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Enter Sir Toby and Maria.
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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.
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MARIA. By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o’ nights; your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours.
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SIR TOBY. Why, let her except, before excepted.
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MARIA. Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits of order.
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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; and they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps.
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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.
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SIR TOBY. Who? Sir Andrew Aguecheek?
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MARIA. Ay, he.
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SIR TOBY. He’s as tall a man as any’s in Illyria.
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MARIA. What’s that to th’ purpose?
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SIR TOBY. Why, he has three thousand ducats a year.
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MARIA. Ay, but he’ll have but a year in all these ducats. He’s a very fool, and a prodigal.
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SIR TOBY. 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.
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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.
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SIR TOBY. By this hand, they are scoundrels and substractors that say so of him. Who are they?
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MARIA. They that add, moreover, he’s drunk nightly in your company.
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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 coystril 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. Enter Sir Andrew.
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AGUECHEEK. Sir Toby Belch! How now, Sir Toby Belch?
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SIR TOBY. Sweet Sir Andrew!
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SIR ANDREW. Bless you, fair shrew.
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MARIA. And you too, sir.
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SIR TOBY. Accost, Sir Andrew, accost.
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SIR ANDREW. What’s that?
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SIR TOBY. My niece’s chamber-maid.
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SIR ANDREW. Good Mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance.
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MARIA. My name is Mary, sir.
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SIR ANDREW. Good Mistress Mary Accost,—
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SIR TOBY. You mistake, knight: accost is front her, board her, woo her, assail her.
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SIR ANDREW. By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company. Is that the meaning of accost?
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MARIA. Fare you well, gentlemen.
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SIR TOBY. And thou let part so, Sir Andrew, would thou mightst never draw sword again.
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SIR ANDREW. And you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw sword again. Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand?
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MARIA. Sir, I have not you by the hand.
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SIR ANDREW. Marry, but you shall have, and here’s my hand.
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MARIA. Now, sir, thought is free. I pray you, bring your hand to th’ buttery bar and let it drink.
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SIR ANDREW. Wherefore, sweetheart? What’s your metaphor?
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MARIA. It’s dry, sir.
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SIR ANDREW. Why, I think so; I am not such an ass but I can keep my hand dry. But what’s your jest?
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MARIA. A dry jest, sir.
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SIR ANDREW. Are you full of them?
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MARIA. Ay, sir, I have them at my fingers’ ends: marry, now I let go your hand, I am barren. [_Exit Maria._]
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SIR TOBY. O knight, thou lack’st a cup of canary: When did I see thee so put down?
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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; but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.
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SIR TOBY. No question.
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SIR ANDREW. And I thought that, I’d forswear it. I’ll ride home tomorrow, Sir Toby.
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SIR TOBY. _Pourquoy_, my dear knight?
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SIR ANDREW. What is _pourquoy?_ 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!
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SIR TOBY. Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair.
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SIR ANDREW. Why, would that have mended my hair?
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SIR TOBY. Past question; for thou seest it will not curl by nature.
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SIR ANDREW. But it becomes me well enough, does’t not?
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SIR TOBY. Excellent, it hangs like flax on a distaff; and I hope to see a huswife take thee between her legs, and spin it off.
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SIR ANDREW. Faith, I’ll home tomorrow, 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.
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SIR TOBY. 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.
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SIR ANDREW. 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.
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SIR TOBY. Art thou good at these kick-shawses, knight?
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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.
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SIR TOBY. What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight?
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SIR ANDREW. Faith, I can cut a caper.
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SIR TOBY. And I can cut the mutton to’t.
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SIR ANDREW. And I think I have the back-trick simply as strong as any man in Illyria.
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SIR TOBY. 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.
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SIR ANDREW. Ay, ’tis strong, and it does indifferent well in a dam’d-colour’d stock. Shall we set about some revels?
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SIR TOBY. What shall we do else? Were we not born under Taurus?
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SIR ANDREW. Taurus? That’s sides and heart.
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SIR TOBY. No, sir, it is legs and thighs. Let me see thee caper. Ha, higher: ha, ha, excellent! [_Exeunt._]