←

Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 4

Viola hints at her hidden love · William Shakespeare
Every note, for your class

SCENE IV. A Room in the Duke’s Palace.

Enter Duke, Viola, Curio and others.
DUKE
Give me some music. Now, good morrow, friends.Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song,That old and antique song we heard last night;Methought it did relieve my passion much,More than light airs and recollected termsOf these most brisk and giddy-paced times.Come, but one verse.
CURIO
He is not here, so please your lordship, that should sing it.
DUKE
Who was it?
CURIO
Feste, the jester, my lord, a fool that the Lady Olivia’s father took much delight in. He is about the house.
DUKE
Seek him out, and play the tune the while.
Exit Curio. Music plays.
DUKE
Come hither, boy. If ever thou shalt love,In the sweet pangs of it remember me:For such as I am, all true lovers are,Unstaid and skittish in all motions else,Save in the constant image of the creatureThat is belov’d. How dost thou like this tune?
VIOLA
It gives a very echo to the seatWhere love is throned.
DUKE
Thou dost speak masterly.My life upon’t, young though thou art, thine eyeHath stayed upon some favour that it loves.Hath it not, boy?
VIOLA
A little, by your favour.
DUKE
What kind of woman is’t?
VIOLA
Of your complexion.
DUKE
She is not worth thee, then. What years, i’ faith?
VIOLA
About your years, my lord.
DUKE
Too old, by heaven! Let still the woman takeAn elder than herself; so wears she to him,So sways she levelTo hold an equal and steady influence or place. in her husband’s heart.For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,Than women’s are.
VIOLA
I think it well, my lord.
DUKE
Then let thy love be younger than thyself,Or thy affection cannot hold the bent:For women are as roses, whose fair flowerBeing once display’d, doth fall that very hour.
VIOLA
And so they are: alas, that they are so;To die, even when they to perfection grow!
Enter Curio and Clown.
DUKE
O, fellow, come, the song we had last night.Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain;The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,And the free maids, that weave their thread with bonesa stiffening strip inserted into a bodice or pair of stays.Do use to chant it: it is silly sooth,And dallies with the innocence of loveLike the old age.
CLOWN
Are you ready, sir?
DUKE
Ay; prithee, sing.
Music.
The Clown’s song.
DUKE
Come away, come away, death.And in sad cypressa fine, transparent fabric, often black and used for veils or mourning dress. let me be laid.Fly away, fly away, breath;I am slain by a fair cruel maid.My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,O, prepare it!My part of death no one so trueDid share it.
DUKE
Not a flower, not a flower sweet,On my black coffin let there be strown:Not a friend, not a friend greetMy poor corpse where my bones shall be thrown:A thousand thousand sighs to save,Lay me, O, whereSad true lover never find my grave,To weep there.
DUKE
There’s for thy pains.
CLOWN
No pains, sir; I take pleasure in singing, sir.
DUKE
I’ll pay thy pleasure, then.
CLOWN
Truly sir, and pleasure will be paid one time or another.
DUKE
Give me now leave to leave thee.
CLOWN
Now the melancholy god protect thee, and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal. I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business might be everything, and their intent everywhere, for that’s it that always makes a good voyage of nothing. Farewell.
Exit Clown.
DUKE
Let all the rest give place.
Exeunt Curio and Attendants.
DUKE
Once more, Cesario,Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty.Tell her my love, more noble than the world,Prizes not quantity of dirty lands;The parts that fortune hath bestow’d upon her,Tell her I hold as giddily as fortune;But ’tis that miracle and queen of gemsThat nature pranks her in attracts my soul.
VIOLA
But if she cannot love you, sir?
DUKE
I cannot be so answer’d.
VIOLA
Sooth, but you must.Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,Hath for your love as great a pang of heartAs you have for Olivia: you cannot love her;You tell her so. Must she not then be answer’d?
DUKE
There is no woman’s sidesCan bide the beating of so strong a passionAs love doth give my heart: no woman’s heartSo big, to hold so much; they lack retention.Alas, their love may be called appetite,No motion of the liver, but the palate,That suffer surfeit, cloymentExcess that produces satiety or disgust., and revolt;But mine is all as hungry as the sea,And can digest as much. Make no compareBetween that love a woman can bear meAnd that I owe Olivia.
VIOLA
Ay, but I know—
DUKE
What dost thou know?
VIOLA
Too well what love women to men may owe.In faith, they are as true of heart as we.My father had a daughter loved a man,As it might be perhaps, were I a woman,I should your lordship.
DUKE
And what’s her history?
VIOLA
A blank, my lord. She never told her love,But let concealment, like a worm i’ th’ bud,Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,And with a green and yellow melancholyShe sat like patience on a monument,Smiling at grief. Was not this love, indeed?We men may say more, swear more, but indeed,Our shows are more than will; for still we proveMuch in our vows, but little in our love.
DUKE
But died thy sister of her love, my boy?
VIOLA
I am all the daughters of my father’s house,And all the brothers too: and yet I know not.Sir, shall I to this lady?
DUKE
Ay, that’s the theme.To her in haste. Give her this jewel; sayMy love can give no place, bide no denaydenial or refusal..
Exeunt.