Twelfth Night | Page 9

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.
[Exit.]
OLIVIA. 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 five-fold blazon. Not too fast:--soft, soft! Unless the master were the man.--How now? 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!--
[Re-enter MALVOLIO.]
MALVOLIO. Here, madam, at your service.
OLIVIA. Run after that same peevish 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.
MALVOLIO. Madam, I will.
[Exit.]
OLIVIA. I do I know not what: and fear to find Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind. Fate, show thy force. Ourselves we do not owe: What is decreed must be; and be this so!
[Exit.]

ACT II.
SCENE I. The sea-coast.
[Enter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN.]
ANTONIO. Will you stay no longer; nor will you not that I go with you?
SEBASTIAN. 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.
ANTONIO. Let me know of you whither you are bound.
SEBASTIAN. 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 to keep in; therefore it charges me in manners the rather to express myself. You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian, which I called Rodorigo; 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, altered that; for some hours before you took me from the breach of the sea was my sister drowned.
ANTONIO. Alas the day!
SEBASTIAN. A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful: but though I could not, with such estimable wonder, overfar believe that, yet thus far I will boldly publish her,--she bore mind that envy could not but call fair. She is drowned already, sir, with salt water, though I seem to drown her remembrance again with more.
ANTONIO. Pardon me, sir, your bad entertainment.
SEBASTIAN. O, good Antonio, forgive me your trouble.
ANTONIO. If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your servant.
SEBASTIAN. If you will not undo what you have done--that is, kill him whom you have recovered--desire it not. Fare ye well at once; my bosom is full of kindness; and I am yet so near the manners of my mother that, upon the least occasion more, mine eyes will tell tales of me. I am bound to the Count Orsino's court: farewell.
[Exit.]
ANTONIO. The gentleness of all the gods go with thee! I have many cnemies in Orsino's court, Else would I very shortly see thee there: But come what may, I do adore thee so That danger shall seem sport, and I will go.
[Exit.]

SCENE II. A street.
[Enter VIOLA; MALVOLIO following.]
MALVOLIO. Were you not even now with the Countess Olivia?
VIOLA. Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since arrived but hither.
MALVOLIO. She returns this ring to you, sir; you might have saved me my pains, to have taken it away yourself. She adds moreover, that you should put your lord into a desperate assurance she will none of him: and one thing more: that you be never so hardy to come again in his affairs, unless it be to report your lord's taking of this. Receive it so.
VIOLA. She took the ring of me: I'll none of it.
MALVOLIO. Come, sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is it should be so returned. If it be worth stooping for, there it lies in your eye; if not, be it his that finds it.
[Exit.]
VIOLA. I left no ring with her; what means this lady? Fortune forbid my outside have not charm'd her! She made good view of me; indeed, so much, That methought her eyes had lost her tongue, For she did speak in starts