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Twelfth Night: Act III, Scene 2

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Twelfth Night
Act III, Scene 2

A room in Olivia’s house.

Costume sketch for Maria

Costume sketch for Maria

Henry Hawes Craven, circa 1900

  1. Enter Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Fabian.

Sir Andrew

1
  1. No, faith, I’ll not stay a jot longer.

Sir Toby

2
  1. Thy reason, dear venom, give thy reason.

Fabian

3
  1. You must needs yield your reason, Sir Andrew.

Sir Andrew

4 - 6
  1. Marry, I saw your niece do more favors to the Count’s
  2. servingman than ever she bestow’d upon me. I saw’t i’ th’
  3. orchard.

Sir Toby

7
  1. Did she see thee the while, old boy? Tell me that.

Sir Andrew

8
  1. As plain as I see you now.

Fabian

9
  1. This was a great argument of love in her toward you.

Sir Andrew

10
  1. ’Slight! Will you make an ass o’ me?

Fabian

11 - 12
  1. I will prove it legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of judgment
  2. and reason.

Sir Toby

13 - 14
  1. And they have been grand-jurymen since before Noah was a
  2. sailor.

Fabian

15 - 25
  1. She did show favor to the youth in your sight only to
  2. exasperate you, to awake your dormouse valor, to put fire in
  3. your heart, and brimstone in your liver. You should then
  4. have accosted her, and with some excellent jests, fire-new
  5. from the mint, you should have bang’d the youth into
  6. dumbness. This was look’d for at your hand, and this was
  7. balk’d. The double gilt of this opportunity you let time
  8. wash off, and you are now sail’d into the north of my lady’s
  9. opinion, where you will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman’s
  10. beard, unless you do redeem it by some laudable attempt
  11. either of valor or policy.

Sir Andrew

26 - 27
  1. And’t be any way, it must be with valor, for policy I hate.
  2. I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician.

Sir Toby

28 - 33
  1. Why then build me thy fortunes upon the basis of valor.
  2. Challenge me the Count’s youth to fight with him, hurt him
  3. in eleven places—my niece shall take note of it, and assure
  4. thyself, there is no love-broker in the world can more
  5. prevail in man’s commendation with woman than report of
  6. valor.

Fabian

34
  1. There is no way but this, Sir Andrew.

Sir Andrew

35
  1. Will either of you bear me a challenge to him?

Sir Toby

36 - 43
  1. Go, write it in a martial hand, be curst and brief. It is no
  2. matter how witty, so it be eloquent and full of invention.
  3. Taunt him with the license of ink. If thou thou’st him some
  4. thrice, it shall not be amiss; and as many lies as will lie
  5. in thy sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough
  6. for the bed of Ware in England, set ’em down. Go about it.
  7. Let there be gall enough in thy ink, though thou write with
  8. a goose-pen, no matter. About it.

Sir Andrew

44
  1. Where shall I find you?

Sir Toby

45
  1. We’ll call thee at the cubiculo. Go.
  1. Exit Sir Andrew.

Fabian

46
  1. This is a dear manikin to you, Sir Toby.

Sir Toby

47 - 48
  1. I have been dear to him, lad, some two thousand strong, or
  2. so.

Fabian

49 - 50
  1. We shall have a rare letter from him; but you’ll not
  2. deliver’t?

Sir Toby

51 - 55
  1. Never trust me then; and by all means stir on the youth to
  2. an answer. I think oxen and wain-ropes cannot hale them
  3. together. For Andrew, if he were open’d and you find so much
  4. blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I’ll eat
  5. the rest of th’ anatomy.

Fabian

56 - 57
  1. And his opposite, the youth, bears in his visage no great
  2. presage of cruelty.
  1. Enter Maria.

Sir Toby

58
  1. Look where the youngest wren of nine comes.

Maria

59 - 63
  1. If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourselves into
  2. stitches, follow me. Yond gull Malvolio is turn’d heathen, a
  3. very renegado; for there is no Christian that means to be
  4. sav’d by believing rightly can ever believe such impossible
  5. passages of grossness. He’s in yellow stockings.

Sir Toby

64
  1. And cross-garter’d?

Maria

65 - 72
  1. Most villainously; like a pedant that keeps a school i’ th’
  2. church. I have dogg’d him like his murderer. He does obey
  3. every point of the letter that I dropp’d to betray him. He
  4. does smile his face into more lines than is in the new map,
  5. with the augmentation of the Indies; you have not seen such
  6. a thing as ’tis. I can hardly forbear hurling things at him.
  7. I know my lady will strike him. If she do, he’ll smile, and
  8. take’t for a great favor.

Sir Toby

73
  1. Come bring us, bring us where he is.
  1. Exeunt omnes.
James Lewis as Sir Toby Belch

James Lewis as Sir Toby Belch

New York Times, 1916

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