Twelfth Night

by: William Shakespeare

Act 1 Scene 3

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Original Text	Modern Text
Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and MARIA	SIR TOBY BELCH and MARIA enter.
SIR TOBY BELCH What a plague means my niece, to take the death of her brother thus? I am sure care’s an enemy to life.	SIR TOBY BELCH What’s wrong with my niece? Why is she reacting so strangely to her brother’s death? Grief is bad for people’s health.
MARIA By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o' nights. Your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours.	MARIA For God’s sake, Sir Toby, you’ve got to come home earlier at night. My lady Olivia, your niece, disapproves of your late-night partying.
SIR TOBY BELCH Why, let her except, before excepted.	SIR TOBY BELCH Well, she can get used to it.
MARIA Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits of order.	MARIA Yes, but you need to keep yourself within the limits of order and decency.
SIR TOBY BELCH Confine? I’ll confine myself no finer than I am. These clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too. An they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps.	SIR TOBY BELCH Keep myself? The only thing I’m keeping myself in is the clothes I’m wearing. They’re good enough to drink in, and so are these boots. If they aren’t, they can go hang themselves by their own laces!
MARIA That quaffing and drinking will undo you: I heard my lady talk of it yesterday, and of a foolish knight that you brought in one night here to be her wooer.	MARIA You’re going to destroy yourself with all this drinking. Lady Olivia said so yesterday. She also mentioned some stupid knight you brought in one night as a possible husband for her.
SIR TOBY BELCH Who, Sir Andrew Aguecheek?	SIR TOBY BELCH Who, Sir Andrew Aguecheek?
MARIA Ay, he.	MARIA Yes, that’s the one.
SIR TOBY BELCH He’s as tall a man as any ’s in Illyria.	SIR TOBY BELCH He’s as tall “Tall” could be used as slang for “brave.” tall as a man in Illyria.

Read the Summary of Act I, scenes iii–iv

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