In the subplot of the play, a young gentleman named Antonio recruits his friend Pedro to help him impersonate a “madman” and check in to an asylum run by Alibius, where Antonio hopes to get closer to Alibius’s beautiful young wife, Isabella. The scene offers a comedic satire of early modern legal authorities. Lollio, who works for Alibius, promises Pedro that he will raise Antonio to become sufficiently intelligent to run his family’s business:
LOLLIO : He will hardly be stretched up to the wit of a magnifico.
PEDRO : Oh no, that’s not to be expected, far shorter will be enough.
LOLLIO : I’ll warrant you [I’ll] make him fit to bear office in five weeks; I’ll undertake to wind him up to the wit of constable.
PEDRO : If it be lower than that it might serve turn.
LOLLIO : No, fie, to level him with a headborough, beadle, or watchman were but little better than he is; constable I’ll able him: if he do come to be a justice afterwards, let him thank the keeper. Or I’ll go further with you; say I do bring him up to my own pitch, say I make him as wise as myself.
When Lollio boasts that he will elevate Antonio’s “wit” to the level of a “magnifico,” or a famous and illustrious person, Pedro insists that this ambition is too high. Next, Lollio promises to raise Antonio’s intelligence to that of a “constable,” an individual elected to work in law enforcement. Again, Pedro argues that Lollio is too ambitious. However, Lollio insists that “to level him with a headborough, beadle, or watchman” would leave him “but little better than he is.” In other words, Lollio jokes that Antonio, who is impersonating someone with severe cognitive impairments, is already as intelligent as those with low-level jobs in law enforcement. Lollio, then, satirizes those who work in the criminal justice system as being unintelligent.
After calling for De Flores to murder Alonzo, Beatrice is finally able to marry her beloved Alsemero. Her wealthy father, Vermandero, requests a group of “madmen” and “fools” from the asylum to dance at the wedding. In depicting Alibius as eager to make a profit off of those under his care, Middleton and Rowley offer a biting critique of the mental asylums of their day:
We have employment, we have task in hand;
At noble Vermandero’s, our castle-captain,
There is a nuptial to be solemnized –
Beatrice-Joanna, his fair daughter, bride, –
For which the gentleman hath bespoke our pains:
A mixture of our madmen and our fools
To finish, as it were and make the fag
Of all the revels, the third night from the first;
Only an unexpected passage over,
To make a frightful pleasure, that is all,
But not the all I aim at.
Alibius speaks excitedly about Vermandero’s request, for which he expects to be paid a generous sum of money. The “madmen” and “fools” will dance at the end of the third night of “the revels,” bringing the evening to a raucous end. Further, he plans to instruct his patients in how to dance in a “wild” manner for the event. This scene satirizes Alibius as a representative of the corrupt mental asylums of early modern England. Rather than caring for his patients, Alibius intends to put them to work and profit handsomely from their efforts. The play suggests that those responsible for the mental health of patients are truly motivated by money.
