Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will

1 Enter Sir Toby and Maria.
2 SIR TOBY.
3 What a plague means my niece to take the death of her brother thus? I
4 am sure care’s an enemy to life.
5 MARIA.
6 By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o’ nights; your cousin,
7 my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours.
8 SIR TOBY.
9 Why, let her except, before excepted.
10 MARIA.
11 Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits of order.
12 SIR TOBY.
13 Confine? I’ll confine myself no finer than I am. These clothes are good
14 enough to drink in, and so be these boots too; and they be not, let
15 them hang themselves in their own straps.
16 MARIA.
17 That quaffing and drinking will undo you: I heard my lady talk of it
18 yesterday; and of a foolish knight that you brought in one night here
19 to be her wooer.
20 SIR TOBY.
21 Who? Sir Andrew Aguecheek?
22 MARIA.
23 Ay, he.
24 SIR TOBY.
25 He’s as tall a man as any’s in Illyria.
26 MARIA.
27 What’s that to th’ purpose?
28 SIR TOBY.
29 Why, he has three thousand ducats a year.
30 MARIA.
31 Ay, but he’ll have but a year in all these ducats. He’s a very fool,
32 and a prodigal.
33 SIR TOBY.
34 Fie, that you’ll say so! he plays o’ the viol-de-gamboys, and speaks
35 three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the
36 good gifts of nature.
37 MARIA.
38 He hath indeed, almost natural: for, besides that he’s a fool, he’s a
39 great quarreller; and, but that he hath the gift of a coward to allay
40 the gust he hath in quarrelling, ’tis thought among the prudent he
41 would quickly have the gift of a grave.
42 SIR TOBY.
43 By this hand, they are scoundrels and substractors that say so of him.
44 Who are they?
45 MARIA.
46 They that add, moreover, he’s drunk nightly in your company.
47 SIR TOBY.
48 With drinking healths to my niece; I’ll drink to her as long as there
49 is a passage in my throat, and drink in Illyria. He’s a coward and a
50 coystril that will not drink to my niece till his brains turn o’ the
51 toe like a parish top. What, wench! _Castiliano vulgo:_ for here comes
52 Sir Andrew Agueface.
53 Enter Sir Andrew.
54 AGUECHEEK.
55 Sir Toby Belch! How now, Sir Toby Belch?
56 SIR TOBY.
57 Sweet Sir Andrew!
58 SIR ANDREW.
59 Bless you, fair shrew.
60 MARIA.
61 And you too, sir.
62 SIR TOBY.
63 Accost, Sir Andrew, accost.
64 SIR ANDREW.
65 What’s that?
66 SIR TOBY.
67 My niece’s chamber-maid.
68 SIR ANDREW.
69 Good Mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance.
70 MARIA.
71 My name is Mary, sir.
72 SIR ANDREW.
73 Good Mistress Mary Accost,—
74 SIR TOBY.
75 You mistake, knight: accost is front her, board her, woo her, assail
76 her.
77 SIR ANDREW.
78 By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company. Is that the
79 meaning of accost?
80 MARIA.
81 Fare you well, gentlemen.
82 SIR TOBY.
83 And thou let part so, Sir Andrew, would thou mightst never draw sword
84 again.
85 SIR ANDREW.
86 And you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw sword again. Fair
87 lady, do you think you have fools in hand?
88 MARIA.
89 Sir, I have not you by the hand.
90 SIR ANDREW.
91 Marry, but you shall have, and here’s my hand.
92 MARIA.
93 Now, sir, thought is free. I pray you, bring your hand to th’ buttery
94 bar and let it drink.
95 SIR ANDREW.
96 Wherefore, sweetheart? What’s your metaphor?
97 MARIA.
98 It’s dry, sir.
99 SIR ANDREW.
100 Why, I think so; I am not such an ass but I can keep my hand dry. But
101 what’s your jest?
102 MARIA.
103 A dry jest, sir.
104 SIR ANDREW.
105 Are you full of them?
106 MARIA.
107 Ay, sir, I have them at my fingers’ ends: marry, now I let go your
108 hand, I am barren.
109 [_Exit Maria._]
110 SIR TOBY.
111 O knight, thou lack’st a cup of canary: When did I see thee so put
112 down?
113 SIR ANDREW.
114 Never in your life, I think, unless you see canary put me down.
115 Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary
116 man has; but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm
117 to my wit.
118 SIR TOBY.
119 No question.
120 SIR ANDREW.
121 And I thought that, I’d forswear it. I’ll ride home tomorrow, Sir Toby.
122 SIR TOBY.
123 _Pourquoy_, my dear knight?
124 SIR ANDREW.
125 What is _pourquoy?_ Do, or not do? I would I had bestowed that time in
126 the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing, and bear-baiting. O, had I
127 but followed the arts!
128 SIR TOBY.
129 Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair.
130 SIR ANDREW.
131 Why, would that have mended my hair?
132 SIR TOBY.
133 Past question; for thou seest it will not curl by nature.
134 SIR ANDREW.
135 But it becomes me well enough, does’t not?
136 SIR TOBY.
137 Excellent, it hangs like flax on a distaff; and I hope to see a
138 huswife take thee between her legs, and spin it off.
139 SIR ANDREW.
140 Faith, I’ll home tomorrow, Sir Toby; your niece will not be seen, or if
141 she be, it’s four to one she’ll none of me; the Count himself here hard
142 by woos her.
143 SIR TOBY.
144 She’ll none o’ the Count; she’ll not match above her degree, neither in
145 estate, years, nor wit; I have heard her swear’t. Tut, there’s life
146 in’t, man.
147 SIR ANDREW.
148 I’ll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o’ the strangest mind i’ the
149 world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether.
150 SIR TOBY.
151 Art thou good at these kick-shawses, knight?
152 SIR ANDREW.
153 As any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be, under the degree of my
154 betters; and yet I will not compare with an old man.
155 SIR TOBY.
156 What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight?
157 SIR ANDREW.
158 Faith, I can cut a caper.
159 SIR TOBY.
160 And I can cut the mutton to’t.
161 SIR ANDREW.
162 And I think I have the back-trick simply as strong as any man in
163 Illyria.
164 SIR TOBY.
165 Wherefore are these things hid? Wherefore have these gifts a curtain
166 before ’em? Are they like to take dust, like Mistress Mall’s picture?
167 Why dost thou not go to church in a galliard, and come home in a
168 coranto? My very walk should be a jig; I would not so much as make
169 water but in a sink-a-pace. What dost thou mean? Is it a world to hide
170 virtues in? I did think, by the excellent constitution of thy leg, it
171 was formed under the star of a galliard.
172 SIR ANDREW.
173 Ay, ’tis strong, and it does indifferent well in a dam’d-colour’d
174 stock. Shall we set about some revels?
175 SIR TOBY.
176 What shall we do else? Were we not born under Taurus?
177 SIR ANDREW.
178 Taurus? That’s sides and heart.
179 SIR TOBY.
180 No, sir, it is legs and thighs. Let me see thee caper. Ha, higher: ha,
181 ha, excellent!
182 [_Exeunt._]