changeling
Folly, or idiocy, is a good starting point from which to classify various kinds of mental abnormality, and so it is to the dramatists. The sub-plot first of all (I.ii) presents to us Alibius, `a jealous doctor' according to the list of Dramatis Personae,2 and Lollio, `his man'. Alibius is in charge of a place (no doubt something like Bedlam) where `brainsick patients' (1.53) are kept. As Alibius cannot always be at home and is afraid that his wife may prove adulterous, he gives Lollio control over her, which means that she is to be kept as a prisoner in the asylum. Lollio cannot see whom his master might have cause to be jealous of, explaining:
We have but two sorts of people in the house, and both under the whip, that's fools and madmen; the one has not wit enough to be knaves, and the other not knavery enough to be fools. (44 – 47)
Fools, according to Lollio, are people lacking in `wit' (intelligence, understanding). As they are intellectually deficient, they are incapable of being `knaves' on that score. Madmen, however, cannot be knaves because they suffer from a different kind of brainsickness; therefore they would not be foolish enough to embark on a sexual relationship with Alibius's wife, Isabella.
The sub-plot offers us both a counterfeit fool and someone who pretends to be a madman. The fact that both characters put on roles gives us a clear notion of what the authors mean by `fools' and `madmen'. Antonio is the `fool', Franciscus the `madman'. Both are interested in Isabella (which implies, according to Lollio's concept of things, that neither is a real fool or madman); she, however, is neither foolish nor mad in any sense.
Antonio demonstrates to us, in his role as a fool, what such a person is like by answering certain questions correctly, on a simple principle, without realizing that the same simple principle cannot be applied to a somewhat different situation. Thus, in III.iii, Lollio ask him `how many is five times six', to which he replies:
We have but two sorts of people in the house, and both under the whip, that's fools and madmen; the one has not wit enough to be knaves, and the other not knavery enough to be fools. (44 – 47)
Fools, according to Lollio, are people lacking in `wit' (intelligence, understanding). As they are intellectually deficient, they are incapable of being `knaves' on that score. Madmen, however, cannot be knaves because they suffer from a different kind of brainsickness; therefore they would not be foolish enough to embark on a sexual relationship with Alibius's wife, Isabella.
The sub-plot offers us both a counterfeit fool and someone who pretends to be a madman. The fact that both characters put on roles gives us a clear notion of what the authors mean by `fools' and `madmen'. Antonio is the `fool', Franciscus the `madman'. Both are interested in Isabella (which implies, according to Lollio's concept of things, that neither is a real fool or madman); she, however, is neither foolish nor mad in any sense.
Antonio demonstrates to us, in his role as a fool, what such a person is like by answering certain questions correctly, on a simple principle, without realizing that the same simple principle cannot be applied to a somewhat different situation. Thus, in III.iii, Lollio ask him `how many is five times six', to which he replies: