Return to Shakespeare page Return toTwelfth Night page
Introduction to this scene. Staging. Criticism.
Act 2 Scene 5 text
| Act II Scene V 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? |
5 |
| 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? |
10 |
| 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. |
15 20 |
| [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? |
25 |
| 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! |
30 |
| 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! | 35 |
| 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! | 40 |
| 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! | 45 |
| 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! | 50 |
| 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! | 55 |
| 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 per- chance wind up watch, or play with my--some rich jewel. Toby approaches; courtesies there to me,-- |
60 |
| 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 con- trol,-- |
65 |
| 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,'-- |
70 |
| 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. |
75 |
| 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,'-- | 80 |
| 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. | 85 |
| SIR TOBY BELCH | O, peace! and the spirit of humour inti- mate 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. |
90 |
| 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? |
95 |
| 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? |
100 105 |
|
| 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. |
110 |
| 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! |
115 |
| 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,-- |
120 |
| SIR TOBY BELCH | O, ay, make up that: he is now at a cold scent. |
125 |
| 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. |
130 |
| 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. |
135 |
| 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 for- tunes before you. |
140 |
| 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. |
145 |
| [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 singu- larity: she thus advises thee that sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and wished to see thee ever cross-gartered: I say, remem- ber. 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 acquain- tance, 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. |
150 155 160 165 170 175 |
|
| [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. |
180 |
|
| [Exit] | ||
| FABIAN | I will not give my part of this sport for a pension of thousands to be paid from the Sophy. |
185 |
| 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. | 190 |
| 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? |
195 |
| 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. | 200 |
| 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 de- tests; and he will smile upon her, which will now be so unsuitable to her disposition, being ad- dicted to a melancholy as she is, that it cannot but turn him into a notable contempt. If you will see it, follow me. |
205 |
| SIR TOBY BELCH | To the gates of Tartar, thou most excellent dev- il of wit! |
210 |
| SIR ANDREW | I'll make one too. | |
| [Exeunt] |