Twelfth Night: Act 2

In trying to convince Antonio not to follow him, Sebastian uses the words malignancy, "quality of being disposed to evil" and extravagancy, "the quality of exceeding the appropriate limits of decorum or probability or truth," but here it suggests "a waste of time." While Sebastian genuinely cares about Antonio, he could also be making these arguments because 1) he doesn't want Antonio to see him cry; 2) Antonio's presence would make things difficult for him in Orsino's court.

The noun also means "the state of being weak in health or body." Both are often used by Shakespeare to describe women. This is more clearly seen here: "How easy is it for the proper-false in women's waxen hearts to set their forms!" While Viola has also fallen in love, the line applies mostly to Olivia's weak heart that falls for Viola's disguise. Since Olivia had vowed to mourn her brother for seven years, her love can also be seen as a moral weakness.

Fadge is an obsolete verb that meant "make suit, fit" but Viola uses it to question how things will turn out. While Viola uses a different word for each person, they are all in love with someone s/he can't have. Unlike love, which has roots that connect to joy, desire, and praise, dote and fond both have roots that connect to foolishness.

Mitigation also means "an attempt to represent an offense as less serious." This does not apply here, since Malvolio is not asking Toby, Andrew, and the clown to explain why they are singing loudly and drunkenly in the middle of the night. Rather, the serious Malvolio sees their action as offensive, and he is scolding them into lowering their voices and showing some remorse, meaning "consideration for others."

The Latin adjective dignus means "worthy" and can be seen in the English word dignity but not in Andrew. Although he has the "high office or rank or station" of a knight, he neither has a "formality in bearing and appearance" nor "the quality of being worthy of esteem or respect." Thus, unlike what Toby is suggesting, Andrew would not be justified in delivering an indignant challenge. Of all those present, only Maria is justified in her indignation at being scolded by Malvolio.

Here, Toby invites one of Olivia's servants to take part in the revenge plot. Nowadays, niggardly sounds more offensive (aside from sometimes being shortened to the same first three letters, it has no connection to the racial term), so it is less often used than cheap, stingy, miserly, or parsimonious.

The word is used as a verb here, but as an adjective, it means "thoroughly acquainted through study or experience" or "innermost or essential." Reading is usually an intimate activity that allows the reader to become intimate with specific subject matters. However, because this is a play, Shakespeare needs Malvolio to read the letter aloud so that the audience would know what it says. Thus, he has Toby say this line to intimate the upcoming unnatural action.

The alphabetical position is: M, O, A, I. The letters appear in Malvolio's name but not in that order. The first three letters are also the initials of Maria, Olivia, and Andrew, all of whom in some way sway Malvolio's life. "I" could be the pronoun to emphasize how Malvolio's ego moves him to connect the letters to himself. Maria made the letters' meaning obscure ("not clearly understood or expressed") to see how he would interpret what they portend.