Twelfth Night | Act 2.5

 OLIVIA’s garden.

[Enter SIR TOBY BELCH,
SIR ANDREW, and FABIAN]

SIR TOBY BELCH      Come thy ways, Signior Fabian.

FABIAN       Nay, I’ll come: if I lose a scruple of this sport,
let me be boiled to death with melancholy.

SIR TOBY BELCH       Wouldst thou not be glad to have
the niggardly rascally sheep-biter come by some
notable shame?

FABIAN      I would exult, man: you know, he brought me
out o’ favour with my lady about a bear-baiting here.

SIR TOBY BELCH      To anger him we’ll have the bear
again; and we will fool him black and blue: shall we not,
Sir Andrew?

SIR ANDREW      An we do not, it is pity of our lives.

SIR TOBY BELCH      Here comes the little villain.

[Enter MARIA]

How now, my metal of India!

MARIA      Get ye all three into the box-tree: Malvolio’s
coming down this walk: he has been yonder i’ the
sun practising behavior to his own shadow this half
hour: observe him, for the love of mockery; for I
know this letter will make a contemplative idiot of
him. Close, in the name of jesting! Lie thou there,

[Throws down a letter]

for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling.

[Exit]

[Enter MALVOLIO]

MALVOLIO       ‘Tis but fortune; all is fortune. Maria once
told me she did affect me: and I have heard herself come
thus near, that, should she fancy, it should be one
of my complexion. Besides, she uses me with a more
exalted respect than any one else that follows her.
What should I think on’t?

SIR TOBY BELCH      Here’s an overweening rogue!

FABIAN      O, peace!
Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him:
how he jets under his advanced plumes!

SIR ANDREW       ‘Slight, I could so beat the rogue!

SIR TOBY BELCH      Peace, I say.

MALVOLIO      To be Count Malvolio!

SIR TOBY BELCH     Ah, rogue!

SIR ANDREW       Pistol him, pistol him.

SIR TOBY BELCH      Peace, peace!

MALVOLIO      There is example for’t;
the lady of the Strachy married the yeoman
of the wardrobe.

SIR ANDREW       Fie on him, Jezebel!

FABIAN      O, peace! now he’s deeply in: look how
imagination blows him.

MALVOLIO      Having been three months married to her,
sitting in my state,–

SIR TOBY BELCH
    O, for a stone-bow, to hit him in the eye!

MALVOLIO       Calling my officers about me, in my
branched velvet gown; having come from a day-bed,
where I have left Olivia sleeping,–

SIR TOBY BELCH      Fire and brimstone!

FABIAN      O, peace, peace!

MALVOLIO       And then to have the humour of state;
and after a demure travel of regard, telling them I know
my place as I would they should do theirs, to for my
kinsman Toby,–

SIR TOBY BELCH       Bolts and shackles!

FABIAN      O peace, peace, peace! now, now.

MALVOLIO       Seven of my people,
with an obedient start, make out for him: I frown the while;
and perchance wind up watch, or play with my–some rich
jewel. Toby approaches; courtesies there to me,–

SIR TOBY BELCH      Shall this fellow live?

FABIAN      Though our silence be drawn
from us with cars, yet peace.

MALVOLIO       I extend my hand to him thus,
quenching my familiar smile with an austere
regard of control,–

SIR TOBY BELCH      And does not Toby take you a blow
o’ the lips then?

MALVOLIO       Saying, ‘Cousin Toby,
my fortunes having cast me on your niece give me
this prerogative of speech,’–

SIR TOBY BELCH       What, what?

MALVOLIO       ‘You must amend your drunkenness.’

SIR TOBY BELCH       Out, scab!

FABIAN      Nay, patience,
or we break the sinews of our plot.

MALVOLIO       ‘Besides, you waste the treasure of
your time with a foolish knight,’–

SIR ANDREW      That’s me, I warrant you.

MALVOLIO      ‘One Sir Andrew,’–

SIR ANDREW      I knew ’twas I; for many do call me fool.

MALVOLIO      What employment have we here?

[Taking up the letter]

FABIAN      Now is the woodcock near the gin.

SIR TOBY BELCH      O, peace!
and the spirit of humour intimate reading
aloud to him!

MALVOLIO      By my life, this is my lady’s hand these
be her very C’s, her U’s and her T’s and thus makes
she her great P’s. It is, in contempt of question,
her hand.

SIR ANDREW       Her C’s, her U’s and her T’s: why that?

MALVOLIO       [Reads] ‘To the unknown beloved, this,
and my good wishes:’–her very phrases! By your leave,
wax. Soft! and the impressure her Lucrece, with which she
uses to seal: ’tis my lady. To whom should this be?

FABIAN      This wins him, liver and all.

MALVOLIO      [Reads]

Jove knows I love: But who?
Lips, do not move;
No man must know.
‘No man must know.’ What follows? the numbers
altered! ‘No man must know:’ if this should be
thee, Malvolio?

SIR TOBY BELCH       Marry, hang thee, brock!

MALVOLIO       [Reads]
I may command where I adore;
But silence, like a Lucrece knife,
With bloodless stroke my heart doth gore:
M, O, A, I, doth sway my life.

FABIAN      A fustian riddle!

SIR TOBY BELCH       Excellent wench, say I.

MALVOLIO       ‘M, O, A, I, doth sway my life.’
Nay, but first, let me see, let me see, let me see.

FABIAN       What dish o’ poison has she dressed him!

SIR TOBY BELCH       And with what wing the staniel
cheques at it!

MALVOLIO       ‘I may command where I adore.
‘ Why, she may command me: I serve her;
she is my lady. Why, this is evident to any formal
capacity; there is no obstruction in this: and the end,
–what should that alphabetical position portend?
If I could make that resemble something in me,
–Softly! M, O, A, I,–

SIR TOBY BELCH       O, ay, make up that:
he is now at a cold scent.

FABIAN       Sowter will cry upon’t for all this,
though it be as rank as a fox.

MALVOLIO       M,–Malvolio; M,–why,
that begins my name.

FABIAN       Did not I say he would work it out?
the cur is excellent at faults.

MALVOLIO       M,–but then there is no consonancy
in the sequel; that suffers under probation A should
follow but O does.

FABIAN      And O shall end, I hope.

SIR TOBY BELCH       Ay,
or I’ll cudgel him, and make him cry O!

MALVOLIO       And then I comes behind.

FABIAN      Ay, an you had any eye behind you,
you might see more detraction at your heels
than fortunes before you.

MALVOLIO       M, O, A, I; this simulation is not
as the former: and yet, to crush this a little, it
would bow to me, for every one of these letters
are in my name. Soft! here follows prose.

[Reads]

‘If this fall into thy hand, revolve. In my stars I
am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness: some
are born great, some achieve greatness, and some
have greatness thrust upon ’em. Thy Fates open
their hands; let thy blood and spirit embrace them;
and, to inure thyself to what thou art like to be,
cast thy humble slough and appear fresh. Be
opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants; let
thy tongue tang arguments of state; put thyself into
the trick of singularity: she thus advises thee
that sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy
yellow stockings, and wished to see thee ever
cross-gartered: I say, remember. Go to, thou art
made, if thou desirest to be so; if not, let me see
thee a steward still, the fellow of servants, and
not worthy to touch Fortune’s fingers. Farewell.
She that would alter services with thee,
THE FORTUNATE-UNHAPPY.’
Daylight and champaign discovers not more: this is
open. I will be proud, I will read politic authors,
I will baffle Sir Toby, I will wash off gross
acquaintance, I will be point-devise the very man.
I do not now fool myself, to let imagination jade
me; for every reason excites to this, that my lady
loves me. She did commend my yellow stockings of
late, she did praise my leg being cross-gartered;
and in this she manifests herself to my love, and
with a kind of injunction drives me to these habits
of her liking. I thank my stars I am happy. I will
be strange, stout, in yellow stockings, and
cross-gartered, even with the swiftness of putting
on. Jove and my stars be praised! Here is yet a
postscript.

[Reads]

‘Thou canst not choose but know who I am. If thou
entertainest my love, let it appear in thy smiling;
thy smiles become thee well; therefore in my
presence still smile, dear my sweet, I prithee.’
Jove, I thank thee: I will smile; I will do
everything that thou wilt have me.

[Exit]

FABIAN       I will not give my part of this sport for
a pension of thousands to be paid from the Sophy.

SIR TOBY BELCH
     I could marry this wench for this device.

SIR ANDREW      So could I too.

SIR TOBY BELCH       And ask no other dowry with her
but such another jest.

SIR ANDREW      Nor I neither.

FABIAN       Here comes my noble gull-catcher.

[Re-enter MARIA]

SIR TOBY BELCH       Wilt thou set thy foot o’ my neck?

SIR ANDREW      Or o’ mine either?

SIR TOBY BELCH       Shall I play my freedom at traytrip,
and become thy bond-slave?

SIR ANDREW      I’ faith, or I either?

SIR TOBY BELCH      Why,
thou hast put him in such a dream, that when
the image of it leaves him he must run mad.

MARIA       Nay, but say true; does it work upon him?

SIR TOBY BELCH       Like aqua-vitae with a midwife.

MARIA      If you will then see the fruits of the sport,
mark his first approach before my lady: he will
come to her in yellow stockings, and ’tis a colour she
abhors, and cross-gartered, a fashion she detests;
and he will smile upon her, which will now be so
unsuitable to her disposition, being addicted to a
melancholy as she is, that it cannot but turn him
into a notable contempt. If you will see it, follow
me.

SIR TOBY BELCH       To the gates of Tartar,
thou most excellent devil of wit!

SIR ANDREW      I’ll make one too.

 

[Exeunt] Act 2.4 | Act 3.1


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Updated: April 27, 2021 — 7:44 am