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Twelfth Night: Act II, Scene 4

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Twelfth Night
Act II, Scene 4

A room in Duke Orsino’s palace.

Songs of Shakespeare

Songs of Shakespeare

H. C. Hoskyns Abrahall, 1865

  1. Enter Duke, Viola, Curio, and others.

Orsino

1 - 7
  1. Give me some music. Now good morrow, friends.
  2. Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song,
  3. That old and antique song we heard last night;
  4. Methought it did relieve my passion much,
  5. More than light airs and recollected terms
  6. Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times.
  7. Come, but one verse.

Curio

8 - 9
  1. He is not here, so please your lordship, that should sing
  2. it.

Orsino

10
  1. Who was it?

Curio

11 - 12
  1. Feste the jester, my lord, a fool that the Lady Olivia’s
  2. father took much delight in. He is about the house.

Orsino

13 - 19
  1. Seek him out, and play the tune the while.
  2. Exit Curio.
  3. Music plays.
  4. Come hither, boy. If ever thou shalt love,
  5. In the sweet pangs of it remember me;
  6. For such as I am, all true lovers are,
  7. Unstaid and skittish in all motions else,
  8. Save in the constant image of the creature
  9. That is belov’d. How dost thou like this tune?

Viola

20 - 21
  1. It gives a very echo to the seat
  2. Where Love is thron’d.

Orsino

22 - 25
  1.                        Thou dost speak masterly.
  2. My life upon’t, young though thou art, thine eye
  3. Hath stay’d upon some favor that it loves.
  4. Hath it not, boy?

Viola

26
  1.                   A little, by your favor.

Orsino

27
  1. What kind of woman is’t?

Viola

28
  1.                          Of your complexion.

Orsino

29
  1. She is not worth thee then. What years, i’ faith?

Viola

30
  1. About your years, my lord.

Orsino

31 - 37
  1. Too old, by heaven. Let still the woman take
  2. An elder than herself, so wears she to him;
  3. So sways she level in her husband’s heart.
  4. For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
  5. Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
  6. More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,
  7. Than women’s are.

Viola

38
  1.                   I think it well, my lord.

Orsino

39 - 42
  1. Then let thy love be younger than thyself,
  2. Or thy affection cannot hold the bent;
  3. For women are as roses, whose fair flow’r
  4. Being once display’d, doth fall that very hour.

Viola

43 - 44
  1. And so they are; alas, that they are so!
  2. To die, even when they to perfection grow!
  1. Enter Curio and Clown.

Orsino

45 - 51
  1. O fellow, come, the song we had last night.
  2. Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain.
  3. The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,
  4. And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,
  5. Do use to chaunt it. It is silly sooth,
  6. And dallies with the innocence of love,
  7. Like the old age.

I am slain by a fair cruel maid

W. Heath Robinson, 1908

Feste

52
  1. Are you ready, sir?

Orsino

53
  1. Ay, prithee sing.
  1. Music. The Song

Feste

54 - 69
  1. Come away, come away, death,
  2. And in sad cypress let me be laid.
  3. Fly away, fly away, breath,
  4. I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
  5. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
  6. O, prepare it!
  7. My part of death, no one so true
  8. Did share it.
  9. Not a flower, not a flower sweet
  10. On my black coffin let there be strown.
  11. Not a friend, not a friend greet
  12. My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown.
  13. A thousand thousand sighs to save,
  14. Lay me, O, where
  15. Sad true lover never find my grave,
  16. To weep there.

Orsino

70
  1. There’s for thy pains.

Feste

71
  1. No pains, sir, I take pleasure in singing, sir.

Orsino

72
  1. I’ll pay thy pleasure then.

Feste

73
  1. Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid, one time or another.

Orsino

74
  1. Give me now leave to leave thee.

Feste

75 - 80
  1. Now the melancholy god protect thee, and the tailor make thy
  2. doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal.
  3. I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their
  4. business might be every thing and their intent every where,
  5. for that’s it that always makes a good voyage of nothing.
  6. Farewell.
  1. Exit.

Orsino

81 - 89
  1. Let all the rest give place.
  2. Curio and Attendants retire.
  3. Once more, Cesario,
  4. Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty,
  5. Tell her, my love, more noble than the world,
  6. Prizes not quantity of dirty lands;
  7. The parts that fortune hath bestow’d upon her,
  8. Tell her, I hold as giddily as fortune;
  9. But ’tis that miracle and queen of gems
  10. That nature pranks her in attracts my soul.

Viola

90
  1. But if she cannot love you, sir?

Orsino

91
  1. I cannot be so answer’d.

Viola

92 - 96
  1.                          Sooth, but you must.
  2. Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,
  3. Hath for your love as great a pang of heart
  4. As you have for Olivia. You cannot love her;
  5. You tell her so. Must she not then be answer’d?
Songs from the Plays of Shakespeare

From: Songs from the Plays of Shakespeare

1915

Orsino

97 - 107
  1. There is no woman’s sides
  2. Can bide the beating of so strong a passion
  3. As love doth give my heart; no woman’s heart
  4. So big, to hold so much; they lack retention.
  5. Alas, their love may be call’d appetite,
  6. No motion of the liver, but the palate,
  7. That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt,
  8. But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
  9. And can digest as much. Make no compare
  10. Between that love a woman can bear me
  11. And that I owe Olivia.

Viola

108
  1.                        Ay, but I know—

Orsino

109
  1. What dost thou know?

Viola

110 - 114
  1. Too well what love women to men may owe;
  2. In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
  3. My father had a daughter lov’d a man
  4. As it might be perhaps, were I a woman,
  5. I should your lordship.

Orsino

115
  1.                         And what’s her history?

Viola

116 - 124
  1. A blank, my lord; she never told her love,
  2. But let concealment like a worm i’ th’ bud
  3. Feed on her damask cheek; she pin’d in thought,
  4. And with a green and yellow melancholy
  5. She sate like Patience on a monument,
  6. Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
  7. We men may say more, swear more, but indeed
  8. Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
  9. Much in our vows, but little in our love.

Orsino

125
  1. But died thy sister of her love, my boy?

Viola

126 - 128
  1. I am all the daughters of my father’s house,
  2. And all the brothers too—and yet I know not.
  3. Sir, shall I to this lady?

Orsino

129 - 131
  1.                            Ay, that’s the theme,
  2. To her in haste; give her this jewel; say
  3. My love can give no place, bide no denay.
  1. Exeunt.

Come away, come away, death

William MacKenzie, John Gilbert, circa 1875

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