Twelfth Night
Act II, Scene 3
A room in Olivia’s house.
O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
Edwin Austin Abbey, 1899
- Enter Sir Toby and Sir Andrew.
Sir Toby
1 - 2- Approach, Sir Andrew. Not to be a-bed after midnight is to
- be up betimes, and “deliculo surgere,” thou know’st—
Sir Andrew
3 - 4- Nay, by my troth, I know not; but I know, to be up late is
- to be up late.
Sir Toby
5 - 8- A false conclusion. I hate it as an unfill’d 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 lives consist of the four elements?
Sir Andrew
9 - 10- Faith, so they say, but I think it rather consists of eating
- and drinking.
Sir Toby
11 - 12- Th’ art a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink. Marian, I
- say, a stoup of wine!
- Enter Clown.
Sir Andrew
13- Here comes the fool, i’ faith.
Feste
14 - 15- How now, my hearts? Did you never see the picture of “we
- three”?
Sir Toby
16- Welcome, ass. Now let’s have a catch.
Sir Andrew
17 - 23- By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I had rather
- than forty shillings I had such a 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?
Feste
24 - 26- I did impeticos thy gratillity; for Malvolio’s nose is no
- whipstock. My lady has a white hand, and the Mermidons are
- no bottle-ale houses.
Sir Andrew
27 - 28- Excellent! Why, this is the best fooling, when all is done.
- Now a song.
Sir Toby
29- Come on, there is sixpence for you. Let’s have a song.
Sir Andrew
30- There’s a testril of me too. If one knight give a—
Feste
31- Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life?
Sir Toby
32- A love-song, a love-song.
Sir Andrew
33- Ay, ay. I care not for good life.
Feste
34 - 39- Sings.
- O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
- O, stay and hear, your true-love’s coming,
- 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
40- Excellent good, i’ faith.
Sir Toby
41- Good, good.
Feste
42 - 47- Sings.
- What is love? ’Tis not hereafter;
- Present mirth hath present laughter;
- What’s to come is still unsure.
- In delay there lies no plenty,
- Then come kiss me sweet and twenty;
- Youth’s a stuff will not endure.
Present mirth hath present laughter
William Heath, circa 1850
Sir Andrew
48- A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight.
Sir Toby
49- A contagious breath.
Sir Andrew
50- Very sweet and contagious, i’ faith.
Sir Toby
51 - 54- 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
55- And you love me, let’s do’t. I am dog at a catch.
Feste
56- By’r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well.
Sir Andrew
57- Most certain. Let our catch be “Thou knave.”
Feste
58 - 59- “Hold thy peace, thou knave,” knight? I shall be constrain’d
- in’t to call thee knave, knight.
Sir Andrew
60 - 61- ’Tis not the first time I have constrain’d one to call me
- knave. Begin, fool. It begins, “Hold thy peace.”
Feste
62- I shall never begin if I hold my peace.
Sir Andrew
63- Good, i’ faith. Come, begin.
- Catch sung.
- Enter Maria.
Maria
64 - 66- What a caterwauling do you keep here! If my lady have not
- call’d up her steward Malvolio and bid him turn you out of
- doors, never trust me.
Sir Toby
67 - 72- My lady’s a Cataian, we are politicians, 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.”
Feste
73- Beshrew me, the knight’s in admirable fooling.
Sir Andrew
74 - 75- Ay, he does well enough if he be dispos’d, and so do I too.
- He does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural.
Sir Toby
76- Sings.
- “O’ the twelfth day of December”—
Maria
77- For the love o’ God, peace!
- Enter Malvolio.
Malvolio
78 - 83- 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 alehouse of my lady’s house,
- that ye squeak out your coziers’ catches without any
- mitigation or remorse of voice? Is there no respect of
- place, persons, nor time in you?
Sir Toby
84- We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up!
Malvolio
85 - 90- Sir Toby, I must be round with you. My lady bade me tell
- you, that though she harbors you as her kinsman, she’s
- nothing allied to your disorders. If you can separate
- yourself and your misdemeanors, 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
91- Sings.
- “Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone.”
Maria
92- Nay, good Sir Toby.
Feste
93- Sings.
- “His eyes do show his days are almost done.”
Malvolio
94- Is’t even so?
Sir Toby
95- Sings.
- “But I will never die.”
Byam Shaw, 1901
Feste
96- Sir Toby, there you lie.
Malvolio
97- This is much credit to you.
Sir Toby
98- Sings.
- “Shall I bid him go?”
Feste
99- Sings.
- “What and if you do?”
Sir Toby
100- Sings.
- “Shall I bid him go, and spare not?”
Feste
101- Sings.
- “O no, no, no, no, you dare not.”
Sir Toby
102 - 104- To Clown.
- Out o’ tune, sir! Ye lie.
- To Malvolio.
- Art any more than a steward? Dost thou think because thou
- art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?
Feste
105 - 106- Yes, by Saint Anne, and ginger shall be hot i’ th’ mouth
- too.
Sir Toby
107 - 108- Th’ art i’ th’ right. Go, sir, rub your chain with crumbs. A
- stope of wine, Maria!
Malvolio
109 - 111- Mistress Mary, if you priz’d my lady’s favor at any thing
- more than contempt, you would not give means for this
- uncivil rule. She shall know of it, by this hand.
- Exit.
Maria
112- Go shake your ears.
Sir Andrew
113 - 115- ’Twere as good a deed as to drink when a man’s a-hungry, to
- challenge him the field, and then to break promise with him,
- and make a fool of him.
Sir Toby
116 - 117- Do’t, knight. I’ll write thee a challenge, or I’ll deliver
- thy indignation to him by word of mouth.
Maria
118 - 123- Sweet Sir Toby, be patient for tonight. Since the youth of
- the Count’s was today with my lady, she is much out of
- quiet. For Monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him. If I do
- not gull him into an ayword, 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.
Sir Toby
124- Possess us, possess us, tell us something of him.
Maria
125- Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan.
Sir Andrew
126- O, if I thought that, I’d beat him like a dog!
Sir Toby
127 - 128- What, for being a puritan? Thy exquisite reason, dear
- knight?
Sir Andrew
129 - 130- I have no exquisite reason for’t, but I have reason good
- enough.
Maria
131 - 137- The dev’l a puritan that he is, or any thing constantly but
- a time-pleaser, an affection’d ass, that cons state without
- book, and utters it by great swarths; the best persuaded of
- himself, so cramm’d (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.
Sir Toby
138- What wilt thou do?
Maria
139 - 144- I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of love,
- wherein by the color 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 most feelingly personated.
- I can write very like my lady your niece; on a forgotten
- matter we can hardly make distinction of our hands.
From: Songs from the Plays of Shakespeare
1915
Sir Toby
145- Excellent, I smell a device.
Sir Andrew
146- I have’t in my nose too.
Sir Toby
147 - 148- 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
149- My purpose is indeed a horse of that color.
Sir Andrew
150- And your horse now would make him an ass.
Maria
151- Ass, I doubt not.
Sir Andrew
152- O, ’twill be admirable!
Maria
153 - 157- Sport royal, I warrant you. I know my physic will work with
- him. I will plant you two, and let the 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
158- Good night, Penthesilea.
Sir Andrew
159- Before me, she’s a good wench.
Sir Toby
160 - 161- She’s a beagle true-bred, and one that adores me. What o’
- that?
Sir Andrew
162- I was ador’d once too.
Sir Toby
163- Let’s to bed, knight. Thou hadst need send for more money.
Sir Andrew
164- If I cannot recover your niece, I am a foul way out.
Sir Toby
165 - 166- Send for money, knight; if thou hast her not i’ th’ end,
- call me cut.
Sir Andrew
167- If I do not, never trust me, take it how you will.
Sir Toby
168 - 169- Come, come, I’ll go burn some sack, ’tis too late to go to
- bed now. Come, knight, come, knight.
- Exeunt.
Then come kiss me sweet and twenty
J. Coghlan, circa 1825