Notes

Act 1, scene 5
Scene 5
Synopsis:

Viola, in her disguise as Cesario, appears at Olivia’s estate. Olivia allows Cesario to speak with her privately about Orsino’s love. As Cesario presents Orsino’s love-suit, Olivia falls in love with Cesario. She sends her steward, Malvolio, after Cesario with a ring.

Enter Maria and Feste, the Fool.

MARIA Nay, either tell me where thou hast been, or I
will not open my lips so wide as a bristle may enter
in way of thy excuse. My lady will hang thee for thy
absence.
FOOL Let her hang me. He that is well hanged in this
world needs to fear no colors.
MARIA Make that good.
FOOL He shall see none to fear.
MARIA A good Lenten answer. I can tell thee where
that saying was born, of “I fear no colors.”
FOOL Where, good Mistress Mary?
MARIA In the wars; and that may you be bold to say in
your foolery.
FOOL Well, God give them wisdom that have it, and
those that are Fools, let them use their talents.
MARIA Yet you will be hanged for being so long absent.
Or to be turned away, is not that as good as a
hanging to you?
FOOL Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage,
and, for turning away, let summer bear it out.
MARIA You are resolute, then?
FOOL Not so, neither, but I am resolved on two points.
MARIA That if one break, the other will hold, or if both
break, your gaskins fall.
FOOL Apt, in good faith, very apt. Well, go thy way. If Sir
Toby would leave drinking, thou wert as witty a
piece of Eve’s flesh as any in Illyria.
MARIA Peace, you rogue. No more o’ that. Here comes
my lady. Make your excuse wisely, you were best.
She exits.

Enter Lady Olivia with Malvolio and Attendants.

FOOL, aside Wit, an ’t be thy will, put me into good
fooling! Those wits that think they have thee do very
oft prove fools, and I that am sure I lack thee may
pass for a wise man. For what says Quinapalus?
“Better a witty Fool than a foolish wit.”—God bless
thee, lady!
OLIVIA Take the Fool away.
FOOL Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the Lady.
OLIVIA Go to, you’re a dry Fool. I’ll no more of you.
Besides, you grow dishonest.
FOOL Two faults, madonna, that drink and good counsel
will amend. For give the dry Fool drink, then is
the Fool not dry. Bid the dishonest man mend
himself; if he mend, he is no longer dishonest; if he
cannot, let the botcher mend him. Anything that’s
mended is but patched; virtue that transgresses is
but patched with sin, and sin that amends is but
patched with virtue. If that this simple syllogism
will serve, so; if it will not, what remedy? As there is
no true cuckold but calamity, so beauty’s a flower.
The Lady bade take away the Fool. Therefore, I say
again, take her away.
OLIVIA Sir, I bade them take away you.
FOOL Misprision in the highest degree! Lady, cucullus
non facit monachum. That’s as much to say as, I
wear not motley in my brain. Good madonna, give
me leave to prove you a fool.
OLIVIA Can you do it?
FOOL Dexteriously, good madonna.
OLIVIA Make your proof.
FOOL I must catechize you for it, madonna. Good my
mouse of virtue, answer me.
OLIVIA Well, sir, for want of other idleness, I’ll bide
your proof.
FOOL Good madonna, why mourn’st thou?
OLIVIA Good Fool, for my brother’s death.
FOOL I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
OLIVIA I know his soul is in heaven, Fool.
FOOL The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your
brother’s soul, being in heaven. Take away the fool,
gentlemen.
OLIVIA What think you of this Fool, Malvolio? Doth he
not mend?
MALVOLIO Yes, and shall do till the pangs of death
shake him. Infirmity, that decays the wise, doth
ever make the better Fool.
FOOL God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity, for the
better increasing your folly! Sir Toby will be sworn
that I am no fox, but he will not pass his word for
twopence that you are no fool.
OLIVIA How say you to that, Malvolio?
MALVOLIO I marvel your Ladyship takes delight in
such a barren rascal. I saw him put down the other
day with an ordinary fool that has no more brain
than a stone. Look you now, he’s out of his guard
already. Unless you laugh and minister occasion to
him, he is gagged. I protest I take these wise men
that crow so at these set kind of Fools no better than
the Fools’ zanies.
OLIVIA O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste
with a distempered appetite. To be generous, guiltless,
and of free disposition is to take those things
for bird-bolts that you deem cannon bullets. There
is no slander in an allowed Fool, though he do
nothing but rail; nor no railing in a known discreet
man, though he do nothing but reprove.
FOOL Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou
speak’st well of Fools!

Enter Maria.

MARIA Madam, there is at the gate a young gentleman
much desires to speak with you.
OLIVIA From the Count Orsino, is it?
MARIA I know not, madam. ’Tis a fair young man, and
well attended.
OLIVIA Who of my people hold him in delay?
MARIA Sir Toby, madam, your kinsman.
OLIVIA Fetch him off, I pray you. He speaks nothing
but madman. Fie on him! Maria exits. Go you,
Malvolio. If it be a suit from the Count, I am sick,
or not at home; what you will, to dismiss it. (Malvolio
exits.) Now you see, sir, how your fooling
grows old, and people dislike it.
FOOL Thou hast spoke for us, madonna, as if thy eldest
son should be a Fool, whose skull Jove cram with
brains, for—here he comes—one of thy kin has a
most weak pia mater.

Enter Sir Toby.

OLIVIA By mine honor, half drunk!—What is he at the
gate, cousin?
TOBY A gentleman.
OLIVIA A gentleman? What gentleman?
TOBY ’Tis a gentleman here—a plague o’ these pickle
herring!—How now, sot?
FOOL Good Sir Toby.
OLIVIA Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by
this lethargy?
TOBY Lechery? I defy lechery. There’s one at the gate.
OLIVIA Ay, marry, what is he?
TOBY Let him be the devil an he will, I care not. Give
me faith, say I. Well, it’s all one.He exits.
OLIVIA What’s a drunken man like, Fool?
FOOL Like a drowned man, a fool, and a madman. One
draught above heat makes him a fool, the second
mads him, and a third drowns him.
OLIVIA Go thou and seek the crowner and let him sit o’
my coz, for he’s in the third degree of drink: he’s
drowned. Go look after him.
FOOL He is but mad yet, madonna, and the Fool shall
look to the madman.He exits.

Enter Malvolio.

MALVOLIO Madam, yond young fellow swears he will
speak with you. I told him you were sick; he takes
on him to understand so much, and therefore
comes to speak with you. I told him you were
asleep; he seems to have a foreknowledge of that
too, and therefore comes to speak with you. What is
to be said to him, lady? He’s fortified against any
denial.
OLIVIA Tell him he shall not speak with me.
MALVOLIO Has been told so, and he says he’ll stand at
your door like a sheriff’s post and be the supporter
to a bench, but he’ll speak with you.
OLIVIA What kind o’ man is he?
MALVOLIO Why, of mankind.
OLIVIA What manner of man?
MALVOLIO Of very ill manner. He’ll speak with you,
will you or no.
OLIVIA Of what personage and years is he?
MALVOLIO Not yet old enough for a man, nor young
enough for a boy—as a squash is before ’tis a
peascod, or a codling when ’tis almost an apple. ’Tis
with him in standing water, between boy and man.
He is very well-favored, and he speaks very shrewishly.
One would think his mother’s milk were
scarce out of him.
OLIVIA
Let him approach. Call in my gentlewoman.
MALVOLIO Gentlewoman, my lady calls.He exits.

Enter Maria.

OLIVIA
Give me my veil. Come, throw it o’er my face.
Olivia veils.
We’ll once more hear Orsino’s embassy.

Enter Viola.

VIOLA The honorable lady of the house, which is she?
OLIVIA Speak to me. I shall answer for her. Your will?
VIOLA Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable
beauty—I pray you, tell me if this be the lady of the
house, for I never saw her. I would be loath to cast
away my speech, for, besides that it is excellently
well penned, I have taken great pains to con it. Good
beauties, let me sustain no scorn. I am very comptible
even to the least sinister usage.
OLIVIA Whence came you, sir?
VIOLA I can say little more than I have studied, and
that question’s out of my part. Good gentle one,
give me modest assurance if you be the lady of the
house, that I may proceed in my speech.
OLIVIA Are you a comedian?
VIOLA No, my profound heart. And yet by the very
fangs of malice I swear I am not that I play. Are
you the lady of the house?
OLIVIA If I do not usurp myself, I am.
VIOLA Most certain, if you are she, you do usurp
yourself, for what is yours to bestow is not yours to
reserve. But this is from my commission. I will on
with my speech in your praise and then show you
the heart of my message.
OLIVIA Come to what is important in ’t. I forgive you
the praise.
VIOLA Alas, I took great pains to study it, and ’tis
poetical.
OLIVIA It is the more like to be feigned. I pray you,
keep it in. I heard you were saucy at my gates, and
allowed your approach rather to wonder at you than
to hear you. If you be not mad, begone; if you have
reason, be brief. ’Tis not that time of moon with me
to make one in so skipping a dialogue.
MARIA Will you hoist sail, sir? Here lies your way.
VIOLA No, good swabber, I am to hull here a little
longer.—Some mollification for your giant, sweet
lady.
OLIVIA Tell me your mind.
VIOLA I am a messenger.
OLIVIA Sure you have some hideous matter to deliver
when the courtesy of it is so fearful. Speak your
office.
VIOLA It alone concerns your ear. I bring no overture
of war, no taxation of homage. I hold the olive in
my hand. My words are as full of peace as matter.
OLIVIA Yet you began rudely. What are you? What
would you?
VIOLA The rudeness that hath appeared in me have I
learned from my entertainment. What I am and
what I would are as secret as maidenhead: to your
ears, divinity; to any other’s, profanation.
OLIVIA Give us the place alone. We will hear this
divinity. Maria and Attendants exit. Now, sir, what
is your text?
VIOLA Most sweet lady—
OLIVIA A comfortable doctrine, and much may be said
of it. Where lies your text?
VIOLA In Orsino’s bosom.
OLIVIA In his bosom? In what chapter of his bosom?
VIOLA To answer by the method, in the first of his heart.
OLIVIA O, I have read it; it is heresy. Have you no more
to say?
VIOLA Good madam, let me see your face.
OLIVIA Have you any commission from your lord to
negotiate with my face? You are now out of your
text. But we will draw the curtain and show you the
picture. She removes her veil. Look you, sir, such a
one I was this present. Is ’t not well done?
VIOLA Excellently done, if God did all.
OLIVIA ’Tis in grain, sir; ’twill endure wind and
weather.
VIOLA
’Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature’s own sweet and cunning hand laid on.
Lady, you are the cruel’st she alive
If you will lead these graces to the grave
And leave the world no copy.
OLIVIA O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted! I will give
out divers schedules of my beauty. It shall be
inventoried and every particle and utensil labeled
to my will: as, item, two lips indifferent red; item,
two gray eyes with lids to them; item, one neck, one
chin, and so forth. Were you sent hither to praise
me?
VIOLA
I see you what you are. You are too proud.
But if you were the devil you are fair.
My lord and master loves you. O, such love
Could be but recompensed though you were
crowned
The nonpareil of beauty.
OLIVIA How does he love me?
VIOLA With adorations, fertile tears,
With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.
OLIVIA
Your lord does know my mind. I cannot love him.
Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble,
Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth;
In voices well divulged, free, learned, and valiant,
And in dimension and the shape of nature
A gracious person. But yet I cannot love him.
He might have took his answer long ago.
VIOLA
If I did love you in my master’s flame,
With such a suff’ring, such a deadly life,
In your denial I would find no sense.
I would not understand it.
OLIVIA Why, what would you?
VIOLA
Make me a willow cabin at your gate
And call upon my soul within the house,
Write loyal cantons of contemnèd love
And sing them loud even in the dead of night,
Hallow your name to the reverberate hills
And make the babbling gossip of the air
Cry out “Olivia!” O, you should not rest
Between the elements of air and earth
But you should pity me.
OLIVIA You might do much.
What is your parentage?
VIOLA
Above my fortunes, yet my state is well.
I am a gentleman.
OLIVIA Get you to your lord.
I cannot love him. Let him send no more—
Unless perchance you come to me again
To tell me how he takes it. Fare you well.
I thank you for your pains. Spend this for me.
She offers money.
VIOLA
I am no fee’d post, lady. Keep your purse.
My master, not myself, lacks recompense.
Love make his heart of flint that you shall love,
And let your fervor, like my master’s, be
Placed in contempt. Farewell, fair cruelty.She exits.
OLIVIA “What is your parentage?”
“Above my fortunes, yet my state is well.
I am a gentleman.” I’ll be sworn thou art.
Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit
Do give thee fivefold blazon. Not too fast! Soft,
soft!
Unless the master were the man. How now?
Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
Methinks I feel this youth’s perfections
With an invisible and subtle stealth
To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.—
What ho, Malvolio!

Enter Malvolio.

MALVOLIO Here, madam, at your service.
OLIVIA
Run after that same peevish messenger,
The County’s man. He left this ring behind him,
Would I or not. Tell him I’ll none of it.
She hands him a ring.
Desire him not to flatter with his lord,
Nor hold him up with hopes. I am not for him.
If that the youth will come this way tomorrow,
I’ll give him reasons for ’t. Hie thee, Malvolio.
MALVOLIO Madam, I will.He exits.
OLIVIA
I do I know not what, and fear to find
Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.
Fate, show thy force. Ourselves we do not owe.
What is decreed must be, and be this so.
She exits.