Αποσπάσματα από το «Twelfth Night»

She never told her love,But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,And with a green and yellow melancholyShe sat like patience on a monument,Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?We men may say more, swear more: but indeedOur shows are more than will; for still we proveMuch in our vows, but little in our love.

Make me a willow cabin at your gate,And call upon my soul within the house;Write loyal cantons of contemned loveAnd sing them loud even in the dead of night;Halloo your name to the reverberate hillsAnd make the babbling gossip of the airCry out “Olivia!” O, You should not restBetween the elements of air and earth,But you should pity me!

O, what a deal of scorn looks beautifulIn the contempt and anger of his lip!A murderous guilt shows not itself more soonThan love that would seem hid: love’s night is noon.Cesario, by the roses of the spring,By maidhood, honour, truth and every thing,I love thee so, that, maugre all thy pride,Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide.Do not extort thy reasons from this clause,For that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause;But rather reason thus with reason fetter,Love sought is good, but given unsought better.

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;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!O time! thou must untangle this, not I;It is too hard a knot for me to untie!

Come away, come away, death,And in sad cypress let me be laid;Fly away, fly away, breath;I am slain by a fair cruel maid.My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,O, prepare it!My part of death, no one so trueDid share it.

Now, the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal. I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business might be every thing and their intent everywhere; for that’s it that always makes a good voyage of nothing.

O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite. To be generous, guiltless and of free disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon-bullets: there is no slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail; nor no railing in a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove.

Wit, an’t be thy will, put me into good fooling! Those wits, that think they have thee, do very oft prove fools; and I, that am sure I lack thee, may pass for a wise man: for what says Quinapalus? “Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.”

Marry, sir, they praise me and make an ass of me; now my foes tell me plainly I am an ass: so that by my foes, sir, I profit in the knowledge of myself, and by my friends, I am abused: so that, conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make your two affirmatives, why then, the worse for my friends and the better for my foes.