Andrew Ague-Cheek

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Sir Andrew Ague-Cheek is a comic character in William Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night, or What You Will. He is friends with Sir Toby Belch. Sir Andrew Ague-Cheek is not a very bright person. He is very slow when it comes to getting jokes and sarcasm, and always has some sort of blank look on his face. This demeanor is hinted at by his surname (ague suggests a pale complexion or a sickly look on a person who is suffering from ague, or a fever). In Act 3, Sir Toby attempts to manipulate Sir Andrew and Viola/Cesario into fearing each other when he incites a fight between the two.

He's a funny clown to laugh at — slow, pliant, cowardly, whiney and often-drunk as he is — but beneath the comedy lies a sense of sustained melancholy. He is constantly taken advantage of by Sir Toby (who pretends to be friends with him as a means of forcing Sir Andrew to pay for the group's extravagances), poked fun at, and thwarted in his mission to win Olivia as his wife. In the third scene of the second act, he says the famous (and studied) line "I was adored once too," a line that expresses the emotional pain of a lovely memory and the hopelessness of being loved again, which may lead audiences to feel sorry for him instead of laughing at him. By the end of the play, he is friendless and deep in debt.