Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Act 2 - Scene 3
OLIVIA’s house.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : Here comes the fool, i' faith.
Feste : How now, my hearts! did you never see the picture
[p]of 'we three'?
Sir Toby Belch : Welcome, ass. Now let's have a catch.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I
[p]had rather than
forty shillings I had such a leg,
[p]and so sweet a breath to sing, as
the fool has. In
[p]sooth, thou wast in very gracious fooling
last
[p]night, when thou spokest of Pigrogromitus, of the
[p]Vapians
passing the equinoctial of Queubus: 'twas
[p]very good, i' faith. I
sent thee sixpence for thy
[p]leman: hadst it?
Feste : I did impeticos thy gratillity; for Malvolio's nose
[p]is no
whipstock: my lady has a white hand, and the
[p]Myrmidons are no
bottle-ale houses.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : Excellent! why, this is the best fooling, when all
[p]is done. Now, a
song.
Sir Toby Belch : Come on; there is sixpence for you: let's have a song.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : There's a testril of me too: if one knight give a--
Feste : Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life?
Sir Toby Belch : A love-song, a love-song.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : Ay, ay: I care not for good life.
Feste : [Sings]
[p]O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
[p]O, stay and
hear; your true love's coming,
[p]That can sing both high and
low:
[p]Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
[p]Journeys end in lovers
meeting,
[p]Every wise man's son doth know.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : Excellent good, i' faith.
Sir Toby Belch : Good, good.
Feste : [Sings]
[p]What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
[p]Present mirth hath
present laughter;
[p]What's to come is still unsure:
[p]In delay there
lies no plenty;
[p]Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
[p]Youth's a
stuff will not endure.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight.
Sir Toby Belch : A contagious breath.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : Very sweet and contagious, i' faith.
Sir Toby Belch : To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion.
[p]But shall we make
the welkin dance indeed? shall we
[p]rouse the night-owl in a catch
that will draw three
[p]souls out of one weaver? shall we do that?
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : An you love me, let's do't: I am dog at a catch.
Feste : By'r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : Most certain. Let our catch be, 'Thou knave.'
Feste : 'Hold thy peace, thou knave,' knight? I shall be
[p]constrained in't
to call thee knave, knight.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : 'Tis not the first time I have constrained one to
[p]call me knave.
Begin, fool: it begins 'Hold thy peace.'
Feste : I shall never begin if I hold my peace.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : Good, i' faith. Come, begin.
Maria : What a caterwauling do you keep here! If my lady
[p]have not called up
her steward Malvolio and bid him
[p]turn you out of doors, never trust
me.
Sir Toby Belch : My lady's a Cataian, we are politicians, Malvolio's
[p]a Peg-a-Ramsey,
and 'Three merry men be we.' Am not
[p]I consanguineous? am I not of
her blood?
[p]Tillyvally. Lady!
[p][Sings]
[p]'There dwelt a man in
Babylon, lady, lady!'
Feste : Beshrew me, the knight's in admirable fooling.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : Ay, he does well enough if he be disposed, and so do
[p]I too: he does
it with a better grace, but I do it
[p]more natural.
Sir Toby Belch : [Sings] 'O, the twelfth day of December,'--
Maria : For the love o' God, peace!
Malvolio : My masters, are you mad? or what are you? Have ye
[p]no wit, manners,
nor honesty, but to gabble like
[p]tinkers at this time of night? Do
ye make an
[p]alehouse of my lady's house, that ye squeak out
your
[p]coziers' catches without any mitigation or remorse
[p]of
voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor
[p]time in you?
Sir Toby Belch : We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up!
Malvolio : Sir Toby, I must be round with you. My lady bade me
[p]tell you, that,
though she harbours you as her
[p]kinsman, she's nothing allied to
your disorders. If
[p]you can separate yourself and your misdemeanors,
you
[p]are welcome to the house; if not, an it would please
[p]you to
take leave of her, she is very willing to bid
[p]you farewell.
Sir Toby Belch : 'Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone.'
Maria : Nay, good Sir Toby.
Feste : 'His eyes do show his days are almost done.'
Malvolio : Is't even so?
Sir Toby Belch : 'But I will never die.'
Feste : Sir Toby, there you lie.
Malvolio : This is much credit to you.
Sir Toby Belch : 'Shall I bid him go?'
Feste : 'What an if you do?'
Sir Toby Belch : 'Shall I bid him go, and spare not?'
Feste : 'O no, no, no, no, you dare not.'
Sir Toby Belch : Out o' tune, sir: ye lie. Art any more than a
[p]steward? Dost thou
think, because thou art
[p]virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and
ale?
Feste : Yes, by Saint Anne, and ginger shall be hot i' the
[p]mouth too.
Sir Toby Belch : Thou'rt i' the right. Go, sir, rub your chain with
[p]crumbs. A stoup
of wine, Maria!
Malvolio : Mistress Mary, if you prized my lady's favour at any
[p]thing more
than contempt, you would not give means
[p]for this uncivil rule: she
shall know of it, by this hand.
Maria : Go shake your ears.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : 'Twere as good a deed as to drink when a man's
[p]a-hungry, to
challenge him the field, and then to
[p]break promise with him and
make a fool of him.
Sir Toby Belch : Do't, knight: I'll write thee a challenge: or I'll
[p]deliver thy
indignation to him by word of mouth.
Maria : Sweet Sir Toby, be patient for tonight: since the
[p]youth of the
count's was today with thy lady, she is
[p]much out of quiet. For
Monsieur Malvolio, let me
[p]alone with him: if I do not gull him into
a
[p]nayword, and make him a common recreation, do not
[p]think I have
wit enough to lie straight in my bed:
[p]I know I can do it.
Sir Toby Belch : Possess us, possess us; tell us something of him.
Maria : Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : O, if I thought that I'ld beat him like a dog!
Sir Toby Belch : What, for being a puritan? thy exquisite reason,
[p]dear knight?
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : I have no exquisite reason for't, but I have reason
[p]good enough.
Maria : The devil a puritan that he is, or any thing
[p]constantly, but a
time-pleaser; an affectioned ass,
[p]that cons state without book and
utters it by great
[p]swarths: the best persuaded of himself,
so
[p]crammed, as he thinks, with excellencies, that it is
[p]his
grounds of faith that all that look on him love
[p]him; and on that
vice in him will my revenge find
[p]notable cause to work.
Sir Toby Belch : What wilt thou do?
Maria : I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of
[p]love; wherein, by
the colour of his beard, the shape
[p]of his leg, the manner of his
gait, the expressure
[p]of his eye, forehead, and complexion, he shall
find
[p]himself most feelingly personated. I can write very
[p]like my
lady your niece: on a forgotten matter we
[p]can hardly make
distinction of our hands.
Sir Toby Belch : Excellent! I smell a device.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : I have't in my nose too.
Sir Toby Belch : He shall think, by the letters that thou wilt drop,
[p]that they come
from my niece, and that she's in
[p]love with him.
Maria : My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : And your horse now would make him an ass.
Maria : Ass, I doubt not.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : O, 'twill be admirable!
Maria : Sport royal, I warrant you: I know my physic will
[p]work with him. I
will plant you two, and let the
[p]fool make a third, where he shall
find the letter:
[p]observe his construction of it. For this night,
to
[p]bed, and dream on the event. Farewell.
Sir Toby Belch : Good night, Penthesilea.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : Before me, she's a good wench.
Sir Toby Belch : She's a beagle, true-bred, and one that adores me:
[p]what o' that?
Sir Toby Belch : Approach, Sir Andrew: not to be abed after
[p]midnight is to be up
betimes; and 'diluculo
[p]surgere,' thou know'st,--
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : Nay, my troth, I know not: but I know, to be up
[p]late is to be up
late.
Sir Toby Belch : A false conclusion: I hate it as an unfilled can.
[p]To be up after
midnight and to go to bed then, is
[p]early: so that to go to bed
after midnight is to go
[p]to bed betimes. Does not our life consist
of the
[p]four elements?
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : Faith, so they say; but I think it rather consists
[p]of eating and
drinking.
Sir Toby Belch : Thou'rt a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink.
[p]Marian, I say! a
stoup of wine!
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : I was adored once too.
Sir Toby Belch : Let's to bed, knight. Thou hadst need send for
[p]more money.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : If I cannot recover your niece, I am a foul way out.
Sir Toby Belch : Send for money, knight: if thou hast her not i'
[p]the end, call me
cut.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek : If I do not, never trust me, take it how you will.
Sir Toby Belch : Come, come, I'll go burn some sack; 'tis too late
[p]to go to bed now:
come, knight; come, knight.
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