Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare [top 100 novels .txt] 📗

Twelfth Night

By William Shakespeare.

Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Dramatis Personae Twelfth Night Act I Scene I Scene II Scene III Scene IV Scene V Act II Scene I Scene II Scene III Scene IV Scene V Act III Scene I Scene II Scene III Scene IV Act IV Scene I Scene II Scene III Act V Scene I Endnotes Colophon Uncopyright Imprint

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Dramatis Personae

Orsino, Duke of Illyria

Sebastian, brother to Viola

Antonio, a sea captain, friend to Sebastian

A sea captain, friend to Viola

Valentine, gentleman attending on the Duke

Curio, gentleman attending on the Duke

Sir Toby Belch, uncle to Olivia

Sir Andrew Aguecheek

Malvolio, steward to Olivia

Fabian, servant to Olivia

Feste, a clown, servant to Olivia

Olivia

Viola

Maria, Olivia’s woman

Lords, priests, sailors, officers, musicians, and other attendants

Scene: A city in Illyria, and the seacoast near it.

Twelfth Night Act I Scene I

The Duke’s palace.

Enter Duke, 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 soe’er,
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 purged 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.

Enter Valentine. How now! what news from her? 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.

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 saved. 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 saved 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 lived 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 abjured 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 behavior 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