Page 543 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

MALVOLIO

Were not you ev’n now with the Countess Olivia?

VIOLA
Even now, sir; on a moderate pace, I have since arrived but hither.

MALVOLIO
She returns this ring to you, sir: you might [5] 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 [10] this. Receive it so.

VIOLA
She took the ring of me, I’ll none of it.

MALVOLIO
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

[15] that finds it.
Exit.

VIOLA
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,
That methought her eyes had lost her tongue, [20]
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.
I am the man: if it be so, as ’tis, [25]
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
In women’s waxen hearts to set their forms! [30]

Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we,