Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (pdf to ebook reader TXT) 📕

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If it be aught to the old tune, my lord,
It is as fat and fulsome to mine ear
As howling after music.

Duke Still so cruel? Olivia Still so constant, lord. Duke

What, to perverseness? you uncivil lady,
To whose ingrate and unauspicious altars
My soul the faithfull’st offerings hath breathed out
That e’er devotion tender’d! What shall I do?

Olivia Even what it please my lord, that shall become him. Duke

Why should I not, had I the heart to do it,
Like to the Egyptian thief at point of death,
Kill what I love?⁠—a savage jealousy
That sometime savours nobly. But hear me this:
Since you to non-regardance cast my faith,
And that I partly know the instrument
That screws me from my true place in your favour,
Live you the marble-breasted tyrant still;
But this your minion, whom I know you love,
And whom, by heaven I swear, I tender dearly,
Him will I tear out of that cruel eye,
Where he sits crowned in his master’s spite.
Come, boy, with me; my thoughts are ripe in mischief:
I’ll sacrifice the lamb that I do love,
To spite a raven’s heart within a dove.

Viola

And I, most jocund, apt and willingly,
To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die.

Olivia Where goes Cesario? Viola

After him I love
More than I love these eyes, more than my life,
More, by all mores, than e’er I shall love wife.
If I do feign, you witnesses above
Punish my life for tainting of my love!

Olivia Ay me, detested! how am I beguiled! Viola Who does beguile you? who does do you wrong? Olivia

Hast thou forgot thyself? is it so long?
Call forth the holy father.

Duke Come, away! Olivia Whither, my lord? Cesario, husband, stay. Duke Husband! Olivia Ay, husband: can he that deny? Duke Her husband, sirrah! Viola No, my lord, not I. Olivia

Alas, it is the baseness of thy fear
That makes thee strangle thy propriety:
Fear not, Cesario; take thy fortunes up;
Be that thou know’st thou art, and then thou art
As great as that thou fear’st.

Enter Priest.

O, welcome, father!
Father, I charge thee, by thy reverence,
Here to unfold, though lately we intended
To keep in darkness what occasion now
Reveals before ’tis ripe, what thou dost know
Hath newly pass’d between this youth and me.

Priest

A contract of eternal bond of love,
Confirm’d by mutual joinder of your hands,
Attested by the holy close of lips,
Strengthen’d by interchangement of your rings;
And all the ceremony of this compact
Seal’d in my function, by my testimony:
Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave
I have travell’d but two hours.

Duke

O thou dissembling cub! what wilt thou be
When time hath sow’d a grizzle on thy case?
Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow,
That thine own trip shall be thine overthrow?
Farewell, and take her; but direct thy feet
Where thou and I henceforth may never meet.

Viola My lord, I do protest⁠— Olivia

O, do not swear!
Hold little faith, though thou hast too much fear.

Enter Sir Andrew. Sir Andrew For the love of God, a surgeon! Send one presently to Sir Toby. Olivia What’s the matter? Sir Andrew He has broke my head across and has given Sir Toby a bloody coxcomb too: for the love of God, your help! I had rather than forty pound I were at home. Olivia Who has done this, Sir Andrew? Sir Andrew The count’s gentleman, one Cesario: we took him for a coward, but he’s the very devil incardinate. Duke My gentleman, Cesario? Sir Andrew ’Od’s lifelings, here he is! You broke my head for nothing; and that that I did, I was set on to do’t by Sir Toby. Viola

Why do you speak to me? I never hurt you:
You drew your sword upon me without cause;
But I bespoke you fair, and hurt you not.

Sir Andrew If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me: I think you set nothing by a bloody coxcomb. Enter Sir Toby and Clown. Here comes Sir Toby halting; you shall hear more: but if he had not been in drink, he would have tickled you othergates than he did. Duke How now, gentleman! how is’t with you? Sir Toby That’s all one: has hurt me, and there’s the end on’t. Sot, didst see Dick surgeon, sot? Clown O, he’s drunk, Sir Toby, an hour agone; his eyes were set at eight i’ the morning. Sir Toby Then he’s a rogue, and a passy measures panyn: I hate a drunken rogue. Olivia Away with him! Who hath made this havoc with them? Sir Andrew I’ll help you, Sir Toby, because we’ll be dressed together. Sir Toby Will you help? an ass-head and a coxcomb and a knave, a thin-faced knave, a gull! Olivia Get him to bed, and let his hurt be look’d to. Exeunt Clown, Fabian, Sir Toby, and Sir Andrew. Enter Sebastian. Sebastian

I am sorry, madam, I have hurt your kinsman;
But, had it been the brother of my blood,
I must have done no less with wit and safety.
You throw a strange regard upon me, and by that
I do perceive it hath offended you:
Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vows
We made each other but so late ago.

Duke

One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons,
A natural perspective, that is and is not!

Sebastian

Antonio, O my dear Antonio!
How have the hours rack’d and tortured me,
Since I have lost thee!

Antonio Sebastian are you? Sebastian Fear’st thou that, Antonio? Antonio

How have you made division of yourself?
An apple, cleft in two, is not more twin
Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?

Olivia Most wonderful! Sebastian

Do I stand there? I never had a brother;
Nor can there be that deity in my nature,
Of here and every where. I had a sister,
Whom the blind waves and surges have devour’d.
Of charity, what kin are you to me?
What countryman? what name? what parentage?

Viola

Of Messaline: Sebastian was my father;
Such a Sebastian was my brother too,
So went he suited to his watery tomb:
If spirits can assume both form and suit
You come to fright us.

Sebastian

A spirit I am indeed;
But am in that dimension grossly clad
Which from the womb I did participate.
Were you a woman, as the rest goes