Dexteriously, good madonna.
OLIVIA.
Make your proof.
CLOWN. 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.
CLOWN.
Good madonna, why mourn’st thou?
OLIVIA.
Good fool, for my brother’s death.
CLOWN.
I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
OLIVIA.
I know his soul is in heaven, fool.
CLOWN. 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.
CLOWN. 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 gagg’d. 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 distemper’d appetite. To be generous, guiltless, and of free disposition, is to take those things for birdbolts that you deem cannon bullets. There is no slander in an allow’d fool, though he do nothing but rail; nor no railing in a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove.
CLOWN. Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou speak’st well of fools!
[Re-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; ‘t is 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! [Exit MARIA.] Go you, Malvolio: if it be a suit from the count, I am sick, or not at home; what you will, to dismiss it. [Exit MALVOLIO.] Now you see, sir, how your fooling grows old, and people dislike it.
CLOWN. 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—
[Enter SIR TOBY.]
one of thy kin has a most weak pia mater.
OLIVIA.
By mine honour, half drunk. What is he at the gate, cousin?
SIR TOBY.
A gentleman.
OLIVIA.
A gentleman! what gentleman?
SIR TOBY. ‘T is a gentleman here — a plague o’ these pickle-herring! How now, sot!
CLOWN.
Good Sir Toby!
OLIVIA.
Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this lethargy?
SIR TOBY.
Lechery! I defy lechery. There’s one at the gate.
OLIVIA.
Ay, marry, what is he?
SIR TOBY.
Let him be the devil, and he will, I care not; give me faith, say
I. Well, it’s all one.
[Exit.]
OLIVIA.
What’s a drunken man like, fool?
CLOWN. Like a drown’d 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 drown’d: go look after him.
CLOWN.
He is but mad yet, madonna; and the fool shall look to the
madman.
[Exit.]
[Re-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 ‘t is a peascod, or a codling when ‘t is almost an apple: ‘t is with him in standing water, between boy and man. He is very well-favour’d, 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.
[Exit.]
[Re-enter MARIA.]
OLIVIA.
Give me my veil; come, throw it o’er my face;
We’ll once more hear Orsino’s embassy.
[Enter VIOLA, and ATTENDANTS.]
VIOLA.
The honourable 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 loth to cast away my speech; for, besides that it is excellently well penn’d, 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.