_Vio._ With adorations, with fertile tears,
With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.
_Oli._ Your lord does know my mind, I cannot love him:
He might have took his answer long ago.
_Vio._ If I did love you in my master's flame,
With such a suffering, such a deadly life,
In your denial I would find no sense,
I would not understand it.
_Oli._ Why, what would you?
_Vio._ Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons of contemned love,
And sing them loud even in the dead of night;
Holla your name to the reverberate hills,
And make the babbling gossip of the air
Cry out, Olivia! O, you should not rest
Between the elements of air and earth,
But you should pity me.
_Oli._ You might do much:--What is your parentage?
_Vio._ Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:
I am a gentleman.
_Oli._ Get you to your lord;
I cannot love him: let him send no more;
Unless, perchance, you come to me again,
To tell me how he takes it. Fare you well:
I thank you for your pains:--Spend this for me.
_Vio._ I am no fee'd 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_ VIOLA.
_Oli._ 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!--
_Enter_ MALVOLIO.
_Mal._ Here, madam, at your service.
_Oli._ Run after that same peevish messenger,
Orsino'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.
_Mal._ Madam, I will. [_Exit_ MALVOLIO.
_Oli._ 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._
SCENE VI.
_A Street before_ OLIVIA'S _House_.
_Enter_ VIOLA, _and_ MALVOLIO _following_.
_Mal._ Sir, sir,--young gentleman: Were not you even now with the
Countess Olivia?
_Vio._ Even now, sir.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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