Act 1, Scene 3

A Room in OLIVIA'S House.

[Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and MARIA.]
Sir Toby Belch
111 What a plague means my niece, to take the death of her
112 brother thus? I am sure care's an enemy to life.
Maria
113 By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o' nights;
114 your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours.
Sir Toby Belch
115 Why, let her except, before excepted.
Maria
116 Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits
117 of order.
Sir Toby Belch
118 Confine? I'll confine myself no finer than I am: these
119 clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too;
120 an they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps.
Maria
121 That quaffing and drinking will undo you: I heard my lady
122 talk of it yesterday; and of a foolish knight that you brought in
123 one night here to be her wooer.
Sir Toby Belch
124 Who? Sir Andrew Ague-cheek?
Maria
125 Ay, he.
Sir Toby Belch
126 He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria.
Maria
127 What's that to the purpose?
Sir Toby Belch
128 Why, he has three thousand ducats a year.
Maria
129 Ay, but he'll have but a year in all these ducats; he's a
130 very fool, and a prodigal.
Sir Toby Belch
131 Fye that you'll say so! he plays o' the viol-de-gambo,
132 and speaks three or four languages word for word without book,
133 and hath all the good gifts of nature.
Maria
134 He hath indeed,—almost natural: for, besides that he's a
135 fool, he's a great quarreller; and, but that he hath the gift of
136 a coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrelling, 'tis thought
137 among the prudent he would quickly have the gift of a grave.
Sir Toby Belch
138 By this hand, they are scoundrels and subtractors that
139 say so of him. Who are they?
Maria
140 They that add, moreover, he's drunk nightly in your company.
Sir Toby Belch
141 With drinking healths to my niece; I'll drink to her as
142 long as there is a passage in my throat and drink in Illyria.
143 He's a coward and a coystril that will not drink to my niece
144 till his brains turn o' the toe like a parish-top. What, wench!
145 Castiliano-vulgo! for here comes Sir Andrew Ague-face.
[Enter SIR ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK.]
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
146 Sir Toby Belch! how now, Sir Toby Belch!
Sir Toby Belch
147 Sweet Sir Andrew?
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
148 Bless you, fair shrew.
Maria
149 And you too, sir.
Sir Toby Belch
150 Accost, Sir Andrew, accost.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
151 What's that?
Sir Toby Belch
152 My niece's chamber-maid.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
153 Good Mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance.
Maria
154 My name is Mary, sir.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
155 Good Mistress Mary Accost,—
Sir Toby Belch
156 You mistake, knight: accost is, front her, board her,
157 woo her, assail her.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
158 By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company.
159 Is that the meaning of accost?
Maria
160 Fare you well, gentlemen.
Sir Toby Belch
161 An thou let part so, Sir Andrew, would thou mightst never
162 draw sword again.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
163 An you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw
164 sword again. Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand?
Maria
165 Sir, I have not you by the hand.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
166 Marry, but you shall have; and here's my hand.
Maria
167 Now, sir, thought is free. I pray you, bring your hand to
168 the buttery-bar and let it drink.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
169 Wherefore, sweetheart? what's your metaphor?
Maria
170 It's dry, sir.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
171 Why, I think so; I am not such an ass but I can keep my
172 hand dry. But what's your jest?
Maria
173 A dry jest, sir.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
174 Are you full of them?
Maria
175 Ay, sir, I have them at my fingers' ends: marry, now I let
176 go your hand I am barren.
[Exit MARIA.]
Sir Toby Belch
177 O knight, thou lack'st a cup of canary: When did I see
178 thee so put down?
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
179 Never in your life, I think; unless you see canary put
180 me down. Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian
181 or an ordinary man has; but I am great eater of beef, and, I
182 believe, that does harm to my wit.
Sir Toby Belch
183 No question.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
184 An I thought that, I'd forswear it. I'll ride home
185 to-morrow, Sir Toby.
Sir Toby Belch
186 Pourquoy, my dear knight?
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
187 What is pourquoy? do or not do? I would I had bestowed
188 that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing, and
189 bear-baiting. Oh, had I but followed the arts!
Sir Toby Belch
190 Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
191 Why, would that have mended my hair?
Sir Toby Belch
192 Past question; for thou seest it will not curl by nature.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
193 But it becomes me well enough, does't not?
Sir Toby Belch
194 Excellent; it hangs like flax on a distaff; and I hope to
195 see a houswife take thee between her legs and spin it off.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
196 Faith, I'll home to-morrow, Sir Toby; your niece will
197 not be seen; or, if she be, it's four to one she'll none of me;
198 the count himself here hard by woos her.
Sir Toby Belch
199 She'll none o' the Count; she'll not match above her
200 degree, neither in estate, years, nor wit; I have heard her
201 swear't. Tut, there's life in't, man.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
202 I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o' the strangest
203 mind i' the world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes
204 altogether.
Sir Toby Belch
205 Art thou good at these kick-shaws, knight?
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
206 As any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be, under the
207 degree of my betters; and yet I will not compare with an old man.
Sir Toby Belch
208 What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight?
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
209 Faith, I can cut a caper.
Sir Toby Belch
210 And I can cut the mutton to't.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
211 And, I think, I have the back-trick simply as strong as
212 any man in Illyria.
Sir Toby Belch
213 Wherefore are these things hid? wherefore have these
214 gifts a curtain before them? are they like to take dust, like
215 Mistress Mall's picture? why dost thou not go to church in a
216 galliard and come home in a coranto? My very walk should be a
217 jig; I would not so much as make water but in a sink-a-pace. What
218 dost thou mean? is it a world to hide virtues in? I did think, by
219 the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was formed under the
220 star of a galliard.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
221 Ay, 'tis strong, and it does indifferent well in
222 flame-colour'd stock. Shall we set about some revels?
Sir Toby Belch
223 What shall we do else? were we not born under Taurus?
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
224 Taurus? that's sides and heart.
Sir Toby Belch
225 No, sir; it is legs and thighs. Let me see thee caper: ha,
226 higher: ha, ha!—excellent!
[Exeunt.]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 112cultural context
“care's an enemy to life”
Sir Toby inverts the conventional moral argument: instead of saying grief is proper and excess drinking is wrong, he claims that anxiety ('care') harms health and that drinking is therefore therapeutic. The quip is a piece of self-serving folk wisdom — the kind of excuse a habitual drinker offers for his habits.
TLN 115wordplay
“let her except, before excepted”
Sir Toby puns on the legal phrase 'exceptis excipiendis' ('with the customary exceptions duly excepted'), a standard contract formula. Maria has told him to 'confine' himself — he replies with mock-legal gibberish that sounds like a concession but means nothing, treating her scolding as a clause to be waved aside.
TLN 143archaic vocab
“a coystril that will not drink to my niece till his brains turn o' the toe like a parish-top”
'Coystril' means a low-born knave or a groom of the lowest rank — a term of contempt. A 'parish-top' was a large spinning-top kept in each village for public entertainment; it was kept spinning by whipping. Sir Toby means a man should drink until his head spins round like a top being lashed. The phrase telescopes two insults: the man who refuses is a low churl, and real drinking means spinning dizzy.
TLN 167wordplay
“bring your hand to the buttery-bar and let it drink”
The 'buttery-bar' was the serving-hatch of the buttery (the room where beer, butter, and provisions were kept); guests reached through it to be handed drinks. Maria invites Sir Andrew to put his hand there to 'drink' — because a 'dry' hand was a conventional sign of dull wit and impotence, and a wet hand of moisture and liveliness. Sir Andrew, missing the joke, earnestly defends his ability to keep his hand dry, thereby confirming Maria's gibe.
TLN 177archaic vocab
“thou lack'st a cup of canary”
Canary was a sweet, fortified wine imported from the Canary Islands, fashionable and expensive in Elizabethan England, and frequently associated with festivity and good spirits. Sir Toby diagnoses Sir Andrew's failure with Maria as a wine deficiency. The joke sets up Sir Andrew's self-pitying retort that canary is exactly what 'puts him down.'
TLN 181historical topical
“great eater of beef, and, I believe, that does harm to my wit”
Elizabethan humoral medicine held that heavy beef-eating thickened the blood and produced dull, sluggish wits. Sir Andrew's self-diagnosis is accurate in terms of the period's medical beliefs — and that he cites it as his problem is itself a joke, because a genuinely witty person would not need such an excuse. The audience is meant to agree with him: beef has indeed harmed his wit.
TLN 188historical topical
“that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing, and bear-baiting. Oh, had I but followed the arts”
'The tongues' means classical languages — Latin and possibly Greek — which formed the core of an Elizabethan grammar-school education. 'The arts' means the academic liberal arts curriculum. Sir Andrew regrets wasting his youth on three fashionable but unscholarly pursuits — swordsmanship, social dancing, and the blood-sport of bear-baiting — instead of getting an education. The joke is that his current speech proves he was right to regret it.
TLN 208historical topical
“excellence in a galliard, knight”
The galliard was a vigorous, leaping dance in triple time, fashionable at the Elizabethan court; it involved high kicks and rapid footwork called 'capers.' A 'coranto' was a quicker running dance. A 'sink-a-pace' (cinque-pas) was the five-step sequence basic to the galliard. Sir Toby's rhapsody — go to church in a galliard, walk home in a coranto, make water in a sink-a-pace — mockingly suggests that a man of Sir Andrew's gifts should dance through his entire life.
historical Twelfth Night and the Lord of Misrule
TLN 223historical topical
“were we not born under Taurus”
Elizabethan astrology assigned each sign of the zodiac to specific body parts; these governed health and were consulted for surgery, bloodletting, and temperament. Sir Toby claims they were born under Taurus, which supposedly governed legs and thighs — a sign good for dancing. Sir Andrew incorrectly says Taurus governs 'sides and heart.' Both are wrong by most astrologers' reckoning (Taurus was typically assigned the neck and throat), which is part of the joke.