Chapter: SCENE IV.


                     _A Room in_ OLIVIA'S _House_.

               _Enter_ SIR ANDREW, FABIAN, _and_ SIR TOBY.

    _Sir And._ No, faith, I'll not stay a jot longer.

    _Sir To._ Thy reason, dear venom, give thy reason.

    _Fab._ You must needs yield your reason, Sir Andrew.

    _Sir And._ Marry, I saw your niece do more favours to the Count's
serving man, than ever she bestowed upon me; I saw't this moment in the
garden.

    _Sir To._ Did she see thee the while, old boy? tell me that.

    _Sir And._ As plain as I see you now.

    _Fab._ This was a great argument of love in her toward you.

    _Sir And._ 'Slight! will you make an ass o' me?

    _Fab._ I will prove it legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of judgment
and reason.

    _Sir To._ And they have been grand jury-men, since before Noah was a
sailor.

    _Fab._ She did show favour to the youth in your sight, only to
exasperate you, to awake your dormouse valour, to put fire in your
heart, and brimstone in your liver: you should then have accosted her;
and with some excellent jests, fire-new from the mint, you should have
bang'd the youth into dumbness. This was look'd for at your hand, and
this was baulk'd: the double gilt of this opportunity you let time wash
off, and you are now sailed into the north of my lady's opinion: where
you will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman's beard, unless you do redeem
it by some laudable attempt, either of valour or policy.

    _Sir And._ An it be any way, it must be with valour; for policy I
hate.

    _Sir To._ Why, then, build me thy fortunes upon the basis of valour.
Challenge me the Count's youth to fight with him; hurt him in eleven
places; my niece shall take note of it: and assure thyself, there is no
love-broker in the world can more prevail in man's commendation with
woman, than report of valour.

    _Fab._ There is no way but this, Sir Andrew.

    _Sir And._ Will either of you bear me a challenge to him?

    _Sir To._ Go write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief; it is
no matter how witty, so it be eloquent, and full of invention: taunt him
with the license of ink: if thou _thou'st_ him some thrice, it shall not
be amiss; and as many _lies_ as will lie in thy sheet of paper; although
the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in England, set 'em down;
go, about it. Let there be gall enough in thy ink; though thou write
with a goose-pen, no matter: About it.

    _Sir And._ Where shall I find you?

    _Sir To._ We'll call thee at the _cubiculo:_ Go.

                                                     [_Exit_ SIR ANDREW.

    _Fab._ This is a dear manakin to you, Sir Toby.

    _Sir To._ I have been dear to him, lad; some two thousand strong, or
so.

    _Fab._ We shall have a rare letter from him: but you'll not deliver
it?

    _Sir To._ Never trust me then; and by all means stir on the youth to
an answer. I think, oxen and wainropes cannot hale them together. For
Andrew, if he were opened, and you find so much blood in his liver as
will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the rest of the anatomy.

    _Fab._ And his opposite, the youth, bears in his visage no great
presage of cruelty.

    _Sir To._ Look, where the youngest wren of nine comes.

                             _Enter_ MARIA.

    _Mar._ If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourselves into
stitches, follow me: yon gull Malvolio is turned heathen, a very
renegado; for there is no Christian, that means to be saved by believing
rightly, can ever believe such impossible passages of grossness. He's in
yellow stockings.

    _Sir To._ And cross-gartered?

    _Mar._ Most villainously; like a pedant that keeps a school i' the
church.--I have dogg'd him, like his murderer: He does obey every point
of the letter that I dropped to betray him. He does smile his face into
more lines, than are in a map: you have not seen such a thing as 'tis.

    _Sir To._ Come, bring us, bring us where he is.

                                                             [_Exeunt._

 Olivia, who sent a servant after the departing Cesario to persuade him to return, tries to figure out how to woo him to love her. Feeling suddenly melancholy, Olivia sends for Malvolio because she wants someone solemn and sad to help with her strategy. But when Malvolio appears, he behaves very strangely. He wears crossed garters and yellow stockings, smiles foolishly, and continually quotes strange phrases that Olivia does not recognize. Malvolio, we quickly realize, is quoting passages from the letter that he believes Olivia wrote to him. He suddenly exclaims things like "Remember who commended thy yellow stockings . . . And wished to see thee cross-gartered" . Olivia, of course, knows nothing about the letter and thinks Malvolio has gone mad. When the news arrives that Cesario has returned, she assigns Maria and Sir Toby to take care of Malvolio, and goes off to see Cesario. Malvolio is convinced--in spite of Olivia's apparent bewilderment--that he is correct in his surmises and that Olivia is really in love with him. But when Sir Toby, Fabian, and Maria come to see him, they pretend to be certain that he is possessed by the devil. Malvolio, remembering the letter's advice that he speak scornfully to servants and to Sir Toby, sneers at them and stalks out. Delighted by the turn the events have taken, they decide together to lock Malvolio into a dark room--a frequent treatment for people thought to be possessed by devils or madmen. Sir Toby realizes that since Olivia already thinks Malvolio is crazy, he can do whatever he wants to the unfortunate steward. Sir Andrew enters with a letter challenging the young Cesario to a duel. Sir Toby privately decides that he will not deliver the silly letter but, instead, will walk back and forth between Sir Andrew and Cesario. He will tell each that the other is fearsome and out for the other's blood. That, he decides, should make for a very funny duel. Cesario comes back out of the house, accompanied by Olivia, who insists that Cesario take a locket with her picture as a love token. She bids he come again the next day, and then goes back inside. Sir Toby approaches Cesario, delivering Sir Andrew's challenge and telling him what a fierce fighter Sir Andrew is. Cesario says that he does not wish to fight and prepares to leave. Sir Toby then returns to Sir Andrew and tells his friend that Cesario is a tremendous swordsman, anxious for a fight. When Andrew and Cesario cross paths, though, Sir Toby tells each of them that the other has promised not to draw blood in the duel. Reluctantly, the two draw their swords and prepare for a fight. Suddenly, Antonio enters. He sees Cesario and mistakes him for his beloved Sebastian, and tells Sir Andrew that he, Antonio, will fight Sir Andrew in Sebastian's place. Several Illyrian officers burst onto the scene. They have recognized Antonio--a wanted man in Illyria--and arrest him. Antonio, realizing that he will need to pay a bail bond in order to free himself, asks Cesario, whom he still believes is Sebastian, to return his purse . Viola, however, has no idea who Antonio is. Antonio thinks that Sebastian is betraying him by pretending not to know him, and he is heartbroken. Deeply shocked and hurt, he rebukes Sebastian. The officers, thinking Antonio is insane, take him away. Viola is left with a sudden feeling of hope: Antonio's mention of someone named "Sebastian" gives her some hope that her own brother--whom she has thought dead--is in fact alive and nearby. Viola runs off to look for him, leaving Sir Andrew and Sir Toby very confused.

