Jacques replies, “It is my only suit” (44). The word suit means both (1) a request and (2) a costume or suit of clothes.
As a fool, Jacques continues, he must be free to speak as he sees fit without censure or criticism or rebuke. Laughter is the only response that he wants from others. Jacques explains his request with the following:
He that a fool doth very wisely hit Doth very foolishly, although he smart, Seem aught but senseless of the bob.
(53-55)
The word hit in this instance means to make a joke of (to hit with his wit). Thus, Jacques is saying that a man who becomes a victim of a fool’s humor and feels insulted or embarrassed by the remark would be foolish to pretend not to be aware of the insult (bob). Laughter is the only appropriate response to the fool: man should be aware of his own folly.
Duke Senior, though, imagines that Jacques would not be a very good fool and that he would instead use his position as a jester to be cruelly critical of others.
Jacques, in response, defends the role of the fool (starting at line 70). Jacques claims that fools make general criticisms that apply universally to everybody. A man who thinks that the fool is signaling him out “suits his folly to the mettle of my speech” (81-82). In other words, that man is admitting his own folly and therefore should not