CLO. I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
OLIV. I know his soul is in heaven, fool.
CLO. The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in
heaven.--Take away the fool, gentlemen.
All the characters, noble and common, have some weakness which
he intuitively rallies. The charm of the comedy lies in these
unsubstantial moods of the chief personages which consort with the more
substantial whims and appetites of the others. The only sobriety is
vested in the Clown; for all his freaks have a consistent disposition.
So the lovely poetry of the mock mourners alternates with the tipsy
prose of the genuine fleshly fellows. Their hearty caterwauling
penetrates to Olivia's fond seclusion, and breaks up her brooding.
Feste is everywhere at home. When he plays the curate's part, Malvolio
beseechingly cries, "Sir Topas, Sir Topas!" The Clown says aside, "Nay,
I am for all waters,"--that is, for topaz, diamond, gems of the first
water, all many-colored facets I'll reflect. And he does so in this
conversation which he holds with Malvolio, who says, "I am no more mad
than you are: make the trial of it in any constant question." Then
Feste airs his learning: "What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning
wild-fowl?" and makes his question lead up to a sharp retort, when
Malvolio answers, "That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a
bird;" for then Feste says, "Thou shalt hold the opinion of Pythagoras
ere I will allow of thy wits, and fear to kill a woodcock lest thou
dispossess the soul of thy grandam." For it was a country notion that
the woodcock was the foolishest of birds; so he translates Malvolio's
grandam into one, and leaves him to inherit her absence of wits. And
Malvolio was so devoured by mortification and anxiety that he does not
notice when Feste cannot restrain his burlesquing knack, but makes
the pretended curate say that Malvolio's cell "hath bay-windows,
transparent as barricadoes, and the clearstores toward the south-north
are as lustrous as ebony."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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