on;

darkness, and given your drunken uncle rule over me, yet have I the benefit of my fenfes as well as your Ladyship. I have your own letter that induced me to the femblance I put with the which I doubt not but to do myfelf much right, or you much foame: think of me as you pleafe. I leave my duty a little unthought of, and speak out of my injury.

Oli. Did he write this?

Clo. Ay, Madam.

The madly us'd Malvolio.

Duke. This favours not much of distraction.

4

Oli. See him deliver'd, Fabian: bring him hither.
My Lord, fo pleafe you, thefe things further thought on,
To think me as well a fifter, as a wife;

One day fhall crown th' alliance on't, so please you,
Here at my houfe, and at my proper coff.

Duke. Madam, I am most apt t' embrace your offer. Your mafter quits you; and for your fervice done him, So much against the metal of your fex, [To Viola, So far beneath your foft and tender breeding; (And fince you call'd me mafter for fo long,). Here is my hand you fhall from this time be Your mafter's mistress.

Oli. A fifter,

you are he.

SCENE VII. Enter Malvolio.

Duke. Is this the madman?

Oli. Ay, my Lord, this fame. How now, Malvolio? Mal. Madam, you have done me wrong, notorious Oli. Have I, Malvolio? no.

[wrong.

Mal. Lady, you have; pray you, perufe that letter.

You must not now deny it is your hand.
Write from it if you can, in hand or phrafe;
Or fay, 'tis not your feal, nor your invention;
You can fay none of this. Well, grant it then;
And tell me in the modefty of honour,

Why you have given me fuch clear lights of favour,
Bade me come fmiling and cross-garter'd to you,
To put on yellow ftockings, and to frown
Upon Sir Toby, and the lighter people:
And acting this in an obedient hope,
Why have you fuffer'd me to be imprison'd,
Kept in a dark houfe, vifited by the priest,
N 2

And

And made the most notorious geck, and gull,
That e'er invention play'd on? tell me, why?
Oli. Alas, Malvolio, this is not my writing,
Though, I confefs, much like the character:
But, out of queftion, 'tis Maria's hand.
And now I do bethink me, it was the

*

First told me thou waft mad; then cam'ft thou fmiling,
And in fuch forms which here were prefuppos'd
Upon thee in the letter: pr'ythee, be content;
This practice hath moft fhrewdly pafs'd upon thee:
But when we know the grounds and authors of it,
Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge
Of thine own cause.

Fab. Good Madam, hear me speak;

And let no quarrel, nor no brawl to come,
Taint the condition of this present hour,

Which I have wondered at. In hope it shall not,
Moft freely I confefs, myfelf and Sir Toby.
Set this device against Malvolio here,
Upon fome ftubborn and uncourteous parts
We had conceiv'd against him. Maria writ
The letter, at Sir Toby's great importance;
In recompence whereof he hath married her.
How with a fportful malice it was follow'd,
May rather pluck on laughter than revenge,
If that the injuries be juftly weigh'd,
That have on both fides pass'd.

Oli. Alas, poor fool! how have they baffled thee! Clo. Why, fome are born great, fome atchieve great nefs, and fome have greatnefs thrust 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 fuch a barren rafccl! an you fmile not, he's gagg'd: and thus the whirl-gigg of time brings in his revenges.

Mal. I'll be reveng'd on the pack of you.

Oli. He hath been moft notoriously abus'd. Duke. Purfue him, and intreat him to a peace; He hath not told us of the captain yet;

Prefuppos'd for impofed.

[Exit.

When

When that is known, and golden time convents,
A folemn combination fhall be made

Of our dear fouls. Mean time, fweet fifter,
We will not part from hence.-Cefario, come;
(For fo you fhall be while you are a man;)
But when in other habits you are feen,
Orfino's miftrefs, and his fancy's queen.

Clown fings.

*When that I was a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain:
A foolish thing was but a toy,

For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came to man's eftate,

With hey, ho, Sc.

'Gainft knaves and thieves men fout their gate,

For the rain, &c.

But when I came, alas! to wive,

With hey, ho, &c.

With tofs-pots fill had drunken heads,

For the rain, &c.

A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, bo, c.

But that's all one, our play is done;
And we'll ftrive to please you every day.

N 3

[Exeunt.

[Exit.

The

This poor ftuff appears to be the players, not Shakespeare's.

Enter the Duke of Ephefus, Egeon, Failor, and other

Egeon.

Attendants.

PROCEED, Salinus, to procure my fall,

And by the doom of death end woes and all.
Duke. Merchant of Syracufe, plead no more:

I am not partial to infringe our laws:

The enmity, and difcord, which of late

Sprung from the ranc'rous outrage of your Duke,
To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen,
(Who, wanting gilders to redeem their lives,
Have feal'd his rigorous ftatutes with their bloods,)
Excludes all pity from our threat'ning looks.
For, fince the mortal and inteftine jars

The plot take from the Menachmi of Plautus.

'Twist

'Twixt thy feditious countrymen and us,
It hath in folemn fynods been decreed,
Both by the Syracufans and ourselves,
T' admit no traffic to our adverse towns;
Nay, more, if any born at Ephefus
Be feen at Syracufan marts and fairs;
Again, if any Syracufan born

Come to the bay of Ephefus, he dies:
His goods confifcate to the Duke's difpofe,
Unless a thousand marks be levied

To quit the penalty, and ransom him.
Thy substance, valu'd at the highest rate,
Cannot amount unto a hundred marks;
Therefore, by law thou art condemn'd to die.

Egeon. Yet this my comfort, when your words are done, My woes end likewife with the evening-fun.

Duke. Well, Syracufan, fay, in brief, the caufe, Why thou departed'it from thy native home; And for what cause thou cam'ft to Ephefus.

Egeon. A heavier tafk could not have been impos'd, Than I to speak my grief unfpeakable:

Yet that the world witnefs, that may

my

end

Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence,
I'll utter what my forrow gives me leave.
In Syracufa was I born, and wed

Unto a woman, happy but for me;

And by me too, had not our hap been bad:
With her I liv'd in joy; our wealth increas'd,
By profperous voyages I often made
To Epidamnum; till my factor's death,
And the great care of goods at random left,
Drew me from kind embracement of my spouse;
From whom my abfence was not fix months old,
Before herself (almost at fainting under
The pleafing punishment that women bear)
Had made provifion for her following me,
And foon, and safe, arrived where I was.
There she had not been long, but she became
A joyful mother of two goodly fons;
And, which was ftrange, the one fo like the other,

i. e. By a natural event, by the courfe of Providence.

As