Twelfth Night, Act V
ACT V, SCENE 1. BOOK OF REVELATIONS.
[A city in Illyria. Before Olivia's house. Enter CLOWN and
FABIAN.]
FABIAN.
Now, as you love me, let me see his letter.
CLOWN.
Good Master Fabian, grant me another request.
FABIAN.
Any thing.
CLOWN.
Do not desire to see this letter.
[Enter DUKE, VIOLA, CURIO, and VALENTINE.]
ORSINO
Belong you to the Lady Olivia, friends?
CLOWN.
Ay, sir; we are some of her trappings.
ORSINO
I know you well: how do you, my good fellow?
CLOWN.
Truly, sir, the better for my foes, and the worse for my friends.
ORSINO
Just the contrary; the better for your friends.
CLOWN.
No, sir, the worse.
ORSINO
How can that be?
CLOWN.
Marry, sir, they praise me, and make an ass of me; now my foes tell
me plainly I am an ass: so that by my foes, sir, I profit in the
knowledge of myself; and by my friends I am abused: so that, the
worse for my friends, and the better for my foes.
ORSINO
Why, this is excellent.
CLOWN.
By my troth, sir, no; though it please you to be one of my friends.
ORSINO
You shall not be the worse for me: there's gold. [Gives money.]
CLOWN.
But that it would be double-dealing, sir, I would you could make it
another.
ORSINO
Well, I will be so much a sinner to be a double-dealer: there's
another. [Gives money.]
CLOWN.
"Primo, secundo, tertio," is a good play; and the old saying is, the
third pays for all.
ORSINO
You can fool no more money out of me at this throw: if you will let
your lady know I am here to speak with her, and bring her along
with you, it may awake my bounty further.
CLOWN.
Marry, sir, lullaby to your bounty till I come again. I go, sir; but I
would not have you to think that my desire of having is the sin of
covetousness: but, as you say, sir, let your bounty take a nap, I will
awake it anon. [Exit.]
VIOLA.
Here comes the man, sir, that did rescue me.
[Enter OFFICERS, with ANTONIO.]
ORSINO
That face of his I do remember well;
Yet, when I saw it last, it was besmeared
As black as Vulcan in the smoke of war:--
What's the matter?
FIRST OFFICER.
Orsino, this is that Antonio--
Here in the streets, desperate of shame and state,
In private brawling did we apprehend him.
VIOLA.
He did me kindness, sir; drew on my side;
But, in conclusion, put strange speech upon me,--
I know not what 'twas but distraction.
ORSINO
What foolish boldness brought you to her mercies,
Whom you, in terms so bloody and so dear,
Has made your enemies?
ANTONIO.
Orsino, noble sir,
Be pleased that I shake off these names you give me:
Antonio never yet was thief or pirate,
Though, I confess, on base and ground enough,
Orsino's enemy. A witchcraft drew me hither:
That most ingrateful boy there by your side,
From the rude sea's enraged and foamy mouth
Did I redeem; a wreck past hope he was:
His life I gave him, and did thereto add
My love, without retention or restraint,
All his in dedication; for his sake
Did I expose myself, pure for his love,
Into the danger of this adverse town;
Drew to defend him when he was beset:
Where being apprehended, his false cunning,
Not meaning to partake with me in danger,
Taught him to face me out of his acquaintance,
While one would wink; denied me mine own purse,
Which I had recommended to his use
Not half an hour before.
VIOLA.
How can this be?
ORSINO
When came he to this town?
ANTONIO.
To-day, my lord: and for three months before,
Both day and night did we keep company.
ORSINO
Here comes the countess: now heaven walks on earth.--
But for you, fellow; fellow, your words are madness:
Three months this youth has tended upon me;
But more of that anon. Take him aside.
[Enter OLIVIA and ATTENDANTS.]
OLIVIA.
Cesario, you do not keep promise with me.
VIOLA.
Madam!
ORSINO
Gracious Olivia,--
OLIVIA.
What do you say, Cesario? Good my lord,--
VIOLA.
My lord would speak; my duty hushes me.
OLIVIA.
If it be aught to the old tune, my lord,
It is as fat and fulsome to mine ear
As howling after music.
ORSINO
Still so cruel?
OLIVIA.
Still so constant, lord.
ORSINO
What, to perverseness? you uncivil lady,
To whose ingrate and unauspicious altars
My soul the faithfull'st offerings has breathed out
That e'er devotion tendered! What shall I do?
OLIVIA.
Even what it please my lord.
ORSINO
Hear me this:
Since you to non-regardance cast my faith,
And that I partly know the instrument
That screws me from my true place in your favor,
Live you, the marble-breasted tyrant, still;
But this your minion, whom I know you love,
And whom, by heaven I swear, I tender dearly,
Him will I tear out of that cruel eye,
Where he sits crownéd in his master's spite.--
Come, boy, with me; my thoughts are ripe in mischief:
I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love,
To spite a raven's heart within a dove.
VIOLA.
And I, most jocund, apt, and willingly,
To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die.
OLIVIA.
Where goes Cesario?
VIOLA.
After him I love
More than I love these eyes, more than my life,
More, by all mores, than e'er I shall love wife.
OLIVIA.
Ay me, detested! how am I beguiled!
VIOLA.
Who does beguile you? who does do you wrong?
OLIVIA.
Have you forgot yourself? is it so long?
Call forth the holy father. [Exit an ATTENDANT.]
ORSINO [to VIOLA].
Come, away!
OLIVIA.
Whither, my lord?-- Cesario, husband, stay.
ORSINO
Husband!
OLIVIA.
Ay, husband: can he that deny?
ORSINO
Her husband, sirrah!
VIOLA.
No, my lord, not I.
OLIVIA.
Alas, it is the baseness of your fear
That makes you strangle your identity:
Fear not, Cesario; take your fortunes up;
Be what you know you are, and then you are
As great as that you fear.
[Enter ATTENDANT, with PRIEST.]
OLIVIA.
O, welcome, father!
Father, I charge you, by your reverence,
Here to unfold-- though lately we intended
To keep in darkness what occasion now
Reveals before 'tis ripe-- what you do know
Has newly past between this youth and me.
PRIEST.
A contract of eternal bond of love,
Confirmed by mutual joinder of your hands,
Attested by the holy close of lips,
Strengthened by interchangement of your rings;
And all the ceremony of this compact
Sealed in my function, by my testimony:
Since when, my watch has told me, toward my grave
I have traveled but two hours.
ORSINO
O you dissembling cub! what will you be
When time has sowed a grizzle on your face?
Farewell, and take her; but direct your feet
Where you and I henceforth may never meet.
VIOLA.
My lord, I do protest,--
OLIVIA.
O, do not swear!
Hold little faith, though you have too much fear.
[Enter SIR ANDREW, with bloody bandages.]
SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK.
For the love of God, a surgeon! send one presently to Sir Toby.
OLIVIA.
What's the matter?
SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK.
'Has broke my head across, and has given Sir Toby a bloody
coxcomb too: for the love of God, your help!
OLIVIA.
Who has done this, Sir Andrew?
SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK.
The count's gentleman, one Cesario: we took him for a coward, but
he's the very devil incardinate.
ORSINO
My gentleman Cesario?
SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK.
'Od's lifelings, here he is!-- You broke my head for nothing; and
that that I did, I was set on to do't by Sir Toby.
VIOLA.
Why do you speak to me? I never hurt you:
You drew your sword upon me without cause;
But I hurt you not.
SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK.
If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me: I think you set
nothing by a bloody coxcomb.-- Here comes Sir Toby halting; you
shall hear more.
[Enter SIR TOBY, bandaged, and CLOWN.]
ORSINO
How now, gentleman! how is't with you?
SIR TOBY BELCH.
That's all one: has hurt me, and there's the end on't.-- Sot, did you
see Dick Surgeon, sot?
CLOWN.
O, he's drunk, Sir Toby, an hour agone.
SIR TOBY BELCH.
Then he's a rogue: I hate a drunken rogue.
OLIVIA.
Away with him! Who has made this havoc with them?
SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK.
I'll help you, Sir Toby, because we'll be dressed together.
SIR TOBY BELCH.
Will you help--an ass-head and a knave, a thin-faced knave, a gull?
OLIVIA.
Get him to bed, and let his hurt be looked to.
[Exeunt CLOWN, FABIAN, SIR TOBY, and SIR ANDREW.]
[Enter SEBASTIAN.]
SEBASTIAN.
I am sorry, madam, I have hurt your kinsman;
But, had it been the brother of my blood,
I must have done no less with wit and safety.
You throw a strange regard upon me, and by that
I do perceive it has offended you:
Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vows
We made each other but so late ago.
ORSINO
One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons,--
A natural perspective, that is and is not!
SEBASTIAN.
Antonio, O my dear Antonio!
How have the hours racked and tortured me,
Since I have lost you!
ANTONIO.
Sebastian are you?
SEBASTIAN.
Fear you that, Antonio?
ANTONIO.
How have you made division of yourself?
An apple, cleft in two, is not more twin
Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?
OLIVIA.
Most wonderful!
SEBASTIAN.
Do I stand there? I never had a brother.
I had a sister,
Whom the blind waves and surges have devoured.--
[to VIOLA] Of charity, what kin are you to me?
What countryman? what name? what parentage?
VIOLA.
Of Messaline: Sebastian was my father;
Such a Sebastian was my brother too,
So went he suited to his watery tomb:
If spirits can assume both form and suit,
You come to fright us.
SEBASTIAN.
A spirit I am indeed;
Were you a woman, as the rest goes even,
I should my tears let fall upon your cheek,
And say, "Thrice-welcome, drownéd 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 numbered thirteen years.
SEBASTIAN.
O, that record is lively in my soul!
VIOLA.
Do not embrace me till each circumstance
Of place, time, fortune, do cohere and prove,
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
Has been between this lady and this lord .
SEBASTIAN [to OLIVIA.]
So comes it, lady, you have been mistook.
You would have been contracted to a maid;
Nor are you therein, by my life, deceived,--
You are betrothed both to a maid and man.
ORSINO
Be not amazed; right noble is his blood.--
I shall have share in this most happy wrack.--
[to VIOLA] Boy, you have said to me a thousand times
You never should love woman like to me.
VIOLA.
And all those sayings will I over swear.
ORSINO
Give me your hand;
And let me see you in your woman's weeds.
VIOLA.
The captain that did bring me first on shore
Has my maid's garments: he, upon some action,
Is now in durance, at Malvolio's suit.
OLIVIA.
He shall enlarge him: -- fetch Malvolio hither:--
[Exit Servant and Officers.]
A most extracting frenzy of mine own
From my remembrance clearly banished his.--
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.
ORSINO
Madam, I am most apt to embrace your offer.--
[to VIOLA] Your master quits you; and, for your service done him,
So far beneath your soft and tender breeding,
And since you called 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.
[Enter FABIAN, with MALVOLIO in straitjacket and goalie mask,
on a hand-truck.]
ORSINO
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: [hands it to her]
You must not now deny it is your hand,--
And tell me, in the modesty of honor,
Why you have given me such clear lights of favor,
Bade me come smiling and cross-suspendered 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 suffered me to be imprisoned,
Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,
And made the most notorious fool and dupe
That e'er invention played 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 you were mad: you came in smiling,
And in such forms which here were presupposed
Upon you in the letter. Pray you, be content:
This practice has most shrewdly passed upon you;
But, when we know the grounds and authors of it,
You shall be both the plaintiff and the judge
Of your own cause.
FABIAN.
Good madam, hear me speak:
Most freely I confess, myself and Toby
Set this device against Malvolio here,
Upon some stubborn and uncourteous parts
We had conceived in him: Maria writ
The letter at Sir Toby's great insistence;
In recompense whereof he has married her.
How with a sportful malice it was followed,
May rather pluck on laughter than revenge;
If that the injuries be justly weighed
That have on both sides passed.
OLIVIA.
Alas, poor fool, how have they baffled you!
CLOWN.
Why, "some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have
greatness thrown upon them."-- "By the Lord, fool, I am not
mad;"-- but do you remember? "Madam, why laugh you at such a
barren rascal? an you smile not, he's gagged:" and thus the whirligig
of time brings in his revenges.
MALVOLIO.
I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you. [Exit.]
OLIVIA.
He has been most notoriously abused.
ORSINO
Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace:--
He has not told us of the captain yet:
When that is known, and golden time allows,
A solemn combination shall be made
Of our dear souls. Meantime, sweet sister,
We will not part from hence.-- Cesario, come;
For so you shall be, while you are a man;
But when in other habits you are seen,
Orsino's mistress and his fancy's queen.
[Exeunt all, except CLOWN.]
CLOWN [sings].
When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came to man's estate,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came, alas! to wive,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
By swaggering could I never drive,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came unto my beds,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
With toss-pots still had drunken heads,
For the rain it raineth every day.
A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain:--
But that's all one, our play is done,
And we'll strive to please you every day.
[Exit.]
GO TO:
- Dramatis
Personae--Character List (with casting added)
- Act I
- Act II
- Interlude--"Barney
Meets The ILAPD"
- Act III
- Act IV
- About 12th Nite