William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, or What You Will, Arden Shakspeare, Third Edition, Ed. Keir Elam, London, 2008

Orsino: If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me the excess of it, that surfeiting
That appetite may sicken and die. (Opening, 1.1.1-3)

Orsino: O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet south
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour. …(1.1.5-7)

Curio: Will you go hunt, my lord?
Orsino: What, Curio?
Curio: The hart.
Orsino: Why so I do, the noblest that I have. (1.1.16-17)

Orsino: Away before me to sweet beds of flowers:
Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers. (1.1.39-40)

Viola: Conceal me what I am, and be my aid
For such disguise as haply shall become
The form of my intent. I’ll serve this duke.
Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him. (1.2.50-53)

Sir Toby: These clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too; an they be not, let them hang themselves by their own straps. (1.3.10-12)

Maria: He’s a very fool and a prodigal. (1.3.22)

Sir Toby: By this hand they are scoundrels and substractors that say so of him. Who are they?
Maria: They that add, moreover, he’s drunk nightly in your company.
Sir Toby: With drinking healths to my niece. I’ll drink to her as long as there is a passage in my throat and drink in Illyria. He’s a coward and a coistrel that will not drink to my niece till his brains turn o’th’toe, … (1.3.32-39)
Sir Andrew: Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man has; but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit. [According to popular ‘medical’ lore, beef was supposed to dull the brain; cf. Boorde, Dyetary] (1.3.81-84)

Sir Andrew: I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing and bear-baiting. O, had I but followed the arts.
Sir Toby: Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair.
Sir Andrew: Why, would that have mended my hair?
Sir Toby: Past question, for thou seest it will not curl by nature.
Sir Andrew: But it becomes me well enough, does’t not?
Sir Toby: Excellent, it hangs like flax on a distaff, and I hope to see a housewife take thee between her legs and spin it off. (1.3.89-100)

Sir Toby: She’ll not match above her degree, neither in estate, years nor wit—I have heard her swear’t. Tut, there’s life in’t, man. (1.3.105-107)

Sir Toby: I did think by the excellent constitution of thy leg it was formed under the star of a galliard.
Sir Andrew: Ay, ’tis strong, and it does indifferent well in a flame-coloured stock. Shall we set about some revels?
Sir Toby: What shall we do else? Were we not born under Taurus?
Sir Andrew: Taurus? That’s sides and heart.
Sir Toby: No, sir, it is legs and thighs—let me see thee caper. [Sir Andrew capers.] Ha, higher! Ha, ha, excellent. (1.3.126-137)

Orsino: Be clamorous and leap all civil bounds
Rather than make unprofited return. (1.4.21-22)

Orsino: Diana’s lip
Is not more smooth and rubinous. Thy small pipe
Is as the maiden’s organ, shrill and sound,
And all is semblative a woman’s part. (1.4.31-34)

Maria: …you be bold to say in your foolery.
Feste: Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents. (1.5.13-14)

Feste: Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage; (1.5.17)

Malvolio: I saw him put down the other day with an ordinary fool that has no more brain than a stone. (1.5.80-81)

Olivia: To be generous, guiltless and of free disposition is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon bullets. [bird-bolts: blunt-headed arrows used for shooting birds, and as such relatively harmless] (1.5.87-89)

Olivia: A gentlemen? What gentleman?
Sir Toby: ’Tis a gentlemen here. [Belches.] A plague o’these pickle herring! [to Feste] How now, sot? [In Palladis Tamia, Francis Meres recalls the tragicomic death of one of Shakespeare’s fellow playwrights from the same cause: ‘Robert Greene died of a surfet taken at Pickled Herrings, & Rhenish wine, as witnesseth Thomas Nash, who was at the fatall banquet’ (Meres, fol. 286)] (1.5.115-117)

Viola: If you will lead these graces to the grave
And leave the world no copy.
Olivia: O sir, I will not be so hard-hearted. I will give out diverse schedules of my beauty. It shall be inventoried, and every particle and utensil labeled to my will, as, time, two lips, indifferent red; item, two grey eyes, with lids to them; item, one neck, one chin and so forth. (1.5.234-240)

Olivia: He might have took his answer long ago.
Viola: If I did love you in my master’s flame,
With such a suffering, such a deadly life,
In your denial I would find no sense,
I would not understand it. (1.5.255-258)

Antonio: Will you stay no longer, nor will you not that I go with you?
Sebastian: By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over me, the malignancy of my fate might perhaps distemper yours. (2.1.1-5)

Antonio: I have many enemies in Orsino’s court,
Else would I very shortly see thee there.
But come what may I do adore thee so
That danger shall seem sport, and I will go. (2.1.41-44)

Viola: She made good view of me, indeed so much
That methought her eyes had lost her tongue,
For she did speak in starts, distractedly. (2.2.19-21)

Viola: Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness,
Wherein the pregnant enemy does much. (2.2.27-28)

Sir Toby: Approach, Sir Andrew. Not to be abed after midnight is to be up betimes, and diluculo surgere, thou knowst. (betimes: early in the morning; diluculo surgere: part of the Latin proverb Diluculo sugere, saluberrimum est quoted in Lily’s Grammar. Lily’s gloss—‘To aryse betyme in the morning is the most wholesome thing in the world’] (2.3.1-3)

Sir Toby: Does not our life consist of the four elements?
Sir Andrew: Faith, so they say, but I think it rather consists of eating and drinking.
Sir Toby: Thou’rt a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink. [Calls.] Marian, I say, a stoup of wine. (2.3.9-13)

Sir Andrew: 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. (2.3.18-20)

Feste: What is love? ’Tis not hereafter,
Present mirth hath present laughter. (2.3.45-46)

Sir Toby: Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale? (2.3.112-113)

Orsino: For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
More longing wavering, sooner lost and worn
Than women’s are. (2.3.32-35)

Orsino: Give me now leave to leave thee.
Feste: Now the melancholy god protect thee, and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal. [melancholy god: Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture, identified in astrology with the planet ruling over the melancholy humour, and in alchemy with lead. Feste is making fun of Orsino’s habitual ‘dark’ pose and his current bad mood.] (2.4.71-75)

Orsino: There is no woman’s sides
Can bide the beating of so strong a passion
As love doth give my heart; no woman’s heart
So big to hold so much—they lack retention.
Alas, their love may be called appetite,
No motion of the liver but the palate,
That suffer surfeit, cloyment and revolt.
But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
And can digest as much. (2.4.93-101)

Sir Toby: Wouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly, rascally sheep-biter come by some notable shame? [sheep-biter: literally, a dog that harasses sheep, thus ‘a shifty, sneaking, or thievish fellow’; colloquially, a whoremonger, from ‘sheep’ or ‘mutton’ in the sense of ‘prostitute’.] (2.5.4-5)

Maria: Malvolio’s coming down this walk. He ahs been yonder i’the sun practicing behaviour to his own shadow this half-hour. Observe him for the love of mockery, … (2.5.13-16)

Malvolio: ‘Besides, you waste the treasure of your time with a foolish knight’—
Sir Andrew: That’s me, I warrant you.
Malvolio: ‘One Sir Andrew.’
Sir Andrew: I knew ’twas I, for many do call me a fool. (2.5.75-79)

Maria: Nay, but say true, does it work upon him?
Sir Toby: Like aqua vitae with a midwife. [spirits, such as brandy, used by midwives, in theory to revive their patients but in practice to console themselves] (2.5.189-190)

Viola: [God] Save thee, friend, and thy music. Dost thou live by thy tabor?
Feste: No, sir, I live by the church.
Viola: Art thou a churchman?
Feste: No such matter, sir. I do live by the church, for I do live at my house, and my house doth stand by the church.
Viola: So thou mayst say the king lies by a beggar if a beggar dwell near him, or the church stands by thy tabor if thy tabor stand by the church.
Feste: You have said, sir. To see this age! A sentence is but a cheverel glove [made of kid leather, noted for its pliancy and capability of being stretched, proverbially associated with lack of moral integrity] to a good wit: how quickly the wrong side may be turned outward.
Viola: Nay, that’s certain. They that dally nicely with words may quickly make them wanton. (3.1.1-15)

Viola: Art not thou the Lady Olivia’s fool?
Feste: No indeed, sir, the Lady Olivia has no folly. She will keep no fool, sir, till she be married, and fools are as like husbands as pilchards are to herrings—the husband’s the bigger. I am indeed not her fool, but her corrupter of words. (3.1.30-35)

Viola: Madam, I come to whet your gentle thoughts
On his behalf. (3.1.103-104)




Olivia: But rather reason thus with reason fetter:
Love sought is good, but given unsought is better. (3.1.153-154)

Fabian: …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. [into…beard: into the cold region of Olivia’s disfavour: an allusion to the 1596-7 expedition to the East Indies via the north passage by the Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz, who became stranded in icefields off the island of Nova Zembla.](3.2.24-27)

Antonio: Haply your eye shall light upon some toy
You have desire to purchase; and your store [$],
I think, is not [enough] for idle [luxury] markets, sir. (3.3.43-45)

Maria: Nay, pursue him now, lest the device [trick] take air and taint. (3.4.126)

Sir Toby: Give me. [Reads.] Youth, whatsoever thou art, thou art but a scurvy fellow. (3.4.142-144)

Olivia: Well, come again tomorrow. Fare thee well.
A fiend like thee might bear my soul to hell. (3.4.211-212)

Sir Toby: He is knight, dubbed with unhatched rapier and on carpet consideration, but he is a devil in private brawl. [dubbed…consideration: knighted at court rather than on the battlefield. Francis Markham affirms disapprovingly, ‘these of the vulgar or common sort, are called Carpet-knights, because…they receive their honour from the Kings hand, in the Court, and upon Carpets.’] (3.4.229-230)

Antonio: But O, how vile an idol proves this god! (3.4.362)

Viola: O, if it prove,
Tempests are kind, and salt waves fresh [made of fresh water (in contrast to salt). Viola’s paradoxes suggest that Sebastian’s survival would be a miracle of nature] in love! (3.4.380-381)

Sir Andrew: [to Sebastian] Now, sir, have I met you again. [Strikes him.] There’s for you.
Sebastian: Why, [striking Sir Andrew] there’s for thee, (4.1.23-25)

Feste: …nor lean enough to be thought a good student… [Scholars were traditionally thin, because poor.] (4.2.7)

Sir Toby: The knave counterfeits well—a good knave. (4.2.19)

Malvolio: they have here been propertied me: keep me in darkness, send ministers to me, asses, and do all they can to face me out of my wits. (4.2.91-94)

Feste: But tell me true, are you not mad indeed, or do you but counterfeit?
Malvolio: Believe me, I am not, I tell thee true.
Feste: Nay, I’ll ne’er believe a madman till I see his brains. (4.2.114-117)

Malvolio: I prithee be gone.
Feste: [Sings.] I am gone, sir, and anon, sir,
I’ll be with you again,
In a trice, like to the old Vice, (4.2.119-123)

Sebastian: This is the air, that is the glorious sun;
This pearl she gave me, I do feel’t and see’t, (4.3.1-2)

Feste: Primo, secundo, tertio is a good play, and the old saying is ‘The third pays for all.’ The triplex, sir, is a good tripping measure, as the bells of Saint Bennet, sir, may put you in mind—one, two, three.
Orsino: You can fool no more money out of me… (5.1.33-37)

Orsino: That face of his I do remember well,
Yet when I saw it last it was besmeared
As black as Vulcan in the smoke of war. (5.1.47-49)

Orsino: Here comes the countess; now heaven walks on earth. (5.193)

Olivia: It is fat and fulsome to mine ear
As howling after music. (5.1.105-106)

Orsino: But this your minion, whom I know you love, [minion: sexual favourite (from French mignon, pet)] (5.1.121)

Olivia: Where goes Caesario?
Viola: After him I love
More than I love these eyes, more than my life,
More by all mores than e’er I shall love wife. (5.1.130-132)

Priest: A contract of eternal bond of love,…
Sealed in my function, by my testimony.
Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave
I have traveled but two hours. (5.1.152-159)

Sir Andrew: Here comes Sir Toby halting. You shall hear more; but if he had not been in drink he would have tickled you othergates than he did. (5.1.187-189)

Viola: I’ll bring you to a captain in this town,
Where lie my maiden weeds, by whose gentle help [maiden weeds: clothes fit for a virgin. Maidenweed was a popular name for the camomile plant.] (5.1.250-251)

Olivia: A most extracting [distracting] frenzy of mine own
From my remembrance clearly banished his. [to Feste] How does he, sirrah?
Feste: Truly, madam, he holds Beezlebub at the stave’s end as well as a man in his case may do. (5.1.277-281)

Fabian: [Reads.] By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, and the world shall know it. Though you have put me into darkness and given your drunken cousin rule over me, yet have I the benefit of my senses as well as your ladyship. I have your own letter that induced me to the semblance I put on,… (5.1.297-302)

Orsino: So much against the mettle of your sex,
So far beneath your soft and tender breeding—
And, since you called me master for so long, (5.1.316-318)

Orsino: Caesario, come—
For so you shall be while you are a man;
But when in other habits you are seen,
Orsino mistress and his fancy’s queen. (5.1.378-381)

Feste: (Sings.) When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing [prank] was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.
/
But when I came to man’s estate,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
’Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
For the rain it raineth every day.
/
But when I came, alas, to wive,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
By swaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain it raineth every day.
/
But when I came unto my beds [old age],
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
With tosspots [drunks?] still had drunken heads,
For the rain it raineth every day.
/
A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
But that’s all one, our play is done,
And we’ll strive to please you every day. [Exit.] FINIS
(5.1.382-401)