Twelfth Night – Act Three Scene Two
Sir Andrew is upset because Olivia is showing more attention to Cesario than him. He is leaving for home
Sir Toby and Fabian persuade him to stay
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. 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 Toby suggests writing a challenge to Cesario to prove his valour
SIR TOBY BELCH
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.
When Sir Andrew leaves to write this letter we see the real Sir Toby. He means to continue this jest to it’s conclusion, as he will with Malvolio
SIR TOBY BELCH
. 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.
Maria enters in haste as Malvolio is coming dressed in yellow stockings. They go to laugh at him
