In Act iii. 7, Viola enters, meeting Feste, who is playing the pipe and tabor. Her simplest remark he makes the pivot of a jest, and is never tired of tossing words. He plays with them as a juggler with balls; they all seem to be in the air at once. There never was such a jaunty and irrepressible quipster. Yet when Viola says to him, "I warrant thou art a merry fellow, and carest for nothing," his reply, "Not so, sir, I do care for something," betrays the serious temper which lies under all his fooling to furnish the appositeness of his remarks:--
"For folly, that he wisely shows, is fit; But wise men, folly-fallen, quite taint their wit."
Viola, who says this, might adapt a text of Paul, and apply it to Shakspeare's people,--"For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise."
Of all Shakspeare's clowns, he is the best endowed with a many-sided mirth, as indeed he should be to pass lightly through the mingled romance and roystering of the play and favor all its moods. The sentiment of the Duke is as inebriated as the revelling which Malvolio rebukes. Olivia's protracted grief for her brother is carefully cosseted by her, as if on purpose to give the Clown an opportunity.
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."