<-- back to Scene Two SCENE 3 OLIVIA'S house. Subplot powers, activate! Lights up on interior.
[The risers are all covered with black cloth, except for the one SIR TOBY is snoozing upon (he's rolled it up and is using it as a pillow). Enter MARIA, who dusts her way over to Sir Toby and rolls him off of the riser. He awakes, sputtering and hiccuping Maria makes a show of replacing the black cloth and nudging the riser back into place.]
SIR TOBY What a plague means my niece, to take the death of her brother thus? I am sure care's an enemy to life.
MARIA By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o'nights: your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours. You must confine yourself within the modest limits of order.Trying, as she always does, to straighten his appearance until he smacks her away.
SIR TOBY 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 Who, Sir Andrew Aguecheek?
MARIA Ay, he.
SIR TOBY He's...Really searching here. Euphemism time. Make it good.
as tall a man as any's in Illyria.
MARIA What's that to the purpose?
SIR TOBY 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 Fie, that you'll say so! he plays o' the viol-de-gamboys,Pointing at the musicians. You know, one of those stringed things.
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 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 With drinking healths to my niece.Well, obviously. What were we thinking?
I'll drink to her as long as there is a passage in my throat and drink in Illyria. What, wench! Castiliano vulgo!
Latin for "ixnay on the umbassday," perhaps.
for here comes Sir Andrew Agueface.
Sir Andrew enters, awkwardly flirting with the musicians and trying (and failing) to keep a beat with one of the drums until a musician snatches it away.
SIR ANDREW Sir Toby ! how now, Sir Toby !
SIR TOBY Sweet Sir Andrew!You gonna greet my woman here or do I hafta thump ya?
SIR ANDREW Bless you, fair shrew.
A flight attendant dealing with the drunken advances of the Obnoxious First Class Passenger. He doesn't have a prayer.
MARIA And you too, sir.
SIR TOBY Accost, Sir Andrew, accost.Nudge nudge wink wink say no more say no more.
SIR ANDREW What's that?
SIR TOBY My niece's chambermaid.
SIR ANDREW Good Mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance.
MARIA My name is Mary, sir.
SIR ANDREW Good Mistress Mary Accost,--
SIR TOBY You mistake, knight; 'accost' is front her, board her, woo her, assail her.Four different gestures, each increasingly vulgar, until Beavis finally gets it.
SIR ANDREW By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company.
To the musicians, and perhaps the audience.
Is that the meaning of 'accost'?
MARIA Fare you well, gentlemen.
SIR TOBY An thou let part so, Sir Andrew, would thou mightst never draw sword again.
SIR ANDREW An you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw sword again.Double take. Triple take. You can dress them up but you can't take them out.
Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand?
MARIA Sir, I have not you by the hand.
SIR ANDREW Marry, but you shall have; and here's my hand.
MARIA Now, sir, 'thought is free:' I pray you, bring your hand to the buttery-bar and let it drink.
SIR ANDREW Wherefore, sweet-heart? what's your metaphor?
MARIA It's dry, sir.Very much like The Spleen hitting on The Bowler in "Mystery Men" -- there's just not enough beer in the world.
SIR ANDREW Why, I think so: I am not such an ass but I can keep my hand dry.
Just DON'T smell his fingers.
But what's your jest?
MARIA A dry jest, sir.
SIR ANDREW Are you full of them?
MARIA Ay, sir, I have them at my fingers' ends: marry, now I let go your hand, I am barren.Music: Wamp wamp wamp waaaaaaaaaaaaaamp.
SIR TOBY O knight thou lackest a cup of canary: when did I see thee so put down?
SIR ANDREW 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:Off to musicians/out to audience.
but I am a great eater of beef and I believe that does harm to my wit.
SIR TOBY No question.Anyone? Anyone? Nope, no arguments here.
SIR ANDREW I'll ride home to-morrow, Sir Toby.
SIR TOBY Pourquoi, my dear knight?
SIR ANDREW What is 'Pourquoi'?Uh-oh. We're already at Aguecheek brainlock. Out comes the {PROP: phrasebook} ever-present phrasebook.
do or not do? I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues that I have in fencing and dancing: 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.A Beavis and Butthead moment. He said between her legs. Huh-huh-huh.
SIR ANDREW 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 She'll none o' the count: she'll not match above her degree, neither in estate, years, norEr, uh...
wit; I have heard her swear't. Tut, there's life in't, man.
Processing... Processing...
SIR ANDREW I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o' the strangest mind i' the world;
Don't remind us.
I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether.
SIR TOBY Art thou good at these kickshawses, knight?
SIR ANDREW 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 What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight?
SIR ANDREW Faith, I can cut a caper.
SIR TOBY And I can cut the mutton to't.
SIR ANDREW And I think I have the back-trick simply as strong as any man in Illyria.A quick demonstration shows that a) he sucks at this kind of dancing, and b) he's not lying. Since nobody else would want to know how to do these moves, he wins by virtue of having no competition. [Something like being the Polka king at a rave.] Stepping towards the musicians:
SIR TOBY Wherefore are these things hid? Wherefore have these gifts a curtain before 'em? My very walk should be a jig; is it a world to hide virtues in?
There's more to Sir Toby than simple self-destructive alcoholism at play here. You've been dealt a couple of hard blows lately and the one thing you're sure you still know how to do is to be the life of the party.
SIR ANDREW Shall we set about some revels?
SIR TOBY What shall we do else? Let me see the caper; ha! higher: ha, ha! excellent! [Drums and Exit]Interlude: the music of the previous scene moves forward into the street percussion we're already familiar with.
--> on to Scene Four Twelfth Night Annotated Script © 2001 Kevin M. Hollenbeck.
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