the Duke VIOLA, in love with the Duke. SEBASTIAN, a young Gentleman, twin brother to Viola. A SEA CAPTAIN, friend to Viola ANTONIO, a Sea Captain, friend to Sebastian. OLIVIA, a rich Countess. MARIA, Olivia’s Woman. SIR TOBY BELCH, Uncle of Olivia. SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK. MALVOLIO, Steward to Olivia. FABIAN, Servant to Olivia. CLOWN, Servant to Olivia. PRIEST Lords, Sailors, Officers, Musicians, and other Attendants.
SCENE: A City in Illyria; and the Sea-coast near it.
Act I, Scene I — An Apartment in the Duke’s Palace
Enter Orsino, Duke of Illyria, Curio, and other Lords; Musicians attending.
DUKE. If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken and so die. That strain again, it had a dying fall; O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour. Enough; no more; ’Tis not so sweet now as it was before. O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou, That notwithstanding thy capacity Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there, Of what validity and pitch soever, But falls into abatement and low price Even in a minute! So full of shapes is fancy, That it alone is high fantastical.
CURIO. Will you go hunt, my lord?
DUKE. What, Curio?
CURIO. The hart.
DUKE. Why so I do, the noblest that I have. O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, Methought she purg’d the air of pestilence; That instant was I turn’d into a hart, And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, E’er since pursue me. How now? what news from her?
Enter Valentine.
VALENTINE. So please my lord, I might not be admitted, But from her handmaid do return this answer: The element itself, till seven years’ heat, Shall not behold her face at ample view; But like a cloistress she will veiled walk, And water once a day her chamber round With eye-offending brine: all this to season A brother’s dead love, which she would keep fresh And lasting in her sad remembrance.
DUKE. O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame To pay this debt of love but to a brother, How will she love, when the rich golden shaft Hath kill’d the flock of all affections else That live in her; when liver, brain, and heart, These sovereign thrones, are all supplied and fill’d Her sweet perfections with one self king! Away before me to sweet beds of flowers, Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers.
[Exeunt.]
Act I, Scene II — The sea-coast
Enter Viola, a Captain and Sailors.
VIOLA. What country, friends, is this?
CAPTAIN. This is Illyria, lady.
VIOLA. And what should I do in Illyria? My brother he is in Elysium. Perchance he is not drown’d. What think you, sailors?
CAPTAIN. It is perchance that you yourself were sav’d.
VIOLA. O my poor brother! and so perchance may he be.
CAPTAIN. True, madam; and to comfort you with chance, Assure yourself, after our ship did split, When you, and those poor number sav’d with you, Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother, Most provident in peril, bind himself, (Courage and hope both teaching him the practice) To a strong mast that liv’d upon the sea; Where, like Arion on the dolphin’s back, I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves So long as I could see.
VIOLA. For saying so, there’s gold! Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope, Whereto thy speech serves for authority, The like of him. Know’st thou this country?
CAPTAIN. Ay, madam, well, for I was bred and born Not three hours’ travel from this very place.
VIOLA. Who governs here?
CAPTAIN. A noble duke, in nature as in name.
VIOLA. What is his name?
CAPTAIN. Orsino.
VIOLA. Orsino! I have heard my father name him. He was a bachelor then.
CAPTAIN. And so is now, or was so very late; For but a month ago I went from hence, And then ’twas fresh in murmur, (as, you know, What great ones do, the less will prattle of) That he did seek the love of fair Olivia.
VIOLA. What’s she?
CAPTAIN. A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count That died some twelvemonth since; then leaving her In the protection of his son, her brother, Who shortly also died; for whose dear love They say, she hath abjur’d the company And sight of men.
VIOLA. O that I served that lady, And might not be delivered to the world, Till I had made mine own occasion mellow, What my estate is.
CAPTAIN. That were hard to compass, Because she will admit no kind of suit, No, not the Duke’s.
VIOLA. There is a fair behaviour in thee, Captain; And though that nature with a beauteous wall Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee I will believe thou hast a mind that suits With this thy fair and outward character. I pray thee, and I’ll pay thee bounteously, Conceal me what I am, and be my aid For such disguise as haply shall become The form of my intent. I’ll serve this duke; Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him. It may be worth thy pains; for I can sing, And speak to him in many sorts of music, That will allow me very worth his service. What else may hap, to time I will commit; Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.
CAPTAIN. Be you his eunuch and your mute I’ll be; When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see.
VIOLA. I thank thee. Lead me on.
[Exeunt.]
Act I, Scene III — A Room in Olivia’s House
Enter Sir Toby and Maria.
SIR TOBY. What a plague means my niece to take the death of her brother thus? I am sure care’s an enemy to life.
MARIA. By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o’ nights; your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours.
SIR TOBY. Why, let her except, before excepted.
MARIA. Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits of order.
SIR TOBY. Confine? I’ll confine myself no finer than I am. These clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too; and they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps.
MARIA. That quaffing and drinking will undo you: I heard my lady talk of it yesterday; and of a foolish knight that you brought in one night here to be her wooer.
SIR TOBY. Who? Sir Andrew Aguecheek?
MARIA. Ay, he.
SIR TOBY. He’s as tall a man as any’s in Illyria.
MARIA. What’s that to th’ purpose?
SIR TOBY. Why, he has three thousand ducats a year.
MARIA. Ay, but he’ll have but a year in all these ducats. He’s a very fool, and a prodigal.
SIR TOBY. Fie, that you’ll say so! he plays o’ the viol-de-gamboys, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature.
MARIA. He hath indeed, almost natural: for, besides that he’s a fool, he’s a great quarreller; and, but that he hath the gift of a coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrelling, ’tis thought among the prudent he would quickly have the gift of a grave.
SIR TOBY. By this hand, they are scoundrels and substractors that say so of him. Who are they?
MARIA. They that add, moreover, he’s drunk nightly in your company.
SIR TOBY. With drinking healths to my niece; I’ll drink to her as long as there is a passage in my throat, and drink in Illyria. He’s a coward and a coystril that will not drink to my niece till his brains turn o’ the toe like a parish top. What, wench! Castiliano vulgo: for here comes Sir Andrew Agueface.
Enter Sir Andrew.
AGUECHEEK. Sir Toby Belch! How now, Sir Toby Belch?
SIR TOBY. Sweet Sir Andrew!
SIR ANDREW. Bless you, fair shrew.
MARIA. And you too, sir.
SIR TOBY. Accost, Sir Andrew, accost.
SIR ANDREW. What’s that?
SIR TOBY. My niece’s chamber-maid.
SIR ANDREW. Good Mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance.
MARIA. My name is Mary, sir.
SIR ANDREW. Good Mistress Mary Accost,—
SIR TOBY. You mistake, knight: accost is front her, board her, woo her, assail her.
SIR ANDREW. By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company. Is that the meaning of accost?
MARIA. Fare you well, gentlemen.
SIR TOBY. And thou let part so, Sir Andrew, would thou mightst never draw sword again.
SIR ANDREW. And you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw sword again. Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand?
MARIA. Sir, I have not you by the hand.
SIR ANDREW. Marry, but you shall have, and here’s my hand.
MARIA. Now, sir, thought is free. I pray you, bring your hand to th’ buttery bar and let it drink.
SIR ANDREW. Wherefore, sweetheart? What’s your metaphor?
MARIA. It’s dry, sir.
SIR ANDREW. Why, I think so; I am not such an ass but I can keep my hand dry. But what’s your jest?
MARIA. A dry jest, sir.
SIR ANDREW. Are you full of them?
MARIA. Ay, sir, I have them at my fingers’ ends: marry, now I let go your hand, I am barren.
[Exit Maria.]
SIR TOBY. O knight, thou lack’st a cup of canary: When did I see thee so put down?
SIR ANDREW. Never in your life, I think, unless you see canary put me down. Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man has; but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.
SIR TOBY. No question.
SIR ANDREW. And I thought that, I’d forswear it. I’ll ride home tomorrow, Sir Toby.
SIR TOBY. Pourquoy, my dear knight?
SIR ANDREW. What is pourquoy? Do, or not do? I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing, and bear-baiting. O, had I but followed the arts!
SIR TOBY. Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair.
SIR ANDREW. Why, would that have mended my hair?
SIR TOBY. Past question; for thou seest it will not curl by nature.
SIR ANDREW. But it becomes me well enough, does’t not?
SIR TOBY. Excellent, it hangs like flax on a distaff; and I hope to see a huswife take thee between her legs, and spin it off.
SIR ANDREW. Faith, I’ll home tomorrow, Sir Toby; your niece will not be seen, or if she be, it’s four to one she’ll none of me; the Count himself here hard by woos her.
SIR TOBY. She’ll none o’ the Count; she’ll not match above her degree, neither in estate, years, nor wit; I have heard her swear’t. Tut, there’s life in’t, man.
SIR ANDREW. I’ll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o’ the strangest mind i’ the world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether.
SIR TOBY. Art thou good at these kick-shawses, knight?
SIR ANDREW. As any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be, under the degree of my betters; and yet I will not compare with an old man.
SIR TOBY. What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight?
SIR ANDREW. Faith, I can cut a caper.
SIR TOBY. And I can cut the mutton to’t.
SIR ANDREW. And I think I have the back-trick simply as strong as any man in Illyria.
SIR TOBY. Wherefore are these things hid? Wherefore have these gifts a curtain before ’em? Are they like to take dust, like Mistress Mall’s picture? Why dost thou not go to church in a galliard, and come home in a coranto? My very walk should be a jig; I would not so much as make water but in a sink-a-pace. What dost thou mean? Is it a world to hide virtues in? I did think, by the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was formed under the star of a galliard.
SIR ANDREW. Ay, ’tis strong, and it does indifferent well in a dam’d-colour’d stock. Shall we set about some revels?
SIR TOBY. What shall we do else? Were we not born under Taurus?
SIR ANDREW. Taurus? That’s sides and heart.
SIR TOBY. No, sir, it is legs and thighs. Let me see thee caper. Ha, higher: ha, ha, excellent!
[Exeunt.]
Act I, Scene IV — A Room in the Duke’s Palace
Enter Valentine and Viola in man’s attire.
VALENTINE. If the duke continue these favours towards you, Cesario, you are like to be much advanced; he hath known you but three days, and already you are no stranger.
VIOLA. You either fear his humour or my negligence, that you call in question the continuance of his love. Is he inconstant, sir, in his favours?
VALENTINE. No, believe me.
Enter Duke, Curio and Attendants.
VIOLA. I thank you. Here comes the Count.
DUKE. Who saw Cesario, ho?
VIOLA. On your attendance, my lord, here.
DUKE. Stand you awhile aloof.—Cesario, Thou know’st no less but all; I have unclasp’d To thee the book even of my secret soul. Therefore, good youth, address thy gait unto her, Be not denied access, stand at her doors, And tell them, there thy fixed foot shall grow Till thou have audience.
VIOLA. Sure, my noble lord, If she be so abandon’d to her sorrow As it is spoke, she never will admit me.
DUKE. Be clamorous and leap all civil bounds, Rather than make unprofited return.
VIOLA. Say I do speak with her, my lord, what then?
DUKE. O then unfold the passion of my love, Surprise her with discourse of my dear faith; It shall become thee well to act my woes; She will attend it better in thy youth, Than in a nuncio’s of more grave aspect.
VIOLA. I think not so, my lord.
DUKE. Dear lad, believe it; For they shall yet belie thy happy years, That say thou art a man: Diana’s lip Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe Is as the maiden’s organ, shrill and sound, And all is semblative a woman’s part. I know thy constellation is right apt For this affair. Some four or five attend him: All, if you will; for I myself am best When least in company. Prosper well in this, And thou shalt live as freely as thy lord, To call his fortunes thine.
VIOLA. I’ll do my best To woo your lady. [Aside.] Yet, a barful strife! Whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife.
[Exeunt.]
Act I, Scene V — A Room in Olivia’s House
Enter Maria and Clown.
MARIA. Nay; either tell me where thou hast been, or I will not open my lips so wide as a bristle may enter, in way of thy excuse: my lady will hang thee for thy absence.
CLOWN. Let her hang me: he that is well hanged in this world needs to fear no colours.
MARIA. Make that good.
CLOWN. He shall see none to fear.
MARIA. A good lenten answer. I can tell thee where that saying was born, of I fear no colours.
CLOWN. Where, good Mistress Mary?
MARIA. In the wars, and that may you be bold to say in your foolery.
CLOWN. Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and 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?
CLOWN. Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage; and for turning away, let summer bear it out.
MARIA. You are resolute then?
CLOWN. 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.
CLOWN. Apt, 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.
[Exit.]
Enter Olivia with Malvolio.
CLOWN. Wit, and’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 bless thee, lady!
OLIVIA. Take the fool away.
CLOWN. Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady.
OLIVIA. Go to, y’are a dry fool; I’ll no more of you. Besides, you grow dishonest.
CLOWN. Two 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’s 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. The lady bade take away the fool, therefore, I say again, take her away.
OLIVIA. Sir, I bade them take away you.
CLOWN. Misprision in the highest degree! Lady, cucullus non facit monachum: that’s as much to say, I wear not motley in my brain. Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.
OLIVIA. Can you do it?
CLOWN. Dexteriously, good madonna.
OLIVIA. Make your proof.
CLOWN. I 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.
CLOWN. Good madonna, why mourn’st thou?
OLIVIA. Good fool, for my brother’s death.
CLOWN. I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
OLIVIA. I know his soul is in heaven, fool.
CLOWN. The more fool you, madonna, to mourn for your brother’s soul being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen.
OLIVIA. What think you of this fool, Malvolio? doth he not mend?
MALVOLIO. Yes; and shall do, till the pangs of death shake him. Infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool.
CLOWN. 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. How 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 guard 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 taste 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 discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove.
CLOWN. 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. 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!
[Exit Maria.]
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.
CLOWN. 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. 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. A plague o’ these pickle-herrings! How now, sot?
CLOWN. 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?
CLOWN. 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.
CLOWN. He is but mad yet, madonna; and the fool shall look to the madman.
[Exit Clown.]
Enter Malvolio.
MALVOLIO. Madam, yond 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. Has been told so; and he says he’ll stand at your door like a sheriff’s post, and be the supporter of a bench, but he’ll speak with you.
OLIVIA. What kind o’ man is he?
MALVOLIO. 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.
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 comptible, 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 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. 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 other’s, profanation.
OLIVIA. Give us the place alone: we will hear this divinity.
[Exit Maria.]
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. [Unveiling.] 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 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 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 recompens’d though you were crown’d 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 divulg’d, free, learn’d, and valiant, And in dimension and the shape of nature, A gracious person. But yet I cannot love him. 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.
OLIVIA. 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 contemned love, And sing them loud even in the dead of night; 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. 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; 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.
VIOLA. I am no fee’d post, lady; keep your purse; My master, not myself, lacks recompense. Love make his heart of flint that you shall love, And let your fervour like my master’s be Plac’d in contempt. Farewell, fair cruelty.
[Exit.]
OLIVIA. What is your parentage? ‘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 five-fold blazon. Not too fast: soft, soft! Unless the master were the man. How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague? Methinks I feel this youth’s perfections With an invisible and subtle stealth To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be. 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. 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.
[Exit.]
OLIVIA. 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!
[Exit.]
Act II, Scene I — The sea-coast
Enter Antonio and Sebastian.
ANTONIO. Will you stay no longer? Nor will you not that I go with you?
SEBASTIAN. By your patience, no; my stars shine darkly over me; the malignancy of my fate might perhaps distemper yours; therefore I shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone. It were a bad recompense for your love, to lay any of them on you.
ANTONIO. Let me know of you whither you are bound.
SEBASTIAN. No, sooth, sir; my determinate voyage is mere extravagancy. But I perceive in you so excellent a touch of modesty, that you will not extort from me what I am willing to keep in. Therefore it charges me in manners the rather to express myself. You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian, which I called Roderigo; my father was that Sebastian of Messaline whom I know you have heard of. He left behind him myself and a sister, both born in an hour. If the heavens had been pleased, would we had so ended! But you, sir, altered that, for some hour before you took me from the breach of the sea was my sister drowned.
ANTONIO. Alas the day!
SEBASTIAN. A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful. But though I could not with such estimable wonder overfar believe that, yet thus far I will boldly publish her, she bore a mind that envy could not but call fair. She is drowned already, sir, with salt water, though I seem to drown her remembrance again with more.
ANTONIO. Pardon me, sir, your bad entertainment.
SEBASTIAN. O good Antonio, forgive me your trouble.
ANTONIO. If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your servant.
SEBASTIAN. If you will not undo what you have done, that is, kill him whom you have recovered, desire it not. Fare ye well at once; my bosom is full of kindness, and I am yet so near the manners of my mother, that upon the least occasion more, mine eyes will tell tales of me. I am bound to the Count Orsino’s court: farewell.
[Exit.]
ANTONIO. The gentleness of all the gods go with thee! I have many enemies in Orsino’s court, Else would I very shortly see thee there: But come what may, I do adore thee so, That danger shall seem sport, and I will go.
[Exit.]
Act II, Scene II — A street
Enter Viola; Malvolio at several doors.
MALVOLIO. Were you not even now with the Countess Olivia?
VIOLA. Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since arrived but hither.
MALVOLIO. She returns this ring to you, sir; you might have saved me my pains, to have taken it away yourself. She adds, moreover, that you should put your lord into a desperate assurance she will none of him. And one thing more, that you be never so hardy to come again in his affairs, unless it be to report your lord’s taking of this. Receive it so.
VIOLA. She took the ring of me: I’ll none of it.
MALVOLIO. Come sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is it should be so returned. If it be worth stooping for, there it lies in your eye; if not, be it his that finds it.
[Exit.]
VIOLA. I left no ring with her; what means this lady? Fortune forbid my outside have not charm’d her! She made good view of me, indeed, so much, That methought her eyes had lost her tongue, For she did speak in starts distractedly. She loves me, sure, the cunning of her passion Invites me in this churlish messenger. None of my lord’s ring? Why, he sent her none. I am the man; if it be so, as ’tis, Poor lady, she were better love a dream. Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness Wherein the pregnant enemy does much. How easy is it for the proper false In women’s waxen hearts to set their forms! Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we, For such as we are made of, such we be. How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly, And I, poor monster, fond as much on him, And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me. What will become of this? As I am man, My state is desperate for my master’s love; As I am woman (now alas the day!) What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe! O time, thou must untangle this, not I, It is too hard a knot for me t’untie!
[Exit.]
Act II, Scene III — A Room in Olivia’s House
Enter Sir Toby and Sir Andrew.
SIR TOBY. Approach, Sir Andrew; not to be abed after midnight, is to be up betimes; and diluculo surgere, thou know’st.
SIR ANDREW. Nay, by my troth, I know not; but I know to be up late is to be up late.
SIR TOBY. A false conclusion; I hate it as an unfilled can. To be up after midnight, and to go to bed then is early: so that to go to bed after midnight is to go to bed betimes. Does not our lives consist of the four elements?
SIR ANDREW. Faith, so they say, but I think it rather consists of eating and drinking.
SIR TOBY. Th’art a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink. Marian, I say! a stoup of wine.
Enter Clown.
SIR ANDREW. Here comes the fool, i’ faith.
CLOWN. How now, my hearts? Did you never see the picture of “we three”?
SIR TOBY. Welcome, ass. Now let’s have a catch.
SIR ANDREW. By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I had rather than forty shillings I had such a leg, and so sweet a breath to sing, as the fool has. In sooth, thou wast in very gracious fooling last night when thou spok’st of Pigrogromitus, of the Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus; ’twas very good, i’ faith. I sent thee sixpence for thy leman. Hadst it?
CLOWN. I did impeticos thy gratillity; for Malvolio’s nose is no whipstock. My lady has a white hand, and the Myrmidons are no bottle-ale houses.
SIR ANDREW. Excellent! Why, this is the best fooling, when all is done. Now, a song.
SIR TOBY. Come on, there is sixpence for you. Let’s have a song.
SIR ANDREW. There’s a testril of me too: if one knight give a—
CLOWN. Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life?
SIR TOBY. A love-song, a love-song.
SIR ANDREW. Ay, ay. I care not for good life.
CLOWN. [sings.] _O mistress mine, where are you roaming? O stay and hear, your true love’s coming, That can sing both high and low. Trip no further, pretty sweeting. Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man’s son doth know._
SIR ANDREW. Excellent good, i’ faith.
SIR TOBY. Good, good.
CLOWN. _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. A contagious breath.
SIR ANDREW. Very sweet and contagious, i’ faith.
SIR TOBY. 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. And 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 constrain’d 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. My lady’s a Cataian, we are politicians, Malvolio’s a Peg-a-Ramsey, and [Sings.] Three merry men be we. Am not I consanguineous? Am I not of her blood? Tilly-vally! “Lady”! 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. [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 you no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night? Do ye make an ale-house 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. 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 misdemeanours, you are welcome to the house; if not, and it would please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you farewell.
SIR TOBY. [Sings.] Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone.
MARIA. Nay, good Sir Toby.
CLOWN. [Sings.] His eyes do show his days are almost done.
MALVOLIO. Is’t even so?
SIR TOBY. [Sings.] But I will never die.
CLOWN. [Sings.] Sir Toby, there you lie.
MALVOLIO. This is much credit to you.
SIR TOBY. [Sings.] Shall I bid him go?
CLOWN. [Sings.] What and if you do?
SIR TOBY. [Sings.] Shall I bid him go, and spare not?
CLOWN. [Sings.] O, no, no, no, no, you dare not.
SIR TOBY. 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. Th’art 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 anything 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. 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 my 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. 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’d beat him like a dog.
SIR TOBY. 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 anything 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. 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. Excellent! I smell a device.
SIR ANDREW. I have’t in my nose too.
SIR TOBY. He shall think, by the letters that thou wilt drop, that they come from my niece, and that she is 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. Good night, Penthesilea.
SIR ANDREW. Before me, she’s a good wench.
SIR TOBY. She’s a beagle true bred, and one that adores me. What o’ that?
SIR ANDREW. I was adored once too.
SIR TOBY. 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. Send for money, knight; if thou hast her not i’ th’ end, call me cut.
SIR ANDREW. If I do not, never trust me, take it how you will.
SIR TOBY. Come, come, I’ll go burn some sack, ’tis too late to go to bed now. Come, knight, come, knight.
[Exeunt.]
Act II, Scene IV — A Room in the Duke’s Palace
Enter Duke, Viola, Curio and others.
DUKE. 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. 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. 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 belov’d. How dost thou like this tune?
VIOLA. It gives a very echo to the seat Where love is throned.
DUKE. Thou dost speak masterly. My life upon’t, young though thou art, thine eye Hath stayed upon some favour that it loves. Hath it not, boy?
VIOLA. A little, by your favour.
DUKE. What kind of woman is’t?
VIOLA. Of your complexion.
DUKE. She is not worth thee, then. What years, i’ faith?
VIOLA. About your years, my lord.
DUKE. 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. 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!
Enter Curio and Clown.
DUKE. 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. Ay; prithee, sing.
[Music.]
The Clown’s song.
_ 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. There’s for thy pains.
CLOWN. No pains, sir; I take pleasure in singing, sir.
DUKE. I’ll pay thy pleasure, then.
CLOWN. Truly sir, and pleasure will be paid one time or another.
DUKE. 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 everything, and their intent everywhere, for that’s it that always makes a good voyage of nothing. Farewell.
[Exit Clown.]
DUKE. Let all the rest give place.
[Exeunt Curio and Attendants.]
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. I cannot be so answer’d.
VIOLA. Sooth, but you must. Say that some lady, as perhaps there is, Hath for your love as 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. 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 called 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. 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. And what’s her history?
VIOLA. A blank, my lord. She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i’ th’ 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.
DUKE. But died thy sister of her love, my boy?
VIOLA. I am all the daughters of my father’s house, And all the brothers too: and yet I know not. Sir, shall I to this lady?
DUKE. Ay, that’s the theme. To her in haste. Give her this jewel; say My love can give no place, bide no denay.
[Exeunt.]