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

even,
I should my tears let fall upon your cheek,
And say “Thrice-welcome, drowned Viola!” Viola My father had a mole upon his brow. Sebastian And so had mine. Viola

And died that day when Viola from her birth
Had number’d thirteen years.

Sebastian

O, that record is lively in my soul!
He finished indeed his mortal act
That day that made my sister thirteen years.

Viola

If nothing lets to make us happy both
But this my masculine usurp’d attire,
Do not embrace me till each circumstance
Of place, time, fortune, do cohere and jump
That I am Viola: which to confirm,
I’ll bring you to a captain in this town,
Where lie my maiden weeds; by whose gentle help
I was preserved to serve this noble count.
All the occurrence of my fortune since
Hath been between this lady and this lord.

Sebastian

To Olivia. So comes it, lady, you have been mistook:
But nature to her bias drew in that.
You would have been contracted to a maid;
Nor are you therein, by my life, deceived,
You are betroth’d both to a maid and man.

Duke

Be not amazed; right noble is his blood.
If this be so, as yet the glass seems true,
I shall have share in this most happy wreck.
To Viola. Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times
Thou never shouldst love woman like to me.

Viola

And all those sayings will I overswear;
And those swearings keep as true in soul
As doth that orbed continent the fire
That severs day from night.

Duke

Give me thy hand;
And let me see thee in thy woman’s weeds.

Viola

The captain that did bring me first on shore
Hath my maid’s garments: he upon some action
Is now in durance, at Malvolio’s suit,
A gentleman, and follower of my lady’s.

Olivia

He shall enlarge him: fetch Malvolio hither:
And yet, alas, now I remember me,
They say, poor gentleman, he’s much distract.

Re-enter Clown with a letter, and Fabian.

A most extracting frenzy of mine own
From my remembrance clearly banish’d his.
How does he, sirrah?

Clown Truly, madam, he holds Belzebub at the staves’s end as well as a man in his case may do: has here writ a letter to you; I should have given’t you to-day morning, but as a madman’s epistles are no gospels, so it skills not much when they are delivered. Olivia Open’t, and read it. Clown

Look then to be well edified when the fool delivers the madman. Reads.

“By the Lord, madam,”⁠—

Olivia How now! art thou mad? Clown No, madam, I do but read madness: an your ladyship will have it as it ought to be, you must allow Vox. Olivia Prithee, read i’ thy right wits. Clown So I do, madonna; but to read his right wits is to read thus: therefore perpend, my princess, and give ear. Olivia Read it you, sirrah. To Fabian. Fabian

Reads.

“By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, and the world shall know it: though you have put me into darkness and given your drunken cousin rule over me, yet have I the benefit of my senses as well as your ladyship. I have your own letter that induced me to the semblance I put on; with the which I doubt not but to do myself much right, or you much shame. Think of me as you please. I leave my duty a little unthought of and speak out of my injury.

“The madly-used Malvolio.”

Olivia Did he write this? Clown Ay, madam. Duke This savours not much of distraction. Olivia

See him deliver’d, Fabian; bring him hither. Exit Fabian.
My lord, so please you, these things further thought on,
To think me as well a sister as a wife,
One day shall crown the alliance on’t, so please you,
Here at my house and at my proper cost.

Duke

Madam, I am most apt to embrace your offer.
To Viola. Your master quits you; and for your service done him,
So much against the mettle of your sex,
So far beneath your soft and tender breeding,
And since you call’d me master for so long,
Here is my hand: you shall from this time be
Your master’s mistress.

Olivia A sister! you are she. Re-enter Fabian, with Malvolio. Duke Is this the madman? Olivia

Ay, my lord, this same.
How now, Malvolio!

Malvolio

Madam, you have done me wrong,
Notorious wrong.

Olivia Have I, Malvolio? no. Malvolio

Lady, you have. Pray you, peruse that letter.
You must not now deny it is your hand:
Write from it, if you can, in hand or phrase;
Or say ’tis not your seal, nor your invention:
You can say none of this: well, grant it then
And tell me, in the modesty of honour,
Why you have given me such clear lights of favour,
Bade me come smiling and cross-garter’d to you,
To put on yellow stockings and to frown
Upon Sir Toby and the lighter people;
And, acting this in an obedient hope,
Why have you suffer’d me to be imprison’d,
Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,
And made the most notorious geck and gull
That e’er invention play’d on? tell me why.

Olivia

Alas, Malvolio, this is not my writing,
Though, I confess, much like the character
But out of question ’tis Maria’s hand.
And now I do bethink me, it was she
First told me thou wast mad; then camest in smiling,
And in such forms which here were presupposed
Upon thee in the letter. Prithee, be content:
This practise hath most shrewdly pass’d upon thee;
But when we know the grounds and authors of it,
Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge
Of thine own cause.

Fabian

Good madam, hear me speak,
And let no quarrel nor no brawl to come
Taint the condition of this present hour,
Which I have wonder’d at. In hope it shall not,
Most freely I confess, myself and Toby
Set this device against Malvolio here,
Upon some stubborn and uncourteous parts
We had conceived against him: Maria writ
The letter at Sir Toby’s great importance;
In recompense whereof he hath married her.
How with a sportful malice it was follow’d,
May rather pluck on laughter than revenge;
If that the injuries be justly weigh’d
That have on both sides pass’d.

Olivia Alas, poor fool, how have they baffled thee! Clown Why, “some are born great, some