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Twelfth Night, Act 5, Scene 1

The twins reunite and identities unravel · William Shakespeare
Every note, for your class

SCENE I. The Street before Olivia’s House.

Enter Clown and Fabian.
FABIAN
Now, as thou lov’st me, let me see his letter.
CLOWN
Good Master Fabian, grant me another request.
FABIAN
Anything.
CLOWN
Do not desire to see this letter.
FABIAN
This is to give a dog, and in recompense desire my dog again.
Enter Duke, Viola, Curio and Lords.
DUKE
Belong you to the Lady Olivia, friends?
CLOWN
Ay, sir, we are some of her trappings.
DUKE
I know thee well. How dost thou, my good fellow?
CLOWN
Truly, sir, the better for my foes, and the worse for my friends.
DUKE
Just the contrary; the better for thy friends.
CLOWN
No, sir, the worse.
DUKE
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, conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make your two affirmatives, why then, the worse for my friends, and the better for my foes.
DUKE
Why, this is excellent.
CLOWN
By my troth, sir, no; though it please you to be one of my friends.
DUKE
Thou shalt not be the worse for me; there’s gold.
CLOWN
But that it would be double-dealing, sir, I would you could make it another.
DUKE
O, you give me ill counsel.
CLOWN
Put your grace in your pocket, sir, for this once, and let your flesh and blood obey it.
DUKE
Well, I will be so much a sinner to be a double-dealer: there’s another.
CLOWN
Primofirstly; used to introduce the first point in a list., secundosecondly; in the second place., tertiothirdly; used to introduce a third point., is a good play, and the old saying is, the third pays for all; the triplexa dance measure in triple time., sir, is a good tripping measure; or the bells of Saint BennetSaint Benedict, invoked in an oath., sir, may put you in mind—one, two, three.
DUKE
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 Clown.
Enter Antonio and Officers.
VIOLA
Here comes the man, sir, that did rescue me.
DUKE
That face of his I do remember well.Yet when I saw it last it was besmear’dAs black as Vulcan, in the smoke of war.A baubling vessel was he captain of,For shallow draught and bulk unprizable,With which such scathfulharmful, destructive, or injurious. grappleA grappling hook used to seize and hold a ship or other object. did he makeWith the most noble bottoma ball or skein of thread wound around a core. of our fleet,That very envy and the tongue of lossCried fame and honour onTo proclaim or celebrate the fame and honour of someone. him. What’s the matter?
FIRST OFFICER
Orsino, this is that AntonioThat took the Phoenix and her fraught from CandyCrete, a large Greek island in the eastern Mediterranean.,And this is he that did the Tiger boardWhen your young nephew Titus lost his leg.Here in the streets, desperate of shame and state,In private brabble 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.
DUKE
Notable pirate, thou salt-water thief,What foolish boldness brought thee to their mercies,Whom thou, in terms so bloody and so dear,Hast made thine 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 sideFrom the rude sea’s enraged and foamy mouthDid I redeem; a wreck past hope he was.His life I gave him, and did thereto addMy love, without retention or restraint,All his in dedication. For his sakeDid 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,And grew a twenty years’ removed thingWhile one would wink; denied me mine own purse,Which I had recommended to his useNot half an hour before.
VIOLA
How can this be?
DUKE
When came he to this town?
ANTONIO
Today, my lord; and for three months before,No int’rim, not a minute’s vacancy,Both day and night did we keep company.
Enter Olivia and Attendants.
DUKE
Here comes the Countess, now heaven walks on earth.But for thee, fellow, fellow, thy words are madness.Three months this youth hath tended upon me;But more of that anon. Take him aside.
OLIVIA
What would my lord, but that he may not have,Wherein Olivia may seem serviceable?Cesario, you do not keep promise with me.
VIOLA
Madam?
DUKE
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 earAs howling after music.
DUKE
Still so cruel?
OLIVIA
Still so constant, lord.
DUKE
What, to perverseness? You uncivil lady,To whose ingrate and unauspicious altarsMy soul the faithfull’st off’rings hath breathed outThat e’er devotion tender’d! What shall I do?
OLIVIA
Even what it please my lord that shall become him.
DUKE
Why should I not, had I the heart to do it,Like to the Egyptian thiefThyamis, a brigand in Heliodorus's romance who attempted to kill his beloved when capture seemed imminent. at point of death,Kill what I love?—a savage jealousyThat sometime savours nobly. But hear me this:Since you to non-regardancedisregard or lack of attention. cast my faith,And that I partly know the instrumentThat screws me from my true place in your favour,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 eyeWhere he sits crowned 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 loveMore than I love these eyes, more than my life,More, by all mores, than e’er I shall love wife.If I do feign, you witnesses abovePunish my life for tainting of my love.
OLIVIA
Ah me, detested! how am I beguil’d!
VIOLA
Who does beguile you? Who does do you wrong?
OLIVIA
Hast thou forgot thyself? Is it so long?Call forth the holy father.
Exit an Attendant.
DUKE
Come, away!
OLIVIA
Whither, my lord? Cesario, husband, stay.
DUKE
Husband?
OLIVIA
Ay, husband. Can he that deny?
DUKE
Her husband, sirrah?
VIOLA
No, my lord, not I.
OLIVIA
Alas, it is the baseness of thy fearThat makes thee strangle thy propriety.Fear not, Cesario, take thy fortunes up.Be that thou know’st thou art, and then thou artAs great as that thou fear’st.
Enter Priest.
OLIVIA
O, welcome, father!Father, I charge thee, by thy reverenceHere to unfold—though lately we intendedTo keep in darkness what occasion nowReveals before ’tis ripe—what thou dost knowHath newly passed 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,Strengthen’d by interchangement of your rings,And all the ceremony of this compactSealed in my function, by my testimony;Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave,I have travelled but two hours.
DUKE
O thou dissembling cub! What wilt thou beWhen time hath sowed a grizzle on thy case?Or will not else thy craft so quickly growThat thine own trip shall be thine overthrow?Farewell, and take her; but direct thy feetWhere thou and I henceforth may never meet.
VIOLA
My lord, I do protest—
OLIVIA
O, do not swear.Hold little faith, though thou has too much fear.
Enter Sir Andrew.
SIR ANDREW
For the love of God, a surgeon! Send one presently to Sir Toby.
OLIVIA
What’s the matter?
SIR ANDREW
’Has broke my head across, and has given Sir Toby a bloody coxcomb too. For the love of God, your help! I had rather than forty pound I were at home.
OLIVIA
Who has done this, Sir Andrew?
SIR ANDREW
The Count’s gentleman, one Cesario. We took him for a coward, but he’s the very devil incardinateEmbodied in flesh; incarnate..
DUKE
My gentleman, Cesario?
SIR ANDREW
’Od’s lifelingsA mild oath invoking God’s life., 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 bespake you fair and hurt you not.
Enter Sir Toby, drunk, led by the Clown.
SIR ANDREW
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: but if he had not been in drink, he would have tickled you othergatesOf another kind or in another manner. than he did.
DUKE
How now, gentleman? How is’t with you?
SIR TOBY
That’s all one; ’has hurt me, and there’s th’ end on’t. Sot, didst see Dick Surgeon, sot?
CLOWN
O, he’s drunk, Sir Toby, an hour agone; his eyes were set at eight i’ th’ morning.
SIR TOBY
Then he’s a rogue, and a passy measureslively or intricate dance steps. pavina slow, stately dance performed by couples.. I hate a drunken rogue.
OLIVIA
Away with him. Who hath made this havoc with them?
SIR ANDREW
I’ll help you, Sir Toby, because we’ll be dressed together.
SIR TOBY
Will you help? An ass-head, and a coxcomb, 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 thatI do perceive it hath offended you.Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vowsWe made each other but so late ago.
DUKE
One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons!A natural perspectivean optical device or specially constructed picture that produces a deceptive image when viewed from a particular position., that is, and is not!
SEBASTIAN
Antonio, O my dear Antonio!How have the hours rack’d and tortur’d meSince I have lost thee.
ANTONIO
Sebastian are you?
SEBASTIAN
Fear’st thou that, Antonio?
ANTONIO
How have you made divisionAn elaborate musical passage in which a melody is ornamented with rapid notes. of yourself?An apple cleft in two is not more twinThan these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?
OLIVIA
Most wonderful!
SEBASTIAN
Do I stand there? I never had a brother:Nor can there be that deity in my natureOf here and everywhere. I had a sister,Whom the blind waves and surges have devoured.Of charity, what kin are you to me?What countryman? What name? What parentage?
VIOLA
Of Messalinea city, probably fictional, named as the Sicilian home of Sebastian and Viola's family.: 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,But am in that dimension grossly clad,Which from the womb I did participate.Were you a woman, as the rest goes even,I should my tears let fall upon your cheek,And say, ‘Thrice welcome, drowned Viola.’
VIOLA
My father had a mole upon his brow.
SEBASTIAN
And so had mine.
VIOLA
And died that day when Viola from her birthHad numbered thirteen years.
SEBASTIAN
O, that record is lively in my soul!He finished indeed his mortal actThat day that made my sister thirteen years.
VIOLA
If nothing lets to make us happy bothBut this my masculine usurp’d attire,Do not embrace me till each circumstanceOf place, time, fortune, do cohere and jumpThat I am Viola; which to confirm,I’ll bring you to a captain in this town,Where lie my maiden weeds; by whose gentle helpI was preserv’d to serve this noble count.All the occurrence of my fortune sinceHath been between this lady and this lord.
SEBASTIAN
So comes it, lady, you have been mistook.But nature to her biasthe weight in a bowl that makes it travel in a curved course. drew in that.You would have been contracted to a maid;Nor are you therein, by my life, deceived:You are betroth’d both to a maid and man.
DUKE
Be not amazed; right noble is his blood.If this be so, as yet the glass seems true,I shall have share in this most happy wreck.Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand timesThou never shouldst love woman like to me.
VIOLA
And all those sayings will I over-swear,And all those swearings keep as true in soulAs doth that orbed continent the fireThat severs day from night.
DUKE
Give me thy hand,And let me see thee in thy woman’s weeds.
VIOLA
The captain that did bring me first on shoreHath my maid’s garments. He, upon some action,Is now in durance, at Malvolio’s suit,A gentleman and follower of my lady’s.
OLIVIA
He shall enlarge him. Fetch Malvolio hither.And yet, alas, now I remember me,They say, poor gentleman, he’s much distract.
Enter Clown, with a letter and Fabian.
OLIVIA
A most extractingdrawing the mind away from ordinary awareness; distracting or deranging. frenzy of mine ownFrom my remembrance clearly banished his.How does he, sirrah?
CLOWN
Truly, madam, he holds Belzebub at the stave’s endat a distance, as though kept away with a staff. as well as a man in his case may do. Has here writ a letter to you. I should have given it you today morning, but as a madman’s epistles are no gospels, so it skills not much when they are delivered.
OLIVIA
Open ’t, and read it.
CLOWN
Look then to be well edified, when the fool delivers the madman. By the Lord, madam,—
OLIVIA
How now, art thou mad?
CLOWN
No, madam, I do but read madness: an your ladyship will have it as it ought to be, you must allow voxThe Latin word for ‘voice’..
OLIVIA
Prithee, read i’ thy right wits.
CLOWN
So I do, madonna. But to read his right wits is to read thus; therefore perpendto consider or reflect upon carefully., my princess, and give ear.
OLIVIA
Read it you, sirrah.
FABIAN
By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, and the world shall know it. Though you have put me into darkness and given your drunken cousin rule over me, yet have I the benefit of my senses as well as your ladyship. I have your own letter that induced me to the semblance I put on; with the which I doubt not but to do myself much right or you much shame. Think of me as you please. I leave my duty a little unthought of, and speak out of my injury.The madly-used Malvolio.
OLIVIA
Did he write this?
CLOWN
Ay, madam.
DUKE
This savours not much of distraction.
OLIVIA
See him delivered, Fabian, bring him hither.
Exit Fabian.
OLIVIA
My lord, so please you, these things further thought on,To think me as well a sister, as a wife,One day shall crown th’ alliance on’t, so please you,Here at my house, and at my proper cost.
DUKE
Madam, I am most apt t’ embrace your offer.Your master quits you; and for your service done him,So much against the mettle of your sex,So far beneath your soft and tender breeding,And since you call’d me master for so long,Here is my hand; you shall from this time beYour master’s mistress.
OLIVIA
A sister? You are she.
Enter Fabian and Malvolio.
DUKE
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.You must not now deny it is your hand,Write from it, if you can, in hand, or phrase,Or say ’tis not your seal, not your invention:You can say none of this. Well, grant it then,And tell me, in the modesty of honour,Why you have given me such clear lights of favour,Bade me come smiling and cross-garter’d to you,To put on yellow stockings, and to frownUpon Sir Toby, and the lighter people;And acting this in an obedient hope,Why have you suffer’d me to be imprison’d,Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,And made the most notorious geckA fool or dupe. and gullThat 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 sheFirst told me thou wast mad; then cam’st in smiling,And in such forms which here were presuppos’dUpon thee in the letter. Prithee, be content.This practice hath most shrewdly pass’d upon thee.But when we know the grounds and authors of it,Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judgeOf thine own cause.
FABIAN
Good madam, hear me speak,And let no quarrel, nor no brawl to come,Taint the condition of this present hour,Which I have wonder’d at. In hope it shall not,Most freely I confess, myself and TobySet this device against Malvolio here,Upon some stubborn and uncourteous partsWe had conceiv’d against him. Maria writThe letter, at Sir Toby’s great importance,In recompense whereof he hath married her.How with a sportful malice it was follow’dMay rather pluck on laughter than revenge,If that the injuries be justly weigh’dThat have on both sides passed.
OLIVIA
Alas, poor fool, how have they baffled thee!
CLOWN
Why, ‘some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrown upon them.’ I was one, sir, in this interlude, one Sir Topas, sir, but that’s all one. ‘By the Lord, fool, I am not mad.’ But do you remember? ‘Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal? And 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 hath been most notoriously abus’d.
DUKE
Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace:He hath not told us of the captain yet.When that is known, and golden time conventsTo summon or bring together.,A solemn combination shall be madeOf 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.
Clown sings.
DUKE
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.
DUKE
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.
DUKE
But when I came, alas, to wive,With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,By swaggering could I never thrive,For the rain it raineth every day.
DUKE
But when I came unto my bedsTo enter someone's bed and have sexual relations with them.,With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,With toss-pots still had drunken heads,For the rain it raineth every day.
DUKE
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.