Twelfth Night | Act III, Scene II

Scene II

Olivia's house.

[Enter Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Fabian.]

SIR ANDREW:
No, faith, I'll not stay a jot longer.
SIR TOBY:
Thy reason, dear venom; give thy reason.
FABIAN:
You must needs yield your reason, Sir Andrew.
SIR ANDREW:
Marry, I saw your niece do more favours to the
Count's serving-man than ever she bestowed upon me; I(5)
saw't i' the orchard.
SIR TOBY:
Did she see thee the while, old boy? tell me that.
SIR ANDREW:
As plain as I see you now.
FABIAN:
This was a great argument of love in her toward you.
SIR ANDREW:
'Slight, will you make an ass o' me?(10)
FABIAN:
I will prove it legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of judgment
and reason.
SIR TOBY:
And they have been grand-jurymen since before Noah
was a sailor.
FABIAN:
She did show favour to the youth in your sight only to(15)
exasperate you, to awake your dormouse valour, to put fire
in your heart and brimstone in your liver. You should then
have accosted her; and with some excellent jests, fire-new
from the mint, you should have banged the youth into
dumbness. This was looked for at your hand, and this(20)
was balked: the double gilt of this opportunity you let
time wash off, and you are now sailed into the north of
my lady's opinion; where you will hang like an icicle on
a Dutchman's beard, unless you do redeem it by some
laudable attempt either of valour or policy.(25)
SIR ANDREW:
And't be any way, it must be with valour; for
policy I hate: I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician.
SIR TOBY:
Why, then, build me thy fortunes upon the basis of
valour. Challenge me the Count's youth to fight with him;
hurt him in eleven places; my niece shall take note of it;(30)
and assure thyself, there is no love-broker in the world
can more prevail in man's commendation with woman
than report of valour.
FABIAN:
There is no way but this, Sir Andrew.
SIR ANDREW:
Will either of you bear me a challenge to him?(35)
SIR TOBY:
Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief;
it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and full of
invention: taunt him with the licence of ink: if thou
‘thou'st’ him some thrice, it shall not be amiss; and as
many lies as will lie in thy sheet of paper, although the(40)
sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in England,
set 'em down: go about it. Let there be gall enough in
thy ink, though thou write with a goose-pen, no matter.
About it.
SIR ANDREW:
Where shall I find you?(45)
SIR TOBY:
We'll call thee at the cubiculo. Go.

[Exit Sir Andrew.]

FABIAN:
This is a dear manakin to you, Sir Toby.
SIR TOBY:
I have been dear to him, lad, some two thousand strong, or so.
FABIAN:
We shall have a rare letter from him: but you'll not(50)
deliver't.
SIR TOBY:
Never trust me, then; and by all means stir on the
youth to an answer. I think oxen and wainropes cannot
hale them together. For Andrew, if he were opened, and
you find so much blood in his liver as will clog the foot(55)
of a flea, I'll eat the rest of the anatomy.
FABIAN:
And his opposite, the youth, bears in his visage no
great presage of cruelty.

[Enter Maria.]

SIR TOBY:
Look, where the youngest wren of nine comes.
MARIA:
If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourselves into(60)
stitches, follow me. Yond gull Malvolio is turned heathen,
a very renegado; for there is no Christian, that means to be
saved by believing rightly, can ever believe such impossible
passages of grossness. He's in yellow stockings.
SIR TOBY:
And cross-gartered?(65)
MARIA:
Most villainously; like a pedant that keeps a school
i' the church. I have dogged him, like his murderer. He does
obey every point of the letter that I dropped to betray him:
he does smile his face into more lines than is in the new
map with the augmentation of the Indies: you have not seen(70)
such a thing as 'tis; I can hardly forbear hurling things at
him. I know my lady will strike him: if she do, he'll smile
and take't for a great favour.
SIR TOBY:
Come, bring us, bring us where he is.

[Exeunt.]

  • venomous one
  • gave
  • By God's light
  • to frustrate or annoy
  • quiet bravery
  • beaten
  • neglected
  • a reference to the Dutch explorer Willem Barents (1550-1597), who made three expeditions to the Arctic; on his third voyage, which took place just a few years before Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night, Barents and his crew became trapped in the ice and were forced to spend the freezing winter on an island in the Arctic Ocean. Barents died on the voyage home.
  • praiseworthy, admirable
  • strategy
  • would just as much like to
  • Sir Andrew is referring to the followers of the preacher Robert Browne (1550-1633), who attacked the Church of England and advocated separation from it. Since Brownists were considered heretics, Aguecheek apparently means that he hates policy so much that he would rather be anything (even a heretic) than a politician.
  • to triumph or succeed
  • harsh
  • creativity
  • freedom
  • The term thou was used when a person addressed inferiors, close friends, relatives, or children. It was very impolite to use thou when addressing a stranger.
  • The Great Bed of Ware was an impressive carved oak bed built in Ware, England, in 1590. The bed was so large it could sleep fifteen people. It is now housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
  • Belch is punning on the word gall. Gall was a substance used in the making of ink. However, the word gall also means bitterness or disagreeableness. Sir Toby makes another joke on the term goose-pen. A goose-pen was a quill used for writing. However, Toby uses the term to insult Andrew—the goose was symbolic of foolishness.
  • go about it
  • bedchamber
  • little man
  • I have cost him a lot of money
  • wagon ropes
  • haul
  • The liver was thought to be the seat of courage, among other things. Sir Toby is using metaphorical language to describe Aguecheek's lack of courage.
  • prediction
  • another reference to Maria's small stature; it was believed that birds usually laid nine eggs, and that the ninth would be the smallest chick
  • The spleen was associated with many things, one of which was the sudden impulse to laugh.
  • That fool
  • renegade
  • stupidity
  • wretchedly; in a vile way
  • schoolteacher
  • a reference to a new map of the world drawn in 1600 that contained additional information about the East Indies and North America
  • an addition, extension
  • restrain myself from

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