Oli. Take the fool away.

Clo. Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady. Oli. Go to, you're a dry fool; I'll no more of you: besides you grow dishonest.

Clo. 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: Any thing 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.

Oli. Sir, I bade them take away you.

Clo. Misprision in the highest degree!-Lady, Cucullus non facit monachum; that's as much as to say, I wear not motley in my brain. Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.

Oli. Can you do it?

Clo. Dexterously, good madonna.

Oli. Make your proof.

Clo. I must catechize you

for it, madonna: Good

my mouse of virtue, answer me.

Oli. Well, sir,. for want of other idleness, I'll 'bide your proof.

Clo. Good madonna, why mourn'st thou?
Oli. Good fool, for my brother's death.
Clo. I think his soul is in hell, madonna.

Oli. I know his soul is in heaven, fool.

Clo. The more fool you, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven.-Take away the fool, gentlemen.

4 Italian, mistress, dame.

Oli. What think you of this fool, Malvolio? doth he not mend?

Mal. Yes; and shall do, till the pangs of death shake him: Infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool.

Clo. God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity, for the better encreasing 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.

Oli. How say you to that, Malvolio.

Mal. 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 5.

Oli. 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.

Clo. Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou speakest well of fools!

Re-enter MARIA.

Mar. Madam, there is at the gate a young gentleman, much desires to speak with you.

5 Fools' baubles.

6 Bird-bolts were short thick arrows with obtuse ends, used for shooting young rooks and other birds, of which these are some of the varieties.

7 Lying.

Oli. From the count Orsino, is it?

Mar. I know not, madam; 'tis a fair young man, and well attended.

Oli. Who of my people hold him in delay?
Mar. Sir Toby, madam, your kinsman.

Oli. 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.

Clo. 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 mater3.

Enter SIR TOBY BELCH.

Oli. By mine honour, half drunk,-What is he at the gate, cousin?

Sir To. A gentleman.

Oli. A gentleman! what gentleman?

Sir To. 'Tis a gentleman here—A plague o'these pickle-herrings !-How now, sot?

Clo. Good Sir Toby,

Oli. Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this lethargy?

Sir To. Lechery! I defy lechery: There's one at the gate.

Oli. Ay, marry; what is he?

Sir To. Let him be the devil, an he will, I care not: give me faith, say I. Well, it's all one. [Exit. Oli. What's a drunken man like, fool?

Clo. 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.

VOL. I.

8 The membrane that covers the brain.

E E

Oli. Go thou and seek the coroner, and let him sit o' my coz; for he's in the third degree of drink; he's drown'd; go, look after him.

Clo. He is but mad yet, madonna; and the fool shall look to the madman. [Exit Clown.

Re-enter MALVOLIO.

Mal. 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.

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 post9, and be the supporter of a bench, but he'll speak with you. Oli. What kind of man is he?

Mal. Why, of man kind.

Oli. What manner of man?

Mal. Of very ill manner; he'll speak with

will you or no.

Oli. Of what personage and years is he?

you,

Mal. Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; as a squash is before 'tis a peascod, or a codling 10 when 'tis almost an apple: 'tis with him e'en standing water, between boy and man. He is very well favoured, and he speaks very shrew

9 The sheriffs formerly had painted posts set up at their doors on which proclamations, &c. were affixed.

10 A codling (according to Mr. Gifford), means an involucrum or kell, and was used by our old writers for that early state of vegetation, when the fruit, after shaking off the blossom, began to assume a globular and determinate shape. Mr. Nares says, a codling was a young raw apple, fit for nothing without dressing, and that it is so named because it was chiefly eaten when coddled or scalded; codlings being particularly so used when unripe. Florio interprets 'Mele cotte, quodlings, boiled apples.'

ishly; one would think, his mother's milk were scarce out of him.

Oli. Let him approach: Call in my gentlewoman. Mal. Gentlewoman, my lady calls.

Re-enter MARIA.

[Exit.

Oli. Give me my veil; come, throw it o'er my face; We'll once more hear Orsino's embassy.

Enter VIOLA.

Vio. The honourable lady of the house, which is she?

Oli. Speak to me, I shall answer for her: Your will?

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 11, even to the least sinister usage. Öli. Whence came you, sir?

11

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 shew you the heart of my message.

11 Accountable.