William Shakespeare

“ OLIVIA. I know his soul is in heaven, fool.
CLOWN. The more fool you, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven.—Take away the fool, gentlemen.
OLIVIA. What think you of this fool, Malvolio? doth he not mend?
MALVOLIO. Yes; and shall do, till the pangs of death shake him. Infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool.
CLOWN. 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 twopence that you are no fool. ”

“ SIR TOBY. Who? Sir Andrew Ague-cheek?
MARIA. Ay, he.
SIR TOBY. He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria.
MARIA. What's that to the purpose?
SIR TOBY. Why, he has three thousand ducats a year.
MARIA. Ay, but he'll have but a year in all these ducats; he's a very fool, and a prodigal.
SIR TOBY. Fye that you'll say so! he plays o' the viol-de-gambo, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature.
MARIA. He hath indeed,—almost natural: for, besides that he's a fool, he's a great quarreller ”

“ Well, go thy way; if Sir Toby would leave drinking, thou wert as witty a piece of Eve's flesh as any in Illyria.
MARIA. Peace, you rogue; no more o' that; here comes my lady: make your excuse wisely; you were best.
[Exit.]
[Enter OLIVIA and MALVOLIO.]
CLOWN. Wit, and'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!
OLIVIA. Take the fool away. ”

“ MALVOLIO. Fool, there was never man so notoriously abused; I am as well in my wits, fool, as thou art.
CLOWN. But as well? then you are mad indeed, if you be no better in your wits than a fool.
MALVOLIO. They have here propertied me; keep me in darkness, send ministers to me, asses, and do all they can to face me out of my wits.
CLOWN. Advise you what you say: the minister is here.—Malvolio, thy wits the heavens restore! endeavour thyself to sleep, and leave thy vain bibble-babble.
MALVOLIO. Sir Topas,—
CLOWN. Maintain no words with him, good fellow. Who, I, sir? not I, sir. ”

“ SIR ANDREW. Faith, I'll home to-morrow, Sir Toby; your niece will not be seen; or, if she be, it's four to one she'll none of me; the count himself here hard by woos her.
SIR TOBY. She'll none o' the Count; she'll not match above her degree, neither in estate, years, nor wit; I have heard her swear't. Tut, there's life in't, man.
SIR ANDREW. I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o' the strangest mind i' the world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether.
SIR TOBY. Art thou good at these kick-shaws, knight? ”

“ SIR TOBY. A gentleman.
OLIVIA. A gentleman? What gentleman?
SIR TOBY. 'Tis a gentleman here.—A plague o' these pickle-herrings!—How now, sot?
CLOWN. Good Sir Toby,—
OLIVIA. Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this lethargy?
SIR TOBY. Lechery! I defy lechery. There's one at the gate.
OLIVIA. Ay, marry; what is he?
SIR TOBY. Let him be the devil an he will, I care not: give me faith, say I. Well, it's all one.
[Exit.]
OLIVIA. 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 ”

“ OLIVIA. Alas, poor fool! how have they baffled thee!
CLOWN. Why, 'some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrown upon them.' I was one, sir, in this interlude;:—one Sir Topas, sir; but that's all one:—'By the Lord, fool, I am not mad;'—But do you remember? 'Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal? An you smile not, he's gagged'? And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.
MALVOLIO. I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you.
[Exit.]
OLIVIA. He hath been most notoriously abus'd. ”

“ MALVOLIO. Ah, ha! does she so?
SIR TOBY. Go to, go to; peace, peace, we must deal gently with him; let me alone. How do you, Malvolio? how is't with you? What, man! defy the devil: consider, he's an enemy to mankind.
MALVOLIO. Do you know what you say?
MARIA. La you, an you speak ill of the devil, how he takes it at heart! Pray God he be not bewitched.
FABIAN. Carry his water to the wise woman.
MARIA. Marry, and it shall be done to-morrow morning, if I live. My lady would not lose him for more than I'll say.
MALVOLIO. How now, mistress!
MARIA. O lord!
SIR TOBY. Pr'ythee hold thy peace ”

“ SIR TOBY. What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight?
SIR ANDREW. Faith, I can cut a caper.
SIR TOBY. And I can cut the mutton to't.
SIR ANDREW. And, I think, I have the back-trick simply as strong as any man in Illyria.
SIR TOBY. Wherefore are these things hid? wherefore have these gifts a curtain before them? are they like to take dust, like Mistress Mall's picture? why dost thou not go to church in a galliard and come home in a coranto? My very walk should be a jig; I would not so much as make water but in a sink-a-pace. What dost thou mean? is it a world to hide virtues in? ”

“ SIR ANDREW. Nay; by my troth, I know not; but I know to be up late is to be up late.
SIR TOBY. A false conclusion; I hate it as an unfilled can. 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. Do not our lives consist of the four elements?
SIR ANDREW. Faith, so they say; but I think it rather consists of eating and drinking.
SIR TOBY. Thou art a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink.— Marian, I say!—a stoup of wine.
[Enter CLOWN.]
SIR ANDREW. Here comes the fool, i' faith. ”

“ VIOLA. Art thou a churchman?
CLOWN. No such matter, sir: I do live by the church; for I do live at my house, and my house doth stand by the church.
VIOLA. So thou mayst say the king lies by a beggar, if a beggar dwell near him; or the church stands by thy tabor, if thy tabor stand by the church.
CLOWN. You have said, sir.—To see this age!—A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit. How quickly the wrong side may be turned outward!
VIOLA. Nay, that's certain; they that dally nicely with words may quickly make them wanton.
CLOWN. I would, therefore, my sister had had no name, sir. ”

“ VIOLA. 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.
[Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and SIR ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK.]
SIR TOBY. Save you, gentleman. ”

“ SIR TOBY. Come thy ways, Signior Fabian.
FABIAN. Nay, I'll come; if I lose a scruple of this sport let me be boiled to death with melancholy.
SIR TOBY. Wouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly rascally sheep-biter come by some notable shame?
FABIAN. I would exult, man; you know he brought me out o' favour with my lady about a bear-baiting here.
SIR TOBY. To anger him we'll have the bear again; and we will fool him black and blue:—shall we not, Sir Andrew?
SIR ANDREW. An we do not, it is pity of our lives. ”

“ My life upon't, young though thou art, thine eye Hath stayed upon some favour that it loves; Hath it not, boy?
VIOLA. A little, by your favour.
DUKE. What kind of woman is't?
VIOLA. Of your complexion.
DUKE. She is not worth thee, then. What years, i' faith?
VIOLA. About your years, my lord.
DUKE. Too old, by heaven! 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 won, Than women's are. ”

“ OLIVIA. Why, then, methinks 'tis time to smile again: O world, how apt the poor are to be proud! If one should be a prey, how much the better To fall before the lion than the wolf! [Clock strikes.] The clock upbraids me with the waste of time.— Be not afraid, good youth, I will not have you: And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest, Your wife is like to reap a proper man. There lies your way, due-west.
VIOLA. Then westward-ho: Grace and good disposition 'tend your ladyship! You'll nothing, madam, to my lord by me?
OLIVIA. Stay: I pr'ythee tell me what thou think'st of me. ”

“ SIR TOBY. There's no remedy, sir: he will fight with you for's oath sake: marry, he hath better bethought him of his quarrel, and he finds that now scarce to be worth talking of: therefore, draw for the supportance of his vow; he protests he will not hurt you.
VIOLA. [Aside] Pray God defend me! A little thing would make me tell them how much I lack of a man.
FABIAN. Give ground if you see him furious.
SIR TOBY. Come, Sir Andrew, there's no remedy; the gentleman will, for his honour's sake, have one bout with you: he cannot by the duello avoid it ”

“ SEBASTIAN. O, that record is lively in my soul! He finished, indeed, his mortal act That day that made my sister thirteen years.
VIOLA. If nothing lets to make us happy both But this my masculine usurp'd attire, Do not embrace me till each circumstance Of place, time, fortune, do cohere, and jump That I am Viola: which to confirm, I'll bring you to a captain in this town, Where lie my maiden weeds; by whose gentle help I was preserv'd to serve this noble count; All the occurrence of my fortune since Hath been between this lady and this lord. ”

“ MARIA. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan.
SIR ANDREW. O, if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog.
SIR TOBY. What, for being a Puritan? thy exquisite reason, dear knight?
SIR ANDREW. I have no exquisite reason for't, but I have reason good enough.
MARIA. The devil a Puritan that he is, or anything constantly but a time-pleaser: an affectioned ass that cons state without book and utters it by great swarths; the best persuaded of himself, so crammed, as he thinks, with excellences, that it is his grounds of faith that all that look on him love him ”

“ SIR TOBY. A love-song, a love-song.
SIR ANDREW. Ay, ay; I care not for good life.
CLOWN. 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.
SIR ANDREW. Excellent good, i' faith.
SIR TOBY. Good, good.
CLOWN. 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. ”

“ FIRST OFFICER. The man grows mad; away with him. Come, come, sir.
ANTONIO. Lead me on.
[Exeunt Officers with ANTONIO.]
VIOLA. Methinks his words do from such passion fly That he believes himself; so do not I. Prove true, imagination; O prove true, That I, dear brother, be now ta'en for you!
SIR TOBY. Come hither, knight; come hither, Fabian; we'll whisper o'er a couplet or two of most sage saws.
VIOLA. He named Sebastian; I my brother know Yet living in my glass; even such and so In favour was my brother; and he went Still in this fashion, colour, ornament, For him I imitate. ”