# Twelfth Night (1922) Yale/Notes

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NOTES
I. ii. 40–42. And might not be deliver'd to the world . . . What my estate is. Might not have my real identity divulged till I had made it opportune to do so.
I. ii. 60. eunuch . . . mute. Well-known functionaries in oriental courts. Viola, however, changes her mind and assumes the character of a page.
I. ii. 28. viol-de-gamboys. Sir Toby's perversion of viol da gamba, an instrument like a violoncello.
I. ii. 31. natural. A play on the meanings 'by nature' and 'like a born fool.'
I. ii. 45. parish-top. 'A large top was formerly kept in every village, to be whipped in frosty weather, that the peasants might be kept warm by exercise, and out of mischief, while they could not work. (Steevens.)
I. ii. 46. Castiliano vulgo. Probably Spanish of Sir Toby's own coinage, meaning possibly, put on a distinguished manner.
I. ii. 75, 76. bring your hand to the buttery-bar and let it drink. Ale was dispensed from the buttery as food from the pantry. Kenrick asserts that the first six words were 'a proverbial phrase among forward Abigails, to ask at once for a kiss and a present.' A dry hand (line 79) was a sign of age or infirmity. Desdemona has a moist hand because 'It yet has felt no age nor known no sorrow' (Othello, III. iv. 38).
I. ii. 102, 103. Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair. Probably a pun on 'tongues' (line 99) and 'tongs' (curling tongs).
I. ii. 115. The count. Orsino, who is called duke and count indifferently in the play. Possibly the inconsistency is due to contamination of two different versions of the comedy in the Folio text.
​I. ii. 127, 128. yet I will not compare with an old man. On consideration Sir Andrew modestly limits his profession of superiority first to those who are not his superiors in rank and then to those who are not his elders.
I. ii. 137. Mistress Mall's picture. Mall, or Malkin, was from the time of Chaucer and Langland a proverbial name for a common woman, whose picture no man would respect.
I. ii. 149. born under Taurus. Actually in almanacs, which continue the old astrological theory of medicine, the sign of Taurus governs the neck and throat. Sir Andrew and Sir Toby are therefore both wrong.
I. v. 6. fear no colours. A proverbial phrase, meaning to have no fear, fear the flag of no enemy. The same pun on 'colours' and 'collars' (of the hangman) occurs in 2 Hen. IV., V. v. 91–94.
I. v. 26. if one break. A play upon the word points, meaning the laces with metal ends that attached doublet and gaskins.
I. v. 55–57. As there is no true cuckold, etc. Feste is intent only on keeping up a rattling fire of nonsense to ward off Olivia's attack.
I. v. 316. Unless the master were the man. Unless Orsino and his servant could change places.
I. v. 329, 330. fear . . . mind. Fear that love at first sight ran away with my sober judgment.
II. ii. S. d. at several doors. The normal Elizabethan stage had two doors, right and left, with a third possible one through the curtains under the balcony. The conventional direction of modern editors, 'Enter Viola, Malvolio following,' misrepresents the manner in which Shakespeare intended the meeting to take place.
II. iii. 17. the picture of 'we three.' 'A common sign, in which two wooden heads are exhibited, with ​this inscription under it: "We three loggerheads be." The spectator or reader is supposed to make the third.' (Malone.)
II. iii. 25. Pigrogromitus, etc. In the same vein as the reference to Quinapalus, I. v. 38. Leigh Hunt paraphrases the nonsense about the Vapians and the equinoctial of Queubus as 'some glorious torrid zone, lying beyond three o'clock in the morning.'
II. iii. 63. draw three souls out of one weaver. Weavers were proverbially noted for their singing, especially of psalms.
II. iii. 87. There dwelt a man in Babylon, lady, lady! A line from the old ballad of Susanna, alluded to by Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, II. iv. 152.
II. iii. 111–122. Farewell, dear heart, etc. Snatches from a song included in Robert Jones's Booke of Ayres, 1601.
II. iii. 123. Out o' tune. Theobald's change of 'tune' to 'time,' to echo Malvolio's word (line 101), has been followed by many editors. Furness defends the Folio reading since Feste has interpolated an extra 'no' which breaks the original metre of the song.
II. iv. 5. recollected terms. 'Recollected' is variously glossed as 'studied,' 'repeated,' 'refined,' 'trivial.' Orsino seems to contrast the light, popular songs (such as Sir Toby's catches) with an old-fashioned melody.
II. iv. 52. cypress. Probably a coffin of cypress wood. In III. i. 134 cypress evidently has the meaning of thin crape, and it is here sometimes interpreted as a shroud of cypress (crape); but the 'black coffin' (line 60) seems to give the clue to the present meaning.
II. iv. 119. Our shows are more than will. Our love manifests itself more in external appearances than in constancy of will.
II. iv. 123. yet I know not. Viola bethinks her​self of the possibility that her brother may still be alive.
II. v. 44, 45. the lady of the Strachy. A famous crux, still unexplained. The lady's name may or may not have been invented by the poet. Webster's tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi, deals with a great Italian lady who married the steward of her household.
II. v. 47. Jezebel. Sir Andrew, whose knowledge both of the Bible and of womankind is limited, uses Jezebel as a general term of reproach.
II. v. 67. play with my—. Malvolio is probably fingering his steward's chain, but then abruptly remembers that he will have discarded this badge of his present office.
II. v. 72. with cars. This is the First Folio reading, but many emendations have been proposed, including Hanmer's 'by th' ears,' which has been frequently followed.
II. v. 127. checks. 'A term in falconry, applied to a hawk when she forsakes her proper game, and follows some other of inferior kind that crosses her in her flight.'
II. v. 169. cross-gartered. An ostentatious style of wearing garters crossed above and below the knee.
III. i. 24, 25. words are very rascals since bonds disgraced them. A man's word is not as good as his bond nowadays. Insistence on the bond has brought the mere word into disrepute.
III. i. 63. Cressida was a beggar. According to a development of Chaucer's story, she finally became a leper and begged by the roadside. Another allusion to this fate is found in Henry V, II. i. 80: 'the lazar kite of Cressid's kind.'
III. i. 132. baited. The reference is to the popular sport of bear-baiting. Cf. I. iii. 100.
​III. i. 162. love's night is noon. Love seeking to conceal itself is plain as noonday.
III. ii. 29–31. sailed into the north . . . Dutchman's beard. This has been rather unnecessarily explained as a reference to the discovery of Northern Nova Zembla by the Dutchman Barentz in 1596.
III. ii. 50, 51. if thou thou'st him some thrice. The familiar second person singular might imply contempt. Sir Walter Raleigh, at his trial in 1603, was thus insulted by the Attorney General Coke: 'All that he did was at thy instigation, thou viper; for I thou thee, thou traitor.'
III. ii. 73, 74. the youngest wren of nine. Theobald has been followed by most modern editors, though after much doubt and discussion, in reading nine for the Folio mine. The wren lays nine or ten eggs at a time, and the ninth fledgling of the brood would be superlatively small.
III. ii. 88. the new map with the augmentation of the Indies. A new map, containing more detailed information about the East Indies than had previously been accessible, was published about 1599. The allusion is of some value in dating the play.
III. iii. 14, 15. I can no other answer make but thanks, And thanks, and ever thanks. Thanks, many times repeated, are the only return I can make for your benefits.
III. iv. 116. Carry his water to the wise-woman. I.e., let the local wise-woman diagnose his case.
III. iv. 414, 415. a couplet or two of most sage saws. Couplet is usually glossed 'couple,' but couplet seems suggested by Antonio's previous sententious couplets (lines 403–406).
IV. i. 14, 15. I am afraid this great lubber, the world, will prove a cockney. I am afraid that the world, stupid lout though it is, will prove affected and foppish.
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