(in The Merchant of Venice) toward Bassanio, and is more clearly homosexual.
Once both are on the Illyrian coast, Sebastian abandons a pseudonym he has been using (why, we are not told) and identifies himself, saying:
You must know of me then, Antonio,
my name is Sebastian, which I called Roderigo.
My father was that Sebastian of Messaline
whom I know you have heard of.
- Act II, scene i, lines 16-19
It is useless to search for Messaline. There is no such place. Either Shakespeare negligently made up a name or else, more likely, it is a printer's error that has been preserved ever since (because actually it makes no difference).
If it is a misprint there are two possibilities for what the place may have been. It may have been Messene, a Greek city in the southwestern Peloponnesus, about 360 miles southeast of the Illyrian coast; or Messina in Sicily, an almost equal distance southwest of it, and the scene of the action in Much Ado About Nothing (see page I-545).
Sebastian takes his leave of Antonio, for he is bound for Orsino's court, where (unknown to him) his sister is. The court is dangerous for Antonio, who has gained the Duke's enmity, but his affection for Sebastian is so strong that he follows him anyway.
... the four elements
The scene shifts to Olivia's house again, where late at night Sir Toby and his friends are having a rousing time. Sir Toby engages in mock-scholarly arguments with the foolish Sir Andrew, saying:
Does not our lives
consist of the four elements?
- Act II, scene iii, lines 9-10
The ancient Greek philosophers sought to find out the basic substance ("element") out of which the earth was constructed. Different philosophers had different candidates for the post, and Empedocles of Acragas finally suggested, about 450 B.C., that there was more than one. Four, altogether, were named: earth, water, air, and fire, and out of these all the earth was constructed. A century later Aristotle adopted this view and fixed it in human thought for two thousand years.
The view did not begin to go out of fashion till half a century after Shakespeare's death, and we still today speak of the "raging of the elements" when we talk of wind and water being lashed to fury by a storm over the ocean.
Malvolio comes in at length, to scold them for the noise they are making, and Sir Toby answers him with spirit, in the fashion that all fun-loving, but not really wicked, people might use to counter the self-righteous. He says to Malvolio:
Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous,
there shall be no cakes and ale?
- Act II, scene iii, lines 114-15
It is after he leaves that Maria says of him:
Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan.
- Act II, scene iii, line 140
... Penthesilea
Maria describes the most prominent component of Malvolio's character to be a monstrous self-pride and suggests that they work up a plan to take advantage of that. She will imitate Olivia's handwriting and drop notes in places where he can find them so that he will be misled into thinking Olivia is in love with him. He will then, Maria is sure, promptly make a most enormous ass of himself.
Toby is absolutely delighted, and when she leaves, he calls after her:
Good night, Penthesilea.
- Act II, scene iii, line 177
Penthesilea in the Greek legends was an Amazon. According to some of the tales, she was the younger sister of Hippolyta, whom Theseus had married (see page I-18). It was Penthesilea who killed Hippolyta in the Amazonian war of revenge against Theseus, and afterward she joined the Trojans in their war against the Greeks and was killed in turn by Achilles.
Clearly, an Amazon is bound to be a large and muscular woman, and Penthesilea particularly so, since she fought with credit against Achilles himself. But Maria, it is clear in several places in the play, is a particularly small girl, which gives Toby's remark its humor.
... green and yellow melancholy
Duke Orsino, who intends to continue to use Viola/Cesario as his messenger to Olivia, talks of love to the "young man." Viola/Cesario sadly tells her love to Orsino, pretending it is her sister she is speaking of, and saying:
She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i'th'bud,
Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought,
And, with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.
- Act II, scene iv, lines 111-16
There is a glancing reference here to the doctrine of the four humors, first advanced by the school