Maria
Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest
limits of order.
Sir Toby Belch
Confine! I'll confine myself no finer than I am:
these clothes are good enough to drink in; and so be
these boots too: an they be not, let them hang
themselves in their own straps.
Maria
That quaffing and drinking will undo you: I heard
my lady talk of it yesterday; and of a foolish
knight that you brought in one night here to be her wooer.
Sir Toby Belch
Why, he has three thousand ducats a year.
Maria
Ay, but he'll have but a year in all these ducats:
he's a very fool and a prodigal.
Sir Toby Belch
Fie, that you'll say so! he plays o' the
viol-de-gamboys, and speaks three or four languages
word for word without book, and hath all the good
gifts of nature.
Maria
He hath indeed, almost natural: for besides that
he's a fool, he's a great quarreller: and but that
he hath the gift of a coward to allay the gust he
hath in quarrelling, 'tis thought among the prudent
he would quickly have the gift of a grave.
Sir Toby Belch
By this hand, they are scoundrels and subtractors
that say so of him. Who are they?
Maria
They that add, moreover, he's drunk nightly in your company.
Sir Toby Belch
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 coystrill
that will not drink to my niece till his brains turn
o' the toe like a parish-top. What, wench!
Castiliano vulgo! for here comes Sir Andrew Agueface.
Maria
Ay, sir, I have them at my fingers' ends: marry,
now I let go your hand, I am barren.
Sir Toby Belch
O knight thou lackest a cup of canary: when did I
see thee so put down?
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
Never in your life, I think; unless you see canary
put me down. 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.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
What is 'Pourquoi'? do or not do? 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 Belch
Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair.
Sir Toby Belch
Excellent; it hangs like flax on a distaff; and I
hope to see a housewife take thee between her legs
and spin it off.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
Faith, I'll home to-morrow, Sir Toby: your niece
will not be seen; or if she be, it's four to one
she'll none of me: the count himself here hard by woos her.
Sir Toby Belch
She'll none o' the count: 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.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o' the
strangest mind i' the world; I delight in masques
and revels sometimes altogether.
Sir Toby Belch
Art thou good at these kickshawses, knight?
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
As any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be, under the
degree of my betters; and yet I will not compare
with an old man.
Sir Toby Belch
What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight?
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
And I think I have the back-trick simply as strong
as any man in Illyria.
Sir Toby Belch
Wherefore are these things hid? wherefore have
these gifts a curtain before 'em? are they like to
take dust, like Mistress Mall's picture? why dost
thou not go to church in a galliard and come home in
a coranto? My very walk should be a jig; I would not
so much as make water but in a sink-a-pace. What
dost thou mean? Is it a world to hide virtues in?
I did think, by the excellent constitution of thy
leg, it was formed under the star of a galliard.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
Ay, 'tis strong, and it does indifferent well in a
flame-coloured stock. Shall we set about some revels?
Sir Toby Belch
What shall we do else? were we not born under Taurus?