William Shakespeare: Twelfth Night

ACT I. 5. SCENE V. A Room in OLIVIA'S House. (continued)

VIOLA.
Excellently done, if God did all.

OLIVIA.
'Tis in grain, sir; 'twill endure wind and weather.

VIOLA.
'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on:
Lady, you are the cruel'st she alive,
If you will lead these graces to the grave,
And leave the world no copy.

OLIVIA.
O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted; I will give out
divers schedules of my beauty. It shall be inventoried; and every
particle and utensil labelled to my will: as, item, two lips
indifferent red; item, two grey eyes with lids to them; item, one
neck, one chin, and so forth. Were you sent hither to praise me?

VIOLA.
I see you what you are: you are too proud;
But, if you were the devil, you are fair.
My lord and master loves you. O, such love
Could be but recompens'd though you were crown'd
The nonpareil of beauty!

OLIVIA.
How does he love me?

VIOLA.
With adorations, fertile tears,
With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.

OLIVIA.
Your lord does know my mind; I cannot love him:
Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble,
Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth;
In voices well divulged, free, learn'd, and valiant,
And, in dimension and the shape of nature,
A gracious person: but yet I cannot love him;
He might have took his answer long ago.

VIOLA.
If I did love you in my master's flame,
With such a suffering, such a deadly life,
In your denial I would find no sense,
I would not understand it.

OLIVIA.
Why, what would you?

VIOLA.
Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons of contemned love,
And sing them loud, even in the dead of night;
Holla your name to the reverberate hills,
And make the babbling gossip of the air
Cry out Olivia! O, you should not rest
Between the elements of air and earth,
But you should pity me.