Night. We'll watch Malvolio and, with Sir Toby, celebrate the festival.

The first episode begins with the entrance of Maria and the clown. The clown has been a truant for the last few days.

Maria. Nay, either tell me where thou hast been, or I will

not open my lips so wide that a bristle may enter, in way of thy excuse. My lady will hang thee for thy absence.1 Clown. Let her hang me! Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.

1 absence. Doubtless the jester had played truant, taking advantage of the sombre atmosphere that followed after the death of Lady Olivia's brother, and he now presents himself just at the beginning of the merry feasting time that celebrates Twelfth Night, the twelfth night after Christmas.

Maria. You are resolute, then?

Clown. Not so, neither; but I shall depend upon two points. Maria. That if one1 break, the other will hold; or, if both break, your stockings fall.

Clown. Good, in good faith; very good. Well, go thy way. If Sir Toby would leave drinking, he'd see, thou wert as witty a piece of Eve's flesh as any in Illyria.2

Maria. Peace, you rogue, no more o' that. Here comes my lady. Make your excuse wisely.

[Exit.]

Lady Olivia enters [C.] with Malvolio and Fabian.

Clown. God bless thee, lady!

Olivia. Take the fool away.

Clown. Do you not hear, fellow? Take away the lady. Olivia. Go, you're a dry fool; I'll have no more of you; besides, you grow dishonest.1

Clown. Two faults, madonna,5 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. The lady bade take away the fool;

therefore, I say take her away.

Olivia. Sir, I bade them take away you.

Clown. Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool. Olivia. Can you do it?

Clown. Dextrously, good madonna.

Olivia. Well, sir, for want of other idleness, I'll await your proof.

1 one. The laces (with metal tips) that hold his costume together are called points.

2 The jester, having met his match at wit, tries to put Maria down with a personality, hinting that she is in love with Sir Toby and would like to marry him if he would stop drinking.

3 dry: dull.

4 dishonest: badly behaved. Olivia probably refers to his absenting himself without leave.

5 madonna: my lady.

• Dextrously: deftly, expertly.

Clown. Good madonna, why mournest 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, you 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 improve?

Malvolio. Yes, and will 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!

Olivia. How say you to that, Malvolio?

Malvolio. I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren1 rascal. I saw him put down the other day by an ordinary fool that has no more brain than a stone. Look you now, he's off his guard already. Unless you laugh, he is gagged. I protest, I take these wise men, that crow so at these fools, no better than the fools themselves. Olivia. 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-bolts2 that deem cannon-bullets. There is no slander in an allowed

you fool.

Clown. Now Mercury bless thee for fibbing for thou speak'st well of fools!

[Maria enters again C.]

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

1 barren: dull.

2 bird-bolts: short, blunt arrows sometimes used for shooting at birds. 3 Mercury: the god of rogues and liars.

Olivia. From the Count, is it?

Maria. I know not, madam.

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

Olivia. Fetch him off, I pray you. He speaks like a madman; fie on him! [Exit Maria C.] 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 C.] [To the Clown.] 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 comes one of thy kin whose brains reel.

Sir Toby enters [C.].

Olivia. By mine honor, half drunk. — Who is he at the gate, cousin?

Sir Toby. A gentleman.

Olivia. A gentleman! What gentleman?

Sir Toby. 'Tis a gentleman here - a plague on these pickleherring! How now, fool?

Clown. Good Sir Toby!

Olivia. Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early2 by this lethargy?3

Sir Toby. Lethargy! I defy lethargy. There's one at the gate.

Olivia. Ay, what is he?

Sir Toby. Let him be the devil, if he will, I care not; it's all one.

[Exit L.]

Olivia. What's a drunken man like, fool?

1 pickle-herring. Pickled herrings were often a side-dish at drinking parties. Sir Toby has the hiccups from drinking, and the taste of the herring he has eaten comes up.

2 early: early in the evening for any man to be already drunk.

3 lethargy: drowsiness.

Clown. Like a drowned man.

Olivia.

Go thou and seek the coroner and let him sit on my cousin, for he's in the third degree of drink, he's drowned.1 Go, look after him.

[Exeunt C.]

ACT II
Night.

Sir Toby and Sir Andrew enter [L.].

Sir Toby. Approach, Sir Andrew. Not to be a-bed after midnight is to be up early and is therefore most healthy, thou know'st,

Sir Andrew. Nay, by my troth, I know not; but I know, to late is to be up late.

be up

Sir Toby. To be up after midnight and to go to bed then, is early; let us therefore eat and drink. Maria, I say! wine!

[Enter Clown C.]

Sir Andrew. Here comes the fool, i' faith.2

Clown.

How now, my hearts! Did you never see the picture of "we three "?3

Sir Toby. Welcome, ass. Now let's have a song. Sir Andrew. By my troth, the fool has an excellent voice. I had rather than forty shillings I had so sweet a breath to sing, as the fool has. — In truth, thou wast in very gracious fooling last night. I sent thee sixpence for thy sweetheart. Hadst it?

1 thi d degree of drink, he's drowned. A drowning person after sinking the third time does not again come to the surface; i.e. he drowns, as Olivia puts it, at the third submersion..

2 i' faith: a favorite expression of Sir Andrew's and one with which the voice can play without losing any of the meaning of the necessary words of the dialog.

36 we three." A picture of two fools or two donkeys with the words underneath, "We three, fools (or asses) be," the reader being, of course, the third.