From the Count Orsino, is it?

MAR. I know not, madam. 'Tis a fair young man, and well attended.

OLI. Who of my people hold him in delay?

MAR. Sir Toby, madam, your kinsman.

OLI. Fetch him off, I pray you, he speaks nothing but madman; fie on him! [Exit Maria.] Go you, Malvolio; if it be a suit from the Count, I am sick, or not at home – what you will, to dismiss it. (Exit Malvolio.) Now you see, sir, how your fooling grows old, and people dislike it.

CLO. Thou hast spoke for us, madonna, as if thy eldest son should be a fool; whose skull Jove cram with brains! for – here he comes –

 

Enter Sir Toby.

 

one of thy kin has a most weak pia mater.

OLI. By mine honor, half drunk. What is he at the gate, cousin?

SIR TO. A gentleman.

OLI. A gentleman? What gentleman?

SIR TO. 'Tis a gentleman here – a plague o' these pickle-herring! How now, sot?

CLO. Good Sir Toby!

OLI. Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this lethargy?

SIR TO. Lechery! I defy lechery. There's one at the gate.

OLI. Ay, marry, what is he?

SIR TO. Let him be the devil and he will, I care not; give me faith say I. Well, it's all one.

 

Exit.

 

OLI. What's a drunken man like, fool?

CLO. Like a drown'd man, a fool, and a madman. One draught above heat makes him a fool, the second mads him, and a third drowns him.

OLI. Go thou and seek the crowner, and let him sit o' my coz; for he's in the third degree of drink, he's drown'd. Go look after him.

CLO. He is but mad yet, madonna, and the fool shall look to the madman.

 

[Exit.]

 

Enter Malvolio.

 

MAL. Madam, yond young fellow swears he will speak with you. I told him you were sick; he takes on him to understand so much, and therefore comes to speak with you. I told him you were asleep; he seems to have a foreknowledge of that too, and therefore comes to speak with you. What is to be said to him, lady? he's fortified against any denial.

OLI.