Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

Cli. O, by your leave, I pray you;
I bade you never fpeak again of him.
But would you undertake another fuit,
I'd rather hear you to folicit that
Than mufick from the fpheres.
Vio. Dear lady,-

Oli. Give me leave, I beseech you: I did fend,
After the last enchantment, (you did hear)
A ring in chase of you. So did I abuse
Myfelf, my fervant, and, I fear me, you;
Under your hard conftruction must I fit,
To force that on you in a fhameful cunning,
Which you knew none of yours. What might you
think?

Have you not fet mine honour at the stake,

And baited it with all th' unmuzzled thoughts That tyrannous heart can think? to one of your receiving 7

Enough is fhewn; a cyprus, not a bosom,

Hides my poor heart. So let us hear you speak.
Vio. I pity you.

Oli. That's a degree to love.

Vio. No, not a grice; for 'tis a vulgar proof, That very oft we pity enemies.

Oli. Why then, methinks, 'tis time to smile again; O world, how apt the poor are to be proud! If one fhould be a prey, how much the better To fall before the lion, than the wolf! [Clock Strikes. The clock upbraids me with the wafte of time. Be not afraid, good youth, I will not have you;

[blocks in formation]

And yet when wit and youth are come to harveft, Your wife is like to reap a proper man :

There lies your way, due weft.

Vio. Then weftward hoe :

Grace and good difpofition attend your ladyship;
You'll nothing, Madam, to my Lord by me?

Oli. Stay; pr'ythee tell me, what thou think'st of me?

Vio. That you do think, you are not what you are. Oli. If I think fo, I think the fame of you. Vio. Then think you right: I am not what I am. Oli. I would you were, as I would have you be! Vio. Would it be better, Madam, than I am? I wish it might, for now I am your fool.

Oli. O, what a deal of fcorn looks beautiful
In the contempt and anger of his lip!

A murd'rous guilt fhews not itfelf more foon,
Than love that would feem hid: love's night is noon.
Cefario, by the roses of the fpring,

By maid-hood, honour, truth, and every thing,
I love thee fo, that, maugre all thy pride,

Nor wit, nor reason, can my paffion hide.
Do not extort 'wry reasons from this clause,
For that I woo, thou therefore haft no caute :
But rather reason thus with reason fetter;

Love fought is good; but given, unfought, is better,
Vio. By innocence I fwear, and by my youth,

I have one heart, one bofom, and one truth,

I

And that no woman has; nor never none

Shall mistress be of it, fave I alone".

And fo adieu, good Madam; never more
Will I my mafter's tears to you deplore,

And that no woman has.] And that heart and bofom I have never yielded to any woman.

2 Save I alone. These three words Sir Thomas Hanmer gives to Olivia probably enough.

Dd 3

Oli.

Oli. Yet come again; for thou, perhaps, may't

move

That heart, which now abhors, to like his love.

SCENE

IV.

[Exeunt.

Changes to an Apartment in Olivia's Houfe.

Enter Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Fabian.

Sir And.

N

thy reafon.

O, faith, I'll not stay a jot longer.
Sir To. Thy reason, dear venom, give

Fab. You must needs yield your reason, Sir Andrew. Sir And. Marry, I faw your niece do more favours to the Duke's ferving-man, than ever she bestow'd on me. I faw't, i'th' orchard.

Sir To. Did the fee thee the while, old boy, tell me that?

Sir And. As plain as I fee you now.

Fab. This was a great argument of love in her towards you.

Sir And. 'Slight! will you make an afs o' me? Fab. I will prove it legitimate, Sir, upon the oaths of Judgment and Reafon.

Sir To. And they have been Grand Jury-men fince before Noah was a failor.

Fab. She did fhew favour to the youth in your fight, only to exafperate you, to awake your dormouse valour, to put fire in your heart, and brimstone in your liver. You fhould then have accofted her with fome excellent jefts, fire new from the mint; you should have bang'd the youth into dumbnefs. This was look'd for at your hand, and this was baulkt. The double gilt of this opportunity you let time wash off, and you are now fail'd into the north of my lady's opinion; where you will hang like an ificle on a Dutchman's

beard,

[ocr errors]

beard, unless you do redeem it by fome laudable attempt, either of valour or policy.

Sir And. And't be any way, it must be with valour; for policy I hate : I had as lief be a Brownist, as a politician.

Sir To. Why then, build me thy fortunes upon the basis of valour; challenge me the Duke's youth to fight with him; hurt him in eleven places; my niece fhall take note of it; and affure thyfelf, there is no love-broker in the world can more prevail in man's commendation with woman, than report of valour.

Fab. There is no way but this, Sir Andrew.

Sir And. Will either of you bear me a challenge to him?

Sir To. Go, write in a martial hand; be curft and brief: It is no matter how witty, fo it be eloquent, and full of invention; 3 taunt him with the licence of ink; if thou thou'st him fome thrice, it fhall not be amifs;

3

taunt him with the Licence of Ink; if thou thou'st him Some thrice,] There is no Doubt, 1 think, but this Paffage is One of those, in which our Author intended to fhew his Respect for Sir Walter Raleigh, and a Deteftation of the Virulence of his Profecutors. The Words quoted seem to me directly levelled at the Attorney-General Coke, who, in the Trial of Sir Walter, attacked him with all the following indecent Expreffions."All "that he did was by thy Infliga“tion, thou Viper; for I thou "thee, thou Traytor!" (Here by the way, are the Poet's three thou's.) "You are an odious "Man.". "Is he bafe? I re"turn it into thy Throat, on his behalf." "O damnable

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

Arbeift!". "Thou art a moxfter; thou hast an English Face, "but a Spanish Heart.". "Thou baft a Spanish Heart, and thyfelf art a Spider of Hell."

[ocr errors]

“Go to, I will lay thez on "thy Back for the confident't "Traytor that ever came at a "Bar, &c. Is not here all the Licence of Tongue, which the Poet fatyrically prefcribes to Sir Andrew's Ink? And how mean an Opinion Shakespeare had of thefe petulant Invectives, is pretty evident from his Close of this Speech; Let there be Gall enough in thy Ink, the thou write it with a Goose-pen, no matter. keener Lafh at the Attorney for a Fool, than all the Contumelies the Attorney threw at the Pri foner, as a fuppos'd Traytor!

Dd4

A

THEOBALD.

and

and as many lies as will lye in thy fheet of paper, although the fheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in England; fet 'em down, go about it. Let there be gall enough in thy ink, tho' thou write with a goofepen, no matter: about it.

Sir And. Where fhall I find you ?

Sir To. We'll call thee at the Cubiculo: go.

SCENE

[Exit Sir Andrew.

V.

Fab. This is a dear manikin to you, Sir Toby. Sir To. I have been dear to him, lad, fome two thousand ftrong or fo.

Fab. We fhall have a rare letter from him; but you'll not deliver't.

Sir To. Never truft me then, and by all means ftir on the youth to an answer. I think, oxen and wain, ropes cannot hale them together. For Andrew, if he were open'd, and you find so much blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the reft of th❜ anatomy.

Fab. And his oppofite, the youth, bears in his vi fage no great prefage of cruelty,

Enter Maria.

Sir To. *Look, where the youngest wren of nine

comes.

Mar. If you defire the spleen, and will laugh yourfelves into stitches, follow me: yond gull Malvolio is turned Heathen, a very Renegado; for there is no Christian, that means to be fav'd by believing rightly, can ever believe fuch impoffible paffages of groffness. He's in yellow ftockings.

*Look, where the youngest wren of nine comes] The women's parts were then acted by boys, fometimes fo low in ftature,

that there was occafion to obvi ate the impropriety of fuch kind of oblique apologies.

WARBURTON.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »