Enter LADY OLIVIA with MALVOLIO

God bless thee, lady!

OLI. Take the fool away.

CLO. Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady. OLI. Go to, you 're a dry fool; I'll no more of you: besides, you grow dishonest.

CLO. Two faults, madonna, that drink and good counsel will amend: for give the dry fool drink, then is 40 the fool not dry: bid the dishonest man mend himself; if he mend, he is no longer dishonest; if he cannot, let the botcher mend him. Any thing that's mended is but patched: virtue that transgresses is but patched with sin; and sin that amends is but patched with virtue. If that this simple syllogism will serve, so; if it will not, what remedy? As there is no true cuckold but calamity, so beauty's a flower. The lady bade take away the fool; therefore, I say again, take her away.

OLI. Sir, I bade them take away you.

CLO. Misprision in the highest degree! Lady, cucul- 50

37 a dry fool] Cf. I, iii, 72, supra, “A dry [i.e., insipid] jest.” 39 seq. Two faults, etc.] The clown's whimsical wit is hardly capable of literal paraphrase. Many of his remarks are nearly allied to nonsense, and he seems talking against time, in order to escape rebukes which his freedom of speech invites.

46 cuckold] apparently a wilful blunder for "school" or "counsellor." 50 Misprision] Legally the term "misprision," which literally means "contempt," was applied to evil speaking of the sovereign, and was synonymous with "lèse majesté."

50-51 cucullus . . . monachum] “The cowl does not make the monk,” a proverb in vogue throughout Europe.

lus non facit monachum; that's as much to say as I wear not motley in my brain. Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.

OLI. Can you do it?

CLO. Dexteriously, good madonna.

OLI. Make your proof.

CLO. I must catechize you for it, madonna: good my mouse of virtue, answer me.

OLI. Well, sir, for want of other idleness, I'll bide your proof.

CLO. Good madonna, why mournest thou?

OLI. Good fool, for my brother's death.
CLO. I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
OLI. I know his soul is in heaven, fool.

CLO. The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen.

OLI. What think you of this fool, Malvolio? doth he not mend?

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MAL. Yes, and shall do till the pangs of death shake 70 him: infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool.

CLO. God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity, for the better increasing your folly! Sir Toby will be sworn that I am no fox; but he will not pass his word for two pence that you are no fool.

OLI. How say you to that, Malvolio?

55 Dexteriously] This form of "dexterously" seems to have been a common vulgarism, like the modern "mischevious" for "mischievous."

MAL. I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal: I saw him put down the other day with an ordinary fool that has no more brain than a stone. Look 80 you now, he's out of his guard already; unless you laugh and minister occasion to him, he is gagged. I protest, I

take these wise men, that crow so at these set kind of fools, no better than the fools' zanies.

OLI. O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite. To be generous, guiltless and of free disposition, is to take those things for birdbolts that you deem cannon-bullets: there is no slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail; nor no railing in a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove.

CLO. Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou speakest well of fools!

Re-enter MARIA

MAR. Madam, there is at the gate a young gentleman much desires to speak with you.

OLI. From the Count Orsino, is it?

MAR. I know not, madam: 't is a fair young man, and well attended.

79 barren] dull, witless. Cf. I, iii, 75, supra.

...

83 these. kind] Cf. I, i, 10, supra, and note, and Lear, II, ii, 96: "These kind of knaves I know."

84 fools' zanies] Cf. Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour, IV, i: "The other gallant is his zany [i.e., the servant mimicking his master], and doth most of these tricks after him."

91 Mercury... leasing] May the god of cheats or liars endow thee, to thy profit, with the gift of lying.

90

OLI. Who of my people hold him in delay?
MAR. Sir Toby, madam, your kinsman.

OLI. Fetch him off, I pray you; he speaks nothing but madman: fie on him! [Exit Maria.] Go you, Malvolio: if it be a suit from the count, I am sick, or not at home; what you will, to dismiss it. [Exit Malvolio.] Now you see, sir, how your fooling grows old, and people dislike it.

CLO. Thou hast spoke for us, madonna, as if thy eldest son should be a fool; whose skull Jove cram with brains! for,—here he comes, — one of thy kin has a most weak pia mater.

Enter Sir TOBY

OLI. By mine honour, half drunk. What is he at the gate, cousin?

SIR TO. A gentleman.

OLI. A gentleman! what gentleman?

SIR TO. 'Tis a gentleman here — a plague o' these pickle-herring! How now, sot!

CLO. Good Sir Toby!

OLI. Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this lethargy?

SIR TO. Lechery! I defy lechery. There's one at the gate.

OLI. Ay, marry, what is he?

SIR TO. Let him be the devil, an he will, I care not:

give me faith, say I. Well, it's all one. OLI. What's a drunken man like, fool?

113 pickle-herring] The favourite relish for drunkards.

[Exit.

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CLO. Like a drowned man, a fool and a mad man: one draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns him.

OLI. Go thou and seek the crowner, and let him sit o' my coz; for he 's in the third degree of drink, he's drowned: go look after him.

CLO. He is but mad yet, madonna; and the fool shall look to the madman.

Re-enter MALVOLIO

[Exit. 130

MAL. Madam, yond young fellow swears he will speak with you. I told him you were sick; he takes on him to understand so much, and therefore comes to speak with you. I told him you were asleep; he seems to have a foreknowledge of that too, and therefore comes to speak with you. What is to be said to him, lady? he's fortified against any denial.

OLI. Tell him he shall not speak with me.

MAL. Has been told so; and he says, he 'll stand at your door like a sheriff's post, and be the supporter to a bench, but he 'll speak with you.

OLI. What kind o' man is he?

MAL. Why, of mankind.

OLI. What manner of man?

MAL. Of very ill manner; he'll speak with you, will you or no.

124 above heat] above ordinary strength.

140 sheriff's post] A post which was often carved with elaborate ornament stood before the door of the house occupied by a city mayor and sheriff.

141