Bertie's Paraphrases of Famous Scenes from Shakespeare: Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 4 excerpt (Sir Andrew challenges Viola)

[Setting: the garden of the house of Olivia, a widowed countess in the country of Illyria.]

[Sir Toby Belch, Olivia's uncle, has encouraged the foolish Sir Andrew Ague-cheek to think he might succesfully woo and win Olivia. But Olivia is in love with Viola, a girl who is posing as a man and is being employed by Duke Orsino as a messenger in his own attempt to woo Olivia. Sir Toby is being aided in his mischief by the equally mischievous Fabian and Maria, servants in Olivia's household. Sir Andrew, having seen Olivia show favour to Viola, has followed Sir Toby's suggestion that he write an offensive letter to Viola to scare 'him' off.]

[Enter Sir Andrew Ague-cheek.]

FABIAN: More material for a May morning.

ANDREW: Here's the challenge; read it.
: I warrant there's vinegar and pepper in it.

FABIAN: Is it so saucy?

ANDREW: Yes, it is, I warrant him [= it].
: Just read it.

TOBY: Give me.
[Reading]: "Youth; whoever you are, you are merely a scurvy fellow."

FABIAN: Good, and valiant.

TOBY [Reading]: "Do not wonder nor puzzle in your mind why I call you so, for I will show you no reason for it."

FABIAN: A good touch, that keeps you away from the blow of the law.

TOBY [Reading]: "You come to the Lady Olivia, and in my sight she
treats you kindly. But you lie in your throat. That
is not the matter I am challenging you about."

FABIAN: Very brief, and of exceedingly good sense...less.

TOBY [Reading]: "I will waylay you going home; where, if it is your
good luck to kill me,..."

FABIAN: Good.

TOBY [Reading]: "...you will kill me like a rogue and a villain."

FABIAN: Still you keep on the windy side of the law; good.

TOBY [Reading]: "Farewell. And may God have mercy on one of our
souls! He may have mercy on mine, but my hope is
better; and so watch out for yourself. Your friend,
depending how you treat him, and your sworn enemy,
Sir Andrew Ague-cheek."

: If this letter doesn't move him, his legs cannot.
: I'll give it to him.

MARIA: You may have a very good opportunity for it: - he is now in
conference with my lady, and will depart by-and-by [= soon].

TOBY: Go, Sir Andrew; watch for him for me at the corner of the
garden, like a debt collector.
: As soon as ever you see him, draw your sword, and, as you
draw, swear horribly; for it often comes to pass that a
terrible oath, in a swaggering voice, sharply twanged off,
gives manhood more recommendation than validity itself would
have earned him.
: Away!

ANDREW: Yes, I stand alone at swearing.

[Exit Sir Andrew.]

TOBY: Now, I will not deliver this letter; for the behaviour of the
young gentleman [= Viola] shows him to be of good ability and breeding.
: His employment between his lord and my niece confirms no less.
: Therefore, this letter, being so excellently ignorant, will
breed no terror in the youth: - he will decide it comes from a
clod.
: But, sir, I will deliver his challenge by word of mouth, give
Ague-cheek a notable report of valour, and drive the youth (as,
I know, his youth will aptly receive it) into a most hideous
opinion of his rage, skill, fury, and impetuousness.
: This will frighten them both so much that they will kill one
another by the look, like cockatrices.
[Note: a cockatrice was a mythical beast that could kill with a look.]

FABIAN: Here he [= Viola] comes with your niece.
: Give them this place until he leaves, and then after him
immediately.

TOBY: Meanwhile I will meditate upon some horrid message for a
challenge.

[Exit Sir Toby, Fabian, and Maria. Enter Olivia, with Viola.]

OLIVIA: I have said too much to a heart of stone, and exposed my
honour too unwarily.
[Note: because Viola has naturally rejected Olivia's advances, she says 'he' has a heart of stone.]
: There's something in me that criticises my fault, but it is
such a headstrong and potent fault that it only mocks at
blame.

VIOLA: With the same behaviour that your passion shows, goes my
master's suffering.
[Note: this means, "Your emotion for me is like my master's suffering over you."]

OLIVIA: Here, wear this jewel for me; it's my picture.
: Do not refuse it, it has no tongue to vex you.
: And, I beg you, come again tomorrow.
: What shall you ask of me that I'll refuse? - what that, excepting my
honour, may be given upon asking?

VIOLA: Nothing but this: your true love, for my master.

OLIVIA: How, with my honour, can I give him that which I have given
to you?

VIOLA: I will release you.

OLIVIA: Well, come again tomorrow.
: Farewell.
: A fiend like you might carry my soul to hell.

[Exit Olivia. Re-enter Sir Toby Belch and Fabian.]

[Note in what follows how much subtle sexual suggestiveness there is in the words of the men to Viola.]

TOBY[to Viola]: Gentleman, God save you.

VIOLA: And you, sir.

TOBY: That weapon you have: take hold of it.
: Of what nature the wrongs are you have done him, I don't know;
but your interceptor, full of spite, bloody as the hunter,
awaits you at the garden's end.
: Unsheathe your sword; be brisk in your preparation; for your
assailant is quick, skillful, and deadly.

VIOLA: You are mistaken, sir.
: I am sure no man has any quarrel with me.
: My memory is very free and clear of any image of offence done
to any man.

TOBY: You'll find it otherwise, I assure you.
: Therefore, if you hold your life at any value, put yourself
on your guard; for your opponent has in him what youth,
strength, skill, and wrath, can furnish a man with.

VIOLA: I ask you, sir, who is he?

TOBY: He is a knight, dubbed with unscratched rapier, and for non-military reasons; but he is a devil in a private brawl.
: He has divorced three souls from their bodies, and his anger
at this moment is so implacable that there can be no satis-
faction other than by pangs of death and sepulchre.
: 'Give or take' is his motto: - give it, or take it.

VIOLA: I will return again into the house, and ask for some safe-
conduct from the lady: - I am no fighter.
: I have heard of some kind of men that force quarrels purposely
upon others, to taste their valour; perhaps this is a man of
that ilk.

TOBY: Sir, no; his indignation derives itself out of a very
sufficient insult.
: Therefore, get your self along and give him his desire.
: You shall not come back to the house unless you undertake
that action with me which, with as much safety, you might
answer him.
[Note: in other words, "Either you face him or you face me, both are equally dangerous."]
: Therefore, onward; or strip your sword stark naked [now]; for you
must couple [with one of us], that's certain, or swear off wearing iron on you.

VIOLA: This is as uncivil as strange.
: I beg you, do me this courteous favour: find out from the
knight what my offence to him is: - it is something due to
my negligence, nothing of my purpose.

TOBY: I will do so.
: Signor Fabian, you stay by this gentleman until my return.

[Exit Sir Toby.]

VIOLA: Please, sir, do you know about this matter?

FABIAN: I know the knight is incensed against you, even to the point
of a deadly trial by combat, but nothing more of the circumstance.

VIOLA: I beg you, what sort of man is he?

FABIAN: To read him by his appearance, there is nothing of that
wonderful promise that you are likely to find in him in the
proof of his valour.
: He is indeed, sir, the most skillful, bloody, and deadly
opponent that you could possibly have found in any part of
Illyria.
: To you want to walk towards him?
: I will make your peace with him, if I can.

VIOLA: I shall be much indebted to you for it.
: I am one that would rather go with sir priest than sir knight.
: I do not care who knows as much about my mettle.

[Exit both. Re-enter Sir Toby, with Sir Andrew.]

TOBY: Why, man, he's an absolute devil.
: I have never seen such a virago.
[Note: by calling Viola a 'virago' he means to say 'he' is effeminate looking but manly in action.]

: I had a bout with him, rapier, scabbard, and all, and he gave
me the stuck-in with such a deadly motion that it is unavoid-
able; and with his counter-stroke he repays you as surely as
your feet hit the ground they step on.
: They say he has been fencing instructor to the Sophy [= ruler of Persia].

ANDREW: Pox on it! - I'll not meddle with him.
[Note: in Shakespeare's time the word 'meddle' was also a slang term for sexual activity.]

TOBY: Yes, but he will not be pacified now: - Fabian can scarcely
hold him yonder.

ANDREW: Plague on it! - if I had thought he was so valiant, and so
skilled in fencing, I'd have seen him damned before I'd
have challenged him.
: Let him let the matter slip, and I'll give him my horse,
grey Capilet.

TOBY: I'll make the motion. [= I'll suggest the idea.]
: Stand here; make a good show of it.
: This shall end without the damning of souls.
[Aside]: I swear, I'll ride your horse as well as I ride you.

[Re-enter Fabian and Viola. Fabian goes aside with Sir Toby.]

[To Fabian]: I have his horse to take up the quarrel.
: I have persuaded him the youth's a devil.

FABIAN: He has as horrible an idea of him; and he pants and looks pale, as if a bear were at his heels.

TOBY [To Viola]: There's no remedy, sir: he will fight with you for
his oath's sake.
: But really, he has thought better of his quarrel,
and he now finds that to be scarcely worth talking
about.
: Therefore, draw your sword for the support of his
vow; he promises he will not hurt you.

VIOLA [Aside]: Please God, defend me!
: A little thing would make me tell them how much I
lack of a man.

FABIAN: Give ground if you see him get furious.

TOBY: Come, Sir Andrew, there's no remedy: the gentleman will, for
his honour's sake, have just one bout with you: he cannot
avoid it by the rules of duelling.
: But he has promised me, as surely as he is a gentleman and a
soldier, he will not hurt you.
: Come on; to it.

ANDREW [Drawing]: Pray God that he keeps his oath!

VIOLA [Drawing]: I do assure you, it's against my will.

[Enter Antonio.]

[Note: Antonio is looking for Sebastian, Viola's twin brother. He has befriended Sebastian and lent him money. Viola and Sebastian were separated after a shipwreck, and in what follows Antonio mistakes Viola for her brother. She, of course, does not know him.]

ANTONIO: Put away your sword.
: If this young gentleman has done offence, I take the fault
on me.
[Drawing]: If you have offended him, for him I defy you.

TOBY: You, sir?
: Why, who are you?

ANTONIO: Someone, sir, that, for his friendship, dares do yet more
than you have heard him brag to you he will.

TOBY [Drawing]: Yes, if you are a champion, I am for you.

FABIAN: Oh, good Sir Toby, stop! - here come the constables.

TOBY [to Antonio]: I'll be with you soon.

VIOLA [to Andrew]: Please, sir, put your sword away, if you please.

ANDREW: Indeed, I will, sir.
: And, as for what I promised you, I'll be as good as my word.
: He will carry you easily, and reins well.
[Note: Viola, of course, doesn't know that he's talking about his horse.]

[Enter two constables.]

CONSTABLE 1: This is the man.
: Do your job.

CONSTABLE 2: I arrest you at the request of Count Orsino.
[Note: Antonio is a sea-captain from a country that has been an enemy to Duke Orsino.]

ANTONIO: You mistake me, sir.

CONSTABLE 1: No, sir, not a jot.
: I know your face well, though you now have no sea-cap
on your head.
: Take him away: - he knows I know him well.

ANTONIO: I must obey.
[To Viola]: This comes of searching for you.
: But there's no remedy: - I shall answer for it.
: What will you do?
: Now my need makes me ask you for my purse.
: It grieves me much more for what I cannot do for you
than for what has happened to myself.
: You stand amazed; but be comforted.

CONSTABLE 2: Come away, sir.

ANTONIO: I must beg some of that money from you.

VIOLA: What money, sir?
: For the fair kindness you have showed me here, and in part
being prompted by your present trouble, I'll lend you some-
thing out of my lean and low ability.
: What I have is not much.
: I'll divide my purse with you: - there is half my treasury.

ANTONIO: Are you denying me now?
: Is it possible my deserts can lack persuasion to you?
: Do not tempt my misery, in case it makes me so unsound a
man as to upbraid you with those kindnesses that I have
done for you.

VIOLA: I know of none.
: Nor do I know you by voice or any feature.
: I hate ingratitude more in a man than lying vainness, babbling
drunkenness, or any taint of vice, whose strong corruption
inhabits our frail blood.

ANTONIO: Oh heavens themselves!

CONSTABLE 2: Come, sir; I tell you, go.

ANTONIO: Let me speak a little.
: This youth that you see here, I snatched from half into the
jaws of death, relieved him with such sacred friendship,
and devoted myself to his image, which, I thought, promised
very venerable worth.

CONSTABLE 1: What's that to us?
: The time is going by.
: Away!

ANTONIO: But oh, how vile an idol this god proved to be!
: You have, Sebastian, done good features shame.
: In nature there's no blemish but the mind; none can be
called deformed but the unkind.
: Virtue is beauty, but the beautiful-evil are hollow trunks
overgrown by the devil.

CONSTABLE 1: The man is growing mad.
: Away with him!
: Come, come, sir.

ANTONIO: Lead me on.

[Exit constables with Antonio.]

VIOLA [to herself]: I think his words fly out of such a passion that he believes himself: - I do not do so.
: Prove to be true, imagination, oh prove to be true, that I,
dear brother, have now been taken for you!

TOBY: Come here, knight.
: Come here, Fabian.
: We'll whisper-over a couplet or two of very wise sayings.

VIOLA [to herself]: He said the name Sebastian.
: I know my brother is still living in my mirror; just such,
and so, was my brother's face; and he always went in this
fashion, colour, ornament, for I am imitating him.
: Oh, if it proves true, tempests are kind, and salt waves are
fresh in love!

[Exit Viola.]

TOBY: A very dishonest paltry boy, and more cowardly than a hare.
: His dishonesty appears in leaving his friend here in need,
and denying him; and as for his cowardice, ask Fabian.

FABIAN: A coward, a most devout coward; religious in it.

ANDREW: God's eyelid! - I'll go after him again and beat him.

TOBY: Do; cuff him soundly, but never draw your sword.

ANDREW: You see if I don't!

[Exit Sir Andrew.]

FABIAN: Come, let's see the event.

TOBY: I dare lay any money it will still amount to nothing.

[Exit both.]

[End of Scene.]