midnight, is to be up betimes; and diluculo surgere,
thou know’st –
SIR ANDREW Nay, by my troth, I know not: but I know,
to be up late, is to be up late.
5
SIR TOBY A false conclusion: I hate it as an unfilled can.
To be up after midnight, and to go to bed then, is
early: so that to go to bed after midnight, is to go to
bed betimes. Does not our life consist of the four
elements?
10
SIR ANDREW Faith, so they say, but I think it rather
consists of eating and drinking.
SIR TOBY Th’art a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink.
Marian, I say! a stoup of wine!
Enter CLOWN.
SIR ANDREW Here comes the fool, i’faith.
15
CLOWN How now, my hearts? Did you never see the
picture of ‘we three’?
SIR TOBY Welcome, ass. Now let’s have a catch.
SIR ANDREW By my troth, the fool has an excellent
breast. I had rather than forty shillings I had such a
20
leg, and so sweet a breath to sing, as the fool has. In
sooth, thou wast in very gracious fooling last night,
when thou spok’st of Pigrogromitus, of the Vapians
passing the equinoctial of Queubus: ’twas very good,
i’faith: I sent thee sixpence for thy leman: hadst it?
25
CLOWN I did impeticos thy gratillity: for Malvolio’s
nose is no whipstock, my lady has a white hand, and
the Myrmidons are no bottle-ale houses.
SIR ANDREW Excellent! Why, this is the best fooling,
when all is done. Now a song!
30
SIR TOBY Come on, there is sixpence for you. Let’s have
a song.
SIR ANDREW There’s a testril of me too: if one knight
give a –
CLOWN Would you have a love-song, or a song of good
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life?
SIR TOBY A love-song, a love-song.
SIR ANDREW Ay, ay. I care not for good life.
CLOWN [Sings.]
O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear, your true love’s coming,
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That can sing both high and low.
Trip no further, pretty sweeting:
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man’s son doth know.
SIR ANDREW Excellent good, i’faith.
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SIR TOBY Good, good.
CLOWN
What is love? ’Tis not hereafter,
Present mirth hath present laughter: What’s to come is still unsure.
In delay there lies no plenty,
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Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty:
Youth’s a stuff will not endure.
SIR ANDREW A mellifluous voice, as I am a true knight.
SIR TOBY A contagious breath.
SIR ANDREW Very sweet and contagious, i’faith.
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SIR TOBY To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion.
But shall we make the welkin dance indeed? Shall we
rouse the night-owl in a catch that will draw three
souls out of one weaver? Shall we do that?
SIR ANDREW And you love me, let’s do’t: I am dog at a
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catch.
CLOWN By’r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well.
SIR ANDREW Most certain. Let our catch be, ‘Thou
knave’.
CLOWN ‘Hold thy peace, thou knave’, knight? I shall be
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constrained in’t to call thee knave, knight.
SIR ANDREW ’Tis not the first time I have constrained
one to call me knave. Begin, fool: it begins, ‘Hold thy
peace’.
CLOWN I shall never begin if I hold my peace.
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SIR ANDREW Good, i’faith. Come, begin. [Catch sung.]
Enter MARIA.
MARIA What a caterwauling do you keep here? If my
lady have not called up her steward Malvolio and bid
him turn you out of doors, never trust me.
SIR TOBY My lady’s a Cataian, we are politicians,
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Malvolio’s a Peg-a-Ramsey, and [Sings.] ‘ Three merry
men be we.’ Am not I consanguineous? Am I not of
her blood? Tilly-vally! Lady! [Sings.] ‘ There dwelt a
man in Babylon, Lady, Lady’.
CLOWN Beshrew me, the knight’s in admirable fooling.
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SIR ANDREW Ay, he does well enough, if he be disposed,
and so do I too: he does it with a better grace, but I do
it more natural.
TOBYSIR [Sings.] ‘O’the twelfth day of December –’
MARIA For the love o’ God, peace!
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Enter MALVOLIO.
MALVOLIO My masters, are you mad? Or what are you?
Have you no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like
tinkers at this time of night? Do ye make an ale-house of
my lady’s house, that ye squeak out your coziers’ catches
without any mitigation or remorse of voice? Is there no
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respect of place, persons, nor time in you?
SIR TOBY We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up!
MALVOLIO Sir Toby, I must be round with you. My lady
bade me tell you, that though she harbours you as her
kinsman, she’s nothing allied to your disorders. If you
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can separate yourself and your misdemeanours, you
are welcome to the house: if not, and it would please
you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you
farewell.
SIR TOBY [Sings.] Farewell, dear heart, since I must
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needs be gone.
MARIA Nay, good Sir Toby.
CLOWN [Sings.] His eyes do show his days are almost done.
MALVOLIO Is’t even so?
SIR TOBY [Sings.] But I will never die.
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CLOWN [Sings.] Sir Toby, there you lie.
MALVOLIO This is much credit to you.
SIR TOBY [Sings.] Shall I bid him go?
CLOWN [Sings.] What and if you do?
SIR TOBY [Sings.] Shall I bid him go, and spare not?
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CLOWN [Sings.] O no, no, no, no, you dare not.
SIR TOBY Out o’ time, sir? ye lie! Art any more than a
steward? Dost thou think because thou art virtuous,
there shall be no more cakes and ale?
CLOWN Yes, by Saint Anne, and ginger shall be hot i’th’
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mouth too. Exit.
SIR TOBY Th’art i’th’ right. Go sir, rub your chain with
crumbs. A stoup of wine, Maria!
MALVOLIO Mistress Mary, if you prized my lady’s
favour at anything more than contempt, you would
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not give means for this uncivil rule; she shall know of
it, by this hand. Exit.
MARIA Go shake your ears.
SIR ANDREW ’Twere as good a deed as to drink when a
man’s a-hungry, to challenge him the field, and then to
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break promise with him and make a fool of him.
SIR TOBY Do’t, knight. I’ll write thee a challenge; or I’ll
deliver thy indignation to him by word of mouth.
MARIA Sweet Sir Toby, be patient for to-night. Since
the youth of the Count’s was today with my lady, she
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is much out of quiet. For Monsieur Malvolio, let me
alone with him. If I d
o not gull him into a nayword,
and make him a common recreation, do not think I
have wit enough to lie straight in my bed: I know I can
do it.
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SIR TOBY Possess us, possess us, tell us something of
him.
MARIA Marry sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan.
SIR ANDREW O, if I thought that, I’d beat him like a dog.
SIR TOBY What, for being a Puritan? Thy exquisite
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reason, dear knight?
SIR ANDREW I have no exquisite reason for’t, but I have
reason good enough.
MARIA The devil a Puritan that he is, or anything
constantly, but a time-pleaser, an affectioned ass, that
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cons state without book, and utters it by great swarths:
the best persuaded of himself, so crammed (as he
thinks) with excellencies, that it is his grounds of faith
that all that look on him love him: and on that vice in
him will my revenge find notable cause to work.
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SIR TOBY What wilt thou do?
MARIA I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of
love, wherein by the colour of his beard, the shape of
his leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his
eye, forehead, and complexion, he shall find himself
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most feelingly personated. I can write very like my
lady your niece; on a forgotten matter we can hardly
make distinction of our hands.
SIR TOBY Excellent, I smell a device.
SIR ANDREW I have’t in my nose too.
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SIR TOBY He shall think by the letters that thou wilt
drop that they come from my niece, and that she’s in
love with him.
MARIA My purpose is indeed a horse of that colour.
SIR ANDREW And your horse now would make him an
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ass.
MARIA Ass, I doubt not.
SIR ANDREW O, ’twill be admirable!
MARIA Sport royal, I warrant you: I know my physic
will work with him. I will plant you two, and let the
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fool make a third, where he shall find the letter:
observe his construction of it. For this night, to bed,
and dream on the event. Farewell. Exit.
SIR TOBY Good night, Penthesilea.
SIR ANDREW Before me, she’s a good wench.
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SIR TOBY She’s a beagle, true-bred, and one that adores
me: what o’ that?
SIR ANDREW I was adored once too.
SIR TOBY Let’s to bed, knight. Thou hadst need send
for more money.
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SIR ANDREW If I cannot recover your niece, I am a foul
way out.
SIR TOBY Send for money, knight; if thou hast her not
i’th’ end, call me cut.
SIR ANDREW If I do not, never trust me, take it how you
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will.
SIR TOBY Come, come, I’ll go burn some sack, ’tis too
late to go to bed now. Come, knight, come, knight.
Exeunt.
2.4 Enter DUKE, VIOLA, CURIO and others.
ORSINO
Give me some music. Now good morrow, friends.
Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song,
That old and antic song we heard last night;
Methought it did relieve my passion much,
More than light airs and recollected terms
5
Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times.
Come, but one verse.
CURIO He is not here, so please your lordship, that
should sing it.
ORSINO Who was it?
10
CURIO Feste the jester, my lord, a fool that the Lady
OLIVIA’s father took much delight in. He is about the
house.
ORSINO Seek him out, and play the tune the while.
Exit Curio. Music plays.
Come hither, boy. If ever thou shalt love,
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In the sweet pangs of it remember me:
For such as I am, all true lovers are,
Unstaid and skittish in all motions else,
Save in the constant image of the creature
That is belov’d. How dost thou like this tune?
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VIOLA It gives a very echo to the seat
Where love is thron’d.
ORSINO Thou dost speak masterly.
My life upon’t, young though thou art, thine eye
Hath stay’d upon some favour that it loves.
Hath it not, boy?
VIOLA A little, by your favour.
25
ORSINO What kind of woman is’t?
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 526