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A Street. | |
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Enter VIOLA; MALVOLIO following. | |
| Mal. Were not you even now with the Countess Olivia? | |
| Vio. Even now, sir: on a moderate pace I have since arrived but hither. | |
| Mal. She returns this ring to you, sir: you might have saved me my pains, to have taken it away yourself. She adds, moreover, that you should put your lord into a desperate assurance she will none of him. And one thing more; that you be never so hardy to come again in his affairs, unless it be to report your lord’s taking of this. Receive it so. | 5 |
| Vio. She took the ring of me; I’ll none of it. | |
| Mal. Come, sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is it should be so returned: if it be worth stooping for, there it lies in your eye; if not, be it his that finds it. [Exit. | |
| Vio. I left no ring with her: what means this lady? | |
| Fortune forbid my outside have not charm’d her! | |
| She made good view of me; indeed, so much, | 10 |
| That sure methought her eyes had lost her tongue, | |
| For she did speak in starts distractedly. | |
| She loves me, sure; the cunning of her passion | |
| Invites me in this churlish messenger. | |
| None of my lord’s ring! why, he sent her none. | 15 |
| I am the man: if it be so, as ’tis, | |
| Poor lady, she were better love a dream. | |
| Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness, | |
| Wherein the pregnant enemy does much. | |
| How easy is it for the proper-false | 20 |
| In women’s waxen hearts to set their forms! | |
| Alas! our frailty is the cause, not we! | |
| For such as we are made of, such we be. | |
| How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly; | |
| And I, poor monster, fond as much on him; | 25 |
| And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me. | |
| What will become of this? As I am man, | |
| My state is desperate for my master’s love; | |
| As I am woman,—now alas the day!— | |
| What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe! | 30 |
| O time! thou must untangle this, not I; | |
| It is too hard a knot for me to untie. [Exit. | |
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