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Vio. Good madam, let me see your face.

Oli. Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate with my face? You are now out of your text: but we will draw the curtain, and show you the picture. Look you, sir, such a one I was this present: 22 is't not well done?

Vio. Excellently done, if God did all.

[Unveiling.

Oli. 'Tis in grain, sir; 'twill endure wind and weather.
Vio. 'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on:
Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive,

If you will lead these graces to the grave,
And leave the world no copy.

Oli. O sir, I will not be so hard-hearted; I will give out divers schedules of my beauty: it shall be inventoried, and every particle and utensil labell'd to my will: as, item, two lips, indifferent red; 23 item, two gray eyes,24 with lids to them; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth. Were you sent hither to 'praise me ?25

Vio. I see you what you are,

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you are too proud;

But, if you were the Devil, you are fair.

My lord and master loves you: O, such love

Could be but recompensed, though you were crown'd

The nonpareil of beauty!

Oli.

How does he love me?

Vio. With adoratiöns, with fertile tears,26

22 It is to be borne in mind that the idea of a picture is continued; the meaning being, "behold the picture of me, such as I am at the present moment."

23 "Indifferent red" is tolerably red. See page 148, note 24.

24 Blue eyes were called gray in the Poet's time. See page 67, note 45. 25 To appraise me, or set a value upon me; referring to the inventory she has just given of her graces.

26 Fertile appears to be used here in the sense of copious. Shakespeare has fruitful in a like sense. So in Hamlet, i. 2: "No, nor the fruitful river in the eye."

With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.

Oli. Your lord does know my mind; I cannot love him:

Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble,

Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth;

In voices well divulged,27 free, learn'd, and valiant ;

And, in dimension and the shape of nature,

A gracious person: but yet I cannot love him;

He might have took his answer long ago.

Vio. If I did love you in my master's flame, With such a suffering, such a deadly love,

In your denial I would find no sense;

I would not understand it.

Oli.

Why, what would you?

Vio. Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons 28 of contemnèd love,

And sing them loud even in the dead of night;
Holla your name to the reverberate hills,
And make the babbling gossip of the air 29
Cry out, Olivia! O, you should not rest
Between the elements of air and earth,

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Oli. You might do much. What is your parentage?

Vio. Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:

I am a gentleman.

Oli.

Get you to your

lord;

I cannot love him: let him send no more;
Unless, perchance, you come to me again,
To tell me how he takes it. Fare you well:

27 Meaning, perhaps, well spoken of, well voiced in the public mouth; or it may mean well reputed for knowledge in the languages, which was esteemed a great accomplishment in the Poet's time.

28 Cantons is the old English word for cantos.

29 A Shakespearian expression for echo.

I thank you for your pains: spend this for me.
Vio. I am no fee'd post, lady; keep your purse :
My master, not myself, lacks recompense.

Love make his heart of flint, that you

shall love;

And let your fervour, like my master's, be
Placed in contempt! Farewell, fair cruelty.
Oli. What is your parentage?

Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:

I am a gentleman. I'll be sworn thou art;

Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit,

Do give thee fivefold blazon. —Not too fast ;·
Soft, soft!

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Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
Methinks I feel this youth's perfections

With an invisible and subtle stealth

To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.
What, ho, Malvolio !

Mal.

Re-enter MALVOLIO.

Here, madam, at your service. Oli. Run after that same peevish 31 messenger, The County's man: he left this ring behind him, Would I or not tell him I'll none of it.

Desire him not to flatter with his lord,

Nor hold him up with hopes; I am not for him :
If that the youth will come this way to-morrow,
I'll give him reasons for't. Hie thee, Malvolio.
Mal. Madam, I will.

[Exit.

[Exit.

30 Soft! was in frequent use, as here, for stay! not too fast! Olivia means, apparently, that her passion is going ahead too fast, unless Orsino were its object, who is Viola's master.

31 Peevish was commonly used for foolish or childish; hence, perhaps, the meaning it now bears of fretful. It may have either meaning here, or both.

Oli. I do I know not what; and fear to find
Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.32
Fate, show thy force ourselves we do not owe; 33
What is decreed must be, — and be this so!

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[Exit.

Enter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN.

Ant. Will you stay no longer? nor will you not that I go with you?

Seb. By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over me the malignancy of my fate might perhaps distemper yours; therefore I shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone it were a bad recompense for your love, to lay any of them on you.

Ant. Let me yet know of you whither you are bound.

Seb. No, sooth, sir: my determinate voyage is mere extravagancy. But I perceive in you so excellent a touch of modesty, that you will not extort from me what I am willing 2 to keep in; therefore it charges me in manners the rather to

32 She fears that her eyes have formed so flattering an idea of Cesario, that she will not have the strength of mind to resist the impression.

33 We are not our own masters; we cannot govern ourselves. Owe for own, possess, or have; as usual.

1" The purpose of my voyage ends with the voyage itself," or, "I am travelling merely for the sake of travel." Extravagancy is used in the Latin sense of going at large; as in Hamlet, i. 1: "Th' extravagant and erring spirit hies to his confine."

2 Willing in the sense of choosing, wishing, or preferring.

express myself.3 You must know of me, then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian, which I called Roderigo. My father was that Sebastian of Messaline whom I know you have heard of. He left behind him myself and a sister, both born in an hour: if the Heavens had been pleased, would we had so ended! but you, sir, alter'd that; for some hour before you took me from the breach of the sea was my sister drown'd.

Ant. Alas the day!

Seb. A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful; but, though I could not, with such an estimable wonder, over-far believe that, yet thus far I will boldly publish her, she bore a mind that envy could not but call fair. She is drown'd already, sir, with salt water, though I seem to drown her remembrance again with more.

Ant. Pardon me, sir, your bad entertainment.

Seb. O good Antonio, forgive me your trouble!

Ant. If you will not murder me for my love,5 let me be your servant.

Seb. If you will not undo what you have done, that is, kill him whom you have recover'd desire it not. Fare ye well at once my bosom is full of kindness; and I am yet so

8 To declare or unfold myself. Sebastian holds himself the more bound to give the information, inasmuch as Antonio's delicacy keeps him from asking, or from being inquisitive.

4 The meaning is, "Though I could not, when compared with a person of such admirable beauty, over-far believe that I resembled her."

5 This may refer to what is thus delivered by Sir Walter Scott in The Pirate: When Mordaunt has rescued Cleveland from the sea, and is trying to revive him, Bryce the pedler says to him, "Are you mad? you, that have so long lived in Zetland, to risk the saving of a drowning man? Wot ye not, if you bring him to life again, he will be sure to do you some capital injury?" Sir Walter suggests in a note that this inhuman maxim was probably held by the islanders of the Orkneys, as an excuse for leaving all to perish alone who were shipwrecked upon their coasts, to the end that there might be nothing to hinder the plundering of their goods; which of course could not well be, if any of the owners survived.

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