Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Shakespeare’s Middle Comedies: A Generation of Criticism
- ‘Perfect Types of Womanhood’: Rosalind, Beatrice and Viola in Victorian Criticism and Performance
- The Stage Representation of the ‘Kill Claudio’ Sequence in Much Ado About Nothing
- As You Like It Adapted: Charles Johnson’s Love in a Forest
- Social Relations and the Social Order in Much Ado About Nothing
- Sexual Disguise in As You Like It and Twelfth Night
- Twelfth Night and the Myth of Echo and Narcissus
- ‘Smiling at grief’: Some Techniques of Comedy in Twelfth Night and Così Fan Tutte
- ‘My Lady’s a Catayan, we are politicians, Maluolios a Peg-a-ramsie’ (Twelfth Night II, iii, 77-8)
- The Importance of Being Marcade
- A Hebrew Source for The Merchant of Venice
- The Marriage Contracts in Measure for Measure: A Reconsideration
- Richard III: Antecedents of Clarence’s Dream
- Deep Plots and Indiscretions in ‘The Murder of Gonzago’
- ‘What is’t to leave betimes?’ Proverbs and Logic in Hamlet
- The Tempest: Language and Society
- Pictorial Evidence for a Possible Replica of the London Fortune Theatre in Gdansk
- A Year of Comedies: Stratford 1978
- The Year's Contributions to Shakespearian Study: 1 Critical Studies
- 2 Shakespeare’s Life, Times and Stage
- 3 Textual Studies
- Index
- Plate section
‘My Lady’s a Catayan, we are politicians, Maluolios a Peg-a-ramsie’ (Twelfth Night II, iii, 77-8)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2007
- Frontmatter
- Shakespeare’s Middle Comedies: A Generation of Criticism
- ‘Perfect Types of Womanhood’: Rosalind, Beatrice and Viola in Victorian Criticism and Performance
- The Stage Representation of the ‘Kill Claudio’ Sequence in Much Ado About Nothing
- As You Like It Adapted: Charles Johnson’s Love in a Forest
- Social Relations and the Social Order in Much Ado About Nothing
- Sexual Disguise in As You Like It and Twelfth Night
- Twelfth Night and the Myth of Echo and Narcissus
- ‘Smiling at grief’: Some Techniques of Comedy in Twelfth Night and Così Fan Tutte
- ‘My Lady’s a Catayan, we are politicians, Maluolios a Peg-a-ramsie’ (Twelfth Night II, iii, 77-8)
- The Importance of Being Marcade
- A Hebrew Source for The Merchant of Venice
- The Marriage Contracts in Measure for Measure: A Reconsideration
- Richard III: Antecedents of Clarence’s Dream
- Deep Plots and Indiscretions in ‘The Murder of Gonzago’
- ‘What is’t to leave betimes?’ Proverbs and Logic in Hamlet
- The Tempest: Language and Society
- Pictorial Evidence for a Possible Replica of the London Fortune Theatre in Gdansk
- A Year of Comedies: Stratford 1978
- The Year's Contributions to Shakespearian Study: 1 Critical Studies
- 2 Shakespeare’s Life, Times and Stage
- 3 Textual Studies
- Index
- Plate section
Summary
The last of Shakespeare’s romantic comedies contains a good many quibbles and enigmatic passages that up to now have defied explanation. The midnight scene in which Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Feste indulge in revelling and carousing, for instance, presents a number of unsolved textual problems. Sir Toby proposes to his boon companions to rouse Malvolio in a catch. They accept and together they intone ‘Hold thy peace’. The rioting alarms Maria who hastens to warn the unruly company to put an end to their disorder (ii, iii, 74-8o):
Maria. What a catterwalling doe you keepe heere? If my Ladie haue not call'd vp her Steward Maluolio, and bid him turne you out of doores, neuer trust me.
Toby. My Lady's a Catayan, we are politicians, Maluolios a Peg-a-ramsie, and Three merry men be wee. Am not I consanguinious? Am I not of her blood: tilly vally. Ladie, There dwelt a man in Babylon, Lady, Lady.
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- Information
- Shakespeare Survey , pp. 85 - 104Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1980