TWELFTH NIGHT.

THE SPIRIT OF LOVE.

O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou!
That, notwithstanding thy capacity

Receiveth as the sea, naught enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soever,

But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute! so full of shapes is fancy,
That it alone is high-fantastical.

ILL-NATURE.

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 bird-bolts 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.

GOOD FOOLING.

Clown. Wit, an 't be thy will, put me into good fooling! Those wits that think they have thee, do very oft prove fools; and I that am sure I lack thee, may pass for a wise man: for what says Quinapalus? Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.-God bless thee, lady! Oliver. 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 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: anything 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.

A DRUNKEN MAN.

Oliver. What's a drunken man like, fool?

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

EARLY RISING.

To be up after midnight, and to go to bed then, is early; so that, to go to bed after midnight, is to go to bed betimes.

THE WISDOM OF FOLLY.

This fellow's wise enough to play the fool;
And, to do that well, craves a kind of wit :
He must observe their mood on whom he

jests,

The quality of persons, and the time;

And, like the haggard, check at every feather That comes before his eye. This is a practice As full of labour as a wise man's art :

For folly, that he wisely shows, is fit;

But wise men, folly-fallen, quite taint their wit.

THE CLOWN'S SONG.

O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear; your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers' meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.
What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet-and-twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.

THE USE OF Friends.

Duke. How dost thou, my good fellow? Clown. Truly, sir, the better for my foes, and the worse for my friends.

Duke. Just the contrary; the better for thy friends.

Clo. No, sir, the worse.

Duke. How can that be?

Clo. Marry, sir, they praise me, and make an ass of me; now my foes tell me plainly I

am an ass so that by my foes, sir, I profit in the knowledge of myself; and by my friends I am abused; so that, conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make your two affirmatives, why, then the worse for my friends, and the better for my foes.

MARRIAGE COUNSELS.

Duke. Let still the woman take

An elder than herself; so wears she to him,
So sways she level in her husband's heart.
For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,
Than women's are.

Viola. I think it well, my lord.

Duke. Then let thy love be younger than thyself,

Or thy affection cannot hold the bent:

For women are as roses, whose fair flower, Being once display'd, doth fall that very hour. Vio. And so they are: alas, that they are

so;

To die, even when they to perfection grow!