This is Part A of the director’s commentary on Twelfth Night Act 2, Scene 3. (A | B | C | D | E)

The Fun Scene… with Song!

Toby opens this scene, by goading a likely-tired Andrew to “stay awake” via a perversion of proverb “early to rise…”, though in Latin. For comic effect, he might as well pronounce “deliculo surgere” as “deli - qu - lo  cigar - ray!”:

Toby: Approach, Sir Andrew: not to be a bedded after midnight is to be up betimes, and Deliculo surgere, thou know’st!

Andrew’s drunk-as-heck, so he’s just like, “By my guts, all I know is that, to be up late, is to be up late.”

Andrew: Nay by my troth I know not: but I know, to be up late, is to be up late

In this case, Sir Toby Belch lets go the other bodily function, he whizzes into an empty milk can, the first (yellow-tinted) “milk of the day”:

Toby: A false conclusion: I hate it as an unfill’d can.

It’s a long piss, so he continues philosophizing while whizzing:

Toby: To be up after midnight, and to go to bed then is early: so that to go to bed after midnight, is to go to bed betimes.

Toby zips up his fly:

Toby: Does not our lives consist of the four Elements?

Andrew is a rather down-to-earth-man (read: ok, so, he’s more than a tad uncultured):

Andrew: Faith so they say, but I think it rather consists of eating and drinking.

More booze is always good for Toby (he’s just pissed it all off, anyway):

Th’art a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink. Marian, I say, a stoop of wine.

It’s curious that, in context, Maria does not enter the scene until much later (when she complains about the noise), and yet–all of a sudden–Toby mentions a name that seems similar to her name, but does not actually refer to Maria. “Marian”, in my interpretation, refers to the painting of the Virgin Mary (with wine!) that hangs in Olivia’s pantry (Both paintings by Joos van Cleve: Candidate 1 [info] [pic] | Candidate 2 [info] [pic]), wherein Toby makes an obscure reference to the Marian Dogma, which might be fitting for a performance of Twelfth Night at the Blackfriars (considering its Dominican roots).

Feste enters with a bottle of wine, and gathers the trio together in a lovely picturesque moment in front of this painting of the Virgin Mary with wine:

Feste: How now, my harts — did you never see the Picture of we three?

Toby asks for both song and wine “in a catch” from Feste:

Toby: Welcome ass, now let’s have a catch.

Andrew then commends Feste for his voice (”excellent breast”), but since he’s drunk-off-his-ass, he might as well also be staring at Feste’s breast while thinking of the graceful foolery with dance and song last night, and the sixpence to Feste’s “Leman” (lover).

Andrew: By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I had rather than forty shillings I had such a leg, and so sweet a breath to sing, as the fool has. In sooth, thou was in very gracious fooling last night, when thou spok’st of Pigrogromitus, of the Vapians passing the Equinoxial of Queubus: ’twas very good i’faith. I sent thee sixpence for thy Leman, hadst it?

Feste tells Andrew that he has indeed pocketed Andrew’s gratuity, but he says it with a sort of “ring” or a “trill” to his voice, “gratillllllity,” and perhaps says the rest of his line with rap-like rhythm, explaining that Malvolio’s nose couldn’t catch him in giving it to his lady, who appeared too innocent, and the hired killers (Mermidons) weren’t home, anyway, to fix up the matter.

Feste: I did impeticos thy gratillity: for Malvolio’s nose is no whip-stock, my Lady has a white hand, and the Mermidons are no bottle-ale houses.

Andrew’s again delighted by Feste’s nonsense.

Andrew: Excellent: why this is the best fooling, when all is done. Now, a song.

Toby sees through Feste’s hardship, and offers him a sixpence for himself:

Toby: Come on, there is sixpence for you. let’s have a song.
Andrew: There’s a testril of me too: if one knight give a –

Feste bows, in character, and takes on his street-entertainer persona, offering a choice of songs:

Feste: Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life?

Toby: A love song, a love song.
Andrew: Aye, aye. I care not for good life.

Feste sings his ditty*:

Feste:
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.

I’m going to post my own sheet music for the songs that the actor and I figure out for these singing parts, but meanwhile, Duffin’s Shakespeare Songbook has a series of samples available online that can help cue you in on-tune.

Toby and Andrew then both clamor for “Encore!”, and Feste continues singing:

Feste:
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.

At this point, Andrew is so drunk that he gives his last retort in a declare of a shout, and then falls down, on the floor, drunk:

Andrew: A mellifluous voice, as I AM TRUE KNIGHT!

Contagious referring to the contagion of not just music and singsong, but also that of drink:

Toby: A contagious breath.

Andrew: Very sweet, and contagious i’faith.

Toby then rouses them all to action, goading them on to “make the sky shake (make the Welkin dance)”, and awake even the “Nightowl in a Catch”

Toby: To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion. But shall we make the Welkin dance indeed? Shall we rouse the Nightowl in a Catch, that will draw three fouls out of one Weaver? Shall we do that?

As described in more detail in our OEP2 playscript (pdf | celtx), I’ve gone a bit far and literal, to actually have Toby throw around an apple, in a game of moral catch, where both Toby and Feste betray a bit of their cruelness to be fully revealed in later acts, when they play around with poor Andrew as dog. Toby throws the apple to Feste (who misses and curses “Bloody, sir, and some dogs will catch well!”), while Andrew crawls on all four (drunk), trying to get at the “ball”:

Andrew: And you love me, let’s do’t. I am dogged at a Catch

Feste: By’r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well.

Andrew catches the ball, drops it in front of Feste, sings “Thou Knave”:

Andrew: Most certain: let our Catch be, Thou Knave.

Feste then takes the apple, and, in mockery, knights Andrew with an apple balanced on the knighting-sword:

Feste: Hold thy peace, thou Knave knight. I shall be constrain’d in’t, to call thee knave, Knight.

Andrew rises:

Andrew: ‘Tis not the first time I have constrained one to call me knave. Begin fool: it begins, “Hold thy peace.”

Feste: I shall never begin if I hold my peace.

Andrew: Good i’faith: come, begin.

And Maria enters, monetarily pausing the caterwauling…

Tags: Andrew, feste, Marian, Toby