Twelfth Night | Act 4.1

 Before OLIVIA’s house.

[Enter SEBASTIAN and Clown]

Clown
Will you make me believe that I am not sent for you?

SEBASTIAN       Go to, go to, thou art a foolish fellow:
Let me be clear of thee.

Clown      Well held out, i’ faith! No, I do not know you;
nor I am not sent to you by my lady, to bid you come

speak with her; nor your name is not Master Cesario;
nor this is not my nose neither. Nothing that is so is so.

SEBASTIAN       I prithee, vent thy folly somewhere else:
Thou know’st not me.

Clown      Vent my folly! he has heard that word of some
great man and now applies it to a fool. Vent my
folly! I am afraid this great lubber, the world,
will prove a cockney. I prithee now, ungird thy
strangeness and tell me what I shall vent to my
lady: shall I vent to her that thou art coming?

SEBASTIAN      I prithee, foolish Greek, depart from me:
There’s money for thee: if you tarry longer, I shall give

worse payment.

Clown       By my troth, thou hast an open hand.
These wise men that give fools money get
themselves a good report–after fourteen years’
purchase.

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

SIR ANDREW      Now, sir, have I met you again?
there’s for you.

SEBASTIAN      Why, there’s for thee, and there, and there.
Are all the people mad?

SIR TOBY BELCH       Hold, sir, or I’ll throw your dagger
o’er the house.

Clown      This will I tell my lady straight: I would not
be in some of your coats for two pence.

[Exit]

SIR TOBY BELCH       Come on, sir; hold.

SIR ANDREW      Nay, let him alone: I’ll go another
way to work with him; I’ll have an action of
battery against him, if there be any law in Illyria:
though I struck him first, yet it’s no matter for that.

SEBASTIAN       Let go thy hand.

SIR TOBY BELCH      Come, sir, I will not let you go.
Come, my young soldier, put up your iron: you are
well fleshed; come on.

SEBASTIAN      I will be free from thee.
What wouldst thou now? If thou darest tempt me
further, draw thy sword.

SIR TOBY BELCH      What, what?
Nay, then I must have an ounce or two

of this malapert blood from you.

[Enter OLIVIA]

OLIVIA      Hold, Toby; on thy life I charge thee, hold!

SIR TOBY BELCH       Madam!

OLIVIA      Will it be ever thus? Ungracious wretch,
Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves,
Where manners ne’er were preach’d! out of my sight!
Be not offended, dear Cesario.
Rudesby, be gone!

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

I prithee, gentle friend,
Let thy fair wisdom, not thy passion, sway
In this uncivil and thou unjust extent
Against thy peace. Go with me to my house,
And hear thou there how many fruitless pranks
This ruffian hath botch’d up, that thou thereby
Mayst smile at this: thou shalt not choose but go:
Do not deny. Beshrew his soul for me,
He started one poor heart of mine in thee.

SEBASTIAN       What relish is in this?
how runs the stream?

Or I am mad, or else this is a dream:
Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep;
If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep!

OLIVIA       Nay, come, I prithee;
would thou’ldst be ruled by me!

SEBASTIAN      Madam, I will.

OLIVIA       O, say so, and so be!

 

[Exeunt] Act 3.4 | Act 4.2


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Updated: April 27, 2021 — 7:47 am