Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb (online e book reading .txt) 📕

the babbling gossip of the air, cry out Olivia. O you should not rest between the elements of earth and air, but you should pity me.’

‘You might do much,’ said Olivia: ‘what is your parentage?’ Viola replied: ‘Above my fortunes, yet my state is well. I am a gentleman.’

Olivia now reluctantly dismissed Viola, saying: ‘Go to your master, and tell him, I cannot love him. Let him send no more, unless perchance you come again to tell me how he takes it.’ And Viola departed, bidding the lady farewell by the name of Fair Cruelty. When she was gone, Olivia repeated the words, Above my fortunes, yet my state is well. I am a gentleman. And she said aloud: ‘I will be sworn he is; his tongue, his face, his limbs, action, and spirit, plainly show he is a gentleman.’ And then she wished Cesario was the duke; and perceiving the fast hold he had taken on her affections, she blamed herself for her sudden love: but the gentle blame which people lay upon their own faults has no deep root; and presently the noble lady Olivia so far forgot the inequality between her fortunes and those of this seeming page, as well as the maidenly reserve which is the chief ornament of a lady’s character, that she resolved to court the love of young Cesario, and sent a servant after him with a diamond ring, under the presence that he had left it with her as a present from Orsino. She hoped by thus artfully making Cesario a present of the ring, she should give him some intimation of her design; and truly it did make Viola suspect; for knowing that Orsino had sent no ring by her, she began to recollect that Olivia’s looks and manner were expressive of admiration, and she presently guessed her master’s mistress had fallen in love with her. ‘Alas,’ said she, ‘the poor lady might as well love a dream. Disguise I see is wicked, for it has caused Olivia to breathe as fruitless sighs for me as I do for Orsino.’

Viola returned to Orsino’s palace, and related to her lord the ill success of the negotiation, repeating the command of Olivia, that the duke should trouble her no more. Yet still the duke persisted in hoping that the gentle Cesario would in time be able to persuade her to show some pity, and therefore he bade him he should go to her again the next day. In the meantime, to pass away the tedious interval, he commanded a song which he loved to be sung; and he said: ‘My good Cesario, when I heard that song last night, methought it did relieve my passion much. Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain. The spinsters and the knitters when they sit in the sun, and the young maids that weave their thread with bone, chant this song. It is silly, yet I love it, for it tells of the innocence of love in the old times.’

SONG

Come away, come away, Death

And in sad cypress let me be laid;

Fly away, fly away, breath,

I am slain by a fair cruel maid.

My shroud of white stuck all with yew, O prepare it!

My part of death no one so true did share it.

Not a flower, not a flower sweet

On my black coffin let there be strewn:

Not a friend, not a friend greet

My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown A thousand thousand sighs to save, lay me O where Sad true lover never kind my grave, to weep there!

Viola did not fail to mark the words of the old song which in such true simplicity described the pangs of unrequited love, and she bore testimony in her countenance of feeling what the song expressed. Her sad looks were observed by Orsino, who said to her: ‘My life upon it, Cesario, though you are so young, your eye has looked upon some face that it loves: has it not, boy?’ ‘A little, with your leave,’ replied Viola. ‘And what kind of woman, and of what age is she?’ said Orsino.

‘Of your age and of your complexion, my lord,’ said Viola; which made the duke smile to hear this fair young boy loved a woman so much older than himself, and of a man’s dark complexion; but Viola secretly meant Orsino, and not a woman like him.

When Viola made her second visit to Olivia, she found no difficulty in gaining access to her. Servants soon discover when their ladies delight to converse with handsome young messengers; and the instant Viola arrived, the gates were thrown wide open, and the duke’s page was shown into Olivia’s apartment with great respect; and when Viola told Olivia that she was come once more to plead in her lord’s behalf, this lady said: ‘I desired you never to speak of him again; but if you would undertake another suit, I had rather hear you solicit, than music from the spheres.’ This was pretty plain speaking, but Olivia soon explained herself still more plainly, and openly confessed her love; and when she saw displeasure with perplexity expressed in Viola’s face, she said: ‘O what a deal of scorn looks beautiful in the contempt and anger of his lip! Cesario, by the roses of the spring, by maidhood, honour, and by truth, I love you so, that, in spite of your pride, I have neither wit nor reason to conceal my passion.’ But in vain the lady wooed; Viola hastened from her presence, threatening never more to come to plead Orsino’s love; and all the reply she made to Olivia’s fond solicitation was, a declaration of a resolution Never to love any woman.

No sooner had Viola left the lady than a claim was made upon her velour. A gentleman, a rejected suitor of Olivia, who had learned how that lady had favoured the duke’s messenger, challenged him to fight a duel. What should poor Viola do, who, though she carried a manlike outside, had a true woman’s heart, and feared to look on her own sword?

When she saw her formidable rival advancing towards her with his sword drawn, she began to think of confessing that she was a woman; but she was relieved at once from her terror, and the shame of such a discovery, by a stranger that was passing by, who made up to them, and as if he had been long known to her, and were her dearest friend, said to her opponent: ‘If this young gentleman has done offence, I will take the fault on me; and if you offend him, I will for his sake defy you.’ Before Viola had time to thank him for his protection, or to inquire the reason of his kind interference, her new friend met with an enemy where his bravery was of no use to him; for the officers of justice coming up in that instant, apprehended the stranger in the duke’s name, to answer for an offence he had committed some years before: and he said to Viola: ‘This comes with seeking you’: and then he asked her for a purse, saying: ‘Now my necessity makes me ask for my purse, and it grieves me much more for what I cannot do for you, than for what befalls myself. You stand amazed, but be of comfort.’

His words did indeed amaze Viola, and she protested she knew him not, nor had ever received a purse from him; but for the kindness he had just shown her, she offered him a small sum of money, being nearly the whole she possessed. And now the stranger spoke severe things, charging her with ingratitude and unkindness. He said: ‘This youth, whom you see here, I snatched from the jaws of death, and for his sake alone I came to Illyria, and have fallen into this danger.’ But the officers cared little for hearkening to the complaints of their prisoner, and they hurried him off, saying: ‘What is that to us?’ And as he was carried away, he called Viola by the name of Sebastian, reproaching the supposed Sebastian for disowning his friend, as long as he was within hearing. When Viola heard herself called Sebastian, though the stranger was taken away too hastily for her to ask an explanation, she conjectured that this seeming mystery might arise from her being mistaken for her brother; and she began to cherish hopes that it was her brother whose life this man said he had preserved. And so indeed it was. The stranger, whose name was Antonio, was a sea-captain. He had taken Sebastian up into his ship, when, almost exhausted with fatigue, he was floating on the mast to which he had fastened himself in the storm. Antonio conceived such a friendship for Sebastian, that he resolved to accompany him whithersoever he went; and when the youth expressed a curiosity to visit Orsino’s court, Antonio, rather than part from him, came to Illyria, though he knew, if his person should be known there, his life would be in danger, because in a sea-fight he had once dangerously wounded the duke Orsino’s nephew. This was the offence for which he was now made a prisoner.

Antonio and Sebastian had landed together but a few hours before Antonio met Viola. He had given his purse to Sebastian, desiring him to use it freely if he saw anything he wished to purchase, telling him he would wait at the inn, while Sebastian went to view the town; but Sebastian not returning at the time appointed, Antonio had ventured out to look for him, and Viola being dressed the same, and in face so exactly resembling her brother, Antonio drew his sword (as he thought) in defence of the youth he had saved, and when Sebastian (as he supposed) disowned him, and denied him his own purse, no wonder he accused him of ingratitude.

Viola, when Antonio was gone, fearing a second invitation to fight, slunk home as fast as she could. She had not been long gone, when her adversary thought he saw her return; but it was her brother Sebastian, who happened to arrive at this place, and he said: ‘Now, sir, have I met with you again? There’s for you’; and struck him a blow.

Sebastian was no coward; he returned the blow with interest, and drew his sword.

A lady now put a stop to this duel, for Olivia came out of the house, and she too mistaking Sebastian for Cesario, invited him to come into her house, expressing much sorrow at the rude attack he had met with.

Though Sebastian was as much surprised at the courtesy of this lady as at the rudeness of his unknown foe, yet he went very willingly into the house, and Olivia was delighted to find Cesario (as she thought him) become more sensible of her attentions; for though their features were exactly the same, there was none of the contempt and anger to be seen in his face, which she had complained of when she told her love to Cesario.

Sebastian did not at all object to the fondness the lady lavished on him. He seemed to take it in very good part, yet he wondered how it had come to pass, and he was rather inclined to think Olivia was not in her right senses; but perceiving that she was mistress of a fine house, and that she ordered her affairs and seemed to govern her family discreetly, and that in all but her sudden love for him she appeared in the full possession of her reason, he well approved of the courtship; and Olivia finding Cesario in this good humour, and fearing he might change his mind, proposed that, as she had a priest in the house, they should be instantly married. Sebastian assented to this proposal;