Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night

ACT III SCENE II	OLIVIA's house.
	Enter SIR TOBY BELCH, SIR ANDREW, and FABIAN
SIR ANDREW	No, faith, I'll not stay a jot longer.
SIR TOBY BELCH	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	5
	count's serving-man than ever she bestowed upon me;
	I saw't i' the orchard.
SIR TOBY BELCH	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.	10
SIR ANDREW	'Slight, will you make an ass o' me?
FABIAN	I will prove it legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of
	judgment and reason.
SIR TOBY BELCH	And they have been grand-jury-men since before Noah
	was a sailor.	15
FABIAN	She did show favour to the youth in your sight only
	to 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	20
	have banged the youth into dumbness. This was
	looked for at your hand, and this 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	25
	on a Dutchman's beard, unless you do redeem it by
	some laudable attempt either of valour or policy.
SIR ANDREW	An't be any way, it must be with valour; for policy
	I hate: I had as lief be a Brownist as a
	politician.	30
SIR TOBY BELCH	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; and assure thyself, there is no
	love-broker in the world can more prevail in man's	35
	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?
SIR TOBY BELCH	Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief;
	it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and fun	40
	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 sheet were big enough for the
	bed of Ware in England, set 'em down: go, about it.	45
	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?
SIR TOBY BELCH	We'll call thee at the cubiculo: go.
	Exit SIR ANDREW
FABIAN	This is a dear manikin to you, Sir Toby.	50
SIR TOBY BELCH	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 deliver't?
SIR TOBY BELCH	Never trust me, then; and by all means stir on the	55
	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 of a flea, I'll eat the rest of
	the anatomy.	60
FABIAN	And his opposite, the youth, bears in his visage no
	great presage of cruelty.
	Enter MARIA
SIR TOBY BELCH	Look, where the youngest wren of nine comes.
MARIA	If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourself
	into stitches, follow me. Yond gull Malvolio is	65
	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 BELCH	And cross-gartered?	70
MARIA	Most villanously; 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	75
	augmentation of the Indies: you have not seen 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 BELCH	Come, bring us, bring us where he is.	80
	Exeunt