ACT IV.
SCENE I.
Enter Antonio in a fool’s habit, with a little toy of a walnut shell, and soap to make bubbles: Maria and Alberto.
Mar. Away with this disguise in any hand!
Alb. Fie, ’tis unsuiting to your elate spirit:
Rather put on some transhaped cavalier,
Some habit of a spitting critic, whose mouth
Voids nothing but gentile and unvulgar
Rheum of censure: rather assume——
Ant. Why, then should I put on the very flesh
Of solid folly. No, this cock’s comb is a crown
Which I affect even with unbounded zeal.
Alb. ’Twill thwart your plot, disgrace your high resolve. 10
Ant. By wisdom’s heart, there is no essence mortal
That I can envy, but a plump-cheek’d fool:
O, he hath a patent of immunities
Confirm’d by custom, seal’d by policy,
As large as spacious thought.
Alb. You cannot press among the courtiers,
And have access to——
Ant. What? not a fool? Why, friend, a golden ass,
A babled[285] fool, are sole canonical,
Whilst pale-cheek’d wisdom, and lean-ribbèd art 20
Are kept in distance at the halbert’s point;
All held Apocrypha, not worth survey.
Why, by the genius of that Florentine,
Deep, deep observing, sound-brain’d Machiavel,
He is not wise that strives not to seem fool.
When will the Duke hold fee’d intelligence,
Keep wary observation in large pay,
To dog a fool’s act?