<-- back to Scene Eleven SCENE 12 OLIVIA's house. Sir Andrew gets talked back into sticking around.
Sir Andrew enters, with bags haphazardly packed full of every dilettante's most treasured items: a cricket bat, a few croquet mallets, a pool cue, a set of golf clubs, (we may, for the sake of easy props acquisition, go ahead and use some anachronisms traded for authenticity: yo-yos, frisbees, etc.). The bags are leaking all of the trappings of colonial affluence. Pursued by Sir Toby and Fabian, who pick up the droppings as Andrew attempts to storm out into the audience.
SIR ANDREW No, faith, I'll not stay a jot longer.
SIR TOBY Thy reason, dear venom, give thy reason.
FABIAN You must needs yield your reason, Sir Andrew.As Sir Andrew continues to drop things, Sir Toby and Fabian pick them up and pile them on top of Sir Andrew's arms, which only causes him to drop even more things.
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 Did she see thee the while, old boy? tell me that.
SIR ANDREW As plain as I see you now.The stuff, at this point, should be piled over his face so he in fact can't see them.
FABIAN This was a great argument of love in her toward you.
An arm on his shoulder, since he can't see where he's going, guiding him gently in a circle back the way he came. Finally, the armloads of stuff collapse, and Sir Andrew realizes he's been going the wrong way.
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 And they have been grand-jury-men since before Noah was a sailor.This next bit as Andrew, on the ground, stacks and piles the gear and repacks his bags to storm off once more.
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.
Sir Toby, meanwhile, is biting his lip to keep from laughing. He's good at coming up with the jests, but doesn't have Fabian's gift at prolonged shoveling.
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.A shared oy-vey moment between Sir Toby and Fabian. Tag me out, would you? I'm getting worn out here.
SIR TOBY 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?As he stands, picking up his gear and piling it on once more, (which seems to go much easier this time, almost as if Sir Toby and Fabian had been intentionally piling the gear to fall before), this time pushing him back into the house.
SIR TOBY 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 We'll call thee at the cubiculo: go. [Sir Andrew retreats into the house.]
FABIAN This is a dear manikin to you, Sir Toby.
SIR TOBY 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 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.
SIR TOBY Look, where the youngest wren of nine comes.Enter Maria, hyperventilating, with tears in her eyes, holding her sides: she's been laughing full-tilt for several minutes straight.
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.
Taking a breath, finally: this next is singsong, victorious.
He's in yellow stockings.
SIR TOBY 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 Come, bring us, bring us where he is. [Exit into the house.]--> on to Scene Thirteen Twelfth Night Annotated Script © 2001 Kevin M. Hollenbeck.
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