why, this is the best fooling, when all is done. Now, a song.
Sir Toby
Come on; there is sixpence for you: let’s have a song.
Sir Andrew
There’s a testril of me too: if one knight give a—
Clown
Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life?
Sir Toby
A love-song, a love-song.
Sir Andrew
Ay, ay: I care not for good life.
Clown
Sings.
O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true love’s coming,
That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man’s son doth know.
Sir Andrew
Excellent good, i’ faith.
Sir Toby
Good, good.
Clown
Sings.
What is love? ’tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What’s to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth’s a stuff will not endure.
Sir Andrew
A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight.
Sir Toby
A contagious breath.
Sir Andrew
Very sweet and contagious, i’ faith.
Sir Toby
To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion. But shall we make the welkin dance indeed? shall we rouse the night-owl in a catch that will draw three souls out of one weaver? shall we do that?
Sir Andrew
An you love me, let’s do’t: I am dog at a catch.
Clown
By’r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well.
Sir Andrew
Most certain. Let our catch be, “Thou knave.”
Clown
“Hold thy peace, thou knave,” knight? I shall be constrained in’t to call thee knave, knight.
Sir Andrew
’Tis not the first time I have constrained one to call me knave. Begin, fool: it begins “Hold thy peace.”
Clown
I shall never begin if I hold my peace.
Sir Andrew
Good, i’ faith. Come, begin.
Catch sung.
Enter
Maria.
Maria
What a caterwauling do you keep here! If my lady have not called up her steward Malvolio and bid him turn you out of doors, never trust me.
Sir Toby
My lady’s a Cataian, we are politicians, Malvolio’s a Peg-a-Ramsey, and “Three merry men be we.” Am not I consanguineous? am I not of her blood? Tillyvally. Lady!
Sings. “There dwelt a man in Babylon, lady, lady!”
Clown
Beshrew me, the knight’s in admirable fooling.
Sir Andrew
Ay, he does well enough if he be disposed, and so do I too: he does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural.
Sir Toby
Sings. “O, the twelfth day of December,”—
Maria
For the love o’ God, peace!
Enter
Malvolio.
Malvolio
My masters, are you mad? or what are you? Have ye no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night? Do ye make an alehouse of my lady’s house, that ye squeak out your coziers’ catches without any mitigation or remorse of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you?
Sir Toby
We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up!
Malvolio
Sir Toby, I must be round with you. My lady bade me tell you, that, though she harbours you as her kinsman, she’s nothing allied to your disorders. If you can separate yourself and your misdemeanours, you are welcome to the house; if not, an it would please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you farewell.
Sir Toby
“Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone.”
Maria
Nay, good Sir Toby.
Clown
“His eyes do show his days are almost done.”
Malvolio
Is’t even so?
Sir Toby
“But I will never die.”
Clown
Sir Toby, there you lie.
Malvolio
This is much credit to you.
Sir Toby
“Shall I bid him go?”
Clown
“What an if you do?”
Sir Toby
“Shall I bid him go, and spare not?”
Clown
“O no, no, no, no, you dare not.”
Sir Toby
Out o’ tune, sir: ye lie. Art any more than a steward? Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?
Clown
Yes, by Saint Anne, and ginger shall be hot i’ the mouth too.
Sir Toby
Thou’rt i’ the right. Go, sir, rub your chain with crums. A stoup of wine, Maria!
Malvolio
Mistress Mary, if you prized my lady’s favour at any thing more than contempt, you would not give means for this uncivil rule: she shall know of it, by this hand.
Exit.
Maria
Go shake your ears.
Sir Andrew
’Twere as good a deed as to drink when a man’s a-hungry, to challenge him the field, and then to break promise with him and make a fool of him.
Sir Toby
Do’t, knight: I’ll write thee a challenge: or I’ll deliver thy indignation to him by word of mouth.
Maria
Sweet Sir Toby, be patient for to-night: since the youth of the count’s was to-day with thy lady, she is much out of quiet. For Monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him: if I do not gull him into a nayword, and make him a common recreation, do not think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed: I know I can do it.
Sir Toby
Possess us, possess us; tell us something of him.
Maria
Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan.
Sir Andrew
O, if I thought that I’ld beat him like a dog!
Sir Toby
What, for being a puritan? thy exquisite reason, dear knight?
Sir Andrew
I have no exquisite reason for’t, but I have reason good enough.
Maria
The devil a puritan that he is, or any thing constantly, but a time-pleaser; an affectioned ass, that cons state without book and utters it by great swarths: the best persuaded of himself, so crammed, as he thinks, with excellencies, that it is his grounds of faith that all that look on him love him; and on that vice in him will my revenge find notable cause to work.
Sir Toby
What wilt thou do?
Maria
I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of love; wherein, by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and complexion, he shall find himself most feelingly personated. I can
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