Enter MALVOLIO. Mal. 'Tis but fortune; all is fortune. Maria once told me she did affect me; and I have heard herself come thus near, that, should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion. Besides, she uses me with a more exalted respect than any one else that follows her. What should I think on't? Sir To. Here's an overweening rogue! Fab. O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him: how he jets under his advanced plumes! Sir And. 'Slight, I could so beat the rogue! Mal. To be Count Malvolio! Sir To. Ab, rogue! Sir And. Pistol him, pistol him. Mal. There is example for't; the lady of the Fab. O, peace! now he's deeply in; look how imagination blows him. Mal. Having been three months married to her, sitting in my state, With Maria, "as witty a piece of Eve's corners" with Lucio. So it fares with flesh as any in Illyria," or in Messina the conspirators. either, these good companions are certain to have the better of Malvolio. Him we hate from the moment he sets up as a judge of fools, and avers that he saw the clown" put down with an ordinary fool." "O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio," This is a temper far remote from Sir Andrew, who knows not" what diluculo surgere means, who has no false pretensions, but an unbiassed estimate of his own perfections. "I had rather than forty shillings I had such a leg, and so sweet a breath to sing, as the fool has." No malady of self-love here, but a generous admiration of good gifts in others. Malvolio is probably a Puritan. It is he who is "virtuous"; it is the others who proclaim the immortality of cakes and ale. What did Shakespeare really think of Puritans? Did he foresee that we were soon to become a nation of Malvolios? Did he sympathize with Sir Toby's irony when Sir Andrew threatens to beat Malvolio "for being a Puritan? Thy exquisite reason, dear knight?" Of Shakespeare's opinions on such matters we know and can know nothing certain. He had as lief be a Brownist as a politician." Concerning that great and glum party, long the congenial masters of England, we do not gather his personal ideas. Probably his profession itself would make him no friend to Stubbs and the rest. Like the puppet man in Tom Jones, he may have reasoned, “I don't care what religion comes, provided the Presbyterians are not uppermost, for they are enemies to puppet shows." However, if any Puritans went to the play, Shakespeare manages not to offend them. "The devil a Puritan that he is," says Maria, of Malvolio, "or anything constantly but a time-pleaser; an affection'd ass," who has probably let Maria see that he thinks she loves him, hence her great revenge. Shakespeare is very fond of scenes in which, as in the feigned revelation to Benedick and Beatrice, people watch a person who thinks himself alone, and mark the effect of their practices upon him. The scene with Malvolio is one of the most delightful of these, for, as happens often, his reflections shrewdly wound the listeners, who hear no good of themselves, as in the confessions of Parolles, and the interview of the "Duke of dark Sir To. O, for a stone-bow, to hit him in the eye! Mal. Calling my officers about me, in my branched velvet gown; having come from a day-bed, where I left Olivia sleeping, Sir To. Fire and brimstone! Mal. And then to have the humor of state; and after a demure travel of regard-telling them I know my place, as I would they should do theirs-to ask for my kinsman Toby, Sir To. Bolts and shackles! Fab. O, peace, peace, peace! now, now. Mal. Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make out for him: I frown the while; and perchance wind up my watch, or play with some rich jewel. Toby approaches; court'sies there to me,— Sir To. Shall this fellow live? Fab. Though our silence be drawn from us with cars, yet peace. Mal. I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar smile with an austere regard of control, Sir To. And does not Toby take you a blow o' the lips, then? Mal. Saying, "Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me on your niece, give me this prerogative of speech." Sir To. What, what? Mal. "You must amend your drunkenness." Fab. Nay, patience, or we break the sinews of our plot. have turned on Toby, as the other knight does on Captain McTurk; but as for Andrew, Sir Toby's criticism is perfectly correct. "Let me alone for swearing," he cries; but when it comes to the push, he is at his prayers rather than his oaths, and the girl who had never drawn a sword is well matched with "the most skilful, bloody, and fatal opposite that you could possibly have found in any part of Illyria." When Sir Andrew beats the wrong man, Sebastian instead of Viola, the stage, which is so rich in them, never exhibited better deserved coups de bâton, and Sir Andrew bethinks him of a truly modern expedient, his remedy at law. Meanwhile Malvolio gets a touch of the old cure for madmen, the dark cell, though even he, in the usual tolerant spirit, is to be "entreated to a peace.' V"Sir Toby and the lighter people," as Malvolio calls them, are perhaps the more essential element of Twelfth Night, and have stored the English language with effective quotations that can hardly die while we have affectioned asses among us. But, as is usual with Shakespeare, the element of poetry, "like violets hidden in the green of his luxuriant mirth, is almost as notable: We may not feel deeply interested in the amorous Duke or the amorous Olivia, but Shakespeare has placed his most dulcet music in their lips. Shakespeare never was afraid to begin a play with one of his rarest treasures, lest it might not be heard in the bustle as the audience settle into their seats. As the curtain rises he gives us of his best, he pours out his jewels in a prodigal fashion, "as rich men give, that care not for their gifts." Thus the very opening words of the Duke strike a rich note of love in idleness, of a pampered reflective passion: Duke. If music be the food of love, play on; O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou! Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy coup de foudre, the disguised Viola falls in love with the Duke, who loves Olivia and goes from him to woo her to him: "a barful strife! Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife." Equally promptly the too proud Olivia falls in love with the wooer: "Methinks I feel this youth's perfections, The appearance of the twin brother of Viola, Sebastian, wrecked with her, would at once let the audience see where the hapless passion of Olivia was to find a haven; while it is no less obvious that the Duke, with dramatic readiness, will console himself with the lovelorn Viola. The songs are among Shakespeare's sweetest imitations of these tunable melodies which "are old and plain," are "silly sooth, and dally with the innocence of love." And pretty are the arguments between Viola and the Duke, on that old theme of lovers, whether men or women be the more true and constant. Even thus they disputed long ago, Aucassin from the window of his prison cell, and Nicolette in the dark shadow of the buttress, withdrawn from the moonlit street of Beaucaire, in the Southern summer night. "Nay, fair sweet friend," saith Aucassin, "it may not be that thou lovest me more than I love thee. Woman may not love man as man loves woman, for a woman's love lies no deeper than the glance of her eye, and the blossom of her breast, and her foot's tiptoe; but man's love is in his heart planted, whence never can it issue forth and pass away." With Aucassin the Duke agrees: Can bide the beating of so strong a passion In faith, they are as true of heart as we. My father had a daughter lov'd a man, As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, I should your lordship. Duke. And what's her history? Viola. A blank, my lord. She never told her But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, With the promptitude of the proverbial And, with a green and yellow melancholy, |