SCENE II. OLIVIA's house. Twelfth Night  Shakespeare homepage  |  Twelfth Night  | Act 3, Scene 2 

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 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 

 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. 

 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. 

 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 

 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 

 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. 

 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 

 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 

 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. 

 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. 

 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 

 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. 

 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 

 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? 

 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 

 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. 



 Exeunt  Shakespeare homepage  |  Twelfth Night  | Act 3, Scene 2 

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