ANTONIO And how does your content
Tender your own good fortune?
SEBASTIAN I remember
You did supplant your brother Prospero.
ANTONIO True:
And look how well my garments sit upon me
Much feater than before. My brother’s servants
Were then my fellows; now they are my men.
SEBASTIAN But for your conscience?
ANTONIO Ay, sir, where lies that? If ’twere a kibe
’Twould put me to my slipper, but I feel not
This deity in my bosom. Twenty consciences
That stand ’twixt me and Milan, candied be they
And melt ere they molest! (2.1.270-281)
It’s all very well saying you understand me, says Antonio, but what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do, to take advantage of this opportunity, to seize and advance your own good fortune, take your luck into your own hands? Sebastian is – cunning? stupid? showing signs of some moral scruples? A deflection, therefore, which is also a crucial question, not least in confirming, for the audience, who Antonio is: I remember you did supplant your brother Prospero. It’s him, finally identified. Supplant, not murder; this might matter. Yes, and it’s great, says Antonio, brushing off any consideration of the action to focus on its results. My garments sit upon me much feater than before; he’s speaking metaphorically, recalling Macbeth’s borrowed robes, ill-fitting in his murderous usurpation, but also sounding dandy-ish: I have much nicer clothes now. And a nicely calibrated detail, giving sharp insight into the pettiness of Antonio’s character: before I deposed my brother, I was just another servant, the equal of Prospero’s other servants. Now they are my servants, my men, loyal to me, commanded by me. (I deserved it, I was meant to be duke all along.) What about your conscience? Don’t have one, not bothered, says Antonio. Where do I keep my conscience? If it were a kibe, a chilblain, a blister, I’d notice it, and put on slippers to stop it rubbing – but no, no twinge of this deity conscience in my bosom. No good angel on my shoulder; Richard III is tormented by his conscience, and the ghosts of his victims, the night before Bosworth (‘O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me … My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, | And every tongue brings in a several tale, | And every tale condemns me for a villain’, 5.4; in his speech to his army he defiantly proclaims that ‘Conscience is but a word that cowards use, | Devised at first to keep the strong in awe. | Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law’, 5.5.) Antonio is every bit as Machiavellian as Richard but, written some twenty years later, his conceit is more baroque, more decadent, and more superficial: if there were twenty consciences to stand between me and the dukedom of Milan, then let them be candied, turned into sweetmeats, so that they can melt away before they cause me any trouble. Evidently Antonio had no scruples in advancing himself by deposing his brother. Why should Sebastian be any different?
