Origins of The Vice
The word "vice" is derived from Latin vitium "defect, offense, blemish, perfection," in both physical and verbal senses. The character of the Vice developed from that of the domestic fool or jester some tincture in the later plays supplied from the mischief-making servants in Plautus and Terence.
Other ancestors of the vice are the devils and the vices in earlier moralities, from the comic characters in the folk play—the ancestors of the Morris fool, the fool of the Mummer’s play, the clown of the Sword play; from the medieval sermon, not merely from its ‘characters’ of the seven deadly sins and their representatives in contemporary life but from its jests and satirical bent; from the plotting servants of Terence and Plautus; from the creative zest of the actors speaking more than was set down for them.
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