This scene advances two comic plots simultaneously while revealing the darker undercurrents running beneath the play's humor. Sir Toby's manipulation of Sir Andrew reaches its most cynical point here: he has already extracted "some two thousand strong" in ducats from his supposed friend, and now engineers a duel he knows Andrew will lose. Toby's assessment — "if he were opened, and you find so much blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea" — is devastating, revealing that he views Andrew as nothing more than a source of income to be squeezed dry. Fabian's absurd logic — that Olivia showed Cesario favor specifically to make Andrew jealous — is a perfect example of how self-deception operates throughout the play. Andrew accepts this transparently ridiculous explanation because it tells him what he wants to hear, just as Malvolio accepts the letter's impossible claims. Both men are gulls, but Andrew is the more sympathetic one: his foolishness is passive where Malvolio's is aggressive. The proposed duel between Andrew and Cesario is built on compounding ironies. Toby knows Andrew is a coward; he suspects Cesario is no fighter either; and neither combatant has any real quarrel with the other. The entire...
Scene Summary
Sir Andrew, jealous after seeing Olivia favor Cesario, threatens to leave. Sir Toby and Fabian convince him to stay by suggesting he challenge Cesario to a duel to prove his valor. Andrew goes to write a challenge letter while Toby privately admits he has spent two thousand ducats of Andrew's money and has no intention of delivering the challenge honestly. Maria arrives with gleeful news: Malvolio has appeared in yellow stockings, cross-gartered, and smiling grotesquely, following every instruction in the forged letter.
"You will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman's beard, unless you do redeem it by some laudable attempt either of valour or policy." — Fabian (III.2.25-28)
"I have been dear to him, lad, some two thousand strong, or so." — Sir Toby (III.2.52-53)
"He does smile his face into more lines than is in the new map with the augmentation of the Indies." — Maria (III.2.77-79)