Twelfth Night
Act 2, Scene 5
Olivia’s garden.
Malvolio with the letter
Henry James Haley, circa 1910
- Enter Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Fabian.
Sir Toby
2- Come thy ways, Signior Fabian.
Fabian
3 - 4- Nay, I’ll come. If I lose a scruple of this sport, let me be
- boil’d to death with melancholy.
Sir Toby
5 - 6- Wouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly rascally
- sheep-biter come by some notable shame?
Fabian
7 - 8- I would exult, man. You know he brought me out o’ favor with
- my lady about a bear-baiting here.
Sir Toby
9 - 10- To anger him we’ll have the bear again, and we will fool him
- black and blue, shall we not, Sir Andrew?
Sir Andrew
11- And we do not, it is pity of our lives.
- Enter Maria.
Sir Toby
13- Here comes the little villain. How now, my metal of India?
Maria
14 - 22- Get ye all three into the box-tree; Malvolio’s coming down
- this walk. He has been yonder i’ the sun practicing behavior
- to his own shadow this half hour. Observe him, for the love
- of mockery; for I know this letter will make a contemplative
- idiot of him. Close, in the name of jesting!
- The men hide themselves.
- Lie thou there;
- Throws down a letter.
- for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling.
- Exit.
- Enter Malvolio.
Malvolio
25 - 29- ’Tis but fortune, all is fortune. Maria once told me she did
- affect me, and I have heard herself come thus near, that
- should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion.
- Besides, she uses me with a more exalted respect than any
- one else that follows her. What should I think on’t?
Sir Toby
30- Here’s an overweening rogue!
Fabian
31 - 32- O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him. How
- he jets under his advanc’d plumes!
Sir Andrew
33- ’Slight, I could so beat the rogue!
Sir Toby
34- Peace, I say!
Malvolio
35- To be Count Malvolio!
Sir Toby
36- Ah, rogue!
Sir Andrew
37- Pistol him, pistol him!
Sir Toby
38- Peace, peace!
Malvolio
39 - 40- There is example for’t: the Lady of the Strachy married the
- yeoman of the wardrobe.
Sir Andrew
41- Fie on him, Jezebel!
Fabian
42 - 43- O, peace! Now he’s deeply in. Look how imagination blows
- him.
Malvolio
44 - 45- Having been three months married to her, sitting in my
- state—
Sir Toby
46- O, for a stone-bow, to hit him in the eye!
Malvolio
47 - 49- Calling my officers about me, in my branch’d velvet gown;
- having come from a day-bed, where I have left Olivia
- sleeping—
Sir Toby
50- Fire and brimstone!
Fabian
51- O, peace, peace!
Malvolio
52 - 54- And then to have the humor of state; and after a demure
- travel of regard—telling them I know my place as I would
- they should do theirs—to ask for my kinsman Toby—
Sir Toby
55- Bolts and shackles!
Fabian
56- O, peace, peace, peace! Now, now.
Malvolio
57 - 60- Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make out for
- him. I frown the while, and perchance wind up my watch, or
- play with my—some rich jewel. Toby approaches; curtsies
- there to me—
Sir Toby
61- Shall this fellow live?
Fabian
62- Though our silence be drawn from us with cars, yet peace.
Malvolio
63 - 64- I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar smile
- with an austere regard of control—
Sir Toby
65- And does not Toby take you a blow o’ the lips then?
Malvolio
66 - 67- Saying, “Cousin Toby, my fortunes, having cast me on your
- niece, give me this prerogative of speech”—
Sir Toby
68- What, what?
Malvolio
69- “You must amend your drunkenness.”
Sir Toby
70- Out, scab!
Fabian
71- Nay, patience, or we break the sinews of our plot!
Malvolio
72 - 73- “Besides, you waste the treasure of your time with a foolish
- knight”—
Sir Andrew
74- That’s me, I warrant you.
Malvolio
75- “One Sir Andrew”—
Sir Andrew
76- I knew ’twas I, for many do call me fool.
Malvolio
77- What employment have we here?
- Taking up the letter.
Fabian
79- Now is the woodcock near the gin.
Sir Toby
80 - 81- O, peace, and the spirit of humors intimate reading aloud to
- him!
Malvolio
82 - 84- By my life, this is my lady’s hand. These be her very c’s,
- her u’s, and her t’s, and thus makes she her great P’s. It
- is, in contempt of question, her hand.
Sir Andrew
85- Her c’s, her u’s, and her t’s: why that?
Malvolio
86 - 88- Reads.
- “To the unknown belov’d, this, and my good wishes”:—
- Her very phrases! By your leave, wax. Soft! And the impressure her Lucrece, with which she uses to seal. ’Tis my lady. To whom should this be?
Fabian
89- This wins him, liver and all.
Malvolio
90 - 95- Reads.
- “Jove knows I love,
- But who?
- Lips, do not move;
- No man must know.”
- “No man must know.” What follows? The numbers alter’d! “No man must know.” If this should be thee, Malvolio?
Sir Toby
96- Marry, hang thee, brock!
Maria
E. J. S., circa 1900
Malvolio
97 - 101- Reads.
- “I may command where I adore,
- But silence, like a Lucrece knife,
- With bloodless stroke my heart doth gore;
- M.O.A.I. doth sway my life.”
Fabian
102- A fustian riddle!
Sir Toby
103- Excellent wench, say I.
Malvolio
104 - 105- “M.O.A.I. doth sway my life.” Nay, but first let me see, let
- me see, let me see.
Fabian
106- What dish a’ poison has she dress’d him!
Sir Toby
107- And with what wing the staniel checks at it!
Malvolio
108 - 112- “I may command where I adore.” Why, she may command me: I
- serve her, she is my lady. Why, this is evident to any
- formal capacity, there is no obstruction in this. And the
- end—what should that alphabetical position portend? If I
- could make that resemble something in me! Softly! M.O.A.I.—
Sir Toby
113- O ay, make up that. He is now at a cold scent.
Fabian
114 - 115- Sowter will cry upon’t for all this, though it be as rank as
- a fox.
Malvolio
116- M—Malvolio; M—why, that begins my name.
Fabian
117 - 118- Did not I say he would work it out? The cur is excellent at
- faults.
Malvolio
119 - 120- M—but then there is no consonancy in the sequel that suffers
- under probation: A should follow, but O does.
Fabian
121- And O shall end, I hope.
Sir Toby
122- Ay, or I’ll cudgel him, and make him cry O!
Malvolio
123- And then I comes behind.
Fabian
124 - 125- Ay, and you had any eye behind you, you might see more
- detraction at your heels than fortunes before you.
Malvolio
126 - 165- M.O.A.I. This simulation is not as the former; and yet, to
- crush this a little, it would bow to me, for every one of
- these letters are in my name. Soft, here follows prose.
- Reads.
- “If this fall into thy hand, revolve. In my stars I am above
- thee, but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great,
- some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon
- ’em. Thy Fates open their hands, let thy blood and spirit
- embrace them, and to inure thyself to what thou art like to
- be, cast thy humble slough and appear fresh. Be opposite
- with a kinsman, surly with servants; let thy tongue tang
- arguments of state; put thyself into the trick of
- singularity. She thus advises thee that sighs for thee.
- Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and wish’d to
- see thee ever cross-garter’d: I say, remember. Go to, thou
- art made if thou desir’st to be so; if not, let me see thee
- a steward still, the fellow of servants, and not worthy to
- touch Fortune’s fingers. Farewell. She that would alter
- services with thee,
- The Fortunate-Unhappy.”
- Daylight and champian discovers not more. This is open. I
- will be proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle
- Sir Toby, I will wash off gross acquaintance, I will be
- point-devise the very man. I do not now fool myself, to let
- imagination jade me; for every reason excites to this, that
- my lady loves me. She did commend my yellow stockings of
- late, she did praise my leg being cross-garter’d, and in
- this she manifests herself to my love, and with a kind of
- injunction drives me to these habits of her liking. I thank
- my stars, I am happy. I will be strange, stout, in yellow
- stockings, and cross-garter’d, even with the swiftness of
- putting on. Jove and my stars be prais’d! Here is yet a
- postscript.
- Reads.
- “Thou canst not choose but know who I am. If thou
- entertain’st my love, let it appear in thy smiling; thy
- smiles become thee well. Therefore in my presence still
- smile, dear my sweet, I prithee.”
- Jove, I thank thee. I will smile, I will do every thing that
- thou wilt have me.
- Exit.
Fabian
167 - 168- I will not give my part of this sport for a pension of
- thousands to be paid from the Sophy.
Sir Toby
169- I could marry this wench for this device—
Sir Andrew
170- So could I too.
Sir Toby
171- And ask no other dowry with her but such another jest.
- Enter Maria.
Sir Andrew
173- Nor I neither.
Fabian
174- Here comes my noble gull-catcher.
Sir Toby
175- Wilt thou set thy foot o’ my neck?
Sir Andrew
176- Or o’ mine either?
Sir Toby
177 - 178- Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip, and become thy
- bond-slave?
Sir Andrew
179- I’ faith, or I either?
Sir Toby
180 - 181- Why, thou hast put him in such a dream, that when the image
- of it leaves him he must run mad.
Maria
182- Nay, but say true, does it work upon him?
Sir Toby
183- Like aqua-vitae with a midwife.
Maria
184 - 190- If you will then see the fruits of the sport, mark his first
- approach before my lady. He will come to her in yellow
- stockings, and ’tis a color she abhors, and cross-garter’d,
- a fashion she detests; and he will smile upon her, which
- will now be so unsuitable to her disposition, being addicted
- to a melancholy as she is, that it cannot but turn him into
- a notable contempt. If you will see it, follow me.
Sir Toby
191- To the gates of Tartar, thou most excellent devil of wit!
Sir Andrew
192- I’ll make one too.
- Exeunt.
I may command where I adore
Malvolio
Hubert von Herkomer, 1879