SIR TOBY.
Will you help? An ass-head, and a coxcomb, and a knave, a thin-faced
knave, a gull?
OLIVIA.
Get him to bed, and let his hurt be looked to.
[_Exeunt Clown, Fabian, Sir Toby and Sir Andrew._]
Enter Sebastian.
SEBASTIAN.
I am sorry, madam, I have hurt your kinsman;
But had it been the brother of my blood,
I must have done no less with wit and safety.
You throw a strange regard upon me, and by that
I do perceive it hath offended you.
Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vows
We made each other but so late ago.
DUKE.
One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons!
A natural perspective, that is, and is not!
SEBASTIAN.
Antonio, O my dear Antonio!
How have the hours rack’d and tortur’d me
Since I have lost thee.
ANTONIO.
Sebastian are you?
SEBASTIAN.
Fear’st thou that, Antonio?
ANTONIO.
How have you made division of yourself?
An apple cleft in two is not more twin
Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?
OLIVIA.
Most wonderful!
SEBASTIAN.
Do I stand there? I never had a brother:
Nor can there be that deity in my nature
Of here and everywhere. I had a sister,
Whom the blind waves and surges have devoured.
Of charity, what kin are you to me?
What countryman? What name? What parentage?
VIOLA.
Of Messaline: Sebastian was my father;
Such a Sebastian was my brother too:
So went he suited to his watery tomb.
If spirits can assume both form and suit,
You come to fright us.
SEBASTIAN.
A spirit I am indeed,
But am in that dimension grossly clad,
Which from the womb I did participate.
Were you a woman, as the rest goes even,
I should my tears let fall upon your cheek,
And say, ‘Thrice welcome, drowned Viola.’
VIOLA.
My father had a mole upon his brow.
SEBASTIAN.
And so had mine.
VIOLA.
And died that day when Viola from her birth
Had numbered thirteen years.
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.
SEBASTIAN.
[_To Olivia._] So comes it, lady, you have been mistook.
But nature to her bias drew in that.
You would have been contracted to a maid;
Nor are you therein, by my life, deceived:
You are betroth’d both to a maid and man.
DUKE.
Be not amazed; right noble is his blood.
If this be so, as yet the glass seems true,
I shall have share in this most happy wreck.
[_To Viola._] Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times
Thou never shouldst love woman like to me.
VIOLA.
And all those sayings will I over-swear,
And all those swearings keep as true in soul
As doth that orbed continent the fire
That severs day from night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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