TWELFTH NIGHT
SCENE i
Feste irritates Sebastian by mistaking him for Cesario while Sebastian
tries to shake him off, eventually giving Feste some money. "These wise
men that give fools money get themselves a good report -- after fourteen
years' purchase" (IV.i.21-23). Sir Andrew comes on the scene and, also
assuming he's Cesario, punches Sebastian. He gets popped back and no
doubt is surprised at Cesario's sudden skill. Sebastian wonders, "Are
all the people mad?" (IV.i.27). Olivia sees Toby about to fight the
man whom she also thinks is Cesario and therefore banishes Toby from
her household. Sebastian is pleasantly baffled as to why Olivia is so
nice to him: "I am mad, or else this is a dream. / ... / If it be thus
to dream, still let me sleep!" (IV.i.61-63). Thus the elder Ogburns
detect a depiction of Oxford and Elizabeth in Sebastian and Olivia
here (Ogburn and Ogburn 835).
SCENE ii
Maria, the perpetual instigator, has Feste adopt the guise of a curate,
Sir Topas, to visit and torment Malvolio, who is imprisoned in a dark
house. Sir Toby remarks that "The knave counterfeits well" (IV.ii.19).
A note on the name "Topas": this is one of many instances where
Shakespeare shows his Chaucerianism (and I think there's another in
the last act of this play). In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Sir
Thopas is the effeminate and dorky knight featured in the abysmal
doggerel rendered by Chaucer's own pilgrim persona when it is his
turn to tell a tale. Sir Thopas is a fool, and Chaucer presents himself
as another, absolutely incompetent with narrative verse (which, of course,
is greatly ironic). So consider the application and implications for
Shakespeare studies here. "Indeed Twelfth Night makes one wonder
whether justice has been done to the indebtedness of Shakespeare to the
spirit of his great predecessor as distinguished from his indebtedness
to him as a source in the narrower sense" (Goddard, I 296). The
ordeal of Campion in 1580-1581 may also be playing a part in this scene;
he too was denied paper, pen, and ink during his imprisonment (and
torture) (Anderson 155).
Malvolio insists on his sanity, but "Topas" tests him on the
Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis (see the Pythagoras
notes on the odd but, I insist, crucial "tangent" in Ovid's
Metamorphoses, Book XV).
Toby uncharacteristically says, "I would we were well rid of this
knavery" (IV.ii.67-68). Toby is already in enough trouble with
Olivia his niece, but he also apparent realizes that the joke has
gone too far now. In theatrical comedy, a puritanical figure like
Malvolio is bound to receive comic humiliation, but this is pretty
severe and protracted, and scholars have noted that this play ends
up having a rather vicious dark side partly because of this. "The
revelers and practical jokers -- Maria, Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew
Aguecheek -- are the least sympathetic players in Twelfth Night,
since their gulling of Malvolio passes into the domain of sadism"
(Bloom 237). And the play "hardly shows us a defeated Malvolio. He
retains dignity under great duress and proudly states his stoic
refusal to surrender the soul to Pythagorean metempsychosis" (Bloom
243).
Feste returns to Malvolio as himself and offers what seems like a bit
more baiting: "tell me true, are you not mad indeed, or do you but
counterfeit?" (IV.ii.114). But Feste agrees to fetch him ink, paper,
and light. He ends the scene by singing a cheeky song addressed to
the Devil.
SCENE iii
Sebastian wonders why Antonio didn't appear at the Elephant, but he is
more amazed at his fortune and the attentions of Olivia, even though
everything seems like madness. Olivia arrives with a priest. Sebastian
and Olivia go to wed in a private ceremony; the big public wedding will
occur later. The wedding will take place at the "chantry," "a place
where Mass was sung daily for the souls of the dead" (Garber 517),
and presumably where Olivia's dead father and brother are lying.
ACT IV
That Malvolio keeps his head during his confinement in darkness and
does not lose his dignity when he charges his mistress with having
done him notorious wrong is further proof of a kind of moral solidity
in the man. ... The Dark House in which Malvolio is incarcerated is in
some respects the central symbol of the play, for the houses of Olivia
and the Duke, for all their apparent brightness, are dark houses in
a deeper sense. (Goddard, I 299)
On the other hand: "Some actors seek sympathy for Malvolio, but
Shakespeare makes it clear that he ends no wiser and no better than
he had begun" (Wells 183).