Re-enter FABIAN, with MALVOLIO. Duke. Is this the madman? Mal. Lady, you have. Pray you, peruse that letter: You must not now deny it is your hand, Write from it, if you can, in hand, or phrase; Or say, 'tis not your seal, nor your invention: You can say none of this. Well, grant it then, And tell me, in the modesty of honour, Why you have given me such clear lights of favour, Oli. Alas! Malvolio, this is not my writing, First told me thou wast mad; then cam'st in smiling, Fab. Good madam, hear me speak; And let no quarrel, nor no brawl to come, 4- geck,] A fool; from the Saxon geac, a cuckoo, and figuratively a fool. The word occurs again in the same sense in "Cymbeline," A. v. sc. 4. Taint the condition of this present hour, Which I have wonder'd at. In hope it shall not, That have on both sides past. Oli. Alas, poor fool, how have they baffled thee! Clo. Why, "some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrown 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 such a barren rascal? an you smile not, he's gagg'd:" And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges. Mal. I'll be reveng'd on the whole pack of you. Oli. He hath been most notoriously abus'd. Of our dear souls:-mean time, sweet sister, 5 [Exit. [Exeunt. at sir Toby's great IMPORTANCE ;] i.e. importunity, in the same way that in Vol. ii. p. 169. 203. and 348, " important means importunate. 6 greatness THROWN upon them.] The words in the letter are, "greatness thrust upon them," according to Malvolio's repetition. See P. 370. CLOWN SINGS. When that I was and a little tiny boy, For the rain it raineth every day. But when I came to man's estate, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, But when I came, alas! to wive, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, A great while ago the world begun, And we'll strive to please you every day. 7 But when I came unto my bed,] The folios read "beds," and in the corresponding line "heads." |