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 fore-knowledge of that too, and therefore comes to speak with you. What is to be said to him, lady? he's fortified against any denial.

Oli. Tell him, he shall not speak with me.

Mal. He has been told so; and he says, he'll stand at your door like a sheriff's post, and be the supporter of a bench, but he'll speak with you.

Oli. What kind of man is he?

Mal. Why, of mankind.

Oli. What manner of man?

Mal. Of very ill manner; he'll speak with you, will you, or no.

Oli. Of what personage, and years, is he?

Mal. Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy

He is very well-favored, and he speaks very shrewishly.

Oli. Let him approach: Call in my gentlewoman.

Mal. Gentlewoman, my lady calls.

Re-enter MARIA.

Oli. Give me my veil: come throw it o'er my face:

We'll once more hear Orsino's embassy.

Enter VIOLA.

Vio. The honorable lady of the house, which is she?
Oli. Speak to me, I shall answer for her: Your will?

[Exit

Vio. 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 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. Oli. Whence came you, sir?

Vio. 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.

Oli. Are you a comedian ?

Vio. 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 ?
Oli. If I do not usurp myself, I am.

Vio. 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.

Oli. Come to what is important in't: I forgive you the praise.
Vio. Alas, I took great pains to study it, and 'tis poetical.

Oli. 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, be gone; if you have reason be brief: 'tis not that time of moon with me, to make one in so skipping a dialogue. Tell me your mind.

Vio. I am a messenger.

Oli. Sure, you have some hideous matter to deliver, when the courtesy of it is so fearful. Speak your office.

Vio. 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.

Oli. Yet you began rudely. What are you? what would you? Vio. The rudeness that hath appeared appeared in me, have I learn'd from my entertainment. What I am, and what I would, are to your ears, divinity; to any other's, profanation.

Oli. Give us the place alone: we will hear this divinity.-[Exit

MARIA.]-Now, sir, what is your text?

Vio. Most sweet lady,

Oli. A comfortable doctrine, and much may be said of it. Where

lies your text?

Vio. In Orsino's bosom.

Oli. In his bosom? In what chapter of his bosom?

Vio. To answer by the method, in the first of his heart.

Oli. O, I have read it; it is heresy. Have you no more to say?

Vio. Good madam, let me see your face.

Oli. 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. Look you, sir, such a one as I was this present: Is't not well done?

Vio. Excellently done, if nature did all.

Oli. 'Tis in grain, sir; 'twill endure wind and weather.
Vio. '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.

[Unveiling.

Oli. 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, labelled to my will. Were you sent hither to praise me?

Vio. 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 recompens'd, though you were crown'd

The nonpareil of beauty!

Oli.

How does he love me?

Vio. With adorations, with fertile tears,

With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.

Oli. 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 divulg'd, free, learn'd, 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.

Vio. If I did love you in my master's flame,

With such a suffering, such a deadly life,
In your denial I would find no sense,

I would not understand it.

Oli.

Why, what would you !

Vio. Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons of contemned love,
And sing them loud even in the dead of night;
Holla 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.

Oli. You might do much: What is your parentage?
Vio. Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:

I am a gentleman.

Oli.

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.

Vio. I am no fee'd post, lady: keep your purse;
My master, not myself, lacks recompense.
Love makes his heart of flint, that you shall love;
And let your fervor, like my master's, be
Plac'd in contempt! Farewell, fair cruelty.

Oli. 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 five-fold 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!-

Mal.

Re-enter MALVOLIO.

Here, madam, at your service.

Oli. 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.
Desire him not to flatter with his lord,

Nor hold him up with hopes; I am not for him:

[Erd If that the youth will come this way to-morrow,

I'll give him reasons for't. Hie thee, Malvolio.

Mal. Madam, I will.

[Exit.

Oli. 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!

[Exit.

ACT II.

SCENE.-A Street.

Enter VIOLA; MALVOLIO following.

Mal. Were not you even now with the countess Olivia ?

Vio. Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since arrived but

hither.

Mal. She returns this ring to you, sir; you might have saved me my pains, to have taken it away yourself. She adds, moreover, that you should put your lord into a desperate assurance she will none of him: And one thing more; that you be never so hardy to come again in his affairs, unless it be to report your lord's taking of this. Receive it so.

Vio. She took the ring of me; I'll none of it. Mal. Come, sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is, it should be so returned: if it be worth stooping for, there it lies in your eye; if not, be it his that finds it. [Exit.

Vio. I left no ring with her: What means this lady?
Fortune forbid, my outside have not charm'd her!
She made good view of me; indeed, so much,
That, sure, methought, her eyes had lost her tongue,
For she did speak in starts distractedly.
She loves me, sure; the cunning of her passion
Invites me in this churlish messenger.
None of my lord's ring! why, he sent her none.
I am the man;-If it be so, (as 'tis,)
Poor lady, she were better love a dream.
Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness,
Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.
How easy is it, for the proper-false
In women's waxen hearts to set their forms!
Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we;
For, such as we are made of, such we be.
My master loves her dearly;
And I, poor monster, fond as much on him;
And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me:
What will become of this! As I am man,
My state is desperate for my master's love:
As I am woman, now alas the day!

What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe?
O time, thou must entangle this, not I;
It is too hard a knot for me to untie.

[Exit

Viola becomes enamored of the Duke, and with exquisite delicacy describes her own

feelings, while professing to narrate her sister's story.

SCENE. 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 terms,

Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times :-
Come, but one verse.

Cur. He is not here, so please your lordship, that should sing it.
Duke. Who was it?

Cur. 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.

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 creature
That is belov'd. - How dost thou like this tune?

Vio. It gives a very echo to the seat

Where Love is thron'd.

Duke.

Thou dost speak masterly:

My life upon't, young though thou art, thine eye

Hath stay'd upon some favor that it loves ;

Hath it not, boy?

Vio.

A little, by your favor.

Duke. What kind of woman is't?
Vio.

Of your complexion.
Duke. She is not worth thee then. What years, i' faith?
Vio. About your years, my lord.

Duke. Too old, by heaven. Let still the woman take

An elder than herself; so wears she to him,
So sways she level 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.

Vio.

I think it well, my lord.

Duke. Then let thy love be younger than thyself.

Or thy affection cannot hold the bent: