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

good, but given unsought better. Viola

By innocence I swear, and by my youth,
I have one heart, one bosom and one truth,
And that no woman has; nor never none
Shall mistress be of it, save I alone.
And so adieu, good madam: never more
Will I my master’s tears to you deplore.

Olivia

Yet come again; for thou perhaps mayst move
That heart, which now abhors, to like his love. Exeunt.

Scene II

Olivia’s house.

Enter Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Fabian. Sir Andrew No, faith, I’ll not stay a jot longer. Sir Toby Thy reason, dear venom, give thy reason. Fabian You must needs yield your reason, Sir Andrew. Sir Andrew Marry, I saw your niece do more favours to the count’s serving-man than ever she bestowed upon me; I saw’t i’ the orchard. Sir Toby Did she see thee the while, old boy? tell me that. Sir Andrew As plain as I see you now. Fabian This was a great argument of love in her toward you. Sir Andrew ’Slight, will you make an ass o’ me? Fabian I will prove it legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of judgment and reason. Sir Toby And they have been grand-jurymen since before Noah was a sailor. Fabian She did show favour to the youth in your sight only to exasperate you, to awake your dormouse valour, to put fire in your heart, and brimstone in your liver. You should then have accosted her; and with some excellent jests, fire-new from the mint, you should have banged the youth into dumbness. This was looked for at your hand, and this was balked: the double gilt of this opportunity you let time wash off, and you are now sailed into the north of my lady’s opinion; where you will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman’s beard, unless you do redeem it by some laudable attempt either of valour or policy. Sir Andrew An’t be any way, it must be with valour; for policy I hate: I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician. Sir Toby Why, then, build me thy fortunes upon the basis of valour. Challenge me the count’s youth to fight with him; hurt him in eleven places: my niece shall take note of it; and assure thyself, there is no love-broker in the world can more prevail in man’s commendation with woman than report of valour. Fabian There is no way but this, Sir Andrew. Sir Andrew Will either of you bear me a challenge to him? Sir Toby Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief; it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and fun of invention: taunt him with the licence of ink: if thou thou’st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss; and as many lies as will lie in thy sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in England, set ’em down: go, about it. Let there be gall enough in thy ink, though thou write with a goose-pen, no matter: about it. Sir Andrew Where shall I find you? Sir Toby We’ll call thee at the cubiculo: go. Exit Sir Andrew. Fabian This is a dear manakin to you, Sir Toby. Sir Toby I have been dear to him, lad, some two thousand strong, or so. Fabian We shall have a rare letter from him: but you’ll not deliver’t? Sir Toby Never trust me, then; and by all means stir on the youth to an answer. I think oxen and wainropes cannot hale them together. For Andrew, if he were opened, and you find so much blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I’ll eat the rest of the anatomy. Fabian And his opposite, the youth, bears in his visage no great presage of cruelty. Enter Maria. Sir Toby Look, where the youngest wren of nine comes. Maria If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourself into stitches, follow me. Yond gull Malvolio is turned heathen, a very renegado; for there is no Christian, that means to be saved by believing rightly, can ever believe such impossible passages of grossness. He’s in yellow stockings. Sir Toby And cross-gartered? Maria Most villanously; like a pedant that keeps a school i’ the church. I have dogged him, like his murderer. He does obey every point of the letter that I dropped to betray him: he does smile his face into more lines than is in the new map with the augmentation of the Indies: you have not seen such a thing as ’tis. I can hardly forbear hurling things at him. I know my lady will strike him: if she do, he’ll smile and take’t for a great favour. Sir Toby Come, bring us, bring us where he is. Exeunt. Scene III

A street.

Enter Sebastian and Antonio. Sebastian

I would not by my will have troubled you;
But, since you make your pleasure of your pains,
I will no further chide you.

Antonio

I could not stay behind you: my desire,
More sharp than filed steel, did spur me forth;
And not all love to see you, though so much
As might have drawn one to a longer voyage,
But jealousy what might befall your travel,
Being skilless in these parts; which to a stranger,
Unguided and unfriended, often prove
Rough and unhospitable: my willing love,
The rather by these arguments of fear,
Set forth in your pursuit.

Sebastian

My kind Antonio,
I can no other answer make but thanks,
And thanks; and ever thanks; and1 oft good turns
Are shuffled off with such uncurrent pay:
But, were my worth as is my conscience firm,
You should find better dealing. What’s to do?
Shall we go see the reliques of this town?

Antonio To-morrow, sir: best first go see your lodging. Sebastian

I am not weary, and ’tis long to night:
I pray you, let us satisfy our eyes
With the memorials and the things of fame
That do renown this city.

Antonio

Would you’d pardon me;
I do not without danger walk these streets:
Once, in a sea-fight, ’gainst the count his galleys
I did some service; of such