Prologue, line 1.
TWELFTH NIGHT
STAGE. PLAYED.
FABIAN.
If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as improbable fiction.
III, 4, 140.
This passage refers to the interview between Malvolio, Sir Toby, Maria and Fabian, after his appearance before the Countess in yellow stockings and the keep-smiling face. Shakespeare always strove to impress on his audience that his chief characters were impersonating events of everyday life; in order to heighten this belief, he frequently contrasts the real with the stage life or life of fiction.
VICE.
I am gone, sir, and Anon, sir,