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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2697956 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #63896 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63896) diff --git a/old/63896-0.txt b/old/63896-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 219881a..0000000 --- a/old/63896-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5947 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Elizabethan Drama and Its Mad Folk, by E. -Allison (Edgar Allison) Peers - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: Elizabethan Drama and Its Mad Folk - The Harness Prize Essay for 1913 - - -Author: E. Allison (Edgar Allison) Peers - - - -Release Date: November 27, 2020 [eBook #63896] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELIZABETHAN DRAMA AND ITS MAD -FOLK*** - - -E-text prepared by Tim Lindell, Lisa Reigel, and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made -available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/b24857087 - - -Transcriber’s note: - - Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). - - In the original, some text is printed in a larger font - than the surrounding text. Text with larger font is - surrounded by plus signs (+larger font+). - - A row of asterisks represents a thought break. - - A complete list of corrections follows the text. - - - - - -ELIZABETHAN DRAMA AND ITS MAD FOLK - - - * * * * * * - -[Illustration: Logo] - - -London Agents: -Simpkin, Marshall & Co. Ltd. - - * * * * * * - - -ELIZABETHAN DRAMA AND ITS MAD FOLK - -The Harness Prize Essay for 1913 - -by - -EDGAR ALLISON PEERS, B.A. - -Late Scholar of Christ’s College, Cambridge. - - - - - - -Cambridge: -W. Heffer and Sons Ltd. -1914 - - - - - TO - - MY MOTHER - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - CHAP. PAGE - - PREFACE - - I. INTRODUCTORY 1 - - II. THE PRESENTATION OF MADNESS—FROM THE STANDPOINT OF - HISTORY 8 - - III. THE PRESENTATION OF MADNESS—FROM THE STANDPOINT OF - LITERATURE 42 - - IV. MAD FOLK IN TRAGEDY AND COMEDY—(i) THE MANIACS 60 - - V. MAD FOLK IN TRAGEDY AND COMEDY—(ii) IMBECILITY 118 - - VI. MAD FOLK IN TRAGEDY AND COMEDY—(iii) MELANCHOLY 126 - - VII. MAD FOLK IN TRAGEDY AND COMEDY—(iv) DELUSIONS, - HALLUCINATIONS, AND OTHER ABNORMAL STATES 150 - - VIII. MAD FOLK IN TRAGEDY AND COMEDY—(v) THE PRETENDERS 167 - - IX. CONCLUSION 176 - - - - -PREFACE. - - -The bulk of this essay is the result of research work along lines -which, so far as the author knows, have not been previously traversed. -The arrangement and the general treatment of the work are therefore -original. Certain books, notably Tuke’s “History of the Insane in -the British Isles,” Bucknill’s “Mad Folk of Shakespeare,” Bradley’s -“Shakespearean Tragedy,” and Ward’s “English Dramatic Literature,” have -been of special utility in places where reference is made to them. The -critical judgments of these authors, however, have by no means always -been followed. - -The original title of the essay was “The Mad Folk of English Comedy -and Tragedy down to 1642.” It has been shortened for purposes of -convenience, and the term Elizabethan extended in order to take in a -few plays which belong to the next two reigns. The term is, however, -generally recognised to be an elastic one, and most of the plays dealt -with fall easily within it. - -Much of the revision of this work has been carried out under pressure -of other duties. I have been greatly helped in it by the criticisms and -suggestions of Professor G. Moore Smith, by the constant help of Mr. -N. G. Brett James, by some useful information given me by Mr. C. Ll. -Bullock, and especially by the kindness of my friend, Dr. J. Hamilton, -who has read the essay through in manuscript from the point of view -of the physician. Although I have not always taken up this standpoint -in dealing with my subject, I have tried at all times to give it due -consideration, for, as Ferdinand says in the “Duchess of Malfi,” -“Physicians are like kings: they brook no contradiction.” - - E. A. P. - - MILL HILL, - _March, 1914_. - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -INTRODUCTORY. - - “Shall I tell you why? - Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they say every why hath a wherefore.” - - (_Shakespeare: “Comedy of Errors.”_) - - -The jingling criticism of Dromio of Syracuse will ever recur to the -essayist on an unconventional subject. Lest any therefore should claim -of this essay that “in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor -reason,” excuse shall come prologue to the theme, and its “wherefore” -shall receive a moment’s merited attention. Of what utility, it may -be asked, can the study of certain insane persons appearing in early -modern drama be to the student of to-day? To this question let us -give a double answer. The study has a distinct historical value, for -from the mass of original documents which form the body of drama -under consideration, we may gather much of the progress which has -been made in the attitude of the country towards insanity, and hence -the increasing tendency towards a humane and intelligent outlook -upon disease in general. Our study is also of value from the point -of view of literature—partly as shewing the varying accuracy of our -dramatists and the art with which they portrayed their mad folk and -introduced them into their plays, partly by selecting and exposing the -chief types of the mad folk themselves, considering them on their own -merits, as pieces of art of intrinsic literary value. This last will be -the chief business of the present essay. - -We shall follow the order above indicated, regarding the presentation -of madness successively from the standpoints of history and of -literature. Under the latter head we shall consider several general -questions before proceeding to isolate individual characters in turn. -Lastly, we shall endeavour, from the matter furnished us by these -plays, to extract some general conclusions. - -One proviso must be made before we can embark upon our subject. What, -for the purposes of this essay, is to be the criterion of madness? In -ordinary life, as we know, the border-land of the rational and the -irrational is but ill-defined. We cannot always tell whether mental -disease is actually present in a person whom we have known all our -lives, much less can we say when the pronounced eccentricity of a -stranger has passed the bourn which divides it from insanity. The -medical profession itself has not always been too wise where madness is -concerned; and where the profession is at fault, with every detail of -the case before it, how can the layman aspire to success, with only -a few pages of evidence before him of a “case” propounded by another -layman of three centuries before? Were we to take the point of view -of the physician we should be plunged into a medical dissertation for -which we are both ill-equipped and ill-inclined. - -But there is another, and a far more serious objection, already hinted -at, to the adoption in this essay of the medical point of view. The -authors themselves were not physicians; in many cases, as will be -seen, they appear to have had but an imperfect technical knowledge -of insanity and its treatment; their ideas were based largely on the -loose and popular medical ideas of the Elizabethan age. If we are to -consider this subject as a department of literature we must adopt the -point of view of the dramatist, not of the practical physician. We -must, for the time, definitely break with those who enquire deeply and -seriously into the state of mind of every character in Shakespeare. In -dealing with “King Lear,” for example, we shall make no attempt to pry -behind the curtain five minutes before the opening of the play for the -purpose of detecting thus early some symptoms of approaching senile -decay. Nor shall we follow those who endeavour to carry the history of -Shylock beyond the limits of Shakespeare’s knowledge of him, in the -hope of discovering whether he was true or false to the religion of -his fathers. The critic who peeps behind the scenes at such times as -these finds only the scene-shifters and the green room, where his nice -offence will soon receive appropriate comments! - -Our best plan, then, will be habitually to consider the plays from -the point of view which we take to be that of the author himself. -Prejudices will be put aside, and predispositions to premature -diagnoses resisted. Constance and Timon of Athens, with several -personages from Marlowe’s dramas, will be regarded (with some effort) -as sane, for the simple and quite adequate reason that they were so -regarded by their authors. The question whether or no Hamlet was -actually insane will, for the same reason, be dismissed in a few -words; while the many witches who haunt Elizabethan drama, and whose -prototypes afforded in nearly every case genuine examples of dementia, -will be heroically disregarded, as falling without the bounds of our -proposed theme. - -From the number of occurrences in this body of drama of such words -as “mad,” “madness,” “Bedlam,” “frantic,” and the like, it might be -supposed that there are more genuine mad folk than actually appear. A -few words will suffice to clear up this difficulty. - -The term “madness” is often used in a loose, unmeaning sense,—in -phrases such as “Mad wench!”, somewhat resembling the equally -unmeaning slang of to-day. To insist on this point would probably -provoke the charge of a lack of the sense of humour, and insistence is -indeed unnecessary. Most readers of Shakespeare will recall Leontes’ -transport before the supposed statue of his wife, a transport which -he characterises as “madness”; Portia’s description of that “hare,” -“madness the youth”; Biron’s apostrophe: - - “Behaviour, what wert thou - Till this madman show’d thee?”[5:1] - -and no less Shylock’s famous description of men that - - “are mad if they behold a cat.”[5:2] - -Those who are acquainted with “Philaster” may remember Megra’s -description of - - “A woman’s madness, - The glory of a fury,”[5:3] - -and everyone has at some time or other lighted upon that kind of “fine -madness” which is the property of every true poet, and which Drayton, -attributing it to Marlowe, declares - - “rightly should possess a poet’s brain.”[5:4] - -Nowhere in these passages are we expected to see insanity, though -the last two are somewhat stronger than the others, and are typical -of many places where “madness” is used for simple passion and for -inspiration respectively. - -In a very special sense, however, madness is used for the passion of -love, to such an extent that there is an actual gradation into madness -itself. Loosely, and often humorously, the lover is said to be mad for -the same reason as the lunatic. To quote Shakespeare once more—as he -is more familiar than many of his contemporaries— - - “The lunatic, the lover and the poet, - Are of imagination all compact.”[6:1] - -There is only a step between seeing “Helen’s beauty in a brow of -Egypt,”[6:2] and seeing “more devils than vast hell can hold.”[6:3] -Once cool reason has given way to “frenzy,” the Elizabethan is not -always too subtle in his distinctions within that convenient term. -So when Troilus informs us that he is “mad in Cressida’s love,”[6:4] -when Rosalind jestingly speaks of love as deserving “a dark house and -a whip,”[6:5] and when Mercutio declares that his Rosaline-tormented -Romeo will “sure run mad,”[6:6] we must not altogether discard such -references as idle or even conventional. For while there is a great -gulf fixed between such “frenzies” as these and the madness of the -love-lorn Ophelia or even of the Gaoler’s Daughter in the “Two Noble -Kinsmen,” we can only account for such a peculiar case as Memnon—in -Fletcher’s “Mad Lover”—by postulating a conscious development of the -idea that “love is a kind of madness.” - -It is possible that the difficulty of keeping to the point of view we -have chosen may lead to many mistakes being made in our treatment of -individual characters. But it seems better to run the risk of this -than to set about this work as though it were a medical treatise, or -as though the plays to be considered had been produced by a kind of -evolution, and not by very human, imperfect, work-a-day playwrights. -That being said, Prologue has finished: - - “Now, good or bad, ’tis but the chance of war.” - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[5:1] “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” v., 2, 337. - -[5:2] “Merchant of Venice,” iv., 1, 48. - -[5:3] “Philaster,” ii., 4. - -[5:4] Drayton, “The Battle of Agincourt.” - -[6:1] “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” v., 1, 7. - -[6:2] l. 11. - -[6:3] l. 9. - -[6:4] “Troilus and Cressida,” i., 1, 51. - -[6:5] “As You Like It,” iii., 2, 420. - -[6:6] “Romeo and Juliet,” ii., 4, 5. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -THE PRESENTATION OF MADNESS—FROM THE STANDPOINT OF HISTORY. - - “A mad world, my masters!” - - (_Middleton._) - - -The earliest view of madness which finds its way into this drama and -persists throughout it, is based on the idea of possession by evil -spirits. This conception came down from remote ages; it accounts, for -example, for the madness of King Saul in the Old Testament, when “The -Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and an evil spirit troubled -him.”[8:1] In the Elizabethan Age, demoniacal possession was still -regarded as one of the most potent causes of insanity; it was made -to account not only for mental disease but for all kinds of physical -deformations and imperfections, whether occurring alone, or, as is -often the case, accompanying idiocy. An offshoot, as it were, from this -idea, is the ascription of mental disease to the influence of witches, -who were often themselves (ironically enough), persons suffering from -mental disorders. So enlightened a man as Sir Thomas Browne declares -more than once his belief in witches and their influence; Burton’s -“Anatomy of Melancholy” asserts that melancholy can be caused and -cured by witches; the learned James, King of England, and Edward Coke, -who lived at the same time, both take up the legal aspects, stating -that the plea of insanity offered on behalf of witches should not be -recognised at the legal tribunal. In Middleton’s “Witch” (i., 2), -there is a mention of “solanum somniferum” (otherwise known as Deadly -Nightshade or Atropa Belladonna) which was the chief ingredient in many -witches’ recipes and produced hallucinations and other abnormal states -of mind. Banquo, in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” probably refers to the -witches’ influence when he enquires, directly after the first meeting -with them: - - “Have we eaten on the insane root - That takes the reason prisoner?”[9:1] - -A counterpart to the idea of possession by demons is found in a belief, -common at this time and earlier, in the inspired utterances of the -frenzied prophetess. Neither here nor with the witches was any curative -treatment undertaken. For with the oracle no such treatment was thought -to be necessary or even advisable, and with the witches none except -death was supposed to avail. Occasionally a “witch” might be subjected, -like other mad folk, to “chains” and “whips,” but the road more often -taken was the short one. In simple cases of demoniacal possession the -means of cure was patent: the demon must be cast out and the patient -will return to his right mind. The exorcisation of the “conjuror” was -commonly accompanied by pseudo-medical treatment, the nature of which -will presently appear. - -Now the influence of the demonological conception of insanity is -clearly seen in our dramas. Everyone is familiar, to go no farther -than Shakespeare, with the famous exorcisation scene in “Twelfth -Night,”[10:1] where the clown, disguised as “Sir Topas the curate,” -comes to visit “Malvolio the lunatic,” and drives out the “hyperbolical -fiend” which is supposed to vex him. Everything Malvolio does can be -expressed in terms of Satan. When the wretched man speaks, it is the -“fiend” speaking “hollow” within him. His disgusted exclamation when -Maria urges him to “say his prayers” is construed into the fiend’s -repugnance to things sacred. Fabian advises “no way (of treatment) -but gentleness . . . the fiend is rough and will not be roughly used.” -While Sir Toby protests that it is “not for gravity to play at -cherry-pit with Satan; hang him, foul collier.” A more complete and -far more famous illustration may be found in “Lear,”[10:2] where Edgar -attributes his assumed madness to possession by the various spirits -which he names. Almost his first words in his disguise tell of the -“foul fiend” leading him “through fire and through flame, through -ford and whirlpool, o’er bog and quagmire.”[11:1] He names “the foul -Flibbertigibbet,” the fiend of “mopping and mowing,”[11:2] who “gives -the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the harelip;”[11:3] -of “the prince of darkness . . . a gentleman; Modo he’s called and -Mahu”;[11:4] of “Hobbididence prince of dumbness;” of “Hoppedance” -who “cries in Tom’s belly for two white herring”[11:5] and many -others—culled from the flowery page of Harsnet’s “Popish Impostures.” - -A more modern idea of insanity is that which attributes it to natural -physical causes, and this finds expression in our dramas—often in -the same play—side by side with the conception just mentioned. The -capriciousness of heredity, for instance, is recognised by the author -of “A Fair Quarrel”: - - “Wise men beget fools and fools are the fathers - To many wise children . . . - A great scholar may beget an idiot, - And from the ploughtail may come a great scholar.”[11:6] - -The supposed justice of the same law is illustrated by a passage in -Brome’s “English Moor,” where among punishments for sin is included: - - “That his base offspring proves a natural idiot.” - -One of the most popular of the physical causes assigned by seventeenth -century dramatists to madness is the worm in the brain. “Madam,” says -Arcadius in Shirley’s “Coronation,” “my uncle is something craz’d; -there is a worm in’s brain.”[12:1] Shirley frequently refers to this -particular “cause,” and Winfield, one of the characters in “The Ball,” -adds to it another superstition when he says: “He has a worm in’s -brain, which some have suppos’d at some time o’ the moon doth ravish -him into perfect madness.”[12:2] - -Superstition is responsible for many of the “causes” of madness in our -drama, and among these the most prominent is probably the superstition -responsible for the English word “lunatic.” The supposed influence -of the moon on insanity and of its deviations on the recurrence of -maniacal periods is clearly the source of those words which Shakespeare -gives to Othello after the murder of Desdemona: - - “It is the very error of the moon; - She comes more nearer earth than she was wont - And makes men mad.”[12:3] - -So Lollio, in “The Changeling,” tells Franciscus that “Luna” made him -mad.[12:4] The “parson” who figures, too, among the mad folk in “The -Pilgrim,” has to be “tied short” since “the moon’s i’ th’ full.”[12:5] - -That the superstition connected with the moon, however, was under high -medical patronage is shewn by a reference to the “Anatomie of the Bodie -of Man” by one Vicary, chief surgeon at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital -(1548-1562). “Also the Brayne” (he writes) “hath this propertie that -it moveth and followeth the moving of the moone; for in the waxing of -the moone the brayne discendeth downwarde and vanisheth in substance of -vertue; for then the Brayne shrinketh together in itselfe and is not so -fully obedient to the spirit of feeling, and this is proved in men that -be lunaticke or madde . . . that be moste greeved in the beginning of -the newe moone and in the latter quarter of the moone. Wherefore when it -happeneth that the Brayne is either too drye or too moyst, then can it -not werke his kinde; then are the spirits of life melted and resolved -away, and then foloweth feebleness of the wittes and of al other -members of the bodie, and at the laste death.” - -The word “lunatic” itself, it may be noted, quickly passed into common -speech, and was used without reference to its original significance. We -shall find it constantly recurring throughout this study, but as there -is little variety in its use, no further examples need be quoted. - -An interesting superstition is connected with the mandrake plant, -round which, from the supposed resemblance of its strangely cleft root -to the human figure, many weird notions have gathered. One of these was -that when torn from the ground, the plant would utter groans of “sad -horror,” which, if heard, caused instant madness, or even death.[14:1] -From the numerous references to this superstition in Elizabethan drama -may be extracted two,—the first from “Romeo and Juliet” (iv., 3, -47-8), where Juliet speaks of - - “shrieks of mandrakes, torn out of the earth - That living mortals, hearing them, run mad”; - -the second from a speech of Suffolk’s in “2 Henry VI.” (iii., 2, 310), -where the Duke reminds the Queen that curses will not kill - - “as doth the mandrake’s groan.” - -Other causes to which, rightly or wrongly, insanity is attributed may -be grouped together for convenience. In the “Emperor of the East” is an -obvious reminiscence of Holy Writ where Flaccilla says of Pulcheria: - - “Grant heaven, your too much learning - Does not conclude in madness.”[14:2] - -This devout wish, however, has only about as much claim to be taken -seriously as Leonato’s fear that Benedick and Beatrice, married a week, -would “talk themselves mad.”[15:1] - -Such causes as irritation, worry, jealousy and persecution are -frequently mentioned as conducing to frenzy, if not actually causing -it. The Abbess of the “Comedy of Errors,” reproaching Adriana for her -treatment of Antipholus, sums the matter up thus: - - “The venom clamours of a jealous woman - Poisons more deadly than a mad dog’s tooth. - It seems his sleeps were hinder’d by thy railing, - And thereof comes it that his head is light. - Thou say’st his meat was sauced with thy upbraidings: - Unquiet meals make ill digestions; - Thereof the raging fire of fever bred; - And what’s a fever but a fit of madness? - Thou say’st his sports were hinder’d by thy brawls: - Sweet recreation barr’d, what doth ensue - But moody and dull melancholy . . . - Have scared thy husband from the use of wits.”[15:2] - -We need not stay long over the numerous characters who speak of anger -as leading to madness. The term “horn-mad,” however, is sufficiently -interesting to be cleared up here.[15:3] - -It is used in two senses. Often it is no more than an emphatic way of -expressing the simple adjective. In this sense it may be connected -with the Scottish word “harns,” meaning “brains,” an alternative form -being “horn-wood.” When Joculo, in Day’s “Law Tricks,” suggests that -“the better half of the townsmen will run horn-mad,”[16:1] this is -clearly the sense in which the words are to be taken. But in another -sense, the source of which is evident, “horn-mad” is the word used to -denote a kind of madness unknown as a technical term to the medical -profession, but very common in the less elevated portions of our drama. -This madness is a thing - - “Created - Of woman’s making and her faithless vows”; - -the madness, in a word, of the cuckold. Falstaff seems to be punning -on the two senses of the term when he says: “If I have horns to make -me mad, let the proverb go with me: I’ll be horn mad.”[16:2] Dekker -exhibits an especial fondness for this particular pun. Cordolente, the -shopkeeper of “Match Me in London,” whose wife the King has seduced, -says on being informed by that monarch that he is mad: “I am indeed -horn-mad. O me! In the holiest place of the Kingdom have I caught my -undoing.”[16:3] Similar passages can be found in nearly all Dekker’s -plays, whether true madness is actually in question or not. - -A world of meaning lies beneath such phrases as “dog-madness,” -“midsummer madness,” “March mad,” “as mad as May butter.”[17:1] The -first refers primarily to hydrophobia, though it is not always used in -that sense; the second is accounted for by the old belief that insanity -was fiercest and most prevalent in midsummer. The phrase “March mad” is -connected with the saying “As mad as a March hare.” Its explanation is -that during the month of March, their breeding season, hares are wilder -than usual. An example of the use of the phrase might be quoted from -Drayton’s (non-dramatic) work, “Nymphidia”: - - “Oberon . . . Grew mad as any hare - When he had sought each place with care - And found his queen was missing.” - -“May butter” is unsalted butter, preserved during May for medicinal use -in healing wounds. The connexion of the phrase with madness, however, -is so deep as to be no longer understood! - -Finally, among the causes of madness recognised in the seventeenth -century must be mentioned melancholy, though we shall have to return -to this on another page. The common belief appears to have been, -in the words of the Doctors of the Induction to the “Taming of the -Shrew,” that “Melancholy is the nurse of frenzy,”[17:2] and incipient -melancholiacs are constantly adjured by their nearest and dearest to -remember this fact—though their adjurations seldom have any effect. -The Duchess of Malfi, indeed, hearing in her captivity a “hideous -noise,” and being told: - - “’Tis the wild consort - Of madmen, lady, whom your tyrant brother - Hath placed about your lodging,” - -replies: - - “Indeed, I thank him; nothing but noise and folly - Can keep me in my right wits; whereas reason - And silence make me mad.”[18:1] - -In the “Lover’s Melancholy,” Prince Palador is presented with a “Masque -of Melancholy” (for which the author was largely indebted to Burton) in -order that his diseased mind may be relieved. These two cases certainly -shew a divergence from the more general opinion. The first may perhaps -be attributed to the Duchess’ desire: “to make a virtue of necessity,” -the second to the fact that Palador’s disease is not true melancholia, -but a state of mind bordering on affectation—that melancholy affected -by more than one of Shakespeare’s “humorous” characters, of whom it can -be said “You may call it melancholy if you will favour the man, but by -my head ’tis pride.”[18:2] - -We may gather next, from our plays, some of the recognised symptoms of -insanity in these early times. Epicene, pretending to recognise the -madness of Morose, says: “Lord, how idly he talks, and how his eyes -sparkle! he looks green about the temples! do you see what blue spots -he has?” Clerimont has his answer ready: “Ay, ’tis melancholy.”[19:1] -But these two are over-frivolous; their diagnosis is untrustworthy; we -must turn to surer ground. One supposed sign of madness was evidently -the quickening of the heart and the pulse. Hamlet, in a well-known -passage, ridicules his mother’s idea that the ghost which he sees is -due to “ecstasy”: - - “Ecstasy! - My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, - And makes as healthful music.”[19:2] - -Philaster, declaring his sanity to Arethusa, says: - - “Take this sword - And search how temperate a heart I have . . . .” - -and again: - - “. . . Am I raging now? - If I were mad, I should desire to live. - Sir, feel my pulse, whether have you known - A man in a more equal tune to die.” - -Bellario replies: - - “Alas, my lord, your pulse keeps madman’s time! - So does your tongue.”[19:3] - -That these tests were inadequate is proved by a simple illustration—in -the “Comedy of Errors,” Pinch the exorcist, mistakes Antipholus’ anger -for madness. Luciana cries: - - “Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks!” - -And a courtezan, - - “Mark, how he trembles in his ecstasy!”[20:1] - -Pinch attempts to feel the “madman’s” pulse, but in any case he knows -that both man and master are possessed: - - “I know it by their pale and deadly looks.”[20:2] - -The madman was supposed not to be aware of the nature of his disease. -“That proves you mad,” says the Officer in Dekker’s “Honest Whore,” -by a strange piece of reasoning, “because you know it not.”[20:3] -Throughout the plays occurs the same phenomenon. Even when certain -of the mad folk recognise that they are afflicted with some sort of -disease, they resent questioning on it. Guildenstern’s account of -Hamlet is significant of a large number of cases: - - “Nor do we find him forward to be sounded, - But with a crafty madness, keeps aloof - When we would bring him on to some confession - Of his true state.”[20:4] - -The resentment is no doubt due to a subconscious wish of the madman -to hide his loss of that sense of personal identity which is used by -Shakespeare as one of the criteria of madness. Constance’ proof to -Pandulph of her entire sanity will be remembered: - - “I am not mad; this hair I tear is mine. - My name is Constance; I was Geffrey’s wife; - Young Arthur is my son and he is lost: - I am not mad[21:1]. . .” - -Sebastian, in “Twelfth Night,” gives similar evidence: - - “This is the air; that is the glorious sun; - This pearl she gave me. I do feel’t and see’t; - And though ’tis wonder that enwraps me thus, - Yet ’tis not madness.”[21:2] - -Another symptom of insanity was sleeping with open eyes. Meleander, -in the “Lover’s Melancholy,” “sleeps . . . with eyes open, and that’s -no good sign”[21:3] and the Duchess of Malfi is said to sleep “like a -madman, with (her) eyes open.”[21:4] - -A general wildness of demeanour was thought to be characteristic of -both the earlier and the later stages of madness. Songs and dances -are often associated with it; wild laughter, “the usher to a violent -extremity,” accompanied by fulminations against the world in general; -bitter sarcasm, sudden touches of pathos and consequent outbursts of -anger; “thundering” and “roaring,” which can only be checked by like -excesses on the part of others—these are all common symptoms, together -with “raving” on all kinds of subjects. This wildness, however, is not -inconsistent with considerable force and pregnancy of speech, which -might lead some to doubt the actual presence of insanity; and which is -“a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could -not so prosperously be delivered of.”[22:1] A sense of physical pain, -of being “cut to the brains,” might also afflict the patient; and the -disease frequently causes such suffering that - - “Nor the exterior nor the inward man - Resembles that it was.”[22:2] - -An excellent objective description of a single case is furnished by the -“Gentleman” in “Hamlet” who announces the frenzy of Ophelia: - - “She speaks much of her father; says she hears - There’s tricks i’ the world, and hems and beats her heart; - Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt, - That carry but half sense; her speech is nothing, - Yet the unshaped use of it doth move - The hearers to collection; they aim at it, - And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts; - Which as her winks and nods and gestures yield them - Indeed would make one think there might be thought, - Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.”[22:3] - -As to the nature of the madman’s talk, we find it impossible to -generalise, and the ideas of different authors on what it should be -have not much agreement, beyond the one condition that there should be -wanting what Shakespeare aptly calls “a dependency of thing on thing.” -This will be noted more particularly when we come to the study of -individual characters. - -From these symptoms and others which might be cited it will be evident -that the madness of our dramas is far from being confined to one -type. We know that various kinds of insanity were recognised in the -seventeenth century. Corax, the physician of the “Lover’s Melancholy,” -makes it clear that - - “Ecstasy - Fantastic Dotage, Madness, Frenzy, Rapture - Of mere imagination differ partly - From Melancholy.”[23:1] - -Our learned informant, Ben Jonson, diagnoses another case of insanity -as “the disease in Greek . . . called μα νια, in Latin, insania, furor, -vel ecstasis melancholica, that is egressio, when a man ex melancholico -evadit fanaticus, . . . . But he may be but ‘phreneticus,’ yet, -mistress, and ‘phrenesis’ is only ‘delirium’ or so.”[23:2] And indeed -there are all varieties of insanity in the plays before us. There is -the young person who merely talks “fantastically,” “like a justice of -peace,” “of a thousand matters and all to no purpose,”[23:3] and whose -words “though they (lack) form a little,” are “not like madness.”[23:4] -There is the person dominated by the “idée fixe”—examples differing -widely occur in “King Lear” and in “Bartholomew Fair.” There is the -“idiot” and there is the “imbecile”—two types between which it would -be affectation here to attempt a discrimination. The melancholiac, -one of “sundry kinds,” affected by a “mere commotion of the mind, -o’ercharged with fear and sorrow,”[24:1] is one of the commonest types. -Mania and delusional insanity are also frequent and account for a -large proportion of our characters. Yet, since this is not a medical -treatise, how can we distinguish any more finely? We shall do better -not to attempt a more detailed classification of our mad folk than -this, which will be utilised later in the consideration of individual -characters. “It is not as deep as a well, nor as wide as a church-door, -but ’twill serve.” Like more than one of those Elizabethan playwrights -we may feel that: - - “To define true madness - What is’t but to be nothing else but mad?”[24:2] - -On this let us act and employ a literary rather than a medical -criticism. - -Our dramas are not silent as to the way in which lunatics were regarded -by the world at large. Few people at that time had the sympathy of -Langland for those whom, three hundred years before, he beautifully -called “God’s minstrels”—a title explained by the preceding -exhortation to his readers to bestow their gifts on the wandering -insane as bountifully as though they were wandering minstrels. For -the most part the lunatic seems to have been regarded, when confined, -as a negligible factor in everyday life,[25:1] and when at large as a -harmless and a gratuitous amusement. So, as has just been noted, the -Duchess of Malfi is regaled before her death with “some sport” in the -shape of several madmen who sing and dance before her. Here, of course, -the intention is a sinister one, but there is no sinister meaning in a -casual remark let fall by Truewit in the “Silent Woman”—“Mad folks and -other strange sights to be seen daily, private, and public”![25:2] Nor -is there any idea but one of legitimate amusement in the entertainment -organised by the master of a private asylum, Alibius by name, for the -marriage of Beatrice-Joanna (in “The Changeling”) and given, as he -says, by: - - “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.”[25:3] - -Isabella caustically remarks “Madmen and fools are a staple commodity.” - -In this connexion, a particular class of lunatic deserves notice. -The Bedlam beggar, variously known as “bedlamer,” “bedlamite,” and -“Abraham’s man,” was originally an inmate of Bedlam, but, coming to be -regarded as convalescent, had been set free and would roam about the -country, half-crazed, living for the most part on the charity of such -as would befriend him. In Dekker’s “Belman of London,” a non-dramatic -work professing to expose “The most notorious Villanies that are now -Practised in the Kingdome,” is a long description, in the manner of -a seventeenth century “character,” of one of “those Wild-geese or -Hayre-braynes . . . called Abraham’s men.” Dekker at least has little -good to say of them. “The fellow . . . sweares he hath bin in bedlam -and will talke frantickly of purpose: you see pinnes stuck in sundry -places of his naked flesh, especially in his armes, which paine he -gladly puts himselfe to (beeing indeede no torment at all, his skin is -either so dead, with some fowle disease, or so hardned with weather), -onely to make you believe he is out of his wits: he calls himself by -the name of Poore Tom, and comming neere anybody, cryes out Poore Tom -is a-cold . . . .” The mind at once turns to Edgar and the celebrated -lines where he poses as one of those very “Abraham-men”: - - “This country gives me proof and precedent - Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices, - Strike in their numb’d and mortified bare arms - Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary; - And with this horrible object, from low farms, - Poor pelting villages, sheep cotes, and mills, - Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers - Enforce their charity.”[26:1] - -From all that we can gather, however, of the treatment of the insane -in madhouses of the time, it would seem probable that, among those -released or escaping from them, many would still be genuine lunatics. -At the same time, it was no doubt fairly easy to make a living in the -way Dekker describes, and numbers of beggars must have emulated Edgar’s -behaviour from far less worthy motives. - -Such a lack of popular sympathy could hardly go hand-in-hand with a -peculiarly humanitarian treatment of the insane. The Saxon treatment -of lunatics has been described as “a curious compound of pharmacy, -superstition, and castigation.” In the seventeenth century it had -been but little improved upon. Its most characteristic feature was -confinement in a dark room, with additional treatment, varying -according to circumstances. A book, of date 1542, called “A Compendious -Pygment or a Dyetry of Helth” by one Dr. Borde, advises the keeping -of lunatics in a dark room, provided with no knives, girdles, nor -pictures of man or woman on the wall. Few words are to be used except -in gentle reproofs and the dietary is to be careful and ample. Dr. -Borde’s treatment was enlarged upon in later days; chains were used -to prevent escape; castigation was employed freely and often attended -with great cruelty. A quatrain in Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy” -(1621), confirms this statement, presenting what is indeed a ghastly -picture. It is all borne out by the dramatic references, which are -extremely numerous. The lunatic _chez lui_ is evidently a subject -which appeals to the dramatist: madness and its cure become topics -of ordinary conversation. Rosalind, in playful banter with Orlando, -compares love to “a madness,” which “deserves as well a dark house -and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not so punished -and cured is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in -love too.”[28:1] Leonato, in “Much Ado” talks (from our point of view -ominously) of those who would - - “Give preceptial medicine to rage, - Fetter strong madness in a silken thread, - Charm ache with air and agony with words.”[28:2] - -Shakespeare is not predicting here, as has been suggested, the -application of gentle methods to insanity, but ridiculing those -who were so foolish as to apply “a moral medicine to a mortifying -mischief.” Even as he wrote lightly of the silken thread, he would have -heard in imagination the clank of the lunatic’s chains. - -Another addition to the attractions of the asylum was the course of -slow starvation, and this is hinted at in a casual allusion by Romeo in -“Romeo and Juliet”: - - “Why Romeo, art thou mad?” +asks Benvolio.+ - - “Not mad,” +answers Romeo,+ “but bound more than a madman is, - Shut up in prison, kept without my food, - Whipped and tormented.”[29:1] - -Pinch the conjuror knows what to do in cases of madness: - - “Mistress, both man and master is possess’d . . . - They must be bound and laid in some dark room.” - -George, in “The Honest Whore,” has heard of domestic cures: “’Sfoot! -I have known many women that have had mad rascals to their husbands, -whom they would belabour by all means possible to keep ’em in their -right wits.” And a character in Marston’s “What You Will” speaks in a -delightfully brisk and business-like manner: “Shut the windows, darken -the room, fetch whips; the fellow is mad, he raves, he raves—talks -idly—lunatic.” - -Few tests were needed to convince the keepers of an asylum that -their patient was mad, and if it could be made a matter of pecuniary -advantage to them to incarcerate any person, they would often take him -and clothe him in the “fool’s coat” or clap him into the “madman’s -cage” without making too many inquiries. Thus the madhouse became, -in many a sinister sense, “a house of correction to whip us into our -senses.”[29:2] - -Before we leave the historical side of our subject, some mention must -be made of the famous Bedlam, so often mentioned in connexion with -the mad folk of our plays. The real and original Bedlam, “Bethlem -monastery,” as it is called, “the madman’s pound,” which is actually -introduced into one or more of the plays under consideration,[30:1] -was formerly the Hospital of St. Mary Bethlehem in Bishopsgate Street. -The Priory was founded for this Order in 1247 by an ex-sheriff named -Simon Fitz-Mary. It passed through many vicissitudes, chief among which -were a seizure by the Crown in 1375 and the dissolution by Henry VIII. -in 1547. After this latter date the revenues were held by the Mayor, -the commonalty and the citizens of London. For some hundred and fifty -years the Hospital had been used for lunatics, and the only difference -in this use caused by its dissolution as a religious house seems to -have been that it became incorporated as a Royal Foundation. For a -considerable time it suffered through poverty, being largely dependent -on legacies, such as Sir Thomas Gresham’s in 1575, and on general alms. -Mistress Trainewell, in Brome’s “Northern Lass” (1632), mentions Bedlam -among other objects of charity, and suggests to Squelch an excellent -reason for patronising it. The passage may be quoted in full: - - _Squelch_: “I will now bestow my wealth in monumental good - deeds, and charitable uses in my life-time, to be talked well - on when I am dead.” - - _Trainewell_: “Yes, build almshouses and hospitals for beggars, - and provide in Bridewell houses of correction for your friends - and kindred. Pray give enough to Bedlam, you may feel some part - of that benefit yourself before you die, if these fits hold - you.” - -The later history of Bedlam is uneventful, and, to us, unimportant. -In 1676 it was transferred to London Wall, the new buildings being -known as the “New Hospital of Bethlehem,” and in 1815 to Lambeth. -Bethlem Hospital was by far the best known of London mad-houses in the -Seventeenth Century; two more are mentioned by Stow in his “Survey of -London,” and may be noted here. The first was “an Hospitall in the -Parish of Barking Church,” founded “by Robert Denton Chaplen, for the -sustentation of poore Priests, and other both men and women, that were -sicke of the Phrenzie, there to remaine till they were perfectly whole, -and restored to good memorie.”[31:1] In another place, under the title -of “An house belonging to Bethlem,” we read: “Then had ye an house -wherein sometime were distraught and lunatike people, of what antiquity -founded, or by whom I have not read, neither of the suppression, but -it was said that sometime a King of England, not liking such a kind -of people to remaine so neare his pallace, caused them to be remoued -farther of, to Bethlem without Bishops gate of London, and to that -Hospitall the said house by Charing crosse doth yet remaine.”[32:1] - -No doubt there were also private asylums in existence, where the -treatment of the patients was harsh, and their comforts were few. The -conditions, indeed, seem to have been very similar to those of Bedlam. -These and other details may be gathered chiefly from four plays, in -each of which there are “madhouse scenes”—they are “The Pilgrim” by -John Fletcher, “The Honest Whore” by Thomas Dekker, “Northward Ho,” -the joint work of Dekker and Webster, and “The Changeling,” ascribed -to Middleton, who was probably aided in it by Rowley. A comparison of -these plays should give a very fair account of a seventeenth century -lunatic asylum.[32:2] - -It is not difficult to obtain admission to this asylum, for the -charge is only a penny or twopence, and Bellamont and his friends -in “Northward Ho” look at the “mad Greeks” for a short time before -calling for their horses, which are stabled at “the Dolphin without -Bishopsgate” near by. The hospital consists of “a parlour, kitchen, -and larder below stairs, and twenty-one rooms where the poor distracted -people lie, and above stairs eight rooms more for servants”; the madmen -may either be visited in their cells, or brought in for inspection -by the visitors. Preferring the former alternative we approach the -cells, and hear a confused roaring—“the Chimes of Bedlam.” It is -“Mad Bess roaring for meat or the Englishman for drink”; like “bells -rung backward” they are nothing but “confusion and mere noises.” The -“shaking of irons” adds to the din, which is increased by the snatches -of coarse song which are continually assailing our ears, the playing of -rough games such as “barley-break,” the running and jumping of the more -violent of the patients, and the cries of those who are undergoing a -treatment of the whip: - - “If sad, they cry, - If mirth be their conceit, they laugh again; - Sometimes they imitate the beasts and birds, - Singing or howling, braying, barking, all - As their wild fancies prompt ’em.” - -When the lunatics are brought in, or (as was more usual in real life -though unsuited for dramatic representation), we visit them in their -“cages” or cells, we are confronted with a strange sight. A “pretty -poet” who “ran mad for a chambermaid” invokes Titania and Oberon, -and speaks in the sanest of tones of “daisies, primrose, violets”; -his madness, though at the time we do not know it, is feigned. The -Englishman is still crying for drink. Everyone must go down on his -knees and pledge him: “A thousand pots, and froth ’em, froth ’em!” The -parson, “that run mad for tithe goslings,” threatens to excommunicate -and curse the whole company. A musician walks slowly and deliberately -apart; he fell mad “for love of an Italian dwarf.” Many a lunatic -resembles Candido, “much gone indeed,” who believes himself to be a -prentice, “talks to himself,” selling “pure calicos, fine hollands, -choice cambrics, neat lawns,” and resenting interference in a way which -is positively dangerous. Near him is a lad brought in (like Alinda) “a -little craz’d, distracted” and not suffering acutely; he is allowed -comparative freedom and accorded light treatment till more dangerous -symptoms shew themselves. He - - “talks little idly - And therefore has the freedom of the house.” - -We speak to the keepers about their charges, and they seem mildly -interested. The most entertaining characters we may discuss at length -with them; and, if we will brave their foul talk, we may even converse -with the patients as freely as they are permitted to converse with -each other. We must be prepared, in this case, to hear frank comments -on our personal appearance and the wildest of guesses, often mere -expressions of an _idée fixe_ on our profession or our business. The -lunatics will not, of course, allow that they are mad, though they may -recognise that they are ill and under a doctor’s care. This, however, -is less common with our asylum patients than with those undergoing -private treatment, such as Ford’s Meleander. The mere suggestion -that they may be of unsound mind usually amuses them, or makes them -indignant. It is only when the keeper ceases to reproach them with -madness and turns the conversation to “Whips!” that they become serious -again. Perhaps, after all, a talk with the keeper will best serve our -purpose. - -Friar Anselmo is at hand and will describe to us with more sympathy -than many of his kind the condition of the inmates: - - “There are of madmen, as there are of tame, - All humoured not alike. We have here some - So apish and fantastic, play with a feather; - And, though ’twould grieve a soul to see God’s image - So blemished and defaced, yet they do act - Such antic and such pretty lunacies, - That, spite of sorrow, they will make you smile. - Others, again, we have, like hungry lions, - Fierce as wild bulls, untameable as flies; - And these have oftentimes from strangers’ sides - Snatch’d rapiers suddenly and done much harm; - Whom if you’ll see, you must be weaponless.” - -We may ask him about his treatment of these poor creatures, who are -ever in fear of the lash. It will be easily justified: - - “They must be used like children; pleased with toys, - And anon whipt for their unruliness.” - -Alternate cajolings and threats are the mildest form of treatment that -we can hope to see in these places. The Elizabethan asylum keeper holds -with Shakespeare that - - “Diseases desperate grown - By desperate appliance are relieved - Or not at all.” - -In the middle of this entertaining discussion we are interrupted. A -prospective patient, it seems, is being announced, but the first words -of the Master, who enters with him, suggest that we have been fortunate -enough to meet with a case of false incarceration. A scholarly young -man has been confined without cause and his friends in high quarters -have come, armed with a “discharge from my lord cardinal,” to demand -his release. “I am heartily sorry,” says the Master, “If ye allow him -sound, pray take him with ye.” A gentleman protests that there is -nothing in the Scholar - - “light nor tainted, - No startings nor no rubs in all his answers; - In all his letters nothing but discretion, - Learning and handsome style.” - -He is quite “perfect”; “a civiler discourser I ne’er talked with.” -Then, before the Master, the Scholar is catechised: - -“You find no sickness?” “Do ye sleep o’ nights?” “Have you no fearful -dreams?” The answers, to the Master’s disgust, are satisfactory. “I -think,” exclaims the friend, “You keep him here to teach him madness.” -But, just then, his “eyes alter,” and - - “On a sudden, from some word or other. - When no man could expect a fit, he has flown out.” - -The mention of “stubborn weather” and “strange work at sea,” starts in -him a new delusion or revives an old one. He rants and raves: “I am -Neptune.” Now it is the Master’s turn to jeer, and the visitors retire, -discomfited. - -It may be noticed, in passing, that the questions addressed by the -keepers of madhouses to prospective patients in order to ascertain -whether or no they are indeed mad are hardly less irrelevant and -absurd than those of “Sir Topas” in “Twelfth Night.” Antonio, in the -“Changeling,” is asked as “easy questions”: “How many true (_i.e._ -honest) fingers has a tailor on his right hand?” . . . “and how many -on both?”—“How many fools goes to a wise man?” These remind us of the -questions put by the Fool to King Lear. - -Our madhouse does not contain only those lunatics who are termed -“madmen”; there is another variety, known most commonly as the “fool.” -Now the word “fool,” in Elizabethan literature, has a number of -connotations. It may be used, as in Shakespeare, for the professional -jester of the court, who was, indeed, often a little wanting in -ordinary intelligence, though this was amply atoned for by his witty -and pregnant remarks. It is also used in a general sense, as to-day, -of a person who has acted, or who habitually acts, in an unwise way. -With reference, however, to our plays, it has more often approximately -the technical meaning of “imbecile”—a term used of those whose brains -are constitutionally affected and whose insanity is therefore rather a -quantitative rather than a qualitative defect. Taken in this sense, the -word “fool” may be applied to some of the asylum’s inmates, the word -“madman” to others. The two classes are not always well distinguished -in these plays, but the fools can generally be detected by the inanity, -rather than the violence, of their words and actions. They tend to -reply in the style of Antonio, the feigning fool of “The Changeling”— - - “He, he, he! well, I thank you, cousin, he, he, he!” - -To which Lollio, the attendant, replies: “He can laugh; I perceive by -that he is no beast.” - -The two classes of patients are apparently allowed to mix in each -others’ company. “We have,” says Lollio, “two sorts of people in the -house, and both under the whip, that’s fools and madmen; the one has -not wit enough to be knaves, and the other not knavery enough to be -fools.” They are kept under very much the same discipline, though the -fools are sent to the “Fools’ College”—which is an institution of the -madhouse itself—and are put to school in various classes in the hope -of improving their wit. - -The seventeenth-century asylum, it must be remembered, claims to -have worked cures, though at first it seems hard to believe that its -designation as “the school where those that lose their wits Practise -again to get them” is anything more than a phrase. As we enter the -domain of Anselmo we are met by a “sweeper,” who describes himself as -one of the “implements” of the house—“a mad wag myself here once; but -I thank father Anselmo, he lashed me into my right mind again.” - -We are struck at once, as we read these accounts of Bedlam, by the -inconsequence, verging at times on brutal heartlessness, with which -those responsible for the lunatics’ welfare refer to them. It is the -expression of that spirit upon which we have remarked continually -throughout this historical survey. In concluding it we can hardly -illustrate this last point better than by considering a few of the -occasions on which the mad folk are held up to ridicule or satire. It -is, of course, the dramatist with whom we have properly to reckon for -this, yet he was clearly influenced by the attitude of the time, and -contemporary prose-references endorse the spirit of the plays. - -Satire abounds on the coarsest of subjects—that of the “horn-mad” -patient—and further examples need hardly be given. More interesting is -the comment of the keeper in the “Pilgrim” when a patient enters crying -“Give me some drink.” - - “Oh, there’s the Englishman! . . . - These English are so malt-mad there’s no meddling with ’em; - When they have a fruitful year of barley there, - All the whole island’s thus.” - -A similar skit follows on the parson above-mentioned “that run mad for -tithe goslings.” But Fletcher’s best effort in this direction is the -introduction of the Welshman, who, but for his premature exit might -have served as quite a reasonable understudy for Fluellen. “Whaw, -Master Keeper,” is his first remark, “Give me some ceeze and onions, -give me some wash brew . . . Pendragon was a shentleman, marg you, sir. -And the organs at Rixum were made by revelations: There is a spirit -blows the bellows, and then they sing.” He will “sing, dance and do -anything,” and when the Englishman and the Scholar challenge him, he -threatens to “get upon a mountain and call my countrymen.” Dekker, in -the “Honest Whore,” is able to hit the lawyers. There are none of that -company, he says, among Anselmo’s madmen. “We dare not let a lawyer -come in, for he’ll make ’em mad faster than we can recover ’em.” -Questioned as to how long it takes to “recover” any of the patients, -our informant replies that “An alderman’s son will be mad a great -while. . . . A whore will hardly come to her wits again. A Puritan, -there’s no hope of him, unless he may pull down the steeple and hang -himself i’ the bell-ropes.”[41:1] - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[8:1] I. Samuel, xvi., 14. - -[9:1] “Macbeth,” i., 3, 84. - -[10:1] “Twelfth Night,” iv., 2. - -[10:2] “King Lear,” iii., 4, etc. - -[11:1] “King Lear,” iii., 4, 52, etc. - -[11:2] Ibid., iv., 1, 64. - -[11:3] Ibid., iii., 4, 122. - -[11:4] Ibid., iii., 4, 148-9. - -[11:5] Ibid., iii., 5, 31. - -[11:6] Middleton: “A Fair Quarrel,” i., 1. - -[12:1] iii., 2. - -[12:2] i., 1. - -[12:3] “Othello,” v., 2, 109. - -[12:4] iii., 3. - -[12:5] iii., 6. Cf. with these the phrases: “planet-struck,” -“planet-stricken,” etc.; _e.g._ Brome’s “City Wit,” v., 1—Crazy: “Sure -I was planet-struck.” - -[14:1] For further information on this subject Bulleine’s “Bulwark of -Defence” and Sir Thomas Browne’s “Vulgar Errors” may be consulted. - -[14:2] Act iii. Sc. iv., cf. Jonson: “The Alchemist,” ii., i. Face of -Dol: - - “She is a most rare scholar, - And is gone mad with studying Broughton’s works. - If you but name a word touching the Hebrew - She falls into her fit and will discourse - So learnedly of genealogies, - As you would run mad, too, to hear her, sir.” - -[15:1] “Much Ado About Nothing,” ii., 1, 368. - -[15:2] “Comedy of Errors,” v., 1, 68. - -[15:3] For further information on this interesting word see the New -English Dictionary. _s.v._ “horn-mad.” - -[16:1] “Law Tricks,” iv., 2. - -[16:2] “Merry Wives of Windsor,” iii., 5, 153. - -[16:3] “Match Me in London,” iv., 1. - -[17:1] All taken from plays of the period under consideration. - -[17:2] “Taming of the Shrew,” Ind. ii., 135. - -[18:1] “Duchess of Malfi,” iv., 2. - -[18:2] “Troilus and Cressida,” ii., 3, 92. - -[19:1] “Epicene,” iv., 2. - -[19:2] “Hamlet,” iii., 4, 139, etc. - -[19:3] “Philaster,” iv., 3, 45, etc. - -[20:1] “Comedy of Errors,” iv., 4, 52-3. - -[20:2] Ibid., l. 96. - -[20:3] “Honest Whore,” iv., 3. - -[20:4] “Hamlet,” iii., 1, 7. - -[21:1] “King John,” iii., 4, 48, etc. - -[21:2] “Twelfth Night,” iv., 3, 1, etc. - -[21:3] “Lover’s Melancholy,” ii., 2. - -[21:4] “Duchess of Malfi,” iv., 2. - -[22:1] “Hamlet,” ii., 2, 212. - -[22:2] Ibid., ii., 2, 6-7. - -[22:3] Ibid., iv., 5, 4, etc. - -[23:1] “Lover’s Melancholy,” iii., 1. - -[23:2] “Epicene,” iv., 2. - -[23:3] “Honest Whore,” v., 1. - -[23:4] “Hamlet,” iii., 1, 171. - -[24:1] “Lover’s Melancholy,” iii., 1. - -[24:2] “Hamlet,” ii., 2, 93. - -[25:1] _e.g._ A lunatic’s legal acts were annulled and his property was -placed under control. (See further, Encyl. Brit., _s.v._ Insanity.) - -[25:2] “Epicene,” ii., 1. - -[25:3] “The Changeling,” iii., 3. - -[26:1] “King Lear,” ii., 3, 13, etc. - -[28:1] “As You Like It,” iii., 2, 420, etc. - -[28:2] “Much Ado About Nothing,” v., 1, 24, etc. - -[29:1] “Romeo and Juliet,” i., 2, 54, etc. - -[29:2] Shirley: “Bird in a Cage,” ii., 1. - -[30:1] Notably into “Northward Ho.” The madhouses of “The Pilgrim,” -“The Honest Whore,” and “The Changeling” are private asylums. - -[31:1] Stow: “Survey of London” (Clarendon Press), i., 137. - -[32:1] Ibid., ii., 98. - -[32:2] The chief sources from which this description is compiled -are:—“The Pilgrim,” iii. 6, iv. 3, v. 5; “The Honest Whore,” v. 12, -13; “The Changeling,” i. 2, iii. 3, iv. 3, v. 3; “Northward Ho,” iv. 1. -For obvious reasons the specific references to every quotation are not -given. - -[41:1] Another interesting passage, no doubt satirical, but too long -for quotation at length, occurs in “The Duchess of Malfi,” Act iv., Sc. -2: It begins: - - “A mad lawyer and a secular priest - A doctor that hath forfeited his wits - By jealousy,” etc., etc. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -THE PRESENTATION OF MADNESS—FROM THE STANDPOINT OF LITERATURE. - - “This mirthful comic style - Makes us at once both serious, and smile.” - - (_Alex. Brome._) - - -The questions which we have now to answer, before passing to our main -study and considering the mad folk as individuals, are two in number. -The first is a general one: What is the place of such a feature as -madness in drama? The second is more particular: What place does -madness assume in the body of drama under consideration? Let us take -them in this order. - -1. Clearly there is a great difference between madness in tragedy and -madness in comedy. Many of us would hold to the one and emphatically -despise the other. At all events, risking confusion through an -over-complicated scheme of sub-division, we shall deal with each -separately. - -The representation of madness in tragedy might be objected to upon the -following grounds: If carried out well, it becomes too terrible for the -stage; if badly, it is nothing but a ludicrous caricature of greatness. -This is at least plausible, and the last proposition is evidently true. -But what of the first? Is madness really too terrible for dramatic -presentation, or is it not eminently suited to the stage by virtue of -its peculiar qualities? - -The critic replies that madness is sheer suffering of the most painful -sort, that the ravings of a noble mind o’erthrown have passed the _ne -plus ultra_ of the tragic, while the babblings of mere imbecility -have not reached the level of tragedy at all. “Such suffering” (he -will say), “as is the lot of Lear, should never be dwelt upon, -much less paraded before crowds, and decked out with the tinsel -of the stage. Think of physical suffering comparable with it, if -that be possible—for is not mental suffering far more terrible and -heart-rending than physical?—and you would never talk of putting the -maniac on the stage. Think of the repulsion caused by the blinding of -Gloster and the murder of Lady Macduff’s infant son,—and is not the -madness of Lear more terrible? ‘King Lear’ is, of course, a brilliant -exception, but the exception proves the rule.” - -With this last provoking platitude we need not quarrel, but the main -assertion must be challenged nevertheless. In the first place it is -a fact that we do not feel the same repulsion at the representation -of madness on the stage as we do at a similar case in real life, -whereas with physical brutality the effect seems in drama to be almost -magnified. Could we possibly feel more keenly the blow which Othello -gives to Desdemona if the scene took place in our own family? It is -at least doubtful. But if we think of the suffering of Lear, or of -Ophelia, and suppose one-tenth of it inflicted on our dearest friend, -the thought becomes perfectly unbearable. It is not that we do not -enter into the spirit of “King Lear,” but rather that the sufferings of -the aged King, by reason of their very remoteness from human life, give -us the actual “tragic feeling” which Shakespearean tragedy inevitably -produces. - -Not only so, but the state of the madman, provided that apart from him -the play contains the requisite tragic hero, is admirably calculated -to contribute, through the emotions of pity and fear, to that καθάρσις -which Aristotle considers to be the essence of tragedy. Tragic -pity will most surely be excited at the misfortunes of “one who is -undeserving,” that is of - - “a man - More sinn’d against than sinning.” - -Hardly any disaster which may befall a human being can excite such -tragic pity as the crowning disaster of insanity. Whatever a man’s -sins, we feel that the loss of reason more than atones for them all. -If the greatest villain in drama should lose his reason, we should -feel this; when Lear, the rash, impetuous King of Britain, becomes -insane, we cry out, forgetting for the time his tragic error, that -his punishment is too great for him. When the brief scene is ended we -consign him to the Great Silence, not with feelings of rebellion but -with a sense of supreme calm: - - “He hates him - That would upon the rack of this tough world - Stretch him out longer.”[45:1] - -So equally with tragic fear. This emotion, which is no vulgar sense -of possible or impending misfortune to ourselves, but an awed and -sympathetic feeling for a character essentially of the nature of our -own, is brought out to the full by means of the portrayal of madness. -For what reduces men so quickly to the same level as the loss of reason -by a fellow-man? In real life our hearts are stirred by compassion, -yet moved by inexpressible awe, as we see or hear of one whom we have -known and whose senses have deserted him. Be he of high or low station, -it matters nothing. Differences of rank are forgotten—and this is -less often so with physical calamity. Loss of reason has effected -the belated recognition of our common humanity. Carry this into the -imaginative world of drama, and you have the emotion of tragic fear. - -The representation, then, of madness in tragedy would seem to be -not only permissible, but of the greatest value to the drama when -this madness is worked into the plot and becomes an essential part -of it. Often, however, and especially with the lesser lights of the -Elizabethan stage, it held a place wholly subsidiary to the main theme -of the tragedy. If tragic fear and tragic pity were to be evoked it -would be by other means; madness was required for colouring effects, -and to lend a peculiar atmosphere to the tragedy. It was sketched but -lightly, frequently with little attempt at reality; whether this arose -from the dramatists’ lack of ability, or from a desire to lessen the -supposed pain, can only be a matter of conjecture. The introduction -of madness, as a subsidiary element, into tragedy, appears to be -justifiable only when it is regarded objectively with no relation to -the pain caused to the sufferer. Let us illustrate. The Duchess of -Malfi, previously to her death, is made to listen to the cries and to -watch the antics of madmen. The intention of the author is evident. -Whether we consider him to have been successful or not, we can hardly -cavil at his device when we bear in mind the nature of the tragedy. -But had a madman been introduced and presented as a new character -with a definite interest of his own, either at this or at an earlier -stage of the play, we should have rightly condemned the new feature as -inartistic and revolting, for our centre of gravity, so to say, would -at once have been shifted from the unfortunate lady to the unfortunate -madman. The conception of madness in tragedy is a powerful one and -cannot be trifled with. - -There is another point of view from which the question must be -considered before we pass from tragedy to comedy,—namely, that of -the action. It is recognised that in tragedy properly so called the -conflict must spring from the actions of the hero, and that the -calamity which marks the tragedy must be unmistakeably dependent upon -this generating action. Now the hero, to commit a tragic error, must -obviously be responsible for his actions,—otherwise the tragedy -will rest upon an irrational basis, which would be absurd. No -abnormal mental state, then, such as would arise from drunkenness, -hallucination, or insanity, can serve to generate the conflict. The -most usual and natural position for the introduction of insanity will -be either during a considerable part of the decline of the action from -the crisis (as with Ophelia’s madness in “Hamlet”)[47:1] or immediately -preceding the catastrophe (cf. the sleep-walking of Lady Macbeth), when -it adds greatly to the force of the tragedy. The construction of “King -Lear” is in this respect peculiar. Lear’s madness, to the ordinary -spectator, is first noticeable in the third act;[47:2] but, as Dr. -Bradley points out, it is more satisfactory from the point of view of -the construction to consider, not Lear, but Goneril, Edmund and Regan, -as the leading characters in the play.[48:1] - -What of madness in comedy? This, we confess, it is difficult, if not -impossible, to justify. Feigned madness may, no doubt, have some -place in a comedy, and such tricks as occur in “Northward Ho!” where -the poet Bellamont narrowly escapes being immured in a madhouse, -may, and certainly did appeal to a certain kind of audience. But the -introduction of Bedlam into a romance such as “The Pilgrim,” or a -comedy of low life such as “The Changeling,” merely for the sake of -giving some cheap amusement to the groundlings, reveals a mind which -one would suppose to be untouched by the elements of human pity. It -can only be understood in the light of the treatment accorded to the -lunatic in real life. And our authors’ sins do not end here. In more -than one comedy in which the madman appears, little or no attempt is -made to give even an approximate idea of what he might be expected to -say or do. His presence is merely an excuse for the coarsest of jokes -and the vilest of songs, which, no doubt, lost nothing in the acting. -The degradation of a theme which is properly tragic is unhappily -only what may be expected from playwrights whose work graced the -Post-Restoration stage. - -In tragi-comedy, it may be said, madness has a legitimate place, and we -find the authors of “The Two Noble Kinsmen,” among others, making full -use of it. We shall best see, when we consider this play separately, -how impossible it is to reconcile madness with the dénouement of -comedy. We may be able to put a hook into the nose of leviathan, but -we can no more use the sufferings of mad folk and then bring them to a -dénouement, in a tragi-comedy worthy of the name, than we can supply -a “happy ending” to “Hamlet” or “Lear.” The heights of mania are very -high, as the depths of idiocy are very low. The maniac, though cured -of his disease, does not fit into comedy, any more than the imbecile, -however well-born, can harmonise with tragedy. From one point of view -at least, a great man is at his greatest when he is possessed by an -uncontrollable passion. If the madman of a tragi-comedy is sufficiently -great for tragedy, the play cannot be resolved into a comedy; if he is -not a possible tragic hero, his madness is not sufficiently imposing to -raise the conflict to a crisis. We are on the horns of a dilemma which -may be avoided in practice by some dramatic genius, but which were -certainly not avoided in Elizabethan drama by those authors who rushed -in where others might fear to tread. - -2. We have now to enquire into the actual presentation of madness in -our tragedy and comedy, and it must be confessed at once that the -results will be somewhat disappointing. We have between twenty and -thirty plays of which it may fairly be said that the conception of -madness enters definitely into the plot, and of this number all, save -four or five, are comedies. The tragedies may briefly be considered -first. - -In “King Lear,” mad folk are given an exalted place. On the madness of -the old King depends the whole play; the scenes which are naturally -the most striking become more terrible because of his ravings; their -effect is further enhanced by the feigned madness of Edgar and by the -curious half-imbecility of the Fool. In “Hamlet” the hero’s assumption -of an “antic disposition” is inextricably interwoven with the main -plot, while Ophelia’s loss of reason is largely responsible for the -catastrophe. Nowhere else in Elizabethan Tragedy do we find so bold a -use of the madman as here. Turn to “The Changeling” and Middleton’s -ideas of what can be done with him take shape. There is a comic -underplot, alternating during the greater part of the play with a fine -tragic theme, and only becoming connected with it towards the end—this -underplot embodies the grossest of all possible conceptions of madness. -From a sublime passion, it becomes material for vulgar intrigue. Even -where mad folk are seriously treated in these tragedies, they are not -portrayed with the power of which the author is capable. Penthea, for -example, in Ford’s “Broken Heart,” though not, as has been suggested, -a mere reminiscence of Ophelia, is somewhat slightly and inadequately -drawn. And one would at least have expected Webster, with his penchant -towards the carnival of horrors, to have produced something better than -the inane songs and dances which, with hardly the saving grace of being -grotesque, disfigure the fourth act of the “Duchess of Malfi.” The fact -is that the common Elizabethan treatment of insanity was so far removed -from the humane that the subject was regarded rather as one for mirth -than for solemnity—for comedy and not for tragedy. - -Reconciling ourselves as best we can to this state of things, let us -examine some representative comedies. There are, in the first place, -those in which insanity plays quite a subsidiary part and is not in the -least essential to the main plot. In “The Silent Woman,” for example, -the pretended madness of Morose is an occasion for much merriment, -but it lasts only for part of a scene. In “Northward Ho!”, Maybery, -Greenshield and their friends lay a merry plot against Bellamont and -contrive to secure his arrest as a madman, though here again, the jest -is but a short one. Similarly, in “Twelfth Night,” Malvolio is treated -as if he were insane, much to the delight of Maria, Sir Toby, and -the lesser folk; while in the “Comedy of Errors” many accusations of -madness are bandied to and fro, which more than once lead to violence. -Sometimes the madness is only reported. In “Cymbeline,” the Queen is -said in the fourth act to be afflicted by - - “A fever with the absence of her son, - A madness of which her life’s in danger,” - -and there is little doubt that her violent death, “most -shameless-desperate,” was due to some derangement of the reason. So, -too, the Lady Constance dies “in a frenzy,” and Brutus’ Portia, it is -reported, - - “fell distract - And, her attendants absent, swallow’d fire.” - -Such scenes as these last three, however, Shakespeare has, with his -usual tact, kept off the stage, knowing that in the case of “Cymbeline” -he would otherwise introduce too violent a nemesis into what was -rapidly becoming the dénouement of a romantic comedy. Massinger, on -the contrary, in “A New Way to Pay Old Debts,” seems rather to welcome -this nemesis, allowing his extortioner, Sir Giles Overreach, when -outwitted in the fifth act, to go mad and to be taken off to Bedlam. -It will be noticed that most of the examples just given (excluding -those of “reported” insanity) have been mainly of pretended madness; -where bona-fide mad folk are introduced into comedy without affecting -the construction of the play, this is usually for the sake of a vulgar -realism or of comic effect falsely so-called. We have already seen -enough of this and may pass on. - -In “Bartholomew Fair” we have a madman delineated with some care. -Trouble-all, the lunatic in question, only makes his appearance -in the fourth act, but from his entry to the close of the play he -evokes, together with Quarlous, who masquerades in his clothes, a -considerable share of attention. His place in the plot is an important -one. Dame Purecraft, who is being wooed by that notorious Puritan, -Zeal-of-the-Land Busy, and by a gentleman named Winwife, has had it -foretold that she must marry a madman within seven days. She has been -daily to Bedlam to enquire if any insane gentlemen are available, but -it is only when she meets Trouble-all that she feels any inclination -towards one. By a trick, however, Quarlous, a “gamester” and a friend -of Winwife’s, succeeds in duping and eventually marrying the Dame, -and although Trouble-all discovers the ruse, all ends happily. It will -be seen, when a sketch of the madman is attempted on another page, how -carefully the lunatic is portrayed. - -It is needless to examine all the comedies in which the madman is more -intricately interwoven with the plot than in “Bartholomew Fair,” for -the work is seldom done with any appreciable dramatic skill, or with -the least vestige of sympathy. The plot of “The Mad Lover,” a play -in Fletcher’s worst style, will serve as a typical example. Madness -here forms the basis and theme of the plot. Memnon, a valiant general -somewhat advanced in years, albeit a blunt, uncourtly fellow, has -returned from his victories to the Court of Paphos. He falls in love -with Calis, the King’s sister, who is herself in love with Memnon’s -brother, Polydore. The General proposes in truly singular fashion; his -courtship begins and ends with three remarks: “I love thee, lady,” -“With all my heart I love thee,” and finally, “Good lady, kiss me!” -Calis, supposing not unnaturally that he is mad, ignores him; when she -has left the room, the Mad Lover suddenly grows quarrelsome, talks -wildly, and declares that his suit shall succeed. Calis, re-entering, -is held up, and, growing fearful, tries to humour him, but he rushes -from her presence with wild threats. In the next act, we find him -contemplating death for the purpose of presenting his lady with his -heart. This announcement of his project sends more than one of his -friends to plead for him with the Princess. Meanwhile, Polydore, who -has overheard his brother entreating the surgeon to cut out his heart -and seen the surgeon beat a hasty retreat, concludes that the “cause is -merely heat” and contrives a double expedient. For Memnon he dresses -up another woman as the Princess, in the hope that he may be satisfied -with her; at the same time, he reports to Calis that Memnon has carried -out his threat and makes believe to present the General’s heart in a -cup together with some verses from her “dead” lover. This makes her a -little remorseful. But Memnon refuses to be deceived, and it is only -when Polydore himself pretends to be dead that the Princess is induced -to change her mind and marry Memnon. Instantly the Mad Lover becomes -sane, and all is well. - -Of the tragi-comedies into which this theme is introduced we may take -two—“The Lover’s Melancholy” and “Match Me in London”—as being -representative. Each shows some improvement on the “Mad Lover.” The -“Lover’s Melancholy” is based, as the name partly implies, on the -melancholy of Palador, Prince of Cyprus, whose love Eroclea has -“disappeared,” though in reality she is present in disguise during the -whole play. The plot turns on the situation caused by the heroine’s -secret presence. Among the disasters occasioned by her “loss” is the -madness of her father, Meleander; his recovery, in the fifth act, is -the best part of that act, the Prince having rediscovered his love long -before (iv., 3.). Dr. Ward considers that the melancholy of Palador -“recalls Hamlet.”[56:1] The young Prince is certainly an interesting -character, and the curtness of his exclamations and replies, together -with the natural grace of his disposition, afford quite a noticeable -contrast with the now coherent, now raving old father. Both characters -are intimately connected with the plot; and both present traits, as -will be seen, which are fully in harmony with their conditions. It only -remains to wish that Ford had not been inspired by Burton, and that the -zealous physician Corax had refrained from presenting the Prince with -that “trifle” of his “own brain,” to wit, the tedious and unnecessary -“Masque of Melancholy.” - -It may at first appear a violent anti-climax to come to Dekker’s “Match -Me in London.” Nevertheless the working into the plot of Tormiella’s -feigned madness is quite in the true dramatic spirit, and one scene -leaves us a little suspicious, as is so often the case with the -plays of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, of the influence of Ophelia. -Tormiella is a young shopkeeper’s wife whom the King tries to seduce; -he visits her in disguise and she is beguiled away, with the compliance -of her father. The situation develops thus: Malevento, Tormiella’s -father, rushes on the stage, crying out that his daughter has lost her -reason:[57:1] - - _Mal._ O royal Sir, my daughter Tormiella - Has lost her use of reason and gone mad. - - _King._ When? - - _Mal._ Not half an hour since. - - _King._ Mad now! now frantic! - When all my hopes are at the highest pitch - To enjoy her beauties! talk no more; thou liest. - - [_Enter Gazetto._ - - _Gaz._ May it please your Majesty— - - _King._ Curses consume thee—oh— [_Strikes him._ - - _Gaz._ It is dispatch’d, the Queen is lost, never to be found. - - _King._ Wave upon wave, - Hard-hearted Furies, when will you dig my grave? - You do not hear him, thunder shakes Heaven first. - Before dull earth can feel it:— - My dear, dear’st Queen is dead. - -The King is distracted. “Without a woman,” he says, he will himself -“run mad at midnight.” The physician is to use his “skill,” but if that -prove unavailing the King’s resolve is taken nevertheless. - - “I will marry - The lunatic lady, she shall be my Queen, - Proclaim her so.”[58:1] - -So saying, he leaves the room, and almost simultaneously Tormiella -enters. She plays the madwoman for some time before the physician; -but, discovering at length that he is in reality an agent for her -husband, she reveals her sanity to him, together with the reasons for -her assumption of madness. The action hurries on from this point with -increasing rapidity; and, after several plots have been thwarted, the -dead come to life and sinners are converted, after the approved manner -of romantic comedy. But enough has been said to shew how the somewhat -vulgar plot is given a startling and unexpected turn, at a point where, -to tell the truth, it is badly needed. The actual “mad scene” is -extremely short, but it serves a true dramatic purpose and is far from -being the worst thing in the play. We are a long way from the comic -scenes of the “Changeling” and the “Honest Whore” of Dekker himself. - -In these few pages we have briefly considered the places occupied -by mad folk in some of the most representative of our tragedies and -comedies. In many of them sublime passion is degraded for the most -vulgar of purposes; in many more there is little attempt to realise the -nature of insanity—mere surface work, a “writing down” to the lowest -type of contemporary play-goer. Such prostitution of art appears to us, -in the light of Shakespeare’s plays and of our own opinions, unworthy -and base. Yet it must not be forgotten that many of the “madhouse -scenes” of our plays contain much genuine humour which from the point -of view of the day was harmless and legitimate. And as we have already -agreed to take up, as far as possible, the position of the author -himself, we shall restrain our Puritanical or artistic indignation, -and pass on to consider our mad folk themselves, as men and women -rather than as puppets of a playwright, from the point of view not of -construction but of character. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[45:1] “King Lear,” v., 3, 313. - -[47:1] Taking the Play Scene (iii., 2.) as the crisis. - -[47:2] Indeed many critics find incipient madness in Lear’s conduct -even earlier, _i.e._ from the very beginning of the play. This view I -cannot hold; Lear’s actions in the early part of the play do not seem -to me to be the result of anything but the childishness of old age. The -King is quite responsible for his actions. If he were not, he would be -the one exception to Shakespeare’s practice in his tragedies. - -[48:1] Sh. Trag., p. 53. - -[56:1] Eng. Dram. Lit.: Vol. ii., p. 297. - -[57:1] “Match Me in London,” Act v., Sc. 1. - -[58:1] Ibid., v., 1. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -MAD FOLK IN COMEDY AND TRAGEDY—(i.) THE MANIACS. - - “Whom if you’ll see, you must be weaponless.” - - (_The Honest Whore._) - - -In the division of our study upon which we have now entered, the -various figures of madmen will be considered under some five or -six headings. We shall naturally exclude the mere crowds of madmen -who enter the plays as lay figures rather than as personalities of -the drama. The largest of the remaining classes will be dealt with -first, namely, that which includes “maniacs,” or “madmen” in the -proper acceptation of the term. Next come the half-witted, who will -not detain us long; then the melancholiacs, who appear so frequently -that they demand a section to themselves; next those suffering from -hallucinations and delusions, who have not perhaps crossed the -border-line, or who exhibit abnormal symptoms which can hardly be -included in the term insanity, though they are very near it. Lastly, -there is a group of pretenders,—of whom Hamlet and Edgar are the -chief,—members of which attract our attention in several other plays. - -Greene’s Orlando, a rude and undeveloped character, whose frenzy is -quite conventional, may be briefly mentioned by way of prelude. His -ravings are composed mainly of scraps of classical lore: “Woods, trees, -leaves; leaves, trees, woods, tria sequuntur tria; ergo optimus vir -non est optimus magistratus, a peny for a pote of beer and sixe pence -for a peec of beife? wounds! what am I the worse? O Minerva! salve; -good morrow; how do you to-day? Sweet goddesse, now I see thou lovest -thy ulisses, lovely Minerva, tell thy ulisses, will Jove send Mercury -to Calipso to lett me goe?”[61:1] It will be seen that Greene has no -idea of making his madman anything more than a source of amusement. His -violence is noteworthy: more than once he “beats” those who listen to -his ravings. Scraps of incident like the fight with Brandimant, King of -the Isles, are highly significant: - - _Brandimant._ “Frantic companion, lunatic and wood, - Get thee hence, or else I vow by heaven, - Thy madness shall not privilege thy life.” - - [_Alarum. They fight. Orlando kills Brandimant._ - -The following dialogue, too, is delightfully naïve: - - _Enter Tom and Ralph._ - - _Ralph._ O Tom, look where he is! Call him madman. - - _Tom._ Madman, Madman. - - _Ralph._ Madman, Madman. - - _Orlando._ What say’st thou, villain? [_Beats him._ - -It only remains to add that after being treated for his disease by -Melissa, a witch—she sprinkles, among other things, many Latin verses -over him—Orlando recovers his sanity, and cries: - - “Sirrah, how came I thus disguis’d, - Like mad Orestes, quaintly thus attir’d?” - -A more serious study of insanity, in a work of that unbridled force -which characterised the University Wits, is Kyd’s portrayal of -Hieronimo and Isabella.[62:1] - -Hieronimo, Marshal of Spain, whose son Horatio has been murdered by -the King’s nephew, Lorenzo, is stricken with insanity as a result of -the shock; his lunacy is intermittent (closely akin to the disease -known as manic depressive insanity), but it is only right to add that -this result is largely due to the addition of certain scenes to the -play by another hand. Kyd represents Hieronimo as afflicted by a deep -melancholy which is only a later phase of his grief and in no way -prevents him from doing his ordinary duties; the scenes in which his -ravings are at their wildest are commonly attributed to Ben Jonson. It -is therefore of little use attempting to trace any regular development -of Hieronimo’s madness; a short account of it will suffice. - -It breaks out, not when entering the arbour “in his shirt, etc.,” he -first discovers his murdered son, but after he has cut him down from -the tree on which he has been hanged, and has lamented the murder with -his wife. All his ravings, as we are told later in the play, are of -Horatio. - - “His heart is quiet—like a desp’rate man, - Grows lunatic and childish for his son. - Sometimes, as he doth at his table sit, - He speaks as if Horatio stood by him; - Then, starting in a rage, falls on the earth, - Cries out ‘Horatio, where is my Horatio?’ - So that with extreme grief and cutting sorrow - There is not left in him one inch of man.”[63:1] - -At the conclusion of the scene the distracted father is made to recite -some Latin verses, usually attributed to Kyd himself. Hieronimo’s -“tragical speeches” do not again reveal a mind unhinged, until the -eleventh scene of the third act, where the interpolator is once more -busy. This, however, occurring as it does in Kyd’s part of the play, -where the Marshal is still sane, must not be mistaken for a sign of -madness. He utters the word “son.” In his disordered brain this starts -a train of bewildered reasoning. “My son, and what’s a son?”—he -debates the question dispassionately until he once more remembers his -loss. Then his grief breaks forth: he rants of Nemesis and Furies, -murder and confusion, and even in Kyd’s work we now see that “this man -is passing lunatic.” From this point onwards Hieronimo pursues his -course of revenge with all the dogged cunning of real madness. His -violence surprises the King, who is ignorant of its cause. He digs with -his dagger; he would “rip the bowels of the earth.” “Stand from about -me,” he cries to the courtiers, - - “I’ll make a pickaxe of my poniard - And here surrender up my marshalship; - For I’ll go marshal up the fiends in hell, - To be avenged on you all for this.”[64:1] - -The next scene—an interpolation—is the weirdest and perhaps the most -effective in the play. Tormented by delusions of spirits, yet hotly -denying his madness even while raving on all kinds of topics, Hieronimo -is confronted with a painter, Bazardo. Ever mindful of his cruel -bereavement, he entreats Bazardo to paint a picture of him with his -wife and son, to paint a murderer, “a youth run through and through,” -and—if he only could—“to paint a doleful cry.” At the end of this -scene Hieronimo is at his greatest, and, although in a more detailed -study of the play the manner of his revenge and his death would find -due place, we will be content to leave him here: - - “Make me curse,” +he cries,+ “make me rave, make me cry, - make me mad, make me well again, make me curse hell, invocate - heaven, and in the end leave me in a trance—and so forth. - - _Painter._ And is this the end? - - _Hieronimo._ O no, there is no end: the end is death and - madness! As I am never better than when I am mad; then, - methinks, I am a brave fellow; then I do wonders; but reason - abuseth me, and there’s the torment, there’s the hell. At the - last, sir, bring me to one of the murderers; were he as strong - as Hector, thus would I tear and drag him up and down.”[65:1] - -Hieronimo’s wife, Isabella, who is similarly afflicted by Horatio’s -murder, though she plays a much smaller part in the play, first “runs -lunatic” in a short scene with her maid. Here her talk is mere nonsense: - - “Why did I not give you gowns and goodly things, - Bought you a whistle and a whipstalk too, - To be revenged on their villanies?”[65:2] - -She seems sane enough, however, in the “Painte Scene,” and only appears -once again,[65:3] when she cuts down the accursèd arbour and, after a -long soliloquy, stabs herself. - -The comparatively rough sketches of Greene and Kyd—the first, in -order of time, of those under consideration—have been introduced thus -early into this chapter for the sake of contrast with the figures that -follow.[65:4] Kyd, in “The Spanish Tragedy,” almost certainly inspired -“Titus Andronicus,” and we may be fairly sure of his influence on -“Hamlet.” Now that we have examined the work of the instructor, let us -turn to Shakespeare’s maniacs and see how the pupil has bettered the -instruction. - -The most powerful character among the maniacs, by far the grandest -figure in our drama of insanity, if not indeed in the whole of -English drama, is King Lear. “Grandly passive”—the description is -Professor Dowden’s—“played upon by all the manifold forces of nature -and society,” he “passes away from our sight, not in any mood of -resignation or faith or illuminated peace, but in a piteous agony of -yearning for that love which he had found only to lose for ever.”[66:1] -This alone would make him a noteworthy figure, but he has far greater -claims on our admiration and wonder. He is as lovable, even in his -greatest weakness, as the most affectionate of all Shakespeare’s -characters, yet more terrible than his darkest villains. He takes -hold at once of our sympathy, our pity and our imagination, and the -tragic feelings evoked by the drama conflict in us with the more human -emotions roused by his own essential humanity. - -At the beginning of the play he is often said to be already insane, -especially by those medical writers who are somewhat inclined to -pervert Shakespeare in order to read in him their own opinions. “The -general belief is that the insanity of Lear originated solely from the -ill-treatment of his daughters, while in truth he was insane before -that, from the beginning of the play, when he gave his kingdom away.” -Thus Dr. Brigham, in the “American Journal of Insanity,” and thus more -than one of his kind. But if what they assert be true, and Lear is -really mad in the first scene of the play, then “King Lear” is not, in -the Shakespearean sense, a tragedy at all. Lear is not mad, however, at -this point, as an examination of the scene will shew. His apparently -arbitrary division of the kingdom has really been planned before the -opening of the play; the protestations of love on the part of his -daughters are only planned as an impressive setting for the bestowal of -the richest portion upon his best-loved child. Nor was it the King’s -original intention to live with each of his daughters in turn: “I loved -her most,” he says of Cordelia, “and thought to set my rest on her kind -nursery.”[67:1] His powers are indeed failing; his childishness, his -vanity, his wayward temper have more sway over him than of old; but -at the very worst his state is but one of incipient senile decay. His -daughters themselves recognise this. “’Tis the infirmity of his age,” -says Regan to Goneril, “such unconstant starts are we like to have from -him as this of Kent’s banishment,” and Goneril adds that they must -“look . . . to receive, not alone the imperfections of long-ingraffed -condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and -choleric years bring with them.”[68:1] Here, then, he stands, impatient -and passionate, “a very foolish, fond old man,” but sane in every sense -of the word. Only a physician could detect in his “unconstant starts” -a predisposition to insanity, with which, since it is not part of the -play, we need not concern ourselves. - -When the King next appears, his passion is for a time calmed, and his -state, apart from the short scene with Oswald (i., 4, 84, etc.), one -of tolerant indulgence. The caustic comments of the fool he listens to -and encourages; it is only when Goneril appears that his tone changes -to one of ill-concealed irritation. “How now, daughter! what makes that -frontlet on? Methinks you are too much of late i’ the frown.”[68:2] He -pierces the thin disguise of urbanity which cloaks her speeches, and -attacks with all the fierceness he can summon the ingratitude which it -conceals. It is by no chance that he strikes his head as he exclaims: - - “O Lear, Lear, Lear. - Beat at this gate, that let thy folly in, - And thy dear judgment out.”[68:3] - -He invokes the most terrible of curses on his ungrateful daughter. -His words are here and there broken, but their sense is only too -clear. Hot tears escape him in spite of himself; his manhood he feels -to be shaken, and when alone with his Fool and the faithful Kent (now -disguised as “Caius” the servant), he feels that passion and shock have -done their worst. Even as he listens to the jests of the Fool, he knows -that the curse is coming upon him. The “self-consciousness of gathering -madness” breaks through all restraint: - - “O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! - Keep me in temper, I would not be mad”[69:1] - -From this time onward his self-control grows less and less; try as he -will, he is unable to restrain his passion: - - “O how this mother swells up toward my heart! - Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow, - Thy element’s below!”[69:2] - -But the passionate nature is reasserting itself and will not be kept -down. Sarcasm, tenderness, and anger alternate in his speeches; he -responds to the least sign of love, but anything less draws from him -the bitterest reproaches. He prays for patience and for the judgment -of Heaven to be manifested in his favour. Now he begins to approach -incoherence, and the abruptness which marks the matter as well as the -manner of his speech shews only too plainly the affection of his mind. -His state of mind is truly described as one of “high rage.” - - “No, I’ll not weep; - I have full cause of weeping; but this heart - Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws, - Or e’er I’ll weep.—O fool, I shall go mad.”[70:1] - -It is from this point, though the physicians, with Dr Bucknill at -their head, deny it, that we can actually assert that Lear is insane. -Hitherto there have been signs that his madness was imminent, but it is -the scene on the Heath which is “par excellence,” the scene of Lear’s -madness. It is true that, as Dr. Bucknill says, he has “threatened, -cursed, wept, knelt, beaten others, beaten his own head.”[70:2] But -“the addition of a physical cause” marks the crisis of what Shakespeare -certainly means to be understood as insanity in the sense which that -term commonly bears. From this time predominates that symptom which is -so widespread in cases of insanity—the domination of an _idée fixe_. -After Lear has announced “My wits begin to turn”[70:3] (a statement of -itself not without significance), Edgar enters, disguised as Tom o’ -Bedlam. Lear mistakes him; the idea dominant in his mind comes to the -surface: “Didst thou give all to thy daughters? And art thou come to -this?”[71:1] - -However, the ravings of the King by no means continue incessantly from -this point. Indeed, in the presence of Edgar he becomes comparatively -tranquil, and henceforward periods of storm and calm follow in quick -succession. His speeches still contain much reason, and they have lost -little of their wonderful force. Edgar, appearing unclothed, is to -Lear an enviable object—“the thing itself.” Hence, through another -semi-delusion, he becomes a “learned Theban,” a “philosopher.”[71:2] -This delusion continually recurs, and is developed with much force and -even eloquence, but with less poetry. - -In the scene where Lear arraigns a pair of joint-stools as his supposed -daughters,[71:3] we can trace all the wanderings of the deluded mind. -In their “warp’d looks,” the King can read “what store (their) heart -is made on.” He resolves to have them tried for their cruelty. Some -people are standing about him. One (Edgar) is taken for a “robèd man -of justice.” Another (the Fool) is “his yokefellow of equity.” Kent -is “o’ the commission,” and must take his place beside them. Goneril -is arraigned first, and Lear takes his oath that “she kicked the poor -King, her father.” The joint-stool naturally makes no reply; her guilt -is thereby confirmed. “She cannot deny it.” The other sister is then -brought forward. But even as the self-constituted witness is about to -give evidence, the image vanishes from his mind; the delusion changes; -the criminal has escaped: - - “Arms, arms, sword, fire! Corruption in the place! - False justicer, why hast thou let her ’scape?” - -Now Edgar is again the object of a delusion; he is one of those scanty -hundred followers: “You, sir, I entertain for one of my hundred; only -I do not like the fashion of your garments.” It is all so true, and at -the same time so pathetic! Edgar feels that he can hardly sustain his -disguise. - - “My tears,” +he says,+ “begin to take his part so much, - They mar my counterfeiting.” - -A long interval (according to Daniel, four dramatic days) has passed -before Lear again appears.[72:1] He is “fantastically dressed with wild -flowers” and is at first ignorant of Edgar’s presence. Now he is wild, -full of delusions, and certain of nothing. His mind first runs upon -soldiers and war: “There’s your press-money. That fellow handles his -bow like a crow-keeper.”[72:2] Now he recalls a scene with Goneril, now -the terrors of the storm on the heath, now some memory of his former -greatness. “Is’t not the King?” asks Gloster, and the reply of Lear -rings true: - - “Ay, every inch a king. - When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.”[73:1] - -“Matter and impertinency,” to quote the words of Edgar, mingle in his -speech. He seems no longer to suspect the nature of his disease. He -only knows that he needs surgeons: “I am cut to the brains!” Mr. Cowden -Clarke aptly draws the reader’s attention to this phrase,—expressive -of what acute physical and mental suffering!—together with such -phrases as “I am not ague-proof” and “Pull off my boots, harder, -harder.” It is in this scene, perhaps, more even than in the Storm -Scene of the third act, that we feel the acutest distress at the King’s -sad condition. - -We are relieved at length. When next we meet King Lear,[73:2] it is -at Cordelia’s tent in the camp. Gentle hands are ministering to him; -loving faces are near to welcome him, when he shall awaken from the -sleep which it is hoped will be his cure. He awakens to the sound of -“soft music,” growing gradually louder—how different from the “chimes -of Bedlam”!—and when Cordelia speaks to him, he believes her to be a -spirit from Heaven. Then at last he wakes—still infirm of mind, but -faintly conscious of infirmity, not frantic with physical and mental -pain. Everything in this scene is touched with the most delicate -pathos; Lear’s wistful plea: - - “Do not laugh at me, - For, as I am a man, I think this lady, - To be my child Cordelia.”[74:1] - -Cordelia’s heart-felt reply: - - “And so I am, I am.”[74:2] - -Kent’s loyal assertion that his master is in his “own kingdom,” and the -old father’s final - - “Pray you now, forget and forgive,”[74:3] - -as if he were hardly convinced even yet that Cordelia’s end was not -revenge. - -With such tender care as might now have been his lot, the old King -would surely have recovered something like his former state of mind. -But this is not to be, and our dramatic selves at least will not wish -that it should be so. When Lear enters, with Cordelia dead in his arms -and the rest following behind, we feel perhaps as nowhere else his -tragic greatness. One wrathful speech, one tender reminiscence, and -another of the fiercest: - - “Her voice was ever soft, - Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman, - I kill’d the slave that was a-hanging thee.”[74:4] - -A few questions and replies, and the catastrophe is upon us. Exquisite -sympathy creates exquisite pathos: - - “And my poor fool is hang’d! No, no, no life! - Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, - And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more, - Never, never, never, never, never!— - Pray you, undo this button; thank you, sir,— - Do you see this? Look on her—look—her lips— - Look there, look there!”[75:1] - -Lear is dead; he has rejoined his belovèd daughter; he has been -“dismissed with calm of mind, all passion spent.” What greater -consummation could we desire? - -There is little need to insist upon the grandeur and pathos of Lear, -and, happily, with our next subject of study, the need is equally -small. Yet Shakespeare’s presentation of Ophelia is utterly different -from his presentation of Lear. The madness of Lear we are able to trace -from its first symptoms; we follow it through all its involutions and -are present at its partial cure. Ophelia we see but once after she -“becomes distract.” A brief word of introduction, and she appears; a -few broken words and snatches of song and she has left us. A brief -re-entry and she has passed us again, and all is over—all save the -report of her death. Lear is an old man, predisposed to insanity by -a passionate temper and a mind weakened by old age. Ophelia is a -young girl, a “Rose of May,” whose loss of reason excites in us not -so much terror as sheer pity. With Lear the crisis is brought on by -thwartings of the will, followed by the severest physical exposure and -shock. With Ophelia the cause is mental shock following the deepest -of sorrows. Lear dies half-sane; Ophelia is never restored to her -right mind,—her death is not shewn to us like that of Lear. There is -a reason for these differences. Ophelia is no tragic personage and -our sympathies are not to remain for long with her misery. She must -disappear, lest she should destroy all our interest in the main plot. -And thus we must not expect to find the depth in her character which we -find in the character of Lear. - -Before her affliction wins for her our sympathy, Ophelia stands in our -estimation far below Shakespeare’s other heroines. Perhaps it would -not be too much to say that at times, like Isabella in “Measure for -Measure,” she is actually repellent, and for exactly the opposite -reason. She is passive and reserved, gentle to the point of weakness, a -tool in the hand of any man who could gain her confidence. This is the -reason for her mind giving way. Throughout her life, she has leaned for -support, not on her own strength, but upon the strength of her father -and her brother. Her father is murdered, her lover distracted, her -brother far away—and Ophelia herself is unable to stand alone. - -We may have blamed her for a too ready acquiescence in her father’s -prying schemes and despised her for throwing over her lover, but -whatever her sins, they are more than atoned for by the treatment to -which she has to submit at the hands of Hamlet himself; and when, in -addition to this, her father is killed and she loses her reason, we -feel that these calamities have been wholly undeserved. Thus, when -a Gentleman of the Court prepares the Queen for her sad entry, our -sympathy is entirely won: - - “She speaks much of her father; says she hears - There’s tricks i’ the world, and hems and beats her heart; - Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt, - That carry but half sense.”[77:1] - -She is led in, crooning to herself, chattering incoherently of her -sorrows, confusing them in her mind and mingling them together in her -speech. Her songs have been censured for their alleged grossness. Small -wonder if they should contain reminiscences of her lover’s foul talk, -yet for the most part these ditties are mere expressions of piercing -sorrow at his supposed untimely madness. First she is clearly recalling -the scenes where he has disdained her. - - “How should I your true love know - From another one?”[77:2] - -But as the Queen demands the meaning of the song, its theme changes: - - “He is dead and gone, lady, - He is dead and gone; - At his head a grass-green turf, - At his heels a stone.”[77:3] - -And then, as the King comes in, she confuses the two calamities, and -sings, as though her lover and not her father were dead: - - “White his shroud as the mountain-snow . . - Larded with sweet flowers; - Which bewept to the grave did go, - With true-love showers.”[78:1] - -The King’s voice seems here to divert the broken current of her -thoughts and she wanders again. Then, returning to the tragic -theme with the most piteous of cries: “We must be patient; but I -cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him i’ the cold -ground,”[78:2] she goes out. - -Before long Lærtes returns, furious with rage at his father’s violent -end and eager to be revenged “most throughly” on his enemies. He has -not heard of his sister’s affliction and is dumbfounded, as at this -moment she returns. Then he realises what has taken place and all his -anger melts into a terrible grief: - - “O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt - Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye . . . - O heavens! is’t possible a young maid’s wits - Should be as mortal as an old man’s life?”[78:3] - -Her pitiful condition soon reinforces his determination to be revenged: -“This nothing’s more than matter,”[78:4] he exclaims, and the -spectator re-echoes the cry as he gazes on the enraged brother and the -afflicted girl whose sorrows have been more than she can bear. In her -madness there is not a jot of the maniacal frenzy which is the great -characteristic of Lear. Her nature was ever too gentle: - - “Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, - She turns to favour and to prettiness.”[79:1] - -Though of a wholly different nature from the insanity of Lear, -Shakespeare’s delineation of Ophelia’s madness is in its way quite as -masterly. We see nothing of it in its earlier stages—indeed it would -seem to have been of sudden birth and to have developed quickly. In -her ravings there is none of that force and pregnancy which marks the -invective of Lear; two fixed ideas dominate her mind and constantly -recur to it; apart from these she is totally incoherent. We are told, -by those who know, that her insanity takes the form of erotomania, “the -fine name for that form of insanity in which the sentiment of love is -prominent;”[79:2] we should suppose, indeed, from what she says, that -her father’s death is its chief cause, as the King and Queen naturally -think also; but this can hardly be assumed, for we cannot say how far -she confuses the two causes of her affliction. - -The Queen’s account of the death of Ophelia is in keeping both with -the tone of the “mad scene” and with the nature of Ophelia’s malady. -Exquisitely pathetic, it tells how the distraught girl, obeying a -common instinct of the insane for floral decoration (an instinct which -we also find in “King Lear”) clambered with “fantastic garlands,” on to -a willow which overhung a stream. Mad folk are notoriously regardless -of danger, and Ophelia’s rashness led to a premature grave: - - “An envious sliver broke; - When down her weedy trophies and herself - Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, - And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up; - Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes, - As one incapable of her own distress, - Or like a creature native and indued - Unto that element: but long it could not be - Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, - Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay - To muddy death.”[80:1] - -It will be seen that Shakespeare’s Ophelia, though not in the technical -sense a tragic character, is essentially a character of tragedy, for -it would be only in the gravest and most pathetic of tragi-comedies -that scenes so magnificently portrayed as those of Ophelia’s madness -and the report of her death could be allowed to appear. And in no case -could we witness with equanimity her restoration to complete sanity. -The character was apparently a popular one on the Elizabethan stage and -in more than one contemporary play there are resemblances to it which -are so marked as to make a conjecture of mere coincidence impossible. -We are now to consider a personage similarly conceived, but treated -with none of the “high seriousness” of Ophelia and in altogether a -lighter vein—and introduced into a comedy. This character (that of -the ‘Gaoler’s Daughter’ in ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen,’ probably the work -of Shakespeare and Fletcher) is certainly one of the imitations of -Ophelia. It is with equal certainty the work of Fletcher—indeed, the -present writer is only prepared to admit Shakespeare’s hand at all in -two or three scenes, and these are entirely concerned with the main -plot, whereas the story of the Gaoler’s Daughter is a side issue, -and she never appears on the stage at the same time as the Two Noble -Kinsmen themselves. The nature of Fletcher’s imitation—we might almost -say his caricature—of Ophelia will best be seen from a brief account -of the various scenes in which the Gaoler’s Daughter appears. - -The main plot embodies the well-known story of Palamon and Arcite -and their love for the fair Emilia. It will be remembered that in -Chaucer’s version of the story it was “by helping of a freend” that -Palamon escaped from prison; in our play the friend is none other than -the daughter of the gaoler. She is prompted to do this service by a -hopeless and entirely unrequited love for the unfortunate prisoner, -which helps to drive her to distraction. The exact nature of her malady -is somewhat doubtful, and the author is not concerned to make it clear. -One suspects that he was none too clear on the subject himself. The -Doctor, who, unlike Shakespeare’s physicians, is a rather incompetent -fellow with a very competent tongue, says that her disease is “not an -engraffed madness, but a most thick and profound melancholy.”[82:1] -Various other references, however, suggest mania rather than -melancholy, and as the girl is an obvious imitation of Ophelia, she may -best be considered here. - -The whole story of the development of her madness is told in those -portions of the play which form the underplot, and, in its first -stages, it is told with considerable skill. A “Wooer” is asking -the Gaoler for his daughter’s hand, and during the conversation -the daughter herself comes in and the talk runs on the noble -prisoners.[82:2] The daughter is full of their praises. “By my troth, -I think fame but stammers ’em; they stand a grise above the reach of -report.” “The prison itself is proud of ’em; and they have all the -world in their chamber.” Then the two prisoners appear “above” and the -girl at once shews the nature of her interest—much as Portia, in “The -Merchant of Venice” is made to display her preference for Bassanio: - - _Gaoler_: “Look yonder they are! that’s Arcite looks out.” - - _Daughter_: “No, sir, no; that’s Palamon; Arcite is the - lower of the twain; you may perceive a - part of him.” - -The love which one has probably suspected here is openly revealed -in the fourth scene of the second act, which consists solely of a -soliloquy by the Gaoler’s Daughter. The course of her love is made -plain to us: first she admired him; finally, pity having sprung from -admiration and helpless love from pity, she - - “Extremely lov’d him, infinitely lov’d him.” - -Her love has been fed by the plaintive songs he sings and impassioned -by his kindness, his courtesy and a chance caress. On the next -occasion[83:1] we see her more sympathetically yet—her love has -achieved something, Palamon is free, and before long his deliverer is -to meet him with food. But though she wanders by night through the -forest, she is unable to find him. For two days nothing has passed -her lips save a little water, she has not slept, and her whole being -is alive with terror at the “strange howls” which seem to tell of her -hero’s untimely fate. “Dissolve my life!” she cries, with the dire -foreboding of the incipient lunatic, - - “Let not my sense unsettle, - Lest I should drown, or stab, or hang myself . . . - So, which way now? - The best way is the next way to a grave: - Each errant step beside is torment.” - -For a moment she disappears, only to re-enter[84:1] in a state -bordering on frenzy. Dawn has broken, and her search has been -unsuccessful: - - “Palamon! - Alas no! he’s in heaven—where am I now? - Yonder’s the sea, and there’s a ship; how’t tumbles! - And there’s a rock lies watching under water; - Now, now, it beats upon it; now, now, now, - There’s a leak sprung, a sound one; how they cry! - Spoom her before the wind, you’ll lose all else; - Up with a course or two, and back about, boys; - Good night, good night; ye’re gone. I’m very hungry: - Would I could find a fine frog! he would tell me - News from all parts o’ the world; then would I make - A careck of a cockle-shell, and sail - By east and north-east to the King of Pygmies, - For he tells fortunes rarely.” - -She leaves us again, breaking into the first of her mad songs: - - “For I’ll cut my green coat a foot above my knee; - Hey nonny, nonny, nonny.” - -Up to this point the character of the Gaoler’s Daughter is not unworthy -of Shakespeare, but Fletcher could not keep at so high a level for -long. More than any of his contemporaries he creates mad folk for the -purpose of embellishing his comedies; in this play, having developed a -situation with many fine capabilities, he proceeds to rush in and spoil -his own work in the worst possible way. The luckless girl is introduced -into a rustic scene[84:2] and made to sing for the delectation of -some peasants, to exchange coarse banter with them, and even to join -in their morris. From this time forward the underplot is hopelessly -degraded, both by its being drawn out to an absurd length and by its -ending in the coarsest of scenes which leads to what we are asked to -believe is the girl’s complete restoration to sanity. - -The Wooer first acquaints the Gaoler with his sweetheart’s -complaint.[85:1] We learn that it has been preceded by the natural -irritation which is common in such cases, and that she has answered her -father’s questions: - - “So childishly, - So sillily, as if she were a fool, - An innocent.” - -Since we have last seen her, her senses have quite gone. She constantly -repeats phrases which tell of her trouble—“Palamon is gone,” “Palamon, -fair Palamon,” and the like. She even plagiarises Desdemona, and -sings nothing but “Willow, willow, willow.” She has been playing and -garlanding herself with flowers; now she weeps, now smiles, now sings; -reckless of danger, she sits by a lake, and attempts to drown herself -at the Wooer’s approach. She appears at length[85:2] and carries on -the same kind of conversation, fancifully constructing long trains -of imagination from the smallest incidents. While ever and anon the -theme of Palamon recurs: he is still in love with her—“a fine young -gentleman,” and he “lies longing” for her in the wood. - -This her father reports to the Doctor: “She is continually in a -harmless distemper, sleeps little; altogether without appetite, save -often drinking; dreaming of another world and a better; and what -broken piece of matter so e’er she’s about the name Palamon lards -it.”[86:1] The Doctor is out of his depth. He understands little of -the mind diseased, holding the popular notion that it is “more at some -time of the moon than at other some,” and confessing that he “cannot -minister” to her “perturbed mind.” The remedy which he proposes is -of the crudest. The Wooer is to dress as if he were Palamon, satisfy -all the girl’s desires, and wait for her to return to her right mind. -Both Wooer and Gaoler protest against the extreme application of this -“cure,” but the Doctor is so insistent that they give in, and when in -the last scene Palamon enquires after the girl who procured his escape -and who, he has heard, has been ill, he is told that she is - - “well restor’d - And to be married shortly.”[86:2] - -It is unnecessary to dwell on the cure, for long before this stage the -story has lost all semblance of probability. - -The inferiority of the Gaoler’s Daughter to Ophelia is as patent as -that of the false to the true Florimel of Spenser’s “Færie Queene.” -A little more skill on the part of the author and a great deal more -restraint would, no doubt, have effected an enormous improvement, -but it is unlikely that Fletcher could ever have made us take the -same interest in the Gaoler’s Daughter as we take in Ophelia. She -is quite unnecessary to the plot, and would require far greater -depth of characterisation before she could appeal with any force to -our sympathies. Had this been done, the taint of the comic and the -coarseness removed, the ravings lessened and the execrable character -of the Doctor changed, we might have had another Ophelia and not an -exaggerated and debased imitation. - -Whatever the nature of the madness of our last subject, the affliction -of Penthea, in Ford’s “Broken Heart” is certainly acute melancholia. -She is dealt with here for the sake of contrast with the two preceding -characters. “The Broken Heart,” as far as its “mad-scenes” are -concerned, has certainly more in common with “Hamlet” than with “The -Two Noble Kinsmen.” It is a tragedy of more than usual gloom, and the -scenes in question are marked by a subdued restraint quite absent -from the “Two Noble Kinsmen.” Penthea talks much more coherently than -either Ophelia or her ape; and though there is a distinct want in her -speeches of that colour which so marks the other two plays, she is much -nearer Ophelia in spirit and essentials than the girl for whom Ophelia -actually stood as a model. - -The story, so far as it concerns Penthea, is this: She is in love with -Orgilus, son of a counsellor to the King of Laconia, but has been -compelled to marry Bassanes, a jealous nobleman whom she detests. Her -brother Ithocles’ love for the King’s daughter, Calantha, becomes known -to Penthea, who, in spite of her brother’s cruelty to her, tries to -bring about their union; when she is dead, however, her lover stabs -Ithocles and the Princess dies of a broken heart. Penthea’s situation, -when in the second act she has an interview with Orgilus, is this: she -is contracted to Bassanes, and though she loathes him and will have no -more to do with him than she can help she will not consent to break the -bond of marriage. Her loss of reason, which terminates in her death -in the fourth act, is one of the main factors of the series of events -which leads up to the impressive final situation. - -The scenes which portray the melancholy and distraction of Penthea are -much superior to the others in which she appears, by reason of the -irresistible sympathy which they inspire. We are not greatly enamoured -of the unhappy girl in the first scenes; her character is somewhat -slightly drawn, and, as one commentator puts it, there is “a trace of -selfishness in her sorrow, which operates against the sympathy excited -by her sufferings.”[89:1] This is dispelled in that touching scene -(iii., 5), where Penthea pleads with Calantha on behalf of her brother. -Her plaintive farewell to life, in the same scene, is not less touching: - - “Glories - Of human greatness are but pleasing dreams - And shadows soon decaying; on the stage - Of my mortality my youth hath acted - Some scenes of vanity, drawn out at length - By varied pleasures sweetened in the mixture, - But tragical in issue . . . - . . . You may see - How weary I am of a lingering life, - Who count the best a misery.” - -When she next enters “with her hair loose” (iv., 2), Bassanes and -Orgilus are engaged in a violent quarrel. She is followed by Ithocles -heart-broken like Shakespeare’s Lærtes, begging her to look up and -speak to him: - - “Your Ithocles, your brother, - Speaks t’ ye; why do you weep? Dear, turn not from me.” - -The sight moves all to pity or remorse, save only Orgilus, whose bitter -sarcasm, when rebuked by Ithocles, turns to a dreadful thirst for -revenge. But the afflicted girl recks nothing of this. Loss of sleep -and a voluntary fast have combined with her heavy sorrows to produce -the inevitable result; her depression has deprived her of her reason -and she is sinking into her grave: - - “There’s not a hair - Sticks on my head, but, like a leaden plummet, - It sinks me to my grave: I must creep thither; - The journey is not long.” - -“Her fancies guide her tongue,” but the burden of her talk is the -subject of marriage, child bearing, infidelity, and true love. Her -resolve to die by starvation is certainly the project of a disordered -brain, though Mr. Saintsbury treats it as if it were not, and censures -the character as unnatural![90:1] Assuming that - - “There is no peace left for a ravished wife - Widowed by lawful marriage,” - -she declares that her blood shall - - “be henceforth never heightened - With taste of sustenance,” - -and falls fainting into her attendant’s arms. The subsequent account of -her death[90:2] is the more pathetic by reason of its brevity: - - _Philema._ “She called for music, - And begged some gentle voice to tune a farewell - To life and griefs; Christalla touched the lute; - I wept the funeral song. - - _Christalla._ Which scarce was ended - But her last breath sealed up these hollow sounds, - ‘O cruel Ithocles and injured Orgilus’ - So down she drew her veil, so died.” - -The presentation of Penthea’s madness is one of the few examples of a -truly artistic treatment of the subject, and “The Broken Heart” is -one of the few post-Shakespearean plays which with some touches by -the Master-hand might have become a really great romantic tragedy. -Penthea is, to tell the truth, about as far inferior to Ophelia as -she is superior to the Gaoler’s Daughter. The partly unsympathetic -presentation of her character in the first part of the play, the lack -of picturesqueness and relief from the gloom of the tragedy, the -suspicion of melodrama in the surrounding scenes and the involved -nature of the plot—all these combine to place Penthea on a lower level -than Ophelia. And, in addition, she is less important and hence less -striking from a purely dramatic point of view. - -Something has already been said of the plot and the personages of “The -Lover’s Melancholy,” but the melancholy of Palador and the madness -of Meleander may be briefly considered here as furnishing additional -examples of Ford’s treatment of the subject. Palador’s melancholy, -which gives the title to the piece, seems to be largely temperamental -and scarcely a case for the physician, though Corax, his medical -adviser, goes to some pains to “cure” it, and is in consequence, -hailed as a “perfect arts-man.”[91:1] The Prince’s melancholy is thus -described: - - “He’s the same melancholy man - He was at’s father’s death; sometimes speaks sense, - But seldom mirth; will smile, but seldom laugh; - Will lead an ear to business, deal in none; - Gaze upon revels, antic fopperies, - But is not moved; will sparingly discourse, - Hear music; but what most he takes delight in - Are handsome pictures.”[92:1] - -His melancholy apparently began at his father’s death and was increased -by the disappearance of Eroclea. We need not stay long over him. -Corax, who is apparently a man of many theories and much resource, -presents the Prince with a Masque,[92:2]—already mentioned—in which -madmen of various sorts pass over the stage and make speeches. The -last of these persons is Palador’s lost love in disguise who appears -as “Love-Melancholy.” How far the Prince’s malady is relieved by this -is uncertain; but the form of “Parthenophil” arouses memories and the -re-appearance of Eroclea in the next act is the real “potent” which -restores the melancholy lover. - -The madness of Meleander, Eroclea’s father, is more interesting. He -has, so far as we know, no sort of predisposition to insanity, which -comes upon him following a cloud of troubles—he has been accused of -treason, his lands have been seized and his daughter has disappeared. -We are informed by our physician that his affliction is not madness; it -is - - “His sorrows— - Close-griping grief and anguish of the soul— - That torture him.”[93:1] - -Yet we can find in Meleander all those “signs” which by now we are -beginning to associate with insanity. The unfortunate man “sleeps -like a hare, with his eyes open,” he groans, “thunders” and “roars,” -and his “eyes roll.” He talks wildly, yet at times coherently, knows -his daughter Cleophila, enquires “Am I stark mad?” His maniacal -excitability displays itself in his laughter, “the usher to a violent -extremity.”[93:2] The reaction soon follows; he faces those about him -and remarks: - - “I am a weak old man; all these are come - To jeer my ripe calamities.”[93:2] - -At times—and this is surely the greatest praise we can give him—his -ravings remind us of Lear’s, with their mingled sarcasm, pathos and -unconcealed rage. His brother’s son Menaphon approaches him with a -“Good uncle!” What, outside Shakespeare, can be more like Lear before -his eloquence goes and leaves his rage supreme, than Meleander’s -furious reply:[93:3] - - “Fools, desperate fools! - You’re cheated, grossly cheated; range, range on, - And roll about the world to gather moss, - The moss of honour, gay reports, gay clothes, - Gay wives, huge empty buildings, whose proud roofs - Shall with their pinnacles even reach the stars, - Ye work and work like moles, blind in the paths - That are bored through the crannies of the earth, - To charge your hungry souls with such full surfeits - As being gorged once, make ye lean with plenty; - And when ye’ve skimmed the vomit of your riots, - Ye’re fat in no felicity but folly; - Then your last sleeps seize on ye; then the troops - Of worms crawl round and feast; good cheer, rich fare, - Dainty, delicious!” - -How does Corax propose to cure such a patient as this? Spurred on -by the flatteries of Rhetias—“a reduced Courtier”—nothing daunted -by the picturesque report that Meleander “chafes hugely, fumes like -a stew-pot,”[94:1] he coolly explains his intention of out-Heroding -Herod—“We will roar with him, if he roar,”[94:1]—and suiting the -action to the word he “produces a frightful mask and headpiece.”[94:1] -Meleander enters, armed with a poleaxe and raving in a vein which must -have delighted the greediest of the groundlings. A battle of words -and mock actions ensues, and the madman is soon reduced to a state -of comparative calm. He lays down the poleaxe, and Corax removes the -mask. The physician then proceeds to minister to the mind diseased with -tales of his own supposed mental sufferings, assuming apparently that -like counteracts like in madness as in melancholy. This is to some -extent true, and Shakespeare rightly represents Lear as in a state -of comparative tranquillity when in the presence of Edgar. But Ford’s -play would seem to be inspired rather by a desire to please than by -a fidelity to real life. The concluding scene,[95:1] however, so far -as it concerns Meleander, is sufficient compensation, for again it -recalls “King Lear” in its general nature if not in matters of detail. -The madman has been put to sleep, his hair and beard have been trimmed -and his gown is changed. Music, as in “King Lear,” is playing, and a -song, full of delicate charm, is being sung by a Boy outside. At its -close Meleander awakens, confused and half-dreaming. He is inclined to -sleep again, but the physician hails him—somewhat boisterously, one -would think—and in spite of his patient’s brusque “Away, beast! let me -alone,” he succeeds in rousing him. The madness certainly appears to -have left him; he is now quite calm, though the burden of his troubles -still oppresses him. - - “The weight of my disease,” +he says,+ - “Sits on my heart so heavy, - That all the hands of art cannot remove - One grain, to ease my grief.” - -Corax has, indeed, in preparation, a cordial which is to effect this, -but it is reserved—not wholly for dramatic reasons,—to a fitting -climax. Successive messengers first bring the news that the Prince, -now happy (though the father knows it not) in the possession of his -love, has restored to Meleander all the honours he formerly enjoyed, -together with new honours and marks of favour undreamed of. Then at -last Eroclea is presented to him and his restored reason stands the -test of happiness. Explanations ensue; all part friends; and “sorrows -are changed to bride-songs.” - -It will be seen that Ford’s conception of madness is by no means a -low one; he has not debased it by making it a sport for those to whom -it is a thing to fleer and jest at; he has introduced it into comedy -indeed, but it must be remembered that Ford’s tragi-comedy is a wholly -different thing from the gross buffooneries of Fletcher, Dekker and -Middleton, and that the madness of Meleander, though resembling that -of Lear, is on a far lower scale. It rises now and then to unusual -heights, but remains at their exalted level for so short a time that we -never look at it seriously for long. The gloom is also lightened by the -antics of the whimsical Corax, whose triumphs of psycho-medical skill -would, no doubt, in happier times, have induced him to set up a private -Bedlam of his own! - -In considering Chettles’ “Tragedy of Hoffman”[96:1] we are met by an -initial difficulty of authorship, for the resemblance between this -play and “Hamlet,” as well as between Lucibella and Ophelia, would -suggest plagiarism. The question, however, is difficult to decide, -and can hardly be discussed here. Whatever be the solution, Lucibella -is a most effective character. To a certain degree her madness is -merely conventional. But there are numerous touches of real art in -her portrayal, and she is not degraded like the Gaoler’s Daughter in -“The Two Noble Kinsmen” by being made “a motley to the view.” On the -contrary, as one editor points out, Chettle surpasses Shakespeare by -making her, unlike Ophelia, directly instrumental in bringing about the -dénouement of the play. - -The madness of Lucibella is brought about by the murder of her lover, -Lodowick, through the agency of Hoffman. In her mad wanderings she -discovers the skeletons of Hoffman’s father, and of Prince Otho, for -whose death her lover’s murderer is also responsible. Eventually the -mischief caused by the first shock is undone by a second; Lucibella -recovers her reason. Hear her in her first ravings: - - “Oh [Oh] a sword, I pray you, kill me not, - For I am going to the river’s side, - To fetch white lilies and blue daffodils, - To stick in Lod’wick’s bosom, where it bled, - And in mine own . . . . - ‘_We must run all away, yet all must die_’ - ’Tis so;—I wrought it in a sampler. - ’Twas heart in hand, and true love’s knots and words, - All true stitch, by my troth, the posy thus— - ‘_No flight, dear love, but death shall sever us_.’ - Neither did that! He lies here, does he not?” - -She cannot make up her mind whether her lover is really dead or not. -Only conscious of a vague calamity, she cries: - - “Tell Lod’wick, Lucibell would speak with him! - I’ve news from heav’n for him, he must not die; - I’ve robb’d Prometheus of his moving fire:— - Open the door!—I must come in, and will; - I’ll beat myself to air, but I’ll come in!” - -So saying, she knocks violently at the door of the vault; those who -surround her fear that she will “do violence upon herself.” She -understands: - - “Oh, never fear me! there is somewhat cries - Within me, ‘No!’ tells me there’re knaves abroad; - Bids me be quiet, lay me down, and sleep.”[98:1] - -Her violence is noteworthy; three or four men attempt to hold her; but -she succeeds in freeing herself from them, and wanders abroad. - -When we next see her the second shock is at work and Lucibella is -returning to sanity. Mathias, Lodowick’s brother, still fears for her -life, having seen her “clamb’ring upon the steepness of the rock,” but -what she has seen in Hoffman’s cave has saved her mental life. She -talks still with the fierce sarcasm of mania. - -Shewing the skeletons, she cries: - - “Is it not like - I keep a princely house, when I have such - Fat porters at my gate.” - -Still, as before, she lards her speech with scraps of song: - - “Here, look here! - Here is a way goes down! - Down, down, down, - Hey down, down!” - -This ditty is reminiscent of the descent to the cave, but the next -moment the memory of that is gone and only the consciousness of her -loss remains: - - “I sang that song while Lod’wick slept with me:” - -But at length, gradually and before our eyes, she recovers her lost -reason. Her speech to the Duchess of Luneberg shews what seems to be -the wandering of her still distraught mind. She displays the rich -clothes of Otho: - - “A poor maiden, mistress, has a suit to you, - And ’tis a good suit, very good apparel.” - -And she breaks into song again. But shortly afterwards she recognises -the two corpses, and as Lorick unfolds the ghastly story of Hoffman’s -crime the princess comes to her right mind again. At the end of the -scene she declares her complete sanity: - - “Nay I will come; my wits are mine agen, - Now faith grows firm to punish faithless men.”[99:1] - -For a moment now we may look at the madness of Cardenes, which enters -into the plot of Massinger’s “A Very Woman.” He is son to the Duke -of Messina and a rival of Don John Antonio, the Prince of Tarent, for -the hand of Almira, daughter of the Viceroy of Sicily. In a violent -quarrel with Antonio, who is enraged at not being the favoured suitor, -Cardenes is wounded—it is at first thought mortally, but he recovers, -though for a time he loses his senses. Eventually he is restored by a -physician named Paulo. We see very little of him in his mad condition. -First we learn that his disease is - - “Melancholy - And at the height, too, near akin to madness . . . - . . . His senses are distracted,” +says Paulo,+ - “Not one, but all; and if I can collect them - With all the various ways invention - Or industry e’er practised, I shall write it - My masterpiece.”[100:1] - -When Cardenes actually appears,[100:2] any maniacal excitement which -may have disturbed him has disappeared, and he appears to be in a state -of simple melancholia: - - “Farewell, farewell, for ever, name of mistress! - Out of my heart I cross thee; love and women - Out of my thoughts.” - -This is the burden of his discourse. Paulo encourages him by mild -half-contradictions: - - “And yet I’ve heard of many virtuous women.” - -But Cardenes’ new-learned philosophy remains unchanged: - - “Not many, doctor; there your reading fails you: - Would there were more, and in their loves less dangers.” - -The treatment recommended for this “strange melancholy” by the -physician, who is of good reputation and has received many gifts from -the Duke of Messina and others, is most noteworthy. He is no friend -of prevailing customs: The patient “must take air.” Though, as the -surgeons protest, “he hath lost already . . . much blood,” - - “To choke up his spirits in a dark room, - Is far more dangerous.” - -The remainder of the cure is not unlike the prescription of Corax. The -physician applies himself to all the patient’s “humours,” “checking the -bad and cherishing the good.” - - “For these I have - Prepared my instruments, fitting his chamber - With trapdoors, and descents; sometimes presenting - Good spirits of the air, bad of the earth, - To pull down or advance his fair intentions. - He’s of a noble nature, yet sometimes - Thinks that which, by confederacy, I do, - Is by some skill in magic.”[101:1] - -Who can wonder, for “Protean Paulo” with his quaint devices shews a -truly super-human versatility. At all events, he succeeds in gathering -the “scatter’d sense” of Cardenes, who thanks him profusely for having -been - - “My friar, soldier (and) philosopher, - My poet, architect, physician.” - -Paulo is indeed a disinterested and enthusiastic doctor, and is really -more interesting than Cardenes himself. - -The madness of Sir Giles Overreach is worth our notice, as being -introduced merely as a stage device, to emphasise the defeat of the -cruel extortioner and to serve as a climax to the comedy. The last -act of the play, into which he is introduced, shows every sign at -the outset of being the usual type of “last act” of a tragi-comedy. -Overreach, with “distracted looks,” has learned how he has been tricked -both by his creature, Marall, and by his daughter Margaret, who, -against his will, has married her lover, and now appears with him, -as his wife. The usurer is overcome by the double shock. “My brain -turns,” he cries. His rage passes all bounds. He attempts to kill his -daughter and threatens to make the house “a heap of ashes.” Flourishing -his sword, he raves of his courage; those standing around are, to his -disordered mind, - - “hangmen, - That come to bind my hands, and then to drag me - Before the judgment seat: now they are new shapes, - And do appear like Furies, with steel whips - To scourge my ulcerous soul. Shall I then fall - Ingloriously and yield? No! spite of Fate, - I will be forced to hell like to myself. - Though you were legions of accursed spirits, - Thus would I fly among you.”[102:1] - -He flings himself on the ground, foaming and biting the earth, only to -be disarmed, bound and carried “to some dark room.” He will be tended -by physicians from Bedlam, who will try - - “What art can do for his recovery.”[103:1] - -The climax could hardly be more effective, were it not for Lord Lovell, -who, before winding up the business of the play, thinks it necessary -to point the moral in the most objectionable manner, only surpassed by -Massinger himself elsewhere: - - “Here is a precedent to teach wicked men, - That when they leave religion, and turn atheists, - Their own abilities leave them.”[103:2] - -With Overreach may be compared Webster’s Ferdinand, who, after causing -his sister, the Duchess of Malfi, with her little children, to be -murdered, is driven by remorse to self-questionings and fears, and -thence to raving madness. Webster’s presentation of insanity is far -superior, in these scenes, to that by Massinger just cited. For the -ravings of Ferdinand come upon us with the greatest force after the -awful tragedy for which he has been responsible—we are spared the -comments of Justice Greedy on the situation. Further, the madness of -Ferdinand is what we should expect from one of so passionate a nature, -and its course, as will now be seen, is depicted with realistic force -to its terrible end. - -His insanity takes the form, so we are told, of lycanthropia,[103:3] -victims of which, we learn imagine themselves transformed into -wolves and do deeds of violence to dead bodies; the Duke has already -been found at night, has “howled fearfully” and seems in danger of -his life. When he enters, he is persecuted by a fear of his shadow, -which he tries unreasoningly to kill. The Doctor approaches him, but -can do nothing with his patient beyond extracting one expression of -fear: “Hide me from him; physicians are like kings, they brook no -contradiction.” But the timidity lasts but a moment, and Ferdinand -leaves the stage in a fit of insane passion. - -When he reappears, it is but for a moment; his words are few but tense, -and recall the terrible crime he has committed. “Strangling is a very -quiet death . . . So, it must be done in the dark: the Cardinal would -not for a thousand pounds the doctor should see it.” In the next scene, -he is more violent. Interrupting a struggle between Bosola, his bloody -instrument, and his brother the crafty Cardinal, he wounds them both, -in spite of the latter’s cry for assistance, and is himself stabbed by -Bosola, who stigmatises him as “thou main cause of my undoing.” In his -last moments he recovers something of his reason. - - “He seems to come to himself,” +says Bosola,+ - “Now he’s so near the bottom.” - -And in truth the last words which fall from the Duke’s lips reiterate -the remorse which he feels for his crime. - -As concluding examples of the presentation of the madman, in the most -usual sense of the word, may be taken two of Fletcher’s characters and -one of Jonson’s. Fletcher’s productions shall be considered briefly in -succession: they are “The Passionate Madman,” in the play, with that -sub-title, usually known as “The Nice Valour,”[105:1] and Shattillion -in “The Noble Gentleman.” - -“The Passionate Madman,” who has no name besides, is inspired, like -many of his fellows, rather by a desire to please the public than -by a passion for probability. His peculiar mania takes the form of -a succession of “fits,” characterised as the “love fit,” the “merry -fit,” the “angry fit” and so on. There is seldom any reason adduced -for the change from one state to another, which is probably governed -by the dramatic situation. There seems to be no authority for the -classification of insanity in so many compartments in this manner; -if the author ever thought about this at all, he probably arrived at -a generalisation of the most common attribute of mania—the violent -and rapid succession of emotions—in much the same way as Jonson -generalised traits of character into “humours.” - -The madman of this play is a kinsman to the Duke of Genoa. He makes -his appearance at the end of the first act,[106:1] coming on with a -wooden smile and making “a congee or two to nothing.” He selects a -courtier for the object of his affections, makes love to him as if to -a lady, and as the object of his choice is quite willing to sustain -the delusion, he works himself up to a great state of excitement. In -the next scene[106:2] it appears “by his flattering and his fineness” -that “he is still in his love-fit,” and his mistress, thinking it well -to humour him, disguises herself as Cupid and persuades him that if he -comes away she will make all ladies follow him. She really hopes to -cure him: - - “She keeps this shape. . . . - To see if she can draw all his wild passions - To one point only, and that’s love, the main point.”[106:3] - -She has every opportunity of trying, for at this moment the “love -fit” obligingly gives way to the “angry fit.” Galoshio, the clown, -has been “almost beaten blind” by the Passionate Madman, “twice -thrown down stairs, just before supper,” and “pluck’d and tugg’d by -th’ hair o’ th’ head about a gallery half an acre long.”[106:4] The -Passionate Lord, after giving this foretaste of his achievements, is -not long in appearing, “rudely and carelessly apparelled, unbraced -and untrussed,”[107:1] and followed by the Lady, still in disguise. -The fit would seem at first to be one of melancholy, which rejects all -the Lady’s blandishments and stigmatises those of her sex as “fair -mischiefs.” As Lapet, Galoshio’s master, approaches, the “furious fit” -succeeds. Lapet is struck down and discreetly shams death, while the -madman accompanies his truncheon-blows with wild snatches of song. -We see no more of our madman after this until the fifth act when the -“merry fit” has sway. The burden of his speech is “Ha! ha! ha!” and his -songs are wildly merry: he begins to be “song-ripe.”[107:2] The Lady -once more appears, followed by several others dressed as fools. But a -cure is unexpectedly wrought more quickly than she could accomplish it. -“The Soldier” (brother to Chamont, the chief character of the play) has -been insulted by the madman at an earlier stage in it, and, much to -the dismay of the Lady and her attendants, he now stabs the Passionate -Lord, and makes his escape. He only re-appears at the end of the -play, cured of his wound and at the same time of his madness. La Nove -explains this to the Duke: - - “Death cannot be more free from passions, sir, - Than he is at this instant; he’s so meek now, - He makes those seem passionate were never thought of; - And, for he fears his moods have oft disturbed you, sir, - He’s only hasty now for his forgiveness.”[108:1] - -There is little to add to this sketch, which is sufficiently -expressive. The Lord is not interesting, still less striking, as a -character; no attempt is made to introduce a vestige of reality into -the madness, and thus the comedy leaves us unmoved. We cannot even be -indignant at it—it is so feeble. - -Is it necessary to complete the story by adding that the Passionate -Lord marries the Lady? - -As a slightly different example of Fletcher’s work, we may consider his -“Noble Gentleman” and the madman Shattillion. We can diagnose his case -more readily than that of the Passionate Lord. He suffers from a kind -of persecutory delusion, being - - “strong opinion’d that the wench he lov’d - Remains close prisoner by the King’s command, - Fearing her title.”[108:2] - -At the same time, he believes that certain enemies have designs on his -life. Meeting his cousin Cleremont, he enquires of him his “faction,” -and being told: - - “I know no parties nor no factions, sir,” - -he commands him: - - “Then wear this cross of white, - And where you see the like, they are my friends; - Observe them well, the type is dangerous.”[109:1] - -A touch of the pathetic (often mingled with the comic), accompanies the -“poor, grieved gentlewoman” who once refused his suit and for love of -whom Shattillion’s mind became unhinged, who: - - “Follows him much lamenting, and much loving, - In hope to make him well.”[109:2] - -But, says Longueville, a courtier, - - “he knows her not, - Nor any else that comes to visit him.”[109:2] - -Shattillion is plainly created for a dramatic purpose. The main story -concerns the gulling of a gentleman named Mount-Marine by his wife, -who persuades him that the King has granted him many high honours, and -that he is Duke of Burgundy. Shattillion, whose delusions persuade him -that he has himself a claim to the crown, is worked into the plot with -considerable skill, and his quarrel in the fifth act with the “Duke” -and his servant unites the two plots with great effect. - -A short study of the “mad scenes” will shew the strength and the -weakness of this character. The particular form of his mania is brought -out very clearly. The madman is perfectly sure about the plots laid -for him; his friends are really enemies disguised to “sift into” his -words; _he_ “can see and can beware”; _he_ has his wits about him and -thanks Heaven for it! The burst of laughter with which the audience -would greet this assertion is at once hushed as the Lady laments the -o’erthrow of her lover’s noble mind; - - “That was the fairest hope the French court bred, - The worthiest and the sweetest-temper’d spirit, - The truest, and the valiantest, the best of judgment.”[110:1] - -She is remorse-stricken at being the cause of it all, and prays Heaven -to be merciful; she will do all she can to restore her lover to his -senses. - -A long interval elapses before Shattillion is again introduced.[110:2] -Now he has heard of the “new duke” and he is suspicious and curious, -so much so that he is gesticulating and enquiring about it in the -open street. The Lady appears and begs Madam Marine to take him into -her house “from the broad eyes of people.” She does so. Shattillion, -now believing that he is “betray’d” and about to be beheaded, is led -away giving his last instructions. Before long, we see him once more, -this time in Marine’s house, proving to Marine that he (Shattillion) -is of the blood royal, and but for the interference of his friends he -would seize Marine as a traitor. In the next act he persuades Jacques, -Marine’s old servant, that he too is in danger of his life, and drags -him into his house for shelter. As they go in, the Lady appears, and, -knocking at Shattillion’s door, is repulsed as another enemy. The -madman’s imagination goes so far as to see “some twenty musketeers in -ambush,” and he suspects his love of being their captain. Meanwhile -Jacques, disguised as a woman, is leaving the house, when his preserver -stops him, accuses him of being - - “A yeoman of the guard, - Disguised in woman’s clothes, to work on me, - To make love to me and to trap my words - And so ensnare my life.”[111:1] - -Jacques at length escapes, and after another adventure returns as -servant to the “Duke.” In this capacity he is forced into a fierce -quarrel with Shattillion, who, in his furious loyalty, seizes Marine -and throws him to the ground. Hereupon the Lady has a remedy to propose: - - “A strange conceit hath wrought this malady; - Conceits again must bring him to himself; - My strict denial to his will wrought this, - And if you could but draw his wilder thoughts - To know me, he would, sure, recover sense.” - -Longueville undertakes the charge. Assuring Shattillion that the King -has rewarded his loyalty, he presents to him the Lady, who, he says, -has been released from prison for his sake. Shattillion is overcome, -and after a few minutes falls asleep. Longueville knows that this is a -good sign: - - “His eyes grow very heavy. Not a word, - That his weak senses may come sweetly home.”[111:2] - -He wakes, indeed, still “weak and sickly,” but himself again. - -The general impression left by this comedy is, on the whole, pleasant, -that part of it concerned with Shattillion included. The antics of -the madman himself are certainly comic, especially on the stage, and -the lighter side of his mania is persistently put forward. The only -pathetic touch is, in fact, the genuine sorrow of his Lady. This -predominance of the comic may be regretted, though in a play of the -farcical nature of “The Noble Gentleman” little else could be expected. -However, the sound, realistic basis of the disease, together with -the simple and unassuming cure—which, nevertheless, would hardly be -successful in real life,—makes the treatment of Shattillion as far -superior to the treatment of the Passionate Lord as the one play is to -the other. Considered absolutely, the representation of Shattillion -is chiefly remarkable for its reality, its skilful weaving into the -plot, and its mingling of pathos with broad humour. On the other hand -the pathos would not be so artificial if the entrance of the lady were -somewhat less mechanical—we could almost certainly predict when she -will enter in the last two acts. Fletcher’s almost total blindness to -everything but the comic and its possibilities also detracts from the -effect of Shattillion, and the very obvious dramatic motive for his -introduction does not, on reflection, improve matters. - -We have now passed from the heights of tragedy, through its pathos, and -the ill-blended pathos and broad humour of inferior tragi-comedy to the -pure and simple inanity of “The Nice Valour”—a work which certainly -appears to be unfinished. In considering Shattillion, we have risen -as high as we can hope to do within the limits of comedy, and before -leaving the raving lunatic for another class of madman we must descend -slightly as we consider Ben Jonson’s comedy of “Bartholomew Fair,” and -his madman, Trouble-all. - -The plot has already been outlined, and it will be seen that the place -of the madman is an important one. Theoretically, he is of prime -importance to the play, since it is foretold that Dame Purecraft, who -has already had two suitors, shall “never have happy hour unless she -marry within this sen’night; and when it is it must be a madman,” and -it is Quarlous, dressed in Trouble-all’s clothes and affecting his -malady, who eventually marries her. As a matter of fact, the main -portion of the play is concerned with other things, and we only meet -our madman in the fourth act. From this point onward, the author shews -great ingenuity in his handling of him; the burden of his remarks -alone serves as a _point d’appui_ for the spectator (who by this time -is probably getting wearied), while the humorous situations which he -provokes, culminating in the acuteness of Quarlous and its success, are -largely responsible for the undoubted popularity of the comedy with -both reader and spectator. - -This is, of course, very much to the credit of a comedy which -professedly deals with low life; it is more to our purpose to -remark that as a picture of madness the character of Trouble-all is -exceptionally correct. Gifford’s note to Cunningham’s edition of Ben -Jonson remarks that “Even the trifling part of Trouble-all, in any -other writer than Jonson, would be thought deserving of praise for -its correct delineation of a particular species of insanity, too -inoffensive for fear and too slight for commiseration.”[114:1] Gifford -is right, both in what he states and in what he implies. We expect -correctness from Jonson and we are not disappointed. - -A sketch of the madman should make this clear. He was “an officer -in the court of pie-poudres last year and put out of his place by -Justice Overdo.”[114:2] His affliction is marked by the _idée fixe_; -he raves continually about the Justice, and will do nothing—not even -the simplest actions of daily life—without satisfying himself that he -has Overdo’s warrant for it. How true to life this feature is may be -read in any modern book on insanity. He appears first of all in the -fair, where Overdo is being put into the stocks: “If you have Justice -Overdo’s warrant,” he says, “’tis well; you are safe: that is the -warrant of warrants.”[115:1] He is walking to and fro, with all the -restless impatience of mania, demanding to be shewn Adam Overdo. In -his frantic wanderings he comes upon Dame Purecraft, who apparently -thinks him more suitable for her than any madman she has yet seen -and cries: “Now heaven increase his madness and bless and thank it.” -Trouble-all’s reply does not vary: “Have you a warrant? an you have a -warrant, shew it.”[115:1] Person after person presents himself but the -madman’s reply is always the same. Every conversation he interrupts -with his query, and, when he is ignored, he turns away in disgust. Once -he exasperates a watchman, who strikes him. The latent rage of the -lunatic shews itself, but the madman’s rationalisation first provides -it with an excuse: “Strikest thou without a warrant? take thou that.” -When Quarlous personates the lunatic[115:2] our author rightly depicts -him as only partially successful, though his end is nevertheless as -well reached as if he had been wholly so. He raves occasionally about -a warrant, but it is not hard to see his sanity peeping through the -veil of assumed madness. Much of his talk is comparatively coherent, -and beyond his occasional references to the warrant he makes no attempt -to play the madman. To turn his literal phrase into metaphor, he is -“mad but from the gown outward.”[116:1] Trouble-all himself, when -Quarlous’ purpose is accomplished, makes one furious entry, armed “with -a dripping pan,”[116:1] but he does no mischief, and soon disappears. - -Trouble-all is a noteworthy character, though a small one; yet, -for more than one reason, the character is less praiseworthy than -Fletcher’s Shattillion. Considerable care is shewn in the sketch, but -little or no sympathy; and, if madness is to be utilised in comedy, the -comic element should at least, as has been seen, be mingled with some -touches of pathos. As it is, any other character than the madman would -have served Jonson equally well, provided that it had supplied him with -the same dramatic advantages. When Overdo says: “Alas, poor wretch! -how it yearns my heart for him!” we believe him about as readily as if -Jonson had made the same remark in an “author’s footnote.” - -In one respect, and in one respect only, can any claim be made -on behalf of Jonson’s character to rank above Fletcher’s “Noble -Gentleman.” Fletcher makes us look at madness from the point of view -of the madman, and tries to put us in sympathy with him. We have -seen that he is only partially successful. Jonson, on the other hand, -treats madness in quite an objective way, uses it frankly for a -subsidiary dramatic purpose, and portrays his madman with the utmost -conscientiousness and care. It may be just a question—though the -writer himself does not think so—whether from the point of view of art -Jonson’s production is not the more praiseworthy. - -Be that, however, as it may, it is nevertheless absolute Ben Jonson! - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[61:1] From the Alleyn MS. - -[62:1] “Spanish Tragedy.” - -[63:1] “Spanish Tragedy,” iii., 12a. - -[64:1] “Spanish Tragedy,” iii., 12. - -[65:1] Ibid., iii., 12a. - -[65:2] Ibid., iii., 8. - -[65:3] Ibid., iv., 2. - -[65:4] Other examples of conventional madness abound. See page 151, -Note 1. (Ann Ratcliff, in “The Witch of Edmonton.”) Peele, in the “Old -Wives’ Tale,” presents us with a character, Venelia, sent mad by a -sorcerer, Sacrapant: - - She “runs madding, all enraged, about the woods - All by his cursèd and enchanting spells.” - -But, apart from this, she does nothing! - -[66:1] “Shakespeare, His Mind and Art,” p. 272. - -[67:1] “King Lear,” i., 1, 125-6. - -[68:1] “King Lear,” i., 1, 296, etc. - -[68:2] Ibid., i., 4, 207-8. - -[68:3] Ibid., i., 4, 292-4. - -[69:1] “King Lear,” i., 5, 50-1. - -[69:2] Ibid., ii., 4, 56-8. - -[70:1] “King Lear,” ii., 4, 285-9. - -[70:2] “The Mad Folk of Shakespeare,” p. 194. - -[70:3] “King Lear,” iii., 2, 67. - -[71:1] “King Lear,” iii., 4, 49-50. - -[71:2] Ibid., iii., 4 passim. - -[71:3] Ibid., iii., 6. - -[72:1] “King Lear,” iv., 6, 81, etc. - -[72:2] l. 85. - -[73:1] ll. 109-10. - -[73:2] “King Lear,” iv., 7. - -[74:1] “King Lear,” iv., 7, 68-9. - -[74:2] l. 70. - -[74:3] l. 84. - -[74:4] Ibid., v., 3, 272-4. - -[75:1] “King Lear,” v., 3, 305, etc. - -[77:1] “Hamlet,” iv., 5, 4, etc. - -[77:2] Ibid., iv., 5, 23, etc. - -[77:3] ll. 29-32. - -[78:1] “Hamlet,” iv., 5, 35, etc. - -[78:2] ll. 68-70. - -[78:3] Ibid., iv., 5, 155, etc. - -[78:4] l. 173. - -[79:1] ll. 188-9. - -[79:2] Ferriar, quoted by Dr. Bucknill, p. 155 (op. cit.) - -[80:1] “Hamlet,” iv., 7, 167, etc. - -[82:1] “Two Noble Kinsmen,” iv., 3. - -[82:2] Ibid., ii., 1. - -[83:1] Ibid., iii., 2. - -[84:1] Ibid., iii., 4. - -[84:2] Ibid., iii., 5. - -[85:1] Ibid., iv., 1. - -[85:2] Ibid., iv., 1, 104, etc. - -[86:1] Ibid., iv., 3. - -[86:2] Ibid., v., 2. - -[89:1] Ward, Eng. Dram. Lit., ii., 300. The original criticism, as Dr. -Ward points out, is Gifford’s. Cf. the latter’s edition of Ford, vol. -i., p. 337. - -[90:1] “Elizabethan Literature,” p. 408. - -[90:2] “The Broken Heart,” iv., 4. - -[91:1] “The Lover’s Melancholy,” iii., 3. - -[92:1] Ibid., i., 1. - -[92:2] A similar device is found in Brome’s play, “The Antipodes,” -where, however, the physician uses the fantastic but less morbid device -of a “play within a play.” See page 136. - -[93:1] Ibid., iv., 2. - -[93:2] Ibid., ii., 2. - -[93:3] Ibid., ii., 2. - -[94:1] Ibid., iv., 2. - -[95:1] Ibid., v., 1. - -[96:1] Acted in 1602; first printed in 1631. - -[98:1] “Hoffman,” iv., 1. - -[99:1] Ibid., v., 2. - -[100:1] “A Very Woman,” ii., 2. - -[100:2] Ibid., iii., 3. - -[101:1] Ibid., iv., 2. - -[102:1] “A New Way to Pay Old Debts,” v., 1. - -[103:1] Ibid., v., 1. - -[103:2] Ibid., v., 1. - -[103:3] “The Duchess of Malfi,” v., 2. - -[105:1] It is referred to, however, in the following pages as “The -Passionate Madman.” - -[106:1] “The Passionate Madman,” i., 1. - -[106:2] Ibid., ii., 1. - -[106:3] Ibid., iii., 1. - -[106:4] Ibid., iii., 2. - -[107:1] Compare “Hamlet,” ii., 1, 77, etc. - - _Ophelia_: “My lord, as I was sewing in my closet, - Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac’d, - No hat upon his head . . he comes before me.” - -[107:2] “The Passionate Madman,” v., 1. - -[108:1] Ibid., v., 3. - -[108:2] “The Noble Gentleman,” i., 2. - -[109:1] Ibid., i., 3. - -[109:2] Ibid., i., 2. - -[110:1] Ibid., i., 3. - -[110:2] Act iii., Sc. 2. - -[111:1] Ibid., iv., 3. - -[111:2] Ibid., v., 1. - -[114:1] p. 210. - -[114:2] “Bartholomew Fair,” iv., 1. - -[115:1] Ibid., iv., 1. - -[115:2] Ibid., v., 2. - -[116:1] Ibid., v., 3. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -MAD FOLK IN COMEDY AND TRAGEDY. - -(ii.) IMBECILITY. - - “I ask’d her questions and she answered me - So far from what she was, so childishly, - So sillily, as if she were a fool, - An innocent.” - - (“_Two Noble Kinsmen._”) - - -Of the few sketches of imbeciles which we find in the drama under -consideration there is hardly one which can properly be called a -full-length portrait. As a class, the idiots come in for a fair -share of attention; the “fool” as well as the “madman” is shewn us -in the asylums of Fletcher and Middleton, but no dramatist seems to -have thought the tragic or the comic possibilities of the “lunatic -lean-witted fool” sufficiently promising to justify the inclusion -of him as a prominent character of a play. This is not altogether -surprising; the imbecile—we shall take the term as nearly as possible -in its precise signification[118:1]—was not considered as an ordinary -madman; he was treated like the half-developed creature he really was, -looked after more carefully than the madman, and trained in simple -things just like a child. So the fool occupied a subordinate place, in -drama as well as in life. - -The word “fool” as has been explained,[119:1] is used in our plays -in more senses than one, and a few characters who answer to the -description “simple,” “idiot” or “imbecile” may now be mentioned. They -demand little space, for, though serving a dramatic purpose, they have -little interest or importance in themselves. Nearest sanity is Pogio of -Chapman’s “Gentleman Usher,” whose half-witted condition seems to be -largely pose; it is a strange way of carrying out his own dictum that -“gentility must be fantastical.” Bergetto, too, in Ford’s play, “’Tis -pity she’s a Whore,” though consistently spoken of as “fool’s head,” -“dunce” and the like, could hardly be called anything more serious -than a foolish fellow. Jerome, in Chettle’s “Tragedy of Hoffman,” and -Cloten, the “empty purse” of Cymbeline, have both something of the -true congenital idiot about them. With Jerome, however, our judgment -is influenced more by impression than by anything he says or does in -the play. Hoffman and others call him an “idiot,” and he himself owns -“They say I am a fool,” after which he speaks of seeking out “my notes -of Machiavell.” But this is mere foolish talk, as, indeed, are most -of his speeches. In a quaint scene he addresses the people as their -King, but is outdone by a later speech of Hoffman’s, which he himself -solicits saying, “I charge you all, upon pain of death, that you hear -my cousin.” The action of a fool, indeed, but was it not also the -action of honest Brutus? Therefore we must cling to our estimate of -Jerome, framed from his own speeches, as justification for including -him in this category. Both the actions and the words of Shakespeare’s -Cloten are those of a man mentally deficient; Guiderius was not far -from the truth when he said: - - “not Hercules - Could have knock’d out his brains, for he had none”;[120:1] - -and everyone who knows him wonders - - “That such a crafty devil as is his mother - Should yield the world this ass.”[120:2] - -A quaint pair of simples may be seen in Lyly’s “Mother Bombie.” -Memphio, an avaricious old man, has a supposed son, Accius by name, -whom he wishes to marry to Silena; both parties being mentally -defective, the old man takes it for granted that their offspring will -be sane. Silena is described as “no natural fool”; and though this -would at first seem to be untrue, it becomes doubtful later if the -author had any very clear idea of the nature of her malady. She begins -by being “passing amiable, but very simple,” but before long her -condition approaches mania. Her first speech is typical: “My name is -Silena. I care not who know it, so I do not; my father keeps me close, -so he does; and now I have stolen out, so I have; to go to old Bombie -to know my fortune, so I will.” Candius, who listens to her, thinks -her at first a “fool,” but decides that as “so fair a face cannot be -the scabbard of a foolish mind,” she must be mad. In her meeting with -Accius, in the fourth act of the farce, she justifies this conclusion -by mistaking him for a “joint-stool.”[121:1] - -Before leaving the imbeciles, we must make a bare mention of -Shakespeare’s Caliban—bare, because we are hardly justified in calling -him a human being at all. The son of a witch, - - “A freckled whelp hag-born—not honour’d with - A human shape,”[121:2] - -he is only distinguished, as Coleridge says, from the brutes by his dim -understanding (bereft, however, of moral reason) and the absence in him -of all the instincts of absolute animals. Schlegel gives perhaps the -best account of Shakespeare’s creation when he says: “It is as though -the use of reason and human speech should be communicated to a stupid -ape.”[121:3] Such a being as this can certainly not be classed with -such “simples” and “fools” as have just been mentioned. - -To the ordinary reader of drama the word “fool” describes, not a -natural imbecile, but a peculiar type of character in the tragedy and -comedy of Shakespeare. The Shakespearean fool has a significance which -it would be out of place to dwell upon here; he is, however, speaking -generally, perfectly sane, and rather rich than defective in intellect. -Thus he has nothing in common with the “naturall fooles . . . suted in -long coats” mentioned by Nash,[122:1] and but little with the “fool” -of many a country village. For this strange character is most often a -half-demented fellow with a gift for making curt, cutting remarks, and -a tongue which, since its owner fears nobody, invariably vents whatever -his breast may forge. There would seem to be only one of Shakespeare’s -fools who is really half-witted, and that one is, of course, the fool -in “King Lear.” - -This point is well made by Dr. Bradley: “To suppose that the Fool is, -like many a domestic fool at that time, a perfectly sane man pretending -to be half-witted, is surely a most prosaic blunder. There is no -difficulty in imagining that, being slightly touched in the brain, -and holding the office of fool, he performs the duties of his office -intentionally as well as involuntarily—it is evident that he does -so. But unless we suppose that he _is_ touched in the brain, we lose -half the effect of his appearance in the Storm-scenes. The effect of -those scenes (to state the matter as plainly as possible) depends -largely on the presence of three characters and on the affinities and -contrasts between them; on our perception that the differences of -station in King, Fool, and beggar-noble, are levelled by one blast of -calamity; but also on our perception of the differences between these -three in one respect,—viz., in regard to the peculiar affliction of -insanity. . . . The insanity of the King differs from that of the -beggar, not only in its nature, but also in the fact that one is real -and the other simply a pretence. Are we to suppose then that the -insanity of the third character, the Fool, is in this respect a mere -repetition of the second, the beggar,—that it is _mere_ pretence? -To suppose this is not only to impoverish miserably the impression -made by the trio as a whole, it is also to diminish the heroic and -pathetic effect of the character of the Fool.”[123:1] If further proof -were needed it could be found in the expressions and the turns of -thought which characterise him throughout the play,—they are not the -expressions of mania, nor yet of perfect self-possession; they are -often, indeed, the expressions which one would expect of a feeble mind. -Can one suppose,—to take only one example—that any sane man, even in -the position of a Court fool, would insist, as mercilessly as the Fool -does in the first scenes, upon the ingratitude of Lear’s daughters? -None of Shakespeare’s other fools will be found to probe a wound so -deep, but it is exactly what one would expect from a Fool whose brain -is really slightly touched. It is true that he also diverts the King’s -attention from his troubles in the same scenes, but it is only to -return to them again with an even more piercing sting. - -Still further, if we assume the actual imbecility of the Fool, a flood -of light is at once thrown upon the question of his age—not that it -matters in the least what his age is, but some critics have found a -difficulty in reconciling the references which seem to make him now -a boy, now a man. He is, in fact, a man, but his feeble intellect, -together perhaps with a certain physical frailty, causes him to be -treated occasionally as a boy, much in the same way that Antonio -is treated by Lollio in the “Changeling.” We need not stay longer, -however, to defend this view, for, as Dr. Bradley says: “Arguments -against the idea that the Fool is wholly sane are either needless or -futile; for in the end they are appeals to the perception that this -idea almost destroys the poetry of the character.”[125:1] - -Alone, then, in this division of our subject, we place the Fool of -“King Lear.” Demented persons may occur here and there in our plays -(such is Cassandra in “Troilus and Cressida”) and there may even be -some congenital imbeciles (as Cloten in “Cymbeline”). But such cases -of dementia are hard to distinguish from those of mania. In both -cases—especially in the second—it is often hard to say whether or -no the author intended the idea of idiocy to be conveyed. So Lear’s -Fool remains unrivalled and we are glad of it. For nowhere in drama is -there a more delicate intermingling of laughter and tears, of terror -and pathos, than in this play of “King Lear.” The Fool needs no more -lengthy description. To see him (whether as we watch or as we read) -alone suffices, and nothing else will do so. When we have looked on -him, we have seen “sunshine and rain at once”; there is no “better way.” - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[118:1] Strictly speaking, the insanity of the imbecile is congenital; -the general conformation of his brain is faulty, and the mental -phenomena of his condition are for the most part “dissociated from -active bodily disease.” (See Encyl. Brit., s.v. Insanity.) - -[119:1] Above, p. 37 ff. - -[120:1] “Cymbeline,” iv., 2, 114. - -[120:2] Ibid., iv., 1, 57. - -[121:1] Cf. “Lear,” iii., 6, 54. The expression was proverbial, it is -true. - -[121:2] “Tempest,” i., 2. - -[121:3] It is interesting to compare the higher conception of Caliban -seen in Browning’s “Caliban upon Setebos,” where, though the brute -sprawls “with elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin,” in the -“cool slush,” he nevertheless reasons vaguely upon such problems as the -existence of evil, of pain, and of a law governing the universe. - -[122:1] In “Have with you to Saffron Walden.” The “fool’s coat” is -often mentioned in our plays. - -[123:1] “Shakespearean Tragedy,” pp. 311-12. - -[125:1] “Shakespearean Tragedy,” p. 312. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -MAD FOLK IN COMEDY AND TRAGEDY. - -(iii.) MELANCHOLY. - - “Many new and old writers have spoken confusedly of it, - confounding melancholy and madness.” - - (_Burton: “Anatomy of Melancholy.”_) - - -The representation of “melancholy” and of the disease which we know -as “melancholia” was extremely common in seventeenth century drama. -Its popularity with playwrights of all kinds can be traced to several -causes. In the first place it gave ample opportunity for introducing -poetry of no mean order, which seems to have been more popular on the -stage a few centuries ago than it is to-day. Then “melancholy” was -commonly associated with unrequited love, and the sad lover has always -been a favourite character both in comedy and in tragedy. Again, a -hero or heroine afflicted with “melancholy” was, after all, in the -seventeenth-century acceptation of the term, quite sane. “Melancholy,” -then, became a kind of “humour”—as in the eyes of the mediæval -physician it literally had been—and it was not regarded in at all the -same way as other species of mental disorder. - -We must distinguish, however, between the variety of ways in which -the word “melancholy” is used in these dramas, where there are -“large volumes of it in print to very slender purpose.”[127:1] When -Shakespeare says in “Cymbeline” - - “O melancholy! - Who ever yet could find thy bottom? find - The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish crare - Might easiliest harbour in,”[127:2] - -he is expressing feelings shared by anyone who tries to fathom the -treatment of melancholy by Shakespeare’s own contemporaries. There was -no common and generally recognised conception of melancholy as of the -more obvious forms of insanity. Hence it becomes impossible to consider -the question of melancholy from the standpoint of medicine, still less -to make any division such as the threefold medical division of to-day, -into acute melancholia, excited melancholia, and that alternation of -depression and excitement known as “folie circulaire.” We shall instead -divide our subject more broadly and simply into Melancholy True and -Melancholy False, taking but a few typical cases to illustrate each of -these divisions in turn. - -By Melancholy True is meant what we call nowadays “melancholia,”—that -is, a mental disease in which the prevailing symptom is depression,—a -mental disease from the author’s point of view and not merely from -ours. Some cases which would come under this heading have already, for -convenience’ sake, been treated above. There is the melancholia of -Penthea, hardly distinguishable from madness, and utilised dramatically -in a similar way. There is also the melancholy of Palador, which seems -to us less a case for the physician than it did to the author. Ford’s -conception of melancholy as a disease is clearly influenced by Burton, -and he would no doubt have agreed with the doctors of Christopher Sly -that “Melancholy is the Nurse of frenzy,”[128:1] if, indeed, he would -not have gone farther and declined to distinguish between them. Other -cases of melancholia are merely described, and will hardly repay study. -Such is Viola’s well-known description of one (imaginary) girl who - - “Never told her love, - But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud - Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought - And with a green and yellow melancholy - She sat like Patience on a monument, - Smiling at grief.”[128:2] - -Shakespeare’s King John is thinking of another kind of melancholy when -he says to Hubert: - - “. . . that surly spirit, melancholy, - Had baked thy blood and made it heavy-thick.”[128:3] - -In the two characters which we shall now study,—Aspatia of the “Maid’s -Tragedy” and Euphrasia in “Philaster”—we shall see that there is -with Beaumont and Fletcher a considerable lightening of the subject, -with a consequent artistic gain, but possibly a loss in force and -impressiveness. - -Aspatia is, of course, throughout the play, subordinated to Evadne, -and she appears only in the first two acts and the last, her death -occurring in the last scene. From her first appearance, after her -betrothed husband has taken Evadne to wife at the King’s command, the -pitiableness of her situation and the nobility and the purity of her -character endear her to us unchangeably. None of the indecency which -mars the play clings to the wronged Aspatia; many would go so far as to -consider her laments more effective, because less revolting, than those -of Ophelia. Wherever we see her - - “Nothing but sad thoughts in her breast do dwell.”[129:1] - -When Melantius offers her his ill-timed congratulations on the marriage -which he supposes to have been hers, her reply is short: - - “My hard fortunes - Deserve not scorn; for I was never proud - When they were good.”[129:2] - -In the next scene, however, when the presence of the bride makes the -hurt keener, her tongue is loosened. No sweeter song, in spite of the -rather vulgar criticism of Evadne, can be found outside Shakespeare -than the only one Aspatia gives us: - - “Lay a garland on my hearse, - Of the dismal yew, - Maidens, willow trenches bear; - Say I died true; - My love was false, but I was firm - From my hour of birth. - Upon my buried body lie - Lightly, gentle earth.”[130:1] - -“Fie on’t madam!” says Evadne, “The words are so strange, they are able -to make one dream of hobgoblins.” - -The effect of Aspatia’s appearances enhances enormously the effect of -the play as a whole. - - “She carries with her an infectious grief, - That strikes all her beholders.”[130:2] - -Her father is distressed beyond measure; her betrothed, “servile ‘iure -divino’ royalist” as he is, is stricken with the keenest remorse. Even -the apparently buoyant Evadne is moved to pity. - -Perhaps, in the scene between Aspatia and her waiting women, the -wronged woman loses a little of our sympathy. The dramatists have -evidently succumbed to the Muse of Poetry and Aspatia’s laments become -drawn-out and a little monotonous. Yet the poetry is at times almost -perfect; it is only her continual harping on the subject of “Man, Oh -that beast man!”[130:3] which makes us fear lest melancholy become -raving madness. When she subsides at last into “dull silence,” our -love for her is at its height: she is indeed “like Sorrow’s monument.” - -In the last act she appears once more,[131:1] in the disguise of a -supposed brother, with the seeming intention of killing her faithless -lord. A tragic Viola indeed, she succeeds in getting wounded, and -eventually dies, not without witnessing the death of Evadne and holding -Amintor’s hand in token of reconciliation. - -The girl Euphrasia, in “Philaster,” has less of tragedy and more of -romance, more even of Shakespeare’s own poetry. In her disguise as -Bellario, Philaster’s page, she appears as a “pretty, sad-talking -boy,”[131:2] and it would seem to be rather the prince, who sits -“cross-armed,” “sighs away the day” for love of Arethusa, and talks -furthermore in several places of going mad,[131:3] who should come -under this category of melancholiacs. But he himself proves to his own -satisfaction that he is sane enough; and though such a statement is not -always to be believed, it seems for once to correspond with the point -of view of the author. But Euphrasia herself is continually reminding -us of her melancholy, which has all the appearance of being conceived -as similar to that of Aspatia, although it is less pronounced. It -springs from love, it is nowhere put down to a mere caprice, and -although in neither of these two plays is any cure attempted, this is -because the characters are subordinated to others and for the sake of a -unified plot. - -The melancholy of Mistress Constance, in Brome’s “Northern Lass,” was -probably meant by the author to be taken more seriously than most -people would find possible to-day. In conception it resembles the -melancholy-madness of Fletcher’s “Passionate Madman.” Its cause, to go -no further, is the same. Love has “overwhelmed her spirits, and turned -the faculties of all her senses into a rude confusion, sending forth -the uses of them extravagantly.” The method of her cure, according -to Pate (disguised as a Doctor) is as simple as are the lightning -cures of Fletcher: “The party that she loves must be the doctor, the -medicine and the cure.” This _médecin malgré lui_, however, finds his -patient too much for him. “I fear she is wiser than all of us, that -have to do with her. She knows my gown better than I do; for I have had -but two hours’ acquaintance with it.” Constance, though at times she -sings snatches of song, does not rave like Shattillion or the Gaoler’s -Daughter; the prevailing symptom of her melancholy is depression. As -a character she is peculiarly lacking in charm, though the title-page -of the play, which declares it to be “a comedy often acted with good -applause,” in high places, would suggest that the heroine was popular -enough at the time. - -Almira, the daughter of the Viceroy of Sicily, in Massinger’s “A Very -Woman,” might profitably be considered in a later section dealing with -unclassified abnormal states of mind. However, the malady produced in -her by the supposed loss of her lover was apparently conceived by the -dramatist as “melancholy-madness,” and therefore it finds a place here. -Gifford, in a note in his edition of Massinger, describes Almira’s -complaint as “not madness, but light-headedness.” She is firmly -convinced that Cardenes, who has been wounded in a scuffle with his -rival, is dead, and all her friends’ attempts to convince her to the -contrary merely strengthen her belief. - - “I know you, - And that in this you flatter me; he’s dead, - As much as could die of him: but look yonder! - Amongst a million of glorious lights - That deck the heavenly canopy, I have - Discern’d his soul, transform’d into a star. - Do you not see it?”[133:1] - -The belief induces semi-hallucinations. She hears “a dismal sound”—it -is Antonio in hell, “on the infernal rack where murderers are -tormented.”[133:1] This sets a train of delusive ideas in motion; -her cousin fears “she’ll grow into a frenzy,” when one of her women -exclaims “Her fit begins to leave her,” and she is once more herself, -relating her “strangest waking dream of hell and heaven.”[134:1] -Notwithstanding these temperate intervals her father is alarmed, and -fears, not without reason, that - - “She’ll do some violent act upon herself.”[134:2] - -Her hands are therefore to be bound and a physician sent for. We hear -a good deal more of her melancholy during the play, but it becomes -conventional, and after the second act we think of her as quite a -rational human being—as a “Very Woman.” It is the strange change in -her affections which gives the great interest to her character which it -certainly possesses; for that reason it would hardly be fair to attempt -to compare her either with Aspatia or with Euphrasia, interest in whom -is dependent on other considerations. - -A case of melancholy, both interesting and amusing, similar in -conception and treatment to the mania of Shattillion and of the -Passionate Lover mentioned above,[134:3] is furnished by Brome’s -“Antipodes.” As we should expect in an “approved Comedy” acted in -the year 1638, the subject is approached only from its lighter -side; within the limits which such a treatment necessarily imposes -the play is pleasant enough, and the principal characters are very -laughable. Joyless and Diana, it appears, have a son Peregrine, a -lad of twenty-five, who has been married for some years to a girl -named Martha. But Peregrine, whose inclination has always been for a -roving life, has developed a melancholy in consequence of his parents’ -opposition to his desire for travel. The disease, when the play -opens, is “inclining still to worse, As he grows more in days,” and -the father’s anxiety is aggravated by the fact that Martha is also -afflicted with a similar trouble, caused by her husband’s neglect. Her -symptoms are somewhat different: - - “Indeed she’s full of passion, which she utters - By the effects, as diversely, as several - Objects reflect upon her wand’ring fancy, - Sometimes in extreme weepings, and anon - In vehement laughter; now in sullen silence, - And presently in loudest exclamations.”[135:1] - -Doctor Hughball, a physician of renown, undertakes both cases, and -in addition that of Joyless, whom “some few yellow spots” about the -temples proclaim to be “jealous-mad.” This doctor, like others of the -“cure-all” tribe whom we have recently encountered, has had great -experience of mental disease. He has cured - - “A country gentleman, that fell mad - For spending of his land before he sold it.”[135:2] - -A lady who fell mad with “tedious and painful study” to find “a way -to love her husband,” and “horn-mad citizens, he cures them by the -dozens”![136:1] Brought face to face with the melancholiac in one -of his “fits,” Hughball sets about humouring him, “applauding” his -“noble disposition,” and “adoring” his “spirit of travel.” He tells his -patient that he has been all over the world, even in the Antipodes, -meeting his praise of Mandeville, Drake, and other worthies with vivid -and imaginative descriptions of the unknown lands on the other side of -the world. Everything, it appears, goes by contraries: - - “There the deer - Pursue the hounds, and (which you may think strange), - I ha’ seen one sheep worry a dozen foxes, - By moonshine, in a morning before day, - They hunt, trail scents with oxen and plough with dogs.”[136:2] - -Peregrine is subdued; he could listen to the Doctor “a whole -fortnight,” and gladly accepts his offer to travel with him to this -wonderful land. Hence, in the next scene, by the device of a play -within a play,[136:3] the Doctor is able to effect a threefold cure. -Joyless’ jealousy is overcome; Martha (after being disguised as a Queen -and formally presented to her husband), wins back the love of the -melancholy Peregrine; and Peregrine himself, though falling back more -than once during the play-scenes to “Mandeville-madness,” is eventually -cured. In the concluding scenes, where music “upon the Recorders” is -being played, we are shewn the melancholiac’s return to complete sanity. - - “I am what you are pleased to make me; but withal . . . ignorant - of my own condition, whether I sleep or wake, or talk, or - dream; whether _I_ be, or be not; or if I am, whether I do, or - do not anything.”[137:1] - -Revelations and recognitions follow, in spite of the Doctor’s warning -against “troubling his brain with new discoveries.” Peregrine is then -made to “recover roundly” by means of a short masque (preceded by “a -most untunable flourish”!) introducing “Discord, Folly, Jealousy, -Melancholy, and Madness.” When these characters have been routed by -Harmony and her train, Peregrine declares “Indeed, I find me well.” - -The treatment of melancholy in this play is in no way serious, and -shews us little of real value. - -“Melancholy False”[137:2] is hard to define; the criterion must -ultimately be a subjective one. It is depicted as a state of the mind -in which the person concerned has full control of himself,—as a cloak -which he assumes for his own purposes, and which he is able to throw -off should necessity arise. At its very worst, it would only be spoken -of to-day as “depression.” Sometimes, it is true, this melancholy seems -to give a definite colour to the person whom it characterises—to -be, in fact, part of his temperament; but in these cases no mention -is made of any possible cure of the trouble—sometimes not even of -the cause—so that the suggestion of disease does not arise in the -spectator’s mind. No doubt such a condition, if persisted in, would -often have disastrous results. Such a “humour” was dangerous, but it -was nevertheless a “humour.” - -It may be objected that many persons, using these tests, might well -put Euphrasia and Aspatia in the present category. It is true. But -if we made no distinctions and adopted no classifications but those -which were indisputable and self-evident, we should make very few, -and those would be of little value. We have it on excellent authority -that the only way to “part sadness and melancholy” is “by a familiar -demonstration of the working.”[138:1] To a layman it would probably -be clear that the melancholy of Aspatia and Euphrasia, of Mistress -Constance and Almira, is meant to be of a different kind from that of -several characters with whom we shall now have to deal. - -The largest variety of “cases” is furnished by Shakespeare, and for -this reason our study of this type may be confined to his works. Some -of the “cases” are described by Dr. Bucknill:[139:1] “the melancholy -of pride in Achilles, of prosperity in Antonio, of constitution and -timidity in the Queen of ‘Richard II,’ of contemplation in Jacques.” -We might possibly add more, but here are instances enough (if they are -really instances) to shew the nature of this melancholy. - -Surprise might perhaps be expressed that Shakespeare should make such -large use of this “humour”; it would be expected that he, whom we -have shewn to be familiar with all kinds of insanity, would conceive -of melancholia more nearly after the fashion of the present-day -physician. The explanation is simple. Shakespeare knew perfectly well -that melancholy could be a disease, and has described it as such. Let -us remember the quotations, given above,[139:2] from “Twelfth Night” -and “King John.” And who was it that “besieged with sable-coloured -melancholy . . . did commend the black-oppressing humour to the most -wholesome physic of thy health-giving air?”[140:1] Yet Shakespeare -was equally well acquainted with that hypochondriacal melancholia and -that temperamental depression which play a large part in modern life, -and both of these, to say nothing of the love-melancholy which varies -from slight depression to acute mania, he found it convenient to use. -The contemporary dramatists, however great or small their knowledge, -usually preferred the “love melancholy” and used it almost exclusively. - -The melancholy of Achilles is quite superficial. He is “lion sick of -a proud heart”[140:2] just as Ajax is “melancholy without cause,” and -nobody in the play interprets his behaviour otherwise. The estimate -just quoted of him is one of the least violent of the opinions of Ajax; -Agamemnon calls him “over-proud and under-honest”;[140:3] Ulysses says -that he is - - “possess’d . . . with greatness - And speaks not to himself but with a pride - That quarrels at self-breath.”[140:4] - -Ulysses’ descriptions of the general’s occupations, of his jests at -Agamemnon and the Greeks, of his delight in Patroclus’ imitations, -and the “loud applause” which comes from his “deep chest”[140:5] are -sufficient proof that his malady is not very serious. Certainly, -judging from the care with which Shakespeare demonstrates the nature -of its source, we shall conclude that this melancholy is presented to -us as a “humour.” - -The “Merchant of Venice” is coloured by the sadness of its hero, even -at the height of his prosperity. At the outset of the play he declares -to his friends: - - “In sooth, I know not why I am so sad; - It wearies me; you say it wearies you; - But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, - What stuff ’tis made of, whereof it is born, - I am to learn. - And such a want-wit sadness makes of me - That I have much ado to know myself.”[141:1] - -We at least are not at a loss to explain Antonio’s depression. It is -not alone the boredom of “unruffled prosperity”[141:2]—this sorts ill -with the character of the noble merchant: it is rather a peculiarity -of temperament which colours both adversity and prosperity. For such -melancholy as marks Antonio’s farewell to Bassanio: - - “I am a tainted wether of the flock, - Meetest for death,”[141:3] - -is not the necessary concomitant either of prosperity or of adversity. -The two speeches quoted are examples of the same condition of mind; -the melancholy which they exhibit has the double dramatic purpose of -beautifying the character of Antonio and of giving the spectator that -“preadjustment” which is so valuable an aid to the plot. - -Similarly we have in “Richard II” the melancholy of the Queen, which -prepares us for the troubles about to befall her. This melancholy may -best be attributed, not necessarily, as Dr. Bucknill suggests, to her -temperament, certainly not to any prosperity she may have enjoyed, but -rather to a vague fear as to the results of her husband’s perilous -journey, coupled possibly with her experience of the King’s rashness -and a recognition of his recent weakness in dealing with Mowbray and -Bolingbroke. It is, at all events, merely a passing sadness of the -“inward soul” and her “heavy sad”-ness is soon dispersed, changing -first to real grief, which gives place before her weaker husband—true -woman that she is!—to a resolution concealing for a time her sorrow. - -In Jacques we have a character of more complexity. His humour he -describes as “a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, -extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of -my travels in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous -sadness.”[142:1] He wishes, in his own words, to - - “Cleanse the foul body of the infected world, - If they will patiently receive my medicine.”[142:2] - -But the Duke, usually so gentle, is quite out of sympathy with the -pseudo-reformer. Jacques, he says, has been a libertine, and like -many a reformed sinner, the ex-voluptuary would merely “disgorge into -the general world,” “all the embossèd sores and headed evils” of his -unregenerate days.[143:1] - -So much discussion has been lavished on the “case” of Jacques that -we shall not attempt to do more than shew what we believe to be its -perfectly superficial nature. Judging from the play as a whole, and -more especially from the Duke’s contempt and Rosalind’s banter, we -should suppose this to be Shakespeare’s view. As Dr. Moulton very -justly remarks, egotism is plainly shewn to be at the root of his -disposition. He has lived out his life in a short time; now he turns -everything, for sheer self-love, into matter not for jests but for -scurrilous abuse, or at best for a malevolent, sarcastic humour. - -Yet the morbidity of Jacques’ melancholy suggests that, more than any -other of Shakespeare’s similarly conceived characters, he carries about -with him a secret malady when he persists in his attitude towards -the world. One day the secret wound will fester; his “weeping” and -his “sullen fits” will become uncontrollable; his frantic abuse will -turn to frenzy; his ironic, half-humorous sallies will change to -the disconnected utterances of a maniac; or his surly humour will -sink lower and lower until it reaches the dead level of melancholic -depression. - -Here, then, we have, in briefest outline, some of the types of -melancholy—true and false—presented by Shakespeare and certain of his -contemporaries. Numerous examples from other authors of the time might -be added, but we have seen enough to be clear on two points. These are, -the essential difference between the true and the false melancholy, and -the use of each to the dramatist in his work, both for its own sake -and because of the opportunities which it gives for the introduction -of poetical passages. From the character who entertains a “wilful -stillness” - - “With purpose to be dress’d in an opinion - Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,”[144:1] - -to the true victim of his sorrow, holding, against his will (like -Constance in “King John”) - - “The eternal spirit . . . - In the vile prison of afflicted breath,”[144:2] - -the melancholiac has great dramatic possibilities, of which, for the -most part, the fullest advantage is taken. - -This seems to be the most convenient place to discuss the question -of the real (as distinguished from the assumed) mental condition of -Hamlet. That it is an abnormal condition most careful readers of the -play will not question. How otherwise can we explain his habitual -inaction, his sudden fits of energy, his violence to those whom he -loves, his strange self-questionings, and his even stranger apathy to -those things which should most move him? The whole question of the -cause of Hamlet’s procrastination depends on our estimate of his mental -state. Goethe’s description of Hamlet as “a beautiful, pure, noble, -and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which makes the -hero,” is clearly at variance with facts, and the estimates of both -Coleridge and Dowden largely ignore the practical side of the character -of Hamlet. Only by recognising what the play certainly tells us, that -the melancholy of Hamlet is really a disease, can we obtain anything -like a reasonable explanation of his strange movements. After all, he -is not the one-sided, unequally-developed weakling that certain school -editions of Shakespeare would have us suppose. He is, without any -doubt, a man of practical ability, capable of prompt, energetic action, -skilled in all manly exercises. Intellectually, his “noble mind” -compels the greatest regard, he has studied long at the University and -possesses besides such qualities as would serve him admirably as ruler -of Denmark. Fortinbras says of him that - - “He was likely - Had he been put on, to have proved most royally.”[146:1] - -His moral nature is equally praiseworthy. Ordinarily strong of will, -“most generous and free from all contriving,”[146:2] though probably at -times inclined to be passionate and on occasions headstrong to excess, -he was certainly not the man to procrastinate through “losing himself -in labyrinths of thought” as Schlegel asserts him to have done. - -If we would find the key to this mystery, Hamlet himself will give it -us in his first soliloquy. He meditates suicide, from which he is only -kept by the fact that “the Everlasting” has “fix’d His canon ’gainst -self-slaughter.”[146:3] Then he explains why everything to him is -“weary, stale, flat and unprofitable”—it is the terrible shock of his -mother’s incestuous marriage following that of the death of his father, -and the suspicious circumstances which attended it, that has given -rise to this abnormal state of mind. His melancholy is augmented by -the nature of the command laid on him by the Ghost and the consequent -secrecy which he must put upon himself: - - “But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.”[146:4] - -This is Melancholy True—a state of mind which cannot be thrown -off like a cloak, yet which is abnormal. It is an excellent case -for the pathologist. Truly conceived, it furnishes the only -satisfying explanation of the strange phases of Hamlet’s so-called -“character”—the depression, the self-weariness, the irritability, -the violence, the satisfaction at the smallest thing achieved, the -impossibility of carrying out the original purpose—all these things -are the natural outcome of melancholia. - -A two-fold objection to this view has to be met. It will be said that -such a conception of Hamlet destroys the moral lesson of the play. And -would that it did! It is unfortunate that certain critics are unable -to pick up a play without looking at once for the moral. Those who -have done this with “Hamlet” have succeeded in shifting the centre of -gravity from the author to themselves. They say that the play shews how -wrong it is to procrastinate, and how by procrastination we lose far -more than we gain. It is, according to these critics, a mere sermon -preached on the text - - “That we would do - We should do when we would.”[147:1] - -How, they say, can this sermon be preached if the chief -illustration—the man by whom we are all to be warned—is exculpated -from blame by illness? - -They know little of tragedy—or at least of Shakespeare’s tragedy—who -hold a view like this. What Shakespeare habitually does is to shew us -a man, by nature fitted to be a hero of tragedy, with a fatal defect, -the consequences of which are worked out in the play. Looked at from -this point of view, the sentimental objection at once vanishes, and the -second objection arises. It is a more serious one: Can a man suffering -from melancholia—to put the thing in its most prosaic form—any more -than a man suffering from any other form of insanity, be admitted as -a tragic hero? The answer is that he can. And this partly because his -exact state of mind is not determined, partly because it is a condition -not generally recognised as one of disease, and tragedy has always -to be considered from the point of view, not of the doctor, but of -the author and the audience. As Dr. Bradley, who very ably sums up -the question, says in his Lectures on Shakespearean Tragedy: “The man -who suffers as Hamlet suffers—and thousands go about their business -suffering thus in greater or less degree—is considered irresponsible -neither by other people nor by himself: he is only too keenly conscious -of his responsibility. . . . . Hamlet’s state is not one which a healthy -mind is unable sufficiently to imagine. It is probably not further from -average experience, nor more difficult to realise, than the great -tragic passions of Othello, Antony or Macbeth.”[149:1] - -Before we leave Hamlet, it should be emphasised that the state of mind -of the hero is quite a subordinate question in the play itself. “It -would be absurdly unjust to call ‘Hamlet’ a study of melancholy, but -it contains such a study,” is Dr. Bradley’s way of putting it.[149:2] -The significance of this is that we must not expect the indications of -Hamlet’s disease to be developed to any degree, nor refuse to claim for -it a place among our examples of “Melancholy True,” just because the -author fails to introduce the hero to a physician![149:3] - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[127:1] As Pate says in Brome’s “Northern Lass” (v., 1). - -[127:2] “Cymbeline,” iv., 2, 203. - -[128:1] Induction, ii., 135. - -[128:2] “Twelfth Night,” ii., 4, 113, etc. - -[128:3] “King John,” iii., 3, 42. - -[129:1] “The Maid’s Tragedy,” ii., 1. - -[129:2] Ibid., i., 1. - -[130:1] Ibid., ii., 1. - -[130:2] Ibid., i., 1. - -[130:3] Ibid., ii., 2. - -[131:1] Ibid., v., 4. - -[131:2] “Philaster,” ii., 3. - -[131:3] _e.g._ iii., 1, 277; iii., 2, 83, etc. - -[133:1] “A Very Woman,” ii., 3. - -[134:1] Ibid., ii., 3. - -[134:2] Ibid., ii., 3. - -[134:3] pp. 105 ff. - -[135:1] “The Antipodes,” i., 2. - -[135:2] Ibid., i., 1. - -[136:1] Ibid., i., 1. - -[136:2] Ibid., i., 6. - -[136:3] The scenes in which Joyless, Diana, Peregrine and the rest -listen to this play and pass comments on it often bear a striking -resemblance to the better known “Knight of the Burning Pestle.” - -[137:1] “The Antipodes,” v., 9. - -[137:2] A medical friend reminds me that there is, properly speaking, -no such thing as “melancholy false,” and that the characters mentioned -under this head are not suffering, in his opinion, from any form of -mental disease. I will therefore repeat here that the classification of -“melancholy” adopted in this chapter is _not_ a scientific one, that it -is made on a seventeenth century, rather than on a twentieth century -basis—we are trying, that is, to take up the positions of the several -dramatists. Few specialists of to-day would consider Jacques, Achilles -or Antonio to be in a state of disease, but that the Elizabethan doctor -would have diagnosed their malady as “melancholy” I have little doubt. -The ordinary spectator would probably not consider the question in any -detail. - -[138:1] “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” Moth: i., 2, 9-10. - -[139:1] “Mad Folk,” etc., p. 310. - -[139:2] p. 128. - -[140:1] “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” i., 1, 233, etc. - -[140:2] “Troilus and Cressida,” ii., 3, 92, etc. - -[140:3] Ibid., ii., 3, 132. - -[140:4] Ibid., ii., 3, 180. - -[140:5] Ibid., i., 3, 161, etc. - -[141:1] “Merchant of Venice,” i., 1, 1, etc. - -[141:2] Bucknill, “Mad Folk,” etc., p. 307. - -[141:3] “Merchant of Venice,” iv., 1, 114, etc. - -[142:1] “As You Like It,” iv., 1, 15, etc. - -[142:2] Ibid., ii., 7, 60. - -[143:1] Ibid., ii., 7, 67-9. - -[144:1] “Merchant of Venice,” i., 1, 91-2. - -[144:2] “King John,” iii., 4, 18. - -[146:1] “Hamlet,” v., 2, 408. - -[146:2] Ibid., iv., 7, 136—the King’s testimony. - -[146:3] Ibid., i., 2, 131-2. - -[146:4] Ibid., i., 2, 159. - -[147:1] “Hamlet,” iv., 7, 119-20. - -[149:1] “Shakespearean Tragedy,” p. 121. - -[149:2] Ibid., p. 121. - -[149:3] Beside the melancholy of Hamlet we might place that of -Haraldus, the young Prince of Shirley’s play, “_The Politician_,” were -it not that the part played by his melancholy is purely nominal. His -father—the Politician—sends two courtiers to cure him, and they make -him drunk. His excesses bring on a fever which causes his death. His -likeness to Hamlet only strikes us here and there, and the melancholy, -such as it is, is caused chiefly by the discovery that he is a bastard. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -MAD FOLK IN COMEDY AND TRAGEDY—(iv.) DELUSIONS, -HALLUCINATIONS AND OTHER ABNORMAL STATES. - - “How now; who’s there? spirits, spirits?” - - (“_Spanish Tragedy._”) - - -Delusions and hallucinations occurring in cases of real madness we have -already encountered, but since these phenomena are themselves symptoms -of a disordered state of mind we must not neglect instances in which -they occur with persons otherwise sane. These spring to the memory; -who, for example, can ever forget the sights which Faustus sees in his -last hour on earth? - - “O, I’ll leap up to my God; who pulls me down? - See, see, where Christ’s blood streams in the firmament. - One drop would save my soul, half a drop—Ah, my Christ! - Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ! - Yet will I call on Him: Oh, spare me, Lucifer! - Where is it now? ’tis gone: And see where God - Stretcheth out His arm, and bends His ireful brows; - Mountains and hills, come, come and fall on me, - And hide me from the heavy wrath of God.”[150:1] - -More examples of such hallucinations in moments of great stress might -be quoted. It will best serve our purpose if we consider one typical -case (Frank, in “The Witch of Edmonton,”) and afterwards discuss a case -of special interest—that of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. - -Frank Thorney, in “The Witch of Edmonton,” has married one Winifred, -but is forced into a bigamous marriage with Susan, whom he afterwards -murders, without letting any suspicion fall on himself. He is tormented -on his sick-bed by phantoms indistinguishable from realities, more -particularly by the ghost of Susan, and at last reveals to Winifred the -awful truth. - -“I am not idle,” he says, and he is right. But thick-coming fancies -disturb him. The ghost of Susan appears. He stares at it fixedly, then -turns to the other side, only to be confronted again by the apparition. -When it vanishes he is raving of “a force in which were drawn a -thousand ghosts, leap’d newly from their graves, to pluck me into a -winding-sheet.” He has, so he says, “Some windmill in my brains for -want of sleep,” but sleep only comes with the unburdening of the guilty -conscience.[151:1] - -Macbeth (like Frank Thorney) is at no time in the play insane, but -he becomes the victim of “horrible imaginings” which beyond a certain -point seem to him to be real.[152:1] Macbeth is predisposed to -hallucinations by a remarkably vivid power of imagination, which finds -expression from the very outset of the play. The mere suggestion of -the murder of Duncan he describes as a “horrid image” which unfixes -his hair and makes his seated heart knock at his ribs, against the use -of nature. Thus we have a character whose imagination torments him -throughout his career of crime till he has “supped full of horrors” and -the “taste of fears” has almost lost all significance.[152:2] - -In the well-known “Dagger Scene”[152:3] we are confronted with the -first of Macbeth’s hallucinations. It is before the murder of Duncan, -and the spectral dagger only deceives him for a moment. Making an -unsuccessful attempt to clutch it, he is for a short moment at a loss -to explain a weapon which he can see but cannot handle. Then he rightly -concludes that it is but a “dagger of the mind, a false creation”; his -eyes “are made the fools o’ the other senses,” yet the image does not -disappear till courage comes again and with it “the heat of deeds.” - -Duncan is murdered; “after life’s fitful fever he sleeps well,” but the -regicide’s better self torments him more and more, and the Lady fears -for his sanity: - - “These deeds must not be thought - After these ways; so, it will make us mad.”[153:1] - -Macbeth, however, is losing his self-control. At the moment of the -murder a fresh hallucination troubled him, and though its true nature -is now recognised, and he can “moralise” upon it, its very mention -fills the Lady with fears. - - “Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more! - Macbeth doth murder sleep’. . . . - Still it cried, ‘Sleep no more!’ to all the house: - ‘Glamis hath murther’d sleep, and therefore Cawdor - Shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.’”[153:2] - -Dr. Bucknill, it is true, considers that this is not an hallucination, -on account of the word “methought.”[153:3] But the same word would -have been used of the dagger, which the critic himself admits to have -been an hallucination. Nor is the length of the fancied speeches any -obstacle, the greater part of the speech in which they occur being -Macbeth’s own embellishment of the event. - -The hallucination at the banquet is more formidable. Macbeth, having -caused Banquo to be murdered—the murder being unknown to his -guests—is regretting his absence, “thus by a voluntary mental act -calling before his mind’s eye the image of the murdered man.”[154:1] At -the mention of him, an image rises in the place reserved for Macbeth -himself. It shakes its “gory locks” at the murderer, it nods but will -not speak, and only vanishes like the “air-drawn dagger,” when Macbeth -begins to overcome his fear and brave it. When he pledges Banquo it -appears again; once more he declaims violently against it and it -vanishes, but not before he has - - . . “displac’d the mirth, broke the good meeting - With most admir’d disorder.”[154:2] - -to say nothing of a certain amount of suspicion attached to it. - -The remainder of the story, from the psychological point of view, can -best be told in Dr. Bucknill’s words.[154:3] “Macbeth,” he says, “saved -himself from actual insanity by rushing from the maddening horrors of -meditation into a course of decisive resolute action. From henceforth -he gave himself no time to reflect; he made the firstlings of his -heart the firstlings of his hand; he became a fearful tyrant to his -country; but he escaped madness. This change in him, however, effected -a change in his relation to his wife, which in her had the opposite -result. . . . Her attention, heretofore directed to her husband and to -outward occurrences, was forced inwards upon that wreck of all-content -which her meditation supplied.” She becomes mad; no medicine can -minister to her mind, diseased by crime and remorse, and her madness -is fatal. But Macbeth never becomes insane. “Some say he’s mad,” it is -true, yet - - “Others, that lesser hate him, - Do call it valiant fury.”[155:1] - -He has saved his own mental life, but he has flung away the “eternal -jewel” of his soul. - -Lady Macbeth, at every point in the play, is strongly contrasted with -her husband. She is frankly distressed at the developments of Macbeth’s -criminal career. He bids her be “innocent of the knowledge” till she -applaud his deeds. She thus drifts farther away from him and leaves him -to pursue his bloody course alone. Her meditation breeds madness. She -lacks, even as her husband had done, - - “the season of all natures, sleep,” - -being - - “Troubled with thick-coming fancies - That keep her from her rest.”[155:2] - -The scene in which she betrays her secret in her sleep is full of -significance, shewing the terrible impression made on her by the -murder of Duncan, and no less by the slaughter of Lady Macduff. After -her fainting fit, which follows the discovery of Duncan’s murder, she -ceases to occupy a prominent place in the tragedy. Her death is almost -unnoticed. Whether she died naturally or whether her attendants were -unable to keep from her the “means of all annoyance,” it is hard to -say. But once again Shakespeare shews his dramatic skill in relating -rather than portraying the scene of her death. - -Returning to Macbeth, one must remark in conclusion that it is only -when Shakespeare’s art in delineating the various types of insanity -is studied as a whole that this character can be fully appreciated. -Yet even from a superficial examination of the play the value to the -dramatist of Macbeth’s hallucinations must be clear. For they not only -add to the scenic effect of the play, but they constitute a striking -contrast between the murderer and his wife, besides clarifying the -already powerful idea of his accusing imagination. - - * * * * * - -We must now briefly consider another kind of abnormality which has -not yet been mentioned. Occasionally, in reading the dramatists of the -period, we meet with persons whom at first we suppose to be insane, -but who are, in reality, not so. Yet their states of mind are far -from normal. Occasionally they seem to be possessed by insane desires -and ambitions; sometimes lust has taken complete possession of them; -sometimes remorse, vengeance or similar passion dominates all their -actions. It is hard to point to any of their actions and to say: “That -is the act of a madman.” To-day, no doubt, did they exist in the flesh, -they would be removed to a Mental Hospital and treated for disease of -the mind. But looked at by their author and by his audience and in an -Elizabethan environment, they were not, in all probability, and in the -ordinary sense of the word, madmen. And for that reason we can only -allow them a passing consideration here, though every one of them would -repay detailed study. - -One or two examples may be cited from Shakespeare—the first being -Constance, in “King John.” Dr. Bucknill, without the least hesitation, -styles her mad,—but he is a physician. Shakespeare, who may be -supposed to have known better, represents her as passionate by nature, -and half-demented with grief. But she is never more than half-crazy, -always retaining sufficient of her native strength of will to control -her wonderful imagination. Her own explanation of her conduct: - - “Grief fills the room up of my absent child,”[158:1] - -is quite sufficient. Her reply to Pandulph’s accusation, - - “Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow,”[158:2] - -is conclusive proof that she is to be regarded as sane. She does -not, like many a lunatic, merely protest that she is not mad; she -gives what, according to the standard of the day, would pass as clear -evidence of her sanity: - - “I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine; - My name is Constance; I was Geffrey’s wife; - Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost! - I am not mad; I would to heaven I were! - For then, ’tis like I should forget myself . . . - If I were mad, I should forget my son, - Or madly think a babe of clouts were he. - I am not mad; too well, too well I feel - The different plague of each calamity.”[158:3] - -Constance, even when her blemishes are taken into account, is a sublime -figure. At times the poet’s instinct seems for a moment to fail him; -his touch is less sure and his Fury becomes dangerously like a common -scold. But at her best she is unsurpassed, and if we wonder at the -skill with which Shakespeare portrays and utilises true madness on the -stage, we must not forget to withhold a portion of our admiration for -his sure-footed walk on the border line. - -Timon of Athens, too, is a wonderful character—the wonder of the -play. A good-natured, generous and wealthy noble, he has attracted to -him crowds of parasites whom he calls friends, but who in reality do -nothing but receive his favours. At length he discovers their essential -baseness, and becoming, in his own words, “misanthropos” who “hates -mankind,”[159:1] leaves Athens, with oaths and curses, for a cave near -the sea-shore. There he ends his days—the manner of his death is -uncertain. His friends consider him beyond all doubt insane. A creditor -says that his debts “may well be called desperate ones, for a madman -owes ’em”;[159:2] others sum the matter up tersely by saying “Lord -Timon’s mad.”[159:3] Alcibiades excuses Timon’s behaviour on the ground -that - - “his wits - Are drown’d and lost in his calamities.”[159:4] - -Only Flavius, his faithful steward, gives no hint that he considers his -lord insane, though even he is struck with Timon’s unhappy condition, -so “full of decay and failing.”[159:5] Flavius, in this as in other -particulars, seems, like Ulysses, in “Troilus and Cressida” and other -characters in different plays, to be Shakespeare’s mouthpiece. There -is nothing in his representation of Timon which gives us cause to -impute madness to the protagonist. His state of mind is one of acute -depression, which we should call melancholia, were there any hint that -such a conception entered into the mind of the author. The condition of -Timon is not unlike that of Hamlet, and we could easily understand his -feigning madness to avoid the real evil coming upon him. - -If any further proof were needed that Timon is not a maniac his -speeches would suffice. The objection that “all satire upon the -hollowness of the world would lose much of its point if it came from -the lips of an undoubted lunatic,”[160:1] is perfectly valid. In “King -Lear” the speeches which contain the most sarcasm, as well as the most -poetry, are those of the earlier scenes, in which Lear has not yet -become entirely a maniac. This kind of speech is characteristic of -Timon to the end. His very last words, though lacking the force of the -first outburst, are equally coherent and contain far more poetry: - - “Come not to me again: but say to Athens, - Timon hath made his everlasting mansion - Upon the beached verge of the salt flood; - Who once a day with his embossed froth - The turbulent surge shall cover; thither come - And let my gravestone be your oracle. - Lips, let sour words go by and language end: - What is amiss plague and infection mend! - Graves only be men’s works and death their gain! - Sun, hide thy beams! Timon hath done his reign.”[161:1] - -A character far more repulsive, but depicted with the greatest force, -is Malefort Senior, of Massinger’s “Unnatural Combat.” Malefort is an -Admiral of Marseilles who is challenged by his apostate son to a duel -and comes off victorious, the son being slain. Shortly afterwards, -Theocrine, Malefort’s daughter, is sought in marriage by the son of the -Governor; the father consents, but his strange extravagances towards -her, as he loads her with jewels, riches and a superfluity of caresses, -is generally commented upon, and before long it appears that he has -fallen in love with her. The remainder of the plot hastens to the -catastrophe, Theocrine being dishonoured and virtually murdered by a -false friend of her father’s. Malefort himself is persecuted by ghosts, -and is finally killed by a flash of lightning. - -A modern author would no doubt represent such a character as Malefort -as suffering from some mental disease, but Massinger appears to have -considered the unnatural passion of the father for his daughter as -the fruit of the unnatural combat in which he kills his son. He cares -more for the development of this idea than for the mental condition -of Malefort, who speaks, in one place, of his son’s blood as growing -upon him like Hercules’ poisoned shirt, though he seems also to feel an -inward cause of his passion which he cannot explain. Montreville, the -false friend, supposes that he may be mad, and recommends: - - “A deep-read man, that can with charms and herbs - Restore you to your reason.”[162:1] - -But from the general character of the play it is easy to see that he is -not considered insane. - -Here, then, we have an attempt made to subject an outrageous and -unnatural passion, the manifestations of which bear at times the -closest resemblance to mania, to the dramatic treatment of tragedy. -That Massinger has wholly succeeded, few would be rash enough to -assert. He has given us a grim and ghastly picture, full of brute -strength but wanting in that higher power which restrains and subdues. -He has created a character at times human, always terrible, but only -partially effective in the highest sense of the word. - -It is probable that if Constance and Malefort had been portrayed -as mad and not merely as possessed by an overpowering passion, the -result in each case would have been a considerable dramatic gain. -The death of the Lady Constance “in a frenzy”—like the deaths of -Lady Macbeth and the Queen in “Cymbeline”—is only reported by a -messenger. Had that frenzy actually been depicted, the result would -have been a weakening of the whole plot, but a decided increase in -the effectiveness of Constance. In the two plays which we shall now -consider, a comparatively poor theme is treated in such a way that the -passion portrayed is heightened,—without being raised, however, to the -level of madness. It is interesting to speculate on the result had this -been done—whether the madness would have elevated the drama or whether -the paucity or the inconsequence of the theme would have debased the -presentation of insanity. - -Grimaldi, the remorse-stricken renegade of Massinger’s play “The -Renegado,” who first immures a young girl, and afterwards repents, is -reduced in the fourth act to a state approaching insanity. He is a -poor sort of creature, at any rate until the concluding portion of the -play, where he contrives a remarkable stratagem which brings about the -dénouement. His remorse bears many of the signs of madness, and indeed -may have been intended for such by the author. For days he has taken no -food; the mention of the words “church” and “high altar” increases his -melancholy; his speech ends ever with “those dreadful words damnation -and despair.”[163:1] His “ravings” lead him to contemplate all kinds of -extravagances; he would do a “bloody justice” on himself, pull out his -eyes, lop off his legs, and give his body to those whom he has injured. -He does none of these things, however,—a Jesuit priest, habited like a -Bishop, curing him by the very simple means of granting him absolution. -The wild ravings give place to calmer expressions of contrition and -he goes off with a riming couplet! It is unnecessary to follow him; -one only wishes that the extreme nature of his remorse had not made it -advisable for us to include such a creature, for whom little can be -felt but contempt. - -Our last example is Memnon, in Fletcher’s play, “The Mad Lover.” Here -is a character for whom we cannot help entertaining some regard, but we -are at a loss to know what exactly to make of him. If he is really mad, -as seems at first sight unlikely, it is a very unreal kind of madness, -with more dramatic purpose than realism. One of the characters, -indeed, calls him “stupid mad,” and the term is not an inapt one. We -should be inclined to group him with the pretenders, but for three -considerations. Firstly, he never declares nor even hints to anyone -that he is not what he seems, as Hamlet does to Horatio and as Memnon -himself might with perfect ease have done—for example, to Siphax. Then -his recovery, however sudden, complete and unreal, is only the sort -of thing one would expect from Fletcher, and may be left out of the -question. Lastly, in the scene where he refuses the whore, it is true -that he shews considerable sagacity and discrimination. Nevertheless -it is no more than has actually been found in “cases” arising from -the same cause as Memnon’s. Yet obviously, as we shall see, the mad -lover is not mad in the acceptation of the word then common, and the -hypothesis of an abnormal passion will meet the case, better perhaps -than if we consider our hero either mad or sane. - -The plot has already been sketched, and a few references should make -this statement clear. The lover’s rude courtship is the fruit of long -campaignings and absence from court; when he is told by his friend -of the strange impression he has made he speaks perfectly rationally -and merely becomes confirmed in his purpose. The extravagant idea of -cutting out his heart is the first sign of the strength of his passion. -Yet his soliloquy: - - “’Tis but to die. Dogs do it, ducks with dabbling, - Birds sing away their souls, and babies sleep ’em . . .”[165:1] - -is spoken in a temper quite unlike the madman’s. His argument might -even by some be considered valid: “For in the other world she is bound -to have me,” he says, “Her princely word is past.” When others enter, -he grows wilder, and throughout the play talks in the most extravagant -vein, more particularly to the surgeon whom he tries to persuade to cut -out his heart. “Here I am, sir,” says Memnon, - - “Come, look upon me, view the best way boldly; - Fear nothing, but cut home. If your hand shake, sirrah, - Or any way deface my heart i’ the cutting, - Make the least scratch upon it . . . . - . . . I’ll slice thee to the soul. . . . - I will not have you smile, sirrah, when you do it, - As though you cut a lady’s corn; ’tis scurvy. - Do me it, as thou dost thy prayers, seriously.”[166:1] - -Here is a man whose mind is certainly in an abnormal condition, and, -whatever the precise nature of that condition may be, it alone gives -to the play the least vestige of probability. If Memnon were sane, the -play would be absurd; if he were mad, then madness would once more be -degraded. As it is, he is not an unpleasing fellow; at times he is -even touched with pathos: any verdict on him would assuredly be more -favourable than a just verdict on the play as a whole. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[150:1] Dr. Faustus, l. 1419, etc. (Oxford text.) - -[151:1] The insanity of Ann Ratcliff, in this play, may also be -noticed, though it is of the same rude type as that of Greene’s -Orlando. “See, see, see,” she cries, “the Man in the Moon has built a -new windmill, and what running there’s from all quarters of the city, -to learn the art of grinding.” The only feature of interest in her -frenzy is the expression of physical pain which we noticed in “King -Lear.” Her ribs are like to break, and “there’s a Lancashire horn-pipe -in my throat. Hark how it tickles it, with Doodle, doodle, doodle, -doodle,” etc. - -[152:1] With Macbeth might be compared two other remorse-stricken -murderers in little known plays. Glapthorne’s “Albertus Wallenstein” -is the story of a man who causes his son and his son’s betrothed to -be killed and is then haunted by his crimes. His soul “is shaken with -a nipping frost”; he mistakes his son’s page for a ghost and murders -him; after this false visions of spirits are ever before him. Only -when mortally wounded by conspirators is his mind at rest. In Denham’s -“Sophy” (which is in spirit outside our period, though it was acted in -1641), Abbas, King of Persia, is likewise tormented by the ghosts of -those whom he has murdered. Abbas, unlike Macbeth and Wallenstein, is -quite a maniac, and does not recover his senses before his death. - -[152:2] cf. “Macbeth,” v., 5, 9, etc. “I have almost forgot the taste -of fears . . .” - -[152:3] Act ii., Scene 1. - -[153:1] “Macbeth,” ii., 3, 32-3. - -[153:2] Ibid., ii., 2, 35, etc. - -[153:3] “Mad Folk,” etc., p. 20. - -[154:1] Ibid., p. 24. - -[154:2] “Macbeth,” iii., 4, 109. - -[154:3] “Mad Folk,” etc., p. 29. - -[155:1] “Macbeth,” v., 2, 13. - -[155:2] Ibid., v., 2, 37-8. - -[158:1] “King John,” iii., 4, 93. - -[158:2] l. 43. - -[158:3] ll. 45, etc. - -[159:1] “Timon of Athens,” iv., 3, 53. - -[159:2] Ibid., iii., 4, 101-2. - -[159:3] Ibid., iii., 6, 129. - -[159:4] Ibid., iv., 3, 88. - -[159:5] Ibid., iv., 3, 465. - -[160:1] Raised and disputed by Bucknill, “Mad Folk,” etc., p. 259. - -[161:1] “Timon of Athens,” v., 1, 217, etc. - -[162:1] “The Unnatural Combat,” iv., 1. - -[163:1] “The Renegado,” iv., 1. - -[165:1] “The Mad Lover,” ii., 1. - -[166:1] Ibid., iii., 2. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -MAD FOLK IN COMEDY AND TRAGEDY. - -(vi.) THE PRETENDERS. - - “I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I - know a hawk from a handsaw.” - - (“_Hamlet._”) - - -Last of all in the long train of madmen which has now almost passed -us come the Pretenders—characters who have feigned insanity for -some purpose. We need not, of course, devote much space here to -pseudo-lunatics like Morose in “The Silent Woman,” Bellamont in -“Northward Ho,” Malvolio and Christopher Sly. These are all sane enough -and have no wish to be thought otherwise. They are victimised by the -pretences of others, and shew none of the signs which were supposed -to characterise insanity. Thus they have small interest for us and no -place in the present section. - -A somewhat different example may be taken from Day’s “Law -Tricks,”[167:1] where Polymetes, son of the reigning Duke, pretends, on -his father’s sudden return from a long journey, to be deeply immersed -in his studies, in order to avert the Duke’s reproaches for his neglect -and loose living. His page, a boy “worth his weight in pearl,” comes -to the Duke with a cock-and-bull story about an “English poet” who is -with the Prince. This is presently supplemented by Julio, who explains -that “the boy is lunatic.” His description of the supposed origin -of the lunacy is most interesting. “Coming abruptly to the Prince’s -chamber about some ordinary service, I found him in his study and a -company of bottle-nosed devils dancing the Irish hay about him, which -on the sudden so started the poor boy as he clean lost his wits, and -ever since talks thus idle as your Excellence hath heard him.” The -“studies” of Polymetes, it later appears, are in astrology! - -The “true Pretenders”—if the term may be allowed—have on the other -hand considerable interest, and are well worthy of attention. Among -other things we may take into consideration the intention with which -they are portrayed, how far they fulfil that intention, how closely -they counterfeit insanity—if any such attempt is really made,—and -what worth they have as characters—how nearly, in other words, they -resemble men and women. - -Beginning at the bottom of the scale, let us take Middleton’s -“Changeling,” a play already studied, in which Antonio, the -“Changeling” of the piece, counterfeits idiocy, and Franciscus his -companion, pretends to be a madman. Their devices, which form the -substance of a somewhat coarse underplot, are not successful. This -would surprise nobody; the intention of the author (or authors) being -mainly comic relief, little care is shewn and the characters are -almost worthless. Franciscus says in the last scene, “I was changed -from a little wit to be stark mad”; and Antonio, “I was changed too -from a little ass as I was to a great fool as I am!”[169:1] The last -statement we can take literally. For, after all, idiocy is fairly easy -to counterfeit, and he would be a fool indeed who could not do at least -equally well. Franciscus is rather better, and might really be very -effective on the stage. He is supposed to have “run mad for love,” and -was a “pretty poet” till the muses forsook him. He discourses most -appropriately of “Titania” and “flowery banks,” invokes his imaginary -mistress, and pledges her in imaginary wine.[169:2] He succeeds in -extorting the pity of Isabella with his ravings. The least spark -sets him alight; the mere mention of “Luna” is sufficient for him to -rhapsodise upon, and he works himself up to a state of violence which -has to be calmed by the whip. His snatches of song are equally true -to life. But he does not re-appear for any length of time after this -scene, and he never again reaches the same level of excellence. Apart -from this skill in counterfeit Franciscus appears to have no character -worthy of the name, and is therefore of small importance. - -Something has already been said of the shopkeeper’s wife, Tormiella, -of Dekker’s tragi-comedy “Match me in London”; here, as in “The -Changeling,” and as in many another minor play, the feigned madness is -utilised for the plot and makes little difference to the character. -We have seen that Dekker has shewn considerable skill in weaving this -pretended madness into the plot as well as in introducing it at a -favourable place. But the scene is so short, and its place in the play -of such relatively small importance, that we need do no more here than -repeat that the “feigning” is well done and serves its purpose. - -Space may also be found for Dol in Jonson’s “Alchemist.” She goes mad -for the benefit of Sir Epicure Mammon in the fourth act of the play, -but unfortunately the learned dramatist infuses little probability into -her feigning. She is not so successful a lunatic as Quarlous, though -her task is certainly less simple. She appears before Mammon “in her -fit of raving” to discourse of “Alexander’s death,” the “communion of -vowels and consonants,” “Pythagoras,” “the tongue of Eber and Javan” -and so forth. The alleged reason for this is given us earlier in the -play in a speech by Face already quoted.[170:1] - -In the “Honest Whore,”[171:1] Bellafront, for her own purposes, -feigns madness. Her pretence is skilful, though Friar Anselmo does not -consider her dangerous. “How now, huswife,” he says good-humouredly, -“whether gad you?” “A-nutting forsooth,” answers Bellafront, “How do -you, gaffer? How do you, gaffer? there’s a French curt’sy for you too.” -“Do you not know me?” she enquires. “No,” reply all. “What are they?” -asks Anselmo, “come tell me, what are they?” Her answer reminds us of -“Hamlet.” “They’re fish-wives,” she says, “will you buy any gudgeons?” -At a later stage in the proceedings, she is anxious to tell everyone’s -fortunes and demands sugar-plums as a reward. This madness, however, is -not without method, for the fortune-telling leads to discoveries and -explanations. When at last Matheo, whom Bellafront wishes to marry, -declares that if her wits are restored he will consent, she at once -reveals her sanity: - - “Matheo, thou art mine. - I am not mad; but put on this disguise - Only for you.” - -We now come without any further slips of prolixity to the only two -pretenders for whom we can entertain the least enthusiasm—to the -classical examples of feigned madness in English Drama, Edgar and -Hamlet. - -Edgar is represented as simulating “Poor Tom” of Bedlam, one of the -lunatics who roamed about the countryside, possessed by the “foul -fiend,” and dependent upon such charity as kindly hearts might prompt. -How well he counterfeits need only be suggested. It is, after all, an -easy matter for an author to portray feigned madness for a scene or two -with something like accuracy. But what a genius is required to lead his -pretender, so to say, “through fire and through flame,” place him in -all kinds of situations, cause him to change his disguise from lunatic -to peasant, then back to lunatic again, marking all the time by subtle -touches the most delicate shades of expression. The burthen of his cry, -as one would expect, is “Poor Tom’s a-cold. . . . The foul fiend follows -me.” Persistently he raves and consistently, but at times “the natural -touch” overcomes him, - - “My tears begin to take his part so much - They mar my counterfeiting.”[172:1] - -An even more wonderful effect of art is pointed out by Mr. Cowden -Clarke. Gloster, now blind, would seem to recognise amidst the wild -ravings of his son “some tone or inflection in Edgar’s voice . . . and -he links (his son’s conduct) with that of Lear’s daughters. Edgar, -instinctively feeling this, perseveres with his Bedlam cry, to drown -the betrayed sound of his own voice and maintain the impression of his -assumed character.” If this is really Shakespeare’s art and not the -imagination of the critic—as some might think it to be—it is but one -more illustration of his dramatic genius. - -Apart from such details as these, the character of Edgar, especially -during his feigned madness, is a genuine masterpiece. At times during -the play he has certainly some of the frigidity—closely allied to -a quality which is dangerously like self-righteousness—which marks -Shakespeare’s own Isabella. But in these scenes of madness he is all -tenderness and forgiveness. His compassion on his blinded father we -feel the more keenly in contrast with Gloster’s own conduct and the -ingratitude of Lear’s children. Edgar is Shakespeare at his best and -truest—he rings true—we may even say that he stands for Truth itself. -And thus his feigned madness is no ordinary stage-device requisitioned -by an unmanageable plot. It has uses connected with the plot, indeed, -but beyond these it brings out characteristics of the man which endear -him to the most hostile spectator. - -Lastly we come to Hamlet and his feigned madness. Like most of the -Pretenders he is introduced into a play where real madness also plays -a part, but unlike any of them he is actually in a condition verging -on madness. Possibly it is by a kind of self-preservative instinct -that he chooses that disguise for his purpose of deceiving the King. -Fortunately he is able to prevent his mind actually giving way, and so -he defeats the King’s designs, seeing “a cherub that sees them.” He -shrinks from nothing; his demeanour towards those whom he loves, and -especially towards Ophelia, fully bears out his supposed affliction. He -appears with doublet all unbraced, - - “No hat upon his head, his stockings foul’d, - Ungarter’d and down-gyved to his ancle; - Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other, - And with a look so piteous in purport - As if he had been loosed out of hell - To speak of horrors.”[174:1] - -His attitude and his words seem to confirm the judgment of Polonius: -“This is the very ecstasy of love.”[174:2] He is caught in no trap. The -presence of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern does not suffice to - - “Get from him why he puts on this confusion - Grating so harshly all his days of quiet - With turbulent and dangerous lunacy.”[174:3] - -Only the faithful Horatio knows that; elsewhere Hamlet “keeps aloof” -from the topic with true madman’s instinct, whenever his state is -mentioned. The King pretends to Polonius that while the disease is not -so serious as it seems, only Hamlet’s absence from Denmark can prevent -it from becoming so. In this way he gets him removed. But throughout -the play, whether in his attempts to deceive the Court or in his -foiling of the King’s design, Hamlet acts with what might be called the -craft of true madness. - -It is unnecessary to insist on the complexity and the lifelike truth -of Hamlet’s character. No personage in the world’s drama has excited -more criticism. The Prince of Denmark is on all sides acknowledged to -be supreme. And for that reason it is needless to attempt to prove what -otherwise would be the main contention of this chapter—that Hamlet is -in every way the greatest of the Pretenders whom we have studied, and, -indeed, of the madmen, true and false, who form the subject of this -essay. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[167:1] Act iv., scene 2. - -[169:1] “The Changeling,” v., 3. - -[169:2] Ibid., iii., 3. - -[170:1] Page 14, note 2. - -[171:1] “Honest Whore,” v., 13. - -[172:1] “King Lear,” iii., 6, 63-4. - -[174:1] “Hamlet,” ii., 1, 78, etc. - -[174:2] Ibid., l. 102. - -[174:3] Ibid., iii., 1, 2-4. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - -CONCLUSION.—SHAKESPEARE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. - - “All pains the immortal spirit must endure, - All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow, - Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.” - - (_Matthew Arnold: “Shakespeare.”_) - - -In such a study as this, dealing largely with the work of Shakespeare’s -contemporaries, it is to be hoped that it will not be out of place to -centre the concluding portion around Shakespeare himself. It is but one -aspect of our study to compare our greatest dramatist and his fellows -with respect to their presentation of madness, and it is throwing a -dim light on Shakespeare’s greatness to make the comparison in such a -trivial sphere. Our conclusion is thus doubly insignificant, yet we -enter upon it nevertheless. For if it tells us nothing that is new, it -serves at least to strengthen our present convictions, and this from an -entirely new standpoint. We shall, then, compare Shakespeare and his -contemporaries from three points of view: in their general ideas and -sentiments concerning madness, in their dramatic use of madness, and in -their representation of mad folk as complete figures, the Elizabethan -dramatists bow one and all before their master. - - -_General Ideas and Sentiments._ - -1. To a certain extent, in madness as in other departments of life, -Shakespeare took over the general notions of his day and introduced -them fairly liberally into his work. He could hardly do otherwise, -for the subject of lunacy was so commonplace and found so ready a way -into ordinary conversation that the dramatist who, like Shakespeare, -mirrored the life and speech of every day, would find himself, even -against his will, borrowing figures from Bedlam. Many of these we -have already noticed; a very few more will show the diversity of the -references. The shipwrecked mariners in “The Tempest,” “felt a fever of -the mad and play’d Some tricks of desparation.” Theseus speaks of “The -lunatic, the lover and the poet” as being “of imagination all compact.” -Rosalind mentions “the dark house and the whip,” Romeo the prison, the -bonds and the torments, Othello the popular view of the influence of -the moon. This breadth of treatment in casual allusions alone might -be contrasted with the meagre work of his contemporaries. But we must -pass on to notice that Shakespeare himself was far in advance of his -time, seeing in some way features of insanity which were commonly -overlooked, and using remedies which we consider quite “modern,” even -to-day. His tests for insanity are certainly somewhat crude, but they -occur rather as allusions, where, as we have seen, he adopted the ideas -of his day, than in full-length portraits, in which he is remarkably -exact. A physician of the last century[178:1] remarks on Lear: “Lear’s -is a genuine case of insanity from the beginning to the end, such as -we often see in aged persons. On reading it we cannot divest ourselves -of the idea that it is a real case correctly reported.” This is high -praise; and although Shakespeare hardly requires such commendation, it -is interesting to notice the small details which are true to life. We -have such phrases in “King Lear” as - - “O Lear, Lear, Lear! - Beat at this gate that let thy folly in, - And thy dear judgment out,”[178:2] - -where the old king beats his head, as - - “O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! - Keep me in temper; I would not be mad,”[178:3] - -as: - - “O how this mother swells up towards my heart!”[178:4] - -“My wits begin to turn,” “I am cut to the brains,” and the like. These -are touches which can be paralleled by none other of the authors who -have been dealt with in this study. They are the result of a shrewd, -penetrating observation applied to those mental phenomena which were -displayed before the gaze of any who cared to notice them. If we would -contrast genius with mediocrity, we have only to look at the general -attitude of Shakespeare’s contemporaries towards madness and their -representation of it. Take the scene of Lear’s partial restoration to -reason. With its soft, sweet music, with the loving faces surrounding -the sleeping sufferer, with the gradual re-awakening of sanity—what a -contrast there is between this and the metamorphosis of Memnon, the mad -lover, or even the rude art of Ford when he pictures the restoration of -Meleander. - - -_Dramatic use of Madness._ - -2. The superiority of Shakespeare, again, in his dramatic use of -madness! If there is one thing more than another which arrests a -student of this subject it is Shakespeare’s refusal to sacrifice so -grand a passion to the interests of comedy, to expose it as a butt for -the jests of the groundlings and a subject for idle conversation. His -madmen are among his sublimest figures; he introduces them, not after -the manner of Dekker and Middleton, as characters of light comedy, -but as the agents or the victims of tragedy, “more sinned against -than sinning.” They contribute to no coarse underplot, they are not -introduced to enhance the supposed terrors of melodrama—they form part -of the plot itself, are inextricably interwoven with it, colour its -very texture, determine its whole character. This is no imagination, -but sheer fact. “Lear” _is_ the mad king. The word “Hamlet” calls up -an image, either of the hero’s “antic disposition” or (which is still -more likely) of the lonely pathos of Ophelia in her last passion. -Think, on the contrary, of Shakespeare’s contemporaries. There is -Fletcher, whose Mad Lover certainly colours the play, but what a play -of farce and absurdity! There is Webster, whose sole use of the madman -is for the pageantry, and for the intensification by means of it of -the effect of his catastrophe. Or there is Dekker, who paints the -interior of a Bedlam, for the same reason as elsewhere he leads us -into a brothel-house—for the sake of a so-called realism. Or, if you -prefer it, there is Middleton, whose madmen supply material for the -introduction of a trivial underplot and a few coarse jests and songs. -Nowhere, except perhaps in Ford, who appears to have been attracted by -insanity, to have studied it and to have painted it with some insight -and sympathy, is there any approach in this body of drama to the -sustained excellence of Shakespeare. - - -_Mad Folk._ - -3. The same fact emerges when we take the complete figures and consider -them, as has been done, from a purely literary standpoint. We need -not go over the whole story again; it will be sufficient if we cast -our eye back over each group and seize upon the most prominent figures -in it. Take Trouble-all, Meleander, Shattillion, and the Passionate -Madman, and, following the prescription which Paulina gives to Leontes -in the “Winter’s Tale,” choose the best traits from each, concentrate, -add, improve—and you are still far from the august figure of Lear. -Surround Ophelia with the heroines of Beaumont, Fletcher, and Ford. -Will anyone assert that either Aspatia, or the Gaoler’s Daughter, or -Penthea approaches the fair Ophelia? Take the Pretenders: where have -you so admirable a pretence as that of Hamlet, a pretence so realistic -that many critics of to-day maintain that it is reality, and most -allow that, if not actually mad, the Prince of Denmark was perilously -near a state of insanity? It is certainly not in the antics of the boy -of Polymetes, or of the fool “Tony” represented in “The Changeling.” -Considered from this point of view alone, there is no pretender who -does the thing so well as Hamlet,—as a masterpiece of literary art no -character can touch him. If anyone could be said to have the slightest -claim to do so it would be Shakespeare’s own Edgar, less important in -relation to the plot, far less universal in his appeal to mankind as a -representative of humanity, yet perhaps more wonderfully impressive in -the place he occupies than any other personage could possibly be. - -Or let us look at that unimportant yet not wholly negligible group of -persons who have been made the victims of others, written down as asses -by the world at large, and are cowering over there in a corner. Even -here we see that Shakespeare’s figures are by far the most noteworthy. -Morose is not uninteresting, and the dismay of Bellamont, the -“reverent” poet, as he is apprehended for a madman and seems to be in -danger of confinement in Bedlam, is quite a diverting incident in the -plot. But compare them with Shakespeare’s figures. Here is Christopher -Sly, “old Sly’s son of Burton-heath, by birth a pedlar, by education a -card-maker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present profession -a tinker.” There is individuality here, conveyed in a few lines,—which -are quite sufficient, notwithstanding, to stamp the character with the -impress of Shakespeare’s seal. Better still, take Malvolio, who is -accused of madness for a jest, but whose character as previously drawn -would make an admirable reason for the jest being taken seriously. So -much does he take things to heart that Sir Toby thinks he may actually -go mad through disappointment. “Why, thou hast put him in such a dream -that when the image of it leaves him he must run mad.”[183:1] Thorough -as always, true to life, this is very Shakespeare: none other can -approach him in his own arena of the stage. - - * * * * * - -The last figure seems to have disappeared from the stage, the unmeaning -groups of madmen have dispersed, and with them the crowd. We turn to -go. Yet, as for a moment we look back on the scene we have just left, -a solitary figure meets our eye. It is no madman, no pretender, and no -dupe. It is just the Fool, the Fool unparalleled, the Fool of Lear. Ere -his master’s afflictions could drive him mad like that master, he went -“to bed at noon.” Now he returns to remind us of his other master,—of -his creator,—who painted him on the same canvas which holds Edgar and -Lear, a figure - - “sublime - With tears and laughter for all time.” - -With no more fitting words, inasmuch as they describe not alone the -Fool but all Shakespeare’s mad folk, could we close our study. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[178:1] Dr. Brigham. - -[178:2] “King Lear,” i., 4, 292. - -[178:3] Ibid., i., 5, 50. - -[178:4] Ibid., ii., 4, 53, and passim. - -[183:1] “Twelfth Night,” ii., 5, 211. - - - - -BIBLIOGRAPHY. - - -1. HISTORY AND CRITICISM. - - The Cambridge History of English Literature. - - English Dramatic Literature—A. W. Ward. - - History of English Poetry—W. J. Courthope. - - The Mad Folk of Shakespeare—Dr. Bucknill. - - Notes on Shakespeare in various editions—notably the Variorum. - - Shakespearean Tragedy—A. C. Bradley. - - Shakespeare, his mind and art—Ed. Dowden. - - Introductions to the various editions mentioned below under - “Drama.” - - Notes and Lectures—S. T. Coleridge. - - Francis Beaumont—G. C. Macaulay. - - The Oxford Dictionary—passim. - - Encyclopædia Britannica—s.v. Insanity. - - History of the Insane in the British Isles—Tuke. - - The Psychology of Insanity—B. Hart. - - Survey of London—Stow, ed. Kingsford. - - “Have with you to Saffron Walden”—Nash. - - “The Belman of London”—Dekker. - - “Anatomie of the Bodie of Man”—Vicary. - - “Nymphidia”—Drayton. - - “The Battle of Agincourt”—Drayton. - - -2. DRAMA. - -The Works of: - - Shakespeare Globe Edn. (and others). - Lyly edn. 1858. - Marlowe Oxford Press. - Beaumont & Fletcher ed. Dyce (11 vol.). - Massinger ed. Gifford (4 vol.). - Webster Mermaid Edn. - Ford ed. Gifford (2 vol.). - Middleton ed. Bullen (8 vol.). - Dekker ed. Pearson (4 vol.). - Jonson Mermaid Edn. - Marston ed. Bullen. - Shirley ed. Dyce; ed. Gifford. - Brome edn. 1873. - Day ed. Bullen. - Chettle: Hoffman ed. 1852. - -N.B.—References are to the editions named above. Specific notes are -given where possible to all quotations directly bearing on the subject -of the essay. - - - - -INDEX OF WORKS DEALT WITH OR QUOTED. - -[_The letters ff. denote that the work is dealt with in some detail in -the pages referred to._] - - - “Albertus Wallenstein.” 152. - - “Alchemist, The.” 14, 170. - - “American Journal of Insanity.” 67. - - “Anatomie of the Bodie of Man, The.” 13. - - “Anatomy of Melancholy, The.” 8-9, 27, 126. - - “Antipodes, The.” 92, 134 ff. - - “As You Like It.” 6, 28, 137, 139, 142-4, 177. - - - “Ball, The.” 12. - - “Bartholomew Fair.” 23, 53-4, 113 ff., 181. - - “Battle of Agincourt, The.” 5. - - “Belman of London, The.” 26. - - “Bird in a Cage, The.” 29. - - “Broken Heart, The.” 51, 87, 128, 181. - - “Bulwark of Defence, A.” 14. - - - “Caliban upon Setebos.” 121-2. - - “Changeling, The.” 12, 25, 32 ff., 48, 50, 58, 124, 168 ff., 181. - - “City Wit, The.” 12. - - “Comedy of Errors, The.” 15, 20, 52. - - “Compendious Pygment, etc., A.” 27. - - “Coronation, The,” 12. - - “Cymbeline.” 52, 119, 120, 125, 127, 162. - - - “Dr. Faustus.” 150. - - “Duchess of Malfi, The.” 18, 21, 25, 41, 46, 51, 103 ff. - - - “Elizabethan Literature” (Saintsbury). 90. - - “Emperor of the East.” 14. - - “English Dramatic Literature” (Ward). 56, 89. - - “English Moor, The.” 11. - - “Epicene.” 19, 23, 25, 52, 167, 182. - - - “Færie Queene, The.” 87. - - “Fair Quarrel, A.” 11. - - - “Gentleman Usher, The.” 119. - - - “Hamlet.” 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 47, 49, 50, 51, 56, 60, 75 ff., 81, - 82, 87, 88, 89, 91, 97, 107, 129, 144 ff., 160, 164, 173 ff., - 180, 181. - - “Have with you to Saffron Walden.” 122. - - “Henry VI., Part II.” 14. - - “Hoffman, The Tragedy of.” 96 ff., 119-20. - - “Honest Whore, The.” 20, 23, 29, 32 ff., 58, 171. - - - “Julius Cæsar.” 52, 149. - - - “King John.” 4, 21, 52, 128, 139, 144, 157 ff., 162. - - “King Lear.” 3, 10-11, 26, 27, 37, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 60, - 66 ff., 80, 93, 95, 121, 122 ff., 151, 160, 172 ff., 178-9, 180, - 181, 183. - - “Knight of the Burning Pestle, The.” 136. - - - “Law Tricks.” 16, 167-8. - - “Lover’s Melancholy, The.” 18, 21, 23, 24, 55, 91 ff., 128, 179, - 181. - - “Love’s Labour’s Lost.” 5, 35, 138, 140. - - - “Macbeth.” 9, 43, 47, 149, 151 ff., 162. - - “Mad Folk of Shakespeare, The.” 70, 79, 141, 142, 153, 154-5. - - “Mad Lover, The.” 7, 54-5, 164 ff., 179. - - “Maid’s Tragedy, The.” 128 ff., 134, 138, 139, 181. - - “Match me in London.” 16, 55, 56-8, 170. - - “Measure for Measure.” 76, 173. - - “Merchant of Venice, The.” 82, 137, 139, 141, 144. - - “Merry Wives of Windsor, The.” 16. - - “Midsummer Night’s Dream, A.” 6, 177. - - “Mother Bombie.” 120-1. - - “Much Ado about Nothing.” 15, 28. - - - “New Way to Pay Old Debts, A.” 53, 102 ff. - - “Nice Valour, The.” See “Passionate Madman.” - - “Noble Gentleman, The.” 105, 108 ff., 116-7, 132, 134, 181. - - “Northern Lass, The.” 30, 127, 132 ff. - - “Northward Ho!” 32 ff., 48, 52, 167. - - “Nymphidia,” 17. - - - “Old Wives’ Tale, The.” 65. - - “Orlando Furioso.” 61 ff., 151. - - “Othello.” 12, 44, 85, 149, 177. - - - “Passionate Madman, The.” 105 ff., 134, 181. - - “Philaster.” 5, 19, 129, 131 ff., 138, 139. - - “Pilgrim, The.” 12, 32 ff., 48. - - “Politician, The.” 149. - - “Popish Impostures, A Dictionary of.” 11. - - - “Renegado, The.” 163-4. - - “Richard II.” 139, 142. - - “Romeo and Juliet.” 6, 14, 28, 177. - - - “Shakespeare, his Mind and Art.” 66. - - “Shakespearean Tragedy.” 122-3, 125, 148-9. - - “Silent Woman, The.” See “Epicene.” - - “Sophy, The.” 152. - - “Spanish Tragedy, The.” 62 ff. - - “Survey of London, A.” 31. - - - “Taming of the Shrew, The.” 17, 128, 167, 182. - - “Tempest, The.” 121, 177. - - “Timon of Athens.” 4, 159 ff., 161. - - “’Tis pity she’s a Whore.” 119. - - “Troilus and Cressida.” 6, 18, 125, 137, 139, 140-1, 159. - - “Twelfth Night.” 10, 21, 37, 52, 128, 139, 167, 182-3. - - “Two Noble Kinsmen, The.” 7, 49, 81 ff., 91, 97, 132, 134, 181. - - - “Unnatural Combat, The.” 161, 162. - - - “Very Woman, A.” 99 ff., 133 ff., 139. - - “Vulgar Errors.” 14. - - - “What you will” (Marston). 29. - - “Winter’s Tale, The.” 5, 181. - - “Witch, The.” 9. - - “Witch of Edmonton, The.” 151. - - - W. HEFFER & SONS LTD., - 104, HILLS ROAD, CAMBRIDGE. - - - - - * * * * * * - - - - -Transcriber’s note: - -Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the -original. Words with and without accents appear as in the original. - -Ellipses match the original. - -The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the -public domain. - -The Table of Contents’ entry for the Preface was added by the -Transcriber. - -The following corrections have been made to the original text: - - Page 14: “Romeo and Juliet” (iv., 3,[original has a period] - 47-8) - - On page 19, footnote anchor [19:3] has been added by the - Transcriber. - - Page 20: Guildenstern’s[original has “Guildernstern’s”] account - of Hamlet - - Page 31: mad-houses in the Seventeenth[original has - “Seventeeth”] Century - - Page 35: expressions of an idée[original has “idèe”] fixe - - Page 37: “You keep him here to teach him madness.”[quotation - mark missing in original] - - Page 55: melancholy of Palador, Prince of Cyprus,[comma missing - in original] - - Page 57: _King._ When?[original has exclamation point] - - Page 95: “[quotation mark missing in original]Sits on my heart - so heavy - - Page 143: unregenerate days.[143:1][original has “2”] - - Page 185: References are to the editions named above.[original - has a comma] - - Page 187: entry “Epicene.”[original has “Epicure.”] - - Page 187: entry “Færie[original has “Faerie”] Queene, The.” - - Page 187, entry “Hamlet.”: 173 ff.,[comma missing in original] - 180, 181 - - Page 188, entry “Philaster.”: 5, 19, 129,[original has a - semi-colon] 131 ff., 138, 139. - - [14:2] Act[original has extraneous period] iii. Sc. iv. - - [11:5] Ibid.,[original has two commas], iii., 5, 31. - - [74:4] Ibid., v., 3,[original has “.,”] 272-4. - - [77:2] Ibid., iv.,[comma missing in original] 5, 23, etc. - - [111:1] Ibid., iv.,[comma missing in original] 3. - - [141:3] “Merchant of Venice,” iv., 1, 114[original has - “1-114”], etc. - - [144:1] “Merchant of Venice,” i., 1, 91-2[original has “1-91, - 2”]. - - [151:1] may also be noticed, though[original has “thought”] it - is - - [159:2] Ibid., iii., 4, 101-2.[period missing in original] - - [174:1] “Hamlet,[comma missing in original]” ii., 1, 78, etc. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELIZABETHAN DRAMA AND ITS MAD FOLK*** - - -******* This file should be named 63896-0.txt or 63896-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/3/8/9/63896 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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- } /* small indent for second line of a dateline */ - -.notebox /* makes box around Transcriber's Notes */ - { margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; - margin-top: 5%; - margin-bottom: 5%; - padding: 1em; - border: solid black .1em; - } - -.largefont - { font-size: 120%; - } - -.covernote - { visibility: hidden; - display: none; - } - -@media handheld -{ - .covernote { - visibility: visible; - display: block; - } -} - - - h1.pgx { text-align: center; - clear: both; - font-weight: bold; - font-size: 190%; - margin-top: 0em; - padding-top: 0em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - word-spacing: 0em; - letter-spacing: 0em; - line-height: 1; } - h2.pgx { text-align: center; - clear: both; - font-weight: bold; - font-size: 135%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - word-spacing: 0em; - letter-spacing: 0em; - page-break-before: avoid; - line-height: 1; } - h3.pgx { text-align: center; - clear: both; - font-weight: bold; - font-size: 110%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - word-spacing: 0em; - letter-spacing: 0em; - line-height: 1; } - h4.pgx { text-align: center; - clear: both; - font-weight: bold; - font-size: 100%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - word-spacing: 0em; - letter-spacing: 0em; - line-height: 1; } - hr.pgx { width: 100%; - margin-top: 3em; - margin-bottom: 0em; - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; - height: 4px; - border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ - border-style: solid; - border-color: #000000; - clear: both; } - </style> -</head> -<body> -<h1 class="pgx" title="">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Elizabethan Drama and Its Mad Folk, by E. -Allison (Edgar Allison) Peers</h1> -<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States -and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no -restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it -under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this -eBook or online at <a -href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not -located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this ebook.</p> -<p>Title: Elizabethan Drama and Its Mad Folk</p> -<p> The Harness Prize Essay for 1913</p> -<p>Author: E. Allison (Edgar Allison) Peers</p> -<p>Release Date: November 27, 2020 [eBook #63896]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELIZABETHAN DRAMA AND ITS MAD FOLK***</p> -<p> </p> -<h4 class="pgx" title="">E-text prepared by Tim Lindell, Lisa Reigel,<br /> - and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> - (https://www.pgdp.net)<br /> - from page images generously made available by<br /> - Internet Archive<br /> - (https://archive.org)</h4> -<p> </p> -<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> - <tr> - <td valign="top"> - Note: - </td> - <td> - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/b24857087 - </td> - </tr> -</table> -<div class="notebox"> -<p class="tnhead">Transcriber’s Note:</p> -<p>A complete list of corrections as well as other notes <a href="#TN">follows</a> the text.</p> -</div> -<p> </p> -<hr class="pgx" /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<div class="title"> -<p class="firsttitle">ELIZABETHAN DRAMA AND<br /> -ITS MAD FOLK</p> -</div> - - - - -<hr class="newchapter" /> -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_colophon.png" alt="W. Heffer Sons Ltd. colophon" width="121" height="71" /> -</div> - - -<p class="tppublisher">LONDON AGENTS:<br /> -SIMPKIN, MARSHALL <abbr title="and">&</abbr> <span class="smcap"><abbr title="Company Limited">Co. Ltd.</abbr></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="newchapter" /> -<div class="title"> -<h1>ELIZABETHAN DRAMA<br /> -AND ITS MAD FOLK</h1> - -<p class="tpother">The Harness Prize Essay for 1913</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="tpother">BY</p> - -<p class="tpauthor">EDGAR ALLISON PEERS, <abbr title="Bachelor of Arts">B.A.</abbr></p> - -<p class="tpother">Late Scholar of Christ’s College, Cambridge.</p> - - -<p class="tpcopyright"><span class="smcap">Cambridge</span>:<br /> -W. HEFFER AND SONS <abbr title="Limited">LTD.</abbr><br /> -1914</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="newchapter" /> -<div class="title"> -<p class="dedication noindent">To<br /> -My Mother</p> -</div> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="newchapter" /> -<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2> -</div> - - -<table summary="Table of Contents" border="0"> - <tr> - <td class="tdleft"><abbr title="Chapter"><span class="allcapsc">CHAP.</span></abbr></td> - <td class="tdright" colspan="2"><span class="allcapsc">PAGE</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdlefthang" colspan="2"><span class="smcap"><a href="#PREFACE">Preface</a></span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdchapter"><abbr title="One">I.</abbr></td> - <td class="tdlefthang"><span class="smcap">Introductory</span></td> - <td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdchapter"><abbr title="Two">II.</abbr></td> - <td class="tdlefthang"><span class="smcap">The Presentation of Madness—from the Standpoint of History</span></td> - <td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_8">8</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdchapter"><abbr title="Three">III.</abbr></td> - <td class="tdlefthang"><span class="smcap">The Presentation of Madness—from the Standpoint of Literature</span></td> - <td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdchapter"><abbr title="Four">IV.</abbr></td> - <td class="tdlefthang"><span class="smcap">Mad Folk in Tragedy and Comedy</span>—(<abbr title="One">i</abbr>) <span class="smcap">The Maniacs</span></td> - <td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdchapter"><abbr title="Five">V.</abbr></td> - <td class="tdlefthang"><span class="smcap">Mad Folk in Tragedy and Comedy</span>—(<abbr title="Two">ii</abbr>) <span class="smcap">Imbecility</span></td> - <td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdchapter"><abbr title="Six">VI.</abbr></td> - <td class="tdlefthang"><span class="smcap">Mad Folk in Tragedy and Comedy</span>—(<abbr title="Three">iii</abbr>) <span class="smcap">Melancholy</span></td> - <td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdchapter"><abbr title="Seven">VII.</abbr></td> - <td class="tdlefthang"><span class="smcap">Mad Folk in Tragedy and Comedy</span>—(<abbr title="Four">iv</abbr>) <span class="smcap">Delusions, Hallucinations, and - other Abnormal States</span></td> - <td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_150">150</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdchapter"><abbr title="Eight">VIII.</abbr></td> - <td class="tdlefthang"><span class="smcap">Mad Folk in Tragedy and Comedy</span>—(<abbr title="Five">v</abbr>) <span class="smcap">The Pretenders</span></td> - <td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdchapter"><abbr title="Nine">IX.</abbr></td> - <td class="tdlefthang"><span class="smcap">Conclusion</span></td> - <td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_176">176</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="newchapter" /> -<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The bulk of this essay is the result of research work along lines -which, so far as the author knows, have not been previously traversed. -The arrangement and the general treatment of the work are therefore -original. Certain books, notably Tuke’s “History of the Insane in -the British Isles,” Bucknill’s “Mad Folk of Shakespeare,” Bradley’s -“Shakespearean Tragedy,” and Ward’s “English Dramatic Literature,” have -been of special utility in places where reference is made to them. The -critical judgments of these authors, however, have by no means always -been followed.</p> - -<p>The original title of the essay was “The Mad Folk of English Comedy -and Tragedy down to 1642.” It has been shortened for purposes of -convenience, and the term Elizabethan extended in order to take in a -few plays which belong to the next two reigns. The term is, however, -generally recognised to be an elastic one, and most of the plays dealt -with fall easily within it.</p> - -<p>Much of the revision of this work has been carried out under pressure -of other duties. I have been greatly helped in it by the criticisms and -suggestions of Professor G. Moore Smith, by the constant help of Mr. -N. G. Brett James, by some useful information given me by Mr. C. Ll. -Bullock, and especially by the kindness of my friend, Dr. J. Hamilton, -who has read the essay through in manuscript from the point of view -of the physician. Although I have not always taken up this standpoint -in dealing with my subject, I have tried at all times to give it due -consideration, for, as Ferdinand says in the “Duchess of Malfi,” -“Physicians are like kings: they brook no contradiction.”</p> - -<p class="author"><abbr title="Edgar Allison Peers">E. A. P.</abbr></p> - -<p class="dateline"><span class="smcap">Mill Hill</span>,<br /> -<span class="indentline2"><i>March, 1914</i>.</span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="newchapter" /> -<p><!-- Page 1 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.<br /> - -<small><span class="smcap">Introductory.</span></small></h2> -</div> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Shall I tell you why?</div> - <div class="line i1 indentq">Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they say every why hath a wherefore.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="attribution">(<i>Shakespeare: “<cite class="notag">Comedy of Errors</cite>.”</i>)</p> - - -<p>The jingling criticism of Dromio of Syracuse will ever recur to the -essayist on an unconventional subject. Lest any therefore should claim -of this essay that “in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor -reason,” excuse shall come prologue to the theme, and its “wherefore” -shall receive a moment’s merited attention. Of what utility, it may -be asked, can the study of certain insane persons appearing in early -modern drama be to the student of to-day? To this question let us -give a double answer. The study has a distinct historical value, for -from the mass of original documents which form the body of drama -under consideration, we may gather much of the progress which has -been made in the attitude of the country towards insanity, and hence -the increasing tendency towards a humane and intelligent outlook -upon disease in general. Our study is also of value from the point -of view of literature—partly as shewing the varying accuracy of our -<!-- Page 2 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>dramatists and the art with which they portrayed their mad folk and -introduced them into their plays, partly by selecting and exposing the -chief types of the mad folk themselves, considering them on their own -merits, as pieces of art of intrinsic literary value. This last will be -the chief business of the present essay.</p> - -<p>We shall follow the order above indicated, regarding the presentation -of madness successively from the standpoints of history and of -literature. Under the latter head we shall consider several general -questions before proceeding to isolate individual characters in turn. -Lastly, we shall endeavour, from the matter furnished us by these -plays, to extract some general conclusions.</p> - -<p>One proviso must be made before we can embark upon our subject. What, -for the purposes of this essay, is to be the criterion of madness? In -ordinary life, as we know, the border-land of the rational and the -irrational is but ill-defined. We cannot always tell whether mental -disease is actually present in a person whom we have known all our -lives, much less can we say when the pronounced eccentricity of a -stranger has passed the bourn which divides it from insanity. The -medical profession itself has not always been too wise where madness is -concerned; and where the profession is at fault, with every detail of -the case before it, how <!-- Page 3 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>can the layman aspire to success, with only -a few pages of evidence before him of a “case” propounded by another -layman of three centuries before? Were we to take the point of view -of the physician we should be plunged into a medical dissertation for -which we are both ill-equipped and ill-inclined.</p> - -<p>But there is another, and a far more serious objection, already hinted -at, to the adoption in this essay of the medical point of view. The -authors themselves were not physicians; in many cases, as will be -seen, they appear to have had but an imperfect technical knowledge -of insanity and its treatment; their ideas were based largely on the -loose and popular medical ideas of the Elizabethan age. If we are to -consider this subject as a department of literature we must adopt the -point of view of the dramatist, not of the practical physician. We -must, for the time, definitely break with those who enquire deeply and -seriously into the state of mind of every character in Shakespeare. In -dealing with “King Lear,” for example, we shall make no attempt to pry -behind the curtain five minutes before the opening of the play for the -purpose of detecting thus early some symptoms of approaching senile -decay. Nor shall we follow those who endeavour to carry the history of -Shylock beyond the limits of Shakespeare’s knowledge of him, in the -hope of <!-- Page 4 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>discovering whether he was true or false to the religion of -his fathers. The critic who peeps behind the scenes at such times as -these finds only the scene-shifters and the green room, where his nice -offence will soon receive appropriate comments!</p> - -<p>Our best plan, then, will be habitually to consider the plays from -the point of view which we take to be that of the author himself. -Prejudices will be put aside, and predispositions to premature -diagnoses resisted. Constance and Timon of Athens, with several -personages from Marlowe’s dramas, will be regarded (with some effort) -as sane, for the simple and quite adequate reason that they were so -regarded by their authors. The question whether or no Hamlet was -actually insane will, for the same reason, be dismissed in a few -words; while the many witches who haunt Elizabethan drama, and whose -prototypes afforded in nearly every case genuine examples of dementia, -will be heroically disregarded, as falling without the bounds of our -proposed theme.</p> - -<p>From the number of occurrences in this body of drama of such words -as “mad,” “madness,” “Bedlam,” “frantic,” and the like, it might be -supposed that there are more genuine mad folk than actually appear. A -few words will suffice to clear up this difficulty.</p> - -<p>The term “madness” is often used in a loose, <!-- Page 5 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>unmeaning sense,—in -phrases such as “Mad wench!”, somewhat resembling the equally -unmeaning slang of to-day. To insist on this point would probably -provoke the charge of a lack of the sense of humour, and insistence is -indeed unnecessary. Most readers of Shakespeare will recall Leontes’ -transport before the supposed statue of his wife, a transport which -he characterises as “madness”; Portia’s description of that “hare,” -“madness the youth”; Biron’s apostrophe:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i2h">“Behaviour, what wert thou</div> - <div class="line">Till this madman show’d thee?”<a name="FNanchor_5:1_1" id="FNanchor_5:1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_5:1_1" class="fnanchor">[5:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">and no less Shylock’s famous description of men that</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“are mad if they behold a cat.”<a name="FNanchor_5:2_2" id="FNanchor_5:2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_5:2_2" class="fnanchor">[5:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Those who are acquainted with “Philaster” may remember Megra’s -description of</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“A woman’s madness,</div> - <div class="line indentq">The glory of a fury,”<a name="FNanchor_5:3_3" id="FNanchor_5:3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_5:3_3" class="fnanchor">[5:3]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">and everyone has at some time or other lighted upon that kind of “fine -madness” which is the property of every true poet, and which Drayton, -attributing it to Marlowe, declares</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“rightly should possess a poet’s brain.”<a name="FNanchor_5:4_4" id="FNanchor_5:4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_5:4_4" class="fnanchor">[5:4]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Nowhere in these passages are we expected to see insanity, though -the last two are somewhat stronger than the others, and are typical -of <!-- Page 6 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>many places where “madness” is used for simple passion and for -inspiration respectively.</p> - -<p>In a very special sense, however, madness is used for the passion of -love, to such an extent that there is an actual gradation into madness -itself. Loosely, and often humorously, the lover is said to be mad for -the same reason as the lunatic. To quote Shakespeare once more—as he -is more familiar than many of his contemporaries—</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“The lunatic, the lover and the poet,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Are of imagination all compact.”<a name="FNanchor_6:1_5" id="FNanchor_6:1_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_6:1_5" class="fnanchor">[6:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">There is only a step between seeing “Helen’s beauty in a brow of -Egypt,”<a name="FNanchor_6:2_6" id="FNanchor_6:2_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6:2_6" class="fnanchor">[6:2]</a> and seeing “more devils than vast hell can hold.”<a name="FNanchor_6:3_7" id="FNanchor_6:3_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_6:3_7" class="fnanchor">[6:3]</a> -Once cool reason has given way to “frenzy,” the Elizabethan is not -always too subtle in his distinctions within that convenient term. -So when Troilus informs us that he is “mad in Cressida’s love,”<a name="FNanchor_6:4_8" id="FNanchor_6:4_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_6:4_8" class="fnanchor">[6:4]</a> -when Rosalind jestingly speaks of love as deserving “a dark house and -a whip,”<a name="FNanchor_6:5_9" id="FNanchor_6:5_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_6:5_9" class="fnanchor">[6:5]</a> and when Mercutio declares that his Rosaline-tormented -Romeo will “sure run mad,”<a name="FNanchor_6:6_10" id="FNanchor_6:6_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_6:6_10" class="fnanchor">[6:6]</a> we must not altogether discard such -references as idle or even conventional. For while there is a great -gulf fixed between such “frenzies” as these and the madness of the -love-lorn Ophelia or <!-- Page 7 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>even of the Gaoler’s Daughter in the “Two Noble -Kinsmen,” we can only account for such a peculiar case as Memnon—in -Fletcher’s “Mad Lover”—by postulating a conscious development of the -idea that “love is a kind of madness.”</p> - -<p>It is possible that the difficulty of keeping to the point of view we -have chosen may lead to many mistakes being made in our treatment of -individual characters. But it seems better to run the risk of this -than to set about this work as though it were a medical treatise, or -as though the plays to be considered had been produced by a kind of -evolution, and not by very human, imperfect, work-a-day playwrights. -That being said, Prologue has finished:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Now, good or bad, ’tis but the chance of war.”</div> - </div> -</div> - - -<hr class="footnotes" /> -<p class="sectctrfn">FOOTNOTES:</p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_5:1_1" id="Footnote_5:1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5:1_1"><span class="label">[5:1]</span></a> “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 2, 337.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_5:2_2" id="Footnote_5:2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5:2_2"><span class="label">[5:2]</span></a> “Merchant of Venice,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 1, 48.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_5:3_3" id="Footnote_5:3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5:3_3"><span class="label">[5:3]</span></a> “Philaster,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 4.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_5:4_4" id="Footnote_5:4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5:4_4"><span class="label">[5:4]</span></a> Drayton, “The Battle of Agincourt.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_6:1_5" id="Footnote_6:1_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6:1_5"><span class="label">[6:1]</span></a> “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 1, 7.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_6:2_6" id="Footnote_6:2_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6:2_6"><span class="label">[6:2]</span></a> <abbr title="line">l.</abbr> 11.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_6:3_7" id="Footnote_6:3_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6:3_7"><span class="label">[6:3]</span></a> <abbr title="line">l.</abbr> 9.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_6:4_8" id="Footnote_6:4_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6:4_8"><span class="label">[6:4]</span></a> “Troilus and Cressida,” <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 1, 51.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_6:5_9" id="Footnote_6:5_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6:5_9"><span class="label">[6:5]</span></a> “As You Like It,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 2, 420.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_6:6_10" id="Footnote_6:6_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6:6_10"><span class="label">[6:6]</span></a> “Romeo and Juliet,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 4, 5.</p></div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="newchapter" /> -<p><!-- Page 8 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.<br /> - -<small><span class="smcap">The Presentation of Madness—from the Standpoint of History.</span></small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">“A mad world, my masters!”</p> - -<p class="attribution">(<i>Middleton.</i>)</p> - - -<p>The earliest view of madness which finds its way into this drama and -persists throughout it, is based on the idea of possession by evil -spirits. This conception came down from remote ages; it accounts, for -example, for the madness of King Saul in the Old Testament, when “The -Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and an evil spirit troubled -him.”<a name="FNanchor_8:1_11" id="FNanchor_8:1_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_8:1_11" class="fnanchor">[8:1]</a> In the Elizabethan Age, demoniacal possession was still -regarded as one of the most potent causes of insanity; it was made -to account not only for mental disease but for all kinds of physical -deformations and imperfections, whether occurring alone, or, as is -often the case, accompanying idiocy. An offshoot, as it were, from this -idea, is the ascription of mental disease to the influence of witches, -who were often themselves (ironically enough), persons suffering from -mental disorders. So enlightened a man as Sir Thomas Browne declares -more than once his belief in witches and their influence; Burton’s -“Anatomy of <!-- Page 9 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>Melancholy” asserts that melancholy can be caused and -cured by witches; the learned James, King of England, and Edward Coke, -who lived at the same time, both take up the legal aspects, stating -that the plea of insanity offered on behalf of witches should not be -recognised at the legal tribunal. In Middleton’s “Witch” (<abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 2), -there is a mention of “<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">solanum somniferum</span>” (otherwise known as Deadly -Nightshade or Atropa Belladonna) which was the chief ingredient in many -witches’ recipes and produced hallucinations and other abnormal states -of mind. Banquo, in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” probably refers to the -witches’ influence when he enquires, directly after the first meeting -with them:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i2">“Have we eaten on the insane root</div> - <div class="line">That takes the reason prisoner?”<a name="FNanchor_9:1_12" id="FNanchor_9:1_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_9:1_12" class="fnanchor">[9:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>A counterpart to the idea of possession by demons is found in a belief, -common at this time and earlier, in the inspired utterances of the -frenzied prophetess. Neither here nor with the witches was any curative -treatment undertaken. For with the oracle no such treatment was thought -to be necessary or even advisable, and with the witches none except -death was supposed to avail. Occasionally a “witch” might be subjected, -like other mad folk, to “chains” and “whips,” but the road more often -<!-- Page 10 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>taken was the short one. In simple cases of demoniacal possession the -means of cure was patent: the demon must be cast out and the patient -will return to his right mind. The exorcisation of the “conjuror” was -commonly accompanied by pseudo-medical treatment, the nature of which -will presently appear.</p> - -<p>Now the influence of the demonological conception of insanity is -clearly seen in our dramas. Everyone is familiar, to go no farther -than Shakespeare, with the famous exorcisation scene in “Twelfth -Night,”<a name="FNanchor_10:1_13" id="FNanchor_10:1_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_10:1_13" class="fnanchor">[10:1]</a> where the clown, disguised as “Sir Topas the curate,” -comes to visit “Malvolio the lunatic,” and drives out the “hyperbolical -fiend” which is supposed to vex him. Everything Malvolio does can be -expressed in terms of Satan. When the wretched man speaks, it is the -“fiend” speaking “hollow” within him. His disgusted exclamation when -Maria urges him to “say his prayers” is construed into the fiend’s -repugnance to things sacred. Fabian advises “no way (of treatment) -but gentleness . . . the fiend is rough and will not be roughly used.” -While Sir Toby protests that it is “not for gravity to play at -cherry-pit with Satan; hang him, foul collier.” A more complete and -far more famous illustration may be found in “Lear,”<a name="FNanchor_10:2_14" id="FNanchor_10:2_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_10:2_14" class="fnanchor">[10:2]</a> where Edgar -attributes his assumed madness to possession by the <!-- Page 11 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>various spirits -which he names. Almost his first words in his disguise tell of the -“foul fiend” leading him “through fire and through flame, through -ford and whirlpool, o’er bog and quagmire.”<a name="FNanchor_11:1_15" id="FNanchor_11:1_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_11:1_15" class="fnanchor">[11:1]</a> He names “the foul -Flibbertigibbet,” the fiend of “mopping and mowing,”<a name="FNanchor_11:2_16" id="FNanchor_11:2_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_11:2_16" class="fnanchor">[11:2]</a> who “gives -the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the harelip;”<a name="FNanchor_11:3_17" id="FNanchor_11:3_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_11:3_17" class="fnanchor">[11:3]</a> -of “the prince of darkness . . . a gentleman; Modo he’s called and -Mahu”;<a name="FNanchor_11:4_18" id="FNanchor_11:4_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_11:4_18" class="fnanchor">[11:4]</a> of “Hobbididence prince of dumbness;” of “Hoppedance” -who “cries in Tom’s belly for two white herring”<a name="FNanchor_11:5_19" id="FNanchor_11:5_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_11:5_19" class="fnanchor">[11:5]</a> and many -others—culled from the flowery page of Harsnet’s “Popish Impostures.”</p> - -<p>A more modern idea of insanity is that which attributes it to natural -physical causes, and this finds expression in our dramas—often in -the same play—side by side with the conception just mentioned. The -capriciousness of heredity, for instance, is recognised by the author -of “A Fair Quarrel”:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Wise men beget fools and fools are the fathers</div> - <div class="line indentq">To many wise children . . .</div> - <div class="line indentq">A great scholar may beget an idiot,</div> - <div class="line indentq">And from the ploughtail may come a great scholar.”<a name="FNanchor_11:6_20" id="FNanchor_11:6_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_11:6_20" class="fnanchor">[11:6]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>The supposed justice of the same law is illustrated by a passage in -Brome’s “English Moor,” where among punishments for sin is included:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“That his base offspring proves a natural idiot.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p><!-- Page 12 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>One of the most popular of the physical causes assigned by seventeenth -century dramatists to madness is the worm in the brain. “Madam,” says -Arcadius in Shirley’s “Coronation,” “my uncle is something craz’d; -there is a worm in’s brain.”<a name="FNanchor_12:1_21" id="FNanchor_12:1_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_12:1_21" class="fnanchor">[12:1]</a> Shirley frequently refers to this -particular “cause,” and Winfield, one of the characters in “The Ball,” -adds to it another superstition when he says: “He has a worm in’s -brain, which some have suppos’d at some time o’ the moon doth ravish -him into perfect madness.”<a name="FNanchor_12:2_22" id="FNanchor_12:2_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_12:2_22" class="fnanchor">[12:2]</a></p> - -<p>Superstition is responsible for many of the “causes” of madness in our -drama, and among these the most prominent is probably the superstition -responsible for the English word “lunatic.” The supposed influence -of the moon on insanity and of its deviations on the recurrence of -maniacal periods is clearly the source of those words which Shakespeare -gives to Othello after the murder of Desdemona:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“It is the very error of the moon;</div> - <div class="line indentq">She comes more nearer earth than she was wont</div> - <div class="line indentq">And makes men mad.”<a name="FNanchor_12:3_23" id="FNanchor_12:3_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_12:3_23" class="fnanchor">[12:3]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">So Lollio, in “The Changeling,” tells Franciscus that “Luna” made him -mad.<a name="FNanchor_12:4_24" id="FNanchor_12:4_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_12:4_24" class="fnanchor">[12:4]</a> The “parson” who figures, too, among the mad folk in “The -Pilgrim,” has to be “tied short” since “the moon’s <abbr title="in the">i’ th’</abbr> full.”<a name="FNanchor_12:5_25" id="FNanchor_12:5_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_12:5_25" class="fnanchor">[12:5]</a></p> - -<p><!-- Page 13 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>That the superstition connected with the moon, however, was under high -medical patronage is shewn by a reference to the “Anatomie of the Bodie -of Man” by one Vicary, chief surgeon at <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Bartholomew’s Hospital -(1548-1562). “Also the Brayne” (he writes) “hath this propertie that -it moveth and followeth the moving of the moone; for in the waxing of -the moone the brayne discendeth downwarde and vanisheth in substance of -vertue; for then the Brayne shrinketh together in itselfe and is not so -fully obedient to the spirit of feeling, and this is proved in men that -be lunaticke or madde . . . that be moste greeved in the beginning of -the newe moone and in the latter quarter of the moone. Wherefore when it -happeneth that the Brayne is either too drye or too moyst, then can it -not werke his kinde; then are the spirits of life melted and resolved -away, and then foloweth feebleness of the wittes and of al other -members of the bodie, and at the laste death.”</p> - -<p>The word “lunatic” itself, it may be noted, quickly passed into common -speech, and was used without reference to its original significance. We -shall find it constantly recurring throughout this study, but as there -is little variety in its use, no further examples need be quoted.</p> - -<p>An interesting superstition is connected with <!-- Page 14 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>the mandrake plant, -round which, from the supposed resemblance of its strangely cleft root -to the human figure, many weird notions have gathered. One of these was -that when torn from the ground, the plant would utter groans of “sad -horror,” which, if heard, caused instant madness, or even death.<a name="FNanchor_14:1_26" id="FNanchor_14:1_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_14:1_26" class="fnanchor">[14:1]</a> -From the numerous references to this superstition in Elizabethan drama -may be extracted two,—the first from “Romeo and Juliet” (<abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 3, -47-8), where Juliet speaks of</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i3">“shrieks of mandrakes, torn out of the earth</div> - <div class="line">That living mortals, hearing them, run mad”;</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">the second from a speech of Suffolk’s in “<abbr title="Second Henry the Sixth">2 Henry VI.</abbr>” (<abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 2, 310), -where the Duke reminds the Queen that curses will not kill</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“as doth the mandrake’s groan.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>Other causes to which, rightly or wrongly, insanity is attributed may -be grouped together for convenience. In the “Emperor of the East” is an -obvious reminiscence of Holy Writ where Flaccilla says of Pulcheria:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i3">“Grant heaven, your too much learning</div> - <div class="line">Does not conclude in madness.”<a name="FNanchor_14:2_27" id="FNanchor_14:2_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_14:2_27" class="fnanchor">[14:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent"><!-- Page 15 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -This devout wish, however, has only about as much claim to be taken -seriously as Leonato’s fear that Benedick and Beatrice, married a week, -would “talk themselves mad.”<a name="FNanchor_15:1_28" id="FNanchor_15:1_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_15:1_28" class="fnanchor">[15:1]</a></p> - -<p>Such causes as irritation, worry, jealousy and persecution are -frequently mentioned as conducing to frenzy, if not actually causing -it. The Abbess of the “Comedy of Errors,” reproaching Adriana for her -treatment of Antipholus, sums the matter up thus:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“The venom clamours of a jealous woman</div> - <div class="line indentq">Poisons more deadly than a mad dog’s tooth.</div> - <div class="line indentq">It seems his sleeps were hinder’d by thy railing,</div> - <div class="line indentq">And thereof comes it that his head is light.</div> - <div class="line indentq">Thou say’st his meat was sauced with thy upbraidings:</div> - <div class="line indentq">Unquiet meals make ill digestions;</div> - <div class="line indentq">Thereof the raging fire of fever bred;</div> - <div class="line indentq">And what’s a fever but a fit of madness?</div> - <div class="line indentq">Thou say’st his sports were hinder’d by thy brawls:</div> - <div class="line indentq">Sweet recreation barr’d, what doth ensue</div> - <div class="line indentq">But moody and dull melancholy . . .</div> - <div class="line indentq">Have scared thy husband from the use of wits.”<a name="FNanchor_15:2_29" id="FNanchor_15:2_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_15:2_29" class="fnanchor">[15:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>We need not stay long over the numerous characters who speak of anger -as leading to madness. The term “horn-mad,” however, is sufficiently -interesting to be cleared up here.<a name="FNanchor_15:3_30" id="FNanchor_15:3_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_15:3_30" class="fnanchor">[15:3]</a></p> - -<p>It is used in two senses. Often it is no more than an emphatic way of -expressing the simple adjective. In this sense it may be connected -<!-- Page 16 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>with the Scottish word “harns,” meaning “brains,” an alternative form -being “horn-wood.” When Joculo, in Day’s “Law Tricks,” suggests that -“the better half of the townsmen will run horn-mad,”<a name="FNanchor_16:1_31" id="FNanchor_16:1_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_16:1_31" class="fnanchor">[16:1]</a> this is -clearly the sense in which the words are to be taken. But in another -sense, the source of which is evident, “horn-mad” is the word used to -denote a kind of madness unknown as a technical term to the medical -profession, but very common in the less elevated portions of our drama. -This madness is a thing</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i9">“Created</div> - <div class="line">Of woman’s making and her faithless vows”;</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">the madness, in a word, of the cuckold. Falstaff seems to be punning -on the two senses of the term when he says: “If I have horns to make -me mad, let the proverb go with me: I’ll be horn mad.”<a name="FNanchor_16:2_32" id="FNanchor_16:2_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_16:2_32" class="fnanchor">[16:2]</a> Dekker -exhibits an especial fondness for this particular pun. Cordolente, the -shopkeeper of “Match Me in London,” whose wife the King has seduced, -says on being informed by that monarch that he is mad: “I am indeed -horn-mad. O me! In the holiest place of the Kingdom have I caught my -undoing.”<a name="FNanchor_16:3_33" id="FNanchor_16:3_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_16:3_33" class="fnanchor">[16:3]</a> Similar passages can be found in nearly all Dekker’s -plays, whether true madness is actually in question or not.</p> - -<p><!-- Page 17 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -A world of meaning lies beneath such phrases as “dog-madness,” -“midsummer madness,” “March mad,” “as mad as May butter.”<a name="FNanchor_17:1_34" id="FNanchor_17:1_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_17:1_34" class="fnanchor">[17:1]</a> The -first refers primarily to hydrophobia, though it is not always used in -that sense; the second is accounted for by the old belief that insanity -was fiercest and most prevalent in midsummer. The phrase “March mad” is -connected with the saying “As mad as a March hare.” Its explanation is -that during the month of March, their breeding season, hares are wilder -than usual. An example of the use of the phrase might be quoted from -Drayton’s (non-dramatic) work, “Nymphidia”:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Oberon . . . Grew mad as any hare</div> - <div class="line indentq">When he had sought each place with care</div> - <div class="line indentq">And found his queen was missing.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">“May butter” is unsalted butter, preserved during May for medicinal use -in healing wounds. The connexion of the phrase with madness, however, -is so deep as to be no longer understood!</p> - -<p>Finally, among the causes of madness recognised in the seventeenth -century must be mentioned melancholy, though we shall have to return -to this on another page. The common belief appears to have been, -in the words of the Doctors of the Induction to the “Taming of the -Shrew,” that “Melancholy is the nurse of frenzy,”<a name="FNanchor_17:2_35" id="FNanchor_17:2_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_17:2_35" class="fnanchor">[17:2]</a> and incipient -melancholiacs are <!-- Page 18 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>constantly adjured by their nearest and dearest to -remember this fact—though their adjurations seldom have any effect. -The Duchess of Malfi, indeed, hearing in her captivity a “hideous -noise,” and being told:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i6h">“’Tis the wild consort</div> - <div class="line">Of madmen, lady, whom your tyrant brother</div> - <div class="line">Hath placed about your lodging,”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">replies:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Indeed, I thank him; nothing but noise and folly</div> - <div class="line indentq">Can keep me in my right wits; whereas reason</div> - <div class="line indentq">And silence make me mad.”<a name="FNanchor_18:1_36" id="FNanchor_18:1_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_18:1_36" class="fnanchor">[18:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">In the “Lover’s Melancholy,” Prince Palador is presented with a “Masque -of Melancholy” (for which the author was largely indebted to Burton) in -order that his diseased mind may be relieved. These two cases certainly -shew a divergence from the more general opinion. The first may perhaps -be attributed to the Duchess’ desire: “to make a virtue of necessity,” -the second to the fact that Palador’s disease is not true melancholia, -but a state of mind bordering on affectation—that melancholy affected -by more than one of Shakespeare’s “humorous” characters, of whom it can -be said “You may call it melancholy if you will favour the man, but by -my head ’tis pride.”<a name="FNanchor_18:2_37" id="FNanchor_18:2_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_18:2_37" class="fnanchor">[18:2]</a></p> - -<p>We may gather next, from our plays, some of the recognised symptoms of -insanity in these <!-- Page 19 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>early times. Epicene, pretending to recognise the -madness of Morose, says: “Lord, how idly he talks, and how his eyes -sparkle! he looks green about the temples! do you see what blue spots -he has?” Clerimont has his answer ready: “Ay, ’tis melancholy.”<a name="FNanchor_19:1_38" id="FNanchor_19:1_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_19:1_38" class="fnanchor">[19:1]</a> -But these two are over-frivolous; their diagnosis is untrustworthy; we -must turn to surer ground. One supposed sign of madness was evidently -the quickening of the heart and the pulse. Hamlet, in a well-known -passage, ridicules his mother’s idea that the ghost which he sees is -due to “ecstasy”:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i10">“Ecstasy!</div> - <div class="line">My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,</div> - <div class="line">And makes as healthful music.”<a name="FNanchor_19:2_39" id="FNanchor_19:2_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_19:2_39" class="fnanchor">[19:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>Philaster, declaring his sanity to Arethusa, says:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i9h">“Take this sword</div> - <div class="line">And search how temperate a heart I have . . . .”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">and again:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i7">“. . . Am I raging now?</div> - <div class="line">If I were mad, I should desire to live.</div> - <div class="line">Sir, feel my pulse, whether have you known</div> - <div class="line">A man in a more equal tune to die.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>Bellario replies:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Alas, my lord, your pulse keeps madman’s time!</div> - <div class="line indentq">So does your tongue.”<a name="FNanchor_19:3_40" id="FNanchor_19:3_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_19:3_40" class="fnanchor">[19:3]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>That these tests were inadequate is proved by a simple illustration—in -the “Comedy of Errors,” <!-- Page 20 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>Pinch the exorcist, mistakes Antipholus’ anger -for madness. Luciana cries:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks!”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">And a courtezan,</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Mark, how he trembles in his ecstasy!”<a name="FNanchor_20:1_41" id="FNanchor_20:1_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_20:1_41" class="fnanchor">[20:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>Pinch attempts to feel the “madman’s” pulse, but in any case he knows -that both man and master are possessed:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“I know it by their pale and deadly looks.”<a name="FNanchor_20:2_42" id="FNanchor_20:2_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_20:2_42" class="fnanchor">[20:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>The madman was supposed not to be aware of the nature of his disease. -“That proves you mad,” says the Officer in Dekker’s “Honest Whore,” -by a strange piece of reasoning, “because you know it not.”<a name="FNanchor_20:3_43" id="FNanchor_20:3_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_20:3_43" class="fnanchor">[20:3]</a> -Throughout the plays occurs the same phenomenon. Even when certain -of the mad folk recognise that they are afflicted with some sort of -disease, they resent questioning on it. Guildenstern’s account of -Hamlet is significant of a large number of cases:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,</div> - <div class="line indentq">But with a crafty madness, keeps aloof</div> - <div class="line indentq">When we would bring him on to some confession</div> - <div class="line indentq">Of his true state.”<a name="FNanchor_20:4_44" id="FNanchor_20:4_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_20:4_44" class="fnanchor">[20:4]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>The resentment is no doubt due to a subconscious wish of the madman -to hide his loss of that sense of personal identity which is used by -Shakespeare as one of the criteria of madness. Constance’ proof to -Pandulph of her entire sanity will be remembered:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line"><!-- Page 21 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>“I am not mad; this hair I tear is mine.</div> - <div class="line indentq">My name is Constance; I was Geffrey’s wife;</div> - <div class="line indentq">Young Arthur is my son and he is lost:</div> - <div class="line indentq">I am not mad<a name="FNanchor_21:1_45" id="FNanchor_21:1_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_21:1_45" class="fnanchor">[21:1]</a>. . .”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>Sebastian, in “Twelfth Night,” gives similar evidence:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“This is the air; that is the glorious sun;</div> - <div class="line indentq">This pearl she gave me. I do feel’t and see’t;</div> - <div class="line indentq">And though ’tis wonder that enwraps me thus,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Yet ’tis not madness.”<a name="FNanchor_21:2_46" id="FNanchor_21:2_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_21:2_46" class="fnanchor">[21:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>Another symptom of insanity was sleeping with open eyes. Meleander, -in the “Lover’s Melancholy,” “sleeps . . . with eyes open, and that’s -no good sign”<a name="FNanchor_21:3_47" id="FNanchor_21:3_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_21:3_47" class="fnanchor">[21:3]</a> and the Duchess of Malfi is said to sleep “like a -madman, with (her) eyes open.”<a name="FNanchor_21:4_48" id="FNanchor_21:4_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_21:4_48" class="fnanchor">[21:4]</a></p> - -<p>A general wildness of demeanour was thought to be characteristic of -both the earlier and the later stages of madness. Songs and dances -are often associated with it; wild laughter, “the usher to a violent -extremity,” accompanied by fulminations against the world in general; -bitter sarcasm, sudden touches of pathos and consequent outbursts of -anger; “thundering” and “roaring,” which can only be checked by like -excesses on the part of others—these are all common symptoms, together -with “raving” on all kinds of subjects. This wildness, however, <!-- Page 22 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>is not -inconsistent with considerable force and pregnancy of speech, which -might lead some to doubt the actual presence of insanity; and which is -“a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could -not so prosperously be delivered of.”<a name="FNanchor_22:1_49" id="FNanchor_22:1_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_22:1_49" class="fnanchor">[22:1]</a> A sense of physical pain, -of being “cut to the brains,” might also afflict the patient; and the -disease frequently causes such suffering that</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Nor the exterior nor the inward man</div> - <div class="line indentq">Resembles that it was.”<a name="FNanchor_22:2_50" id="FNanchor_22:2_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_22:2_50" class="fnanchor">[22:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>An excellent objective description of a single case is furnished by the -“Gentleman” in “Hamlet” who announces the frenzy of Ophelia:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“She speaks much of her father; says she hears</div> - <div class="line indentq">There’s tricks i’ the world, and hems and beats her heart;</div> - <div class="line indentq">Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,</div> - <div class="line indentq">That carry but half sense; her speech is nothing,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Yet the unshaped use of it doth move</div> - <div class="line indentq">The hearers to collection; they aim at it,</div> - <div class="line indentq">And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;</div> - <div class="line indentq">Which as her winks and nods and gestures yield them</div> - <div class="line indentq">Indeed would make one think there might be thought,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.”<a name="FNanchor_22:3_51" id="FNanchor_22:3_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_22:3_51" class="fnanchor">[22:3]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>As to the nature of the madman’s talk, we find it impossible to -generalise, and the ideas of different authors on what it should be -have not much agreement, beyond the one condition that there should be -wanting what Shakespeare aptly calls “a dependency of thing on thing.” -This <!-- Page 23 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>will be noted more particularly when we come to the study of -individual characters.</p> - -<p>From these symptoms and others which might be cited it will be evident -that the madness of our dramas is far from being confined to one -type. We know that various kinds of insanity were recognised in the -seventeenth century. Corax, the physician of the “Lover’s Melancholy,” -makes it clear that</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i10h">“Ecstasy</div> - <div class="line">Fantastic Dotage, Madness, Frenzy, Rapture</div> - <div class="line">Of mere imagination differ partly</div> - <div class="line">From Melancholy.”<a name="FNanchor_23:1_52" id="FNanchor_23:1_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_23:1_52" class="fnanchor">[23:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Our learned informant, Ben Jonson, diagnoses another case of insanity -as “the disease in Greek . . . called μα νια, in Latin, <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">insania, furor, -vel ecstasis melancholica</span>, that is <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">egressio</span>, when a man <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">ex melancholico -evadit fanaticus</span>, . . . . But he may be but ‘<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">phreneticus</span>,’ yet, -mistress, and ‘<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">phrenesis</span>’ is only ‘delirium’ or so.”<a name="FNanchor_23:2_53" id="FNanchor_23:2_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_23:2_53" class="fnanchor">[23:2]</a> And indeed -there are all varieties of insanity in the plays before us. There is -the young person who merely talks “fantastically,” “like a justice of -peace,” “of a thousand matters and all to no purpose,”<a name="FNanchor_23:3_54" id="FNanchor_23:3_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_23:3_54" class="fnanchor">[23:3]</a> and whose -words “though they (lack) form a little,” are “not like madness.”<a name="FNanchor_23:4_55" id="FNanchor_23:4_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_23:4_55" class="fnanchor">[23:4]</a> -There is the person dominated by the “<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">idée fixe</span>”—examples differing -widely occur in “King Lear” and in “Bartholomew Fair.” <!-- Page 24 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>There is the -“idiot” and there is the “imbecile”—two types between which it would -be affectation here to attempt a discrimination. The melancholiac, -one of “sundry kinds,” affected by a “mere commotion of the mind, -o’ercharged with fear and sorrow,”<a name="FNanchor_24:1_56" id="FNanchor_24:1_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_24:1_56" class="fnanchor">[24:1]</a> is one of the commonest types. -Mania and delusional insanity are also frequent and account for a -large proportion of our characters. Yet, since this is not a medical -treatise, how can we distinguish any more finely? We shall do better -not to attempt a more detailed classification of our mad folk than -this, which will be utilised later in the consideration of individual -characters. “It is not as deep as a well, nor as wide as a church-door, -but ’twill serve.” Like more than one of those Elizabethan playwrights -we may feel that:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i5h">“To define true madness</div> - <div class="line">What is’t but to be nothing else but mad?”<a name="FNanchor_24:2_57" id="FNanchor_24:2_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_24:2_57" class="fnanchor">[24:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">On this let us act and employ a literary rather than a medical -criticism.</p> - -<p>Our dramas are not silent as to the way in which lunatics were regarded -by the world at large. Few people at that time had the sympathy of -Langland for those whom, three hundred years before, he beautifully -called “God’s minstrels”—a title explained by the preceding -exhortation to his readers to bestow their gifts on the wandering -insane as bountifully as though <!-- Page 25 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>they were wandering minstrels. For -the most part the lunatic seems to have been regarded, when confined, -as a negligible factor in everyday life,<a name="FNanchor_25:1_58" id="FNanchor_25:1_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_25:1_58" class="fnanchor">[25:1]</a> and when at large as a -harmless and a gratuitous amusement. So, as has just been noted, the -Duchess of Malfi is regaled before her death with “some sport” in the -shape of several madmen who sing and dance before her. Here, of course, -the intention is a sinister one, but there is no sinister meaning in a -casual remark let fall by Truewit in the “Silent Woman”—“Mad folks and -other strange sights to be seen daily, private, and public”!<a name="FNanchor_25:2_59" id="FNanchor_25:2_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_25:2_59" class="fnanchor">[25:2]</a> Nor -is there any idea but one of legitimate amusement in the entertainment -organised by the master of a private asylum, Alibius by name, for the -marriage of Beatrice-Joanna (in “The Changeling”) and given, as he -says, by:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“A mixture of our madmen and our fools,</div> - <div class="line indentq">To finish, as it were, and make the fag</div> - <div class="line indentq">Of all the revels, the third night from the first.”<a name="FNanchor_25:3_60" id="FNanchor_25:3_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_25:3_60" class="fnanchor">[25:3]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Isabella caustically remarks “Madmen and fools are a staple commodity.”</p> - -<p>In this connexion, a particular class of lunatic deserves notice. -The Bedlam beggar, variously known as “bedlamer,” “bedlamite,” and -“Abraham’s man,” was originally an inmate of Bedlam, but, coming to be -regarded as convalescent, had <!-- Page 26 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>been set free and would roam about the -country, half-crazed, living for the most part on the charity of such -as would befriend him. In Dekker’s “Belman of London,” a non-dramatic -work professing to expose “The most notorious Villanies that are now -Practised in the Kingdome,” is a long description, in the manner of -a seventeenth century “character,” of one of “those Wild-geese or -Hayre-braynes . . . called Abraham’s men.” Dekker at least has little -good to say of them. “The fellow . . . sweares he hath bin in bedlam -and will talke frantickly of purpose: you see pinnes stuck in sundry -places of his naked flesh, especially in his armes, which paine he -gladly puts himselfe to (beeing indeede no torment at all, his skin is -either so dead, with some fowle disease, or so hardned with weather), -onely to make you believe he is out of his wits: he calls himself by -the name of Poore Tom, and comming neere anybody, cryes out Poore Tom -is a-cold . . . .” The mind at once turns to Edgar and the celebrated -lines where he poses as one of those very “Abraham-men”:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“This country gives me proof and precedent</div> - <div class="line indentq">Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Strike in their numb’d and mortified bare arms</div> - <div class="line indentq">Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;</div> - <div class="line indentq">And with this horrible object, from low farms,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Poor pelting villages, sheep cotes, and mills,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers</div> - <div class="line indentq">Enforce their charity.”<a name="FNanchor_26:1_61" id="FNanchor_26:1_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_26:1_61" class="fnanchor">[26:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent"><!-- Page 27 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -From all that we can gather, however, of the treatment of the insane -in madhouses of the time, it would seem probable that, among those -released or escaping from them, many would still be genuine lunatics. -At the same time, it was no doubt fairly easy to make a living in the -way Dekker describes, and numbers of beggars must have emulated Edgar’s -behaviour from far less worthy motives.</p> - -<p>Such a lack of popular sympathy could hardly go hand-in-hand with a -peculiarly humanitarian treatment of the insane. The Saxon treatment -of lunatics has been described as “a curious compound of pharmacy, -superstition, and castigation.” In the seventeenth century it had -been but little improved upon. Its most characteristic feature was -confinement in a dark room, with additional treatment, varying -according to circumstances. A book, of date 1542, called “A Compendious -Pygment or a Dyetry of Helth” by one Dr. Borde, advises the keeping -of lunatics in a dark room, provided with no knives, girdles, nor -pictures of man or woman on the wall. Few words are to be used except -in gentle reproofs and the dietary is to be careful and ample. Dr. -Borde’s treatment was enlarged upon in later days; chains were used -to prevent escape; castigation was employed freely and often attended -with great cruelty. A quatrain in Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy” -(1621), <!-- Page 28 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>confirms this statement, presenting what is indeed a ghastly -picture. It is all borne out by the dramatic references, which are -extremely numerous. The lunatic <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chez lui</i> is evidently a subject -which appeals to the dramatist: madness and its cure become topics -of ordinary conversation. Rosalind, in playful banter with Orlando, -compares love to “a madness,” which “deserves as well a dark house -and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not so punished -and cured is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in -love too.”<a name="FNanchor_28:1_62" id="FNanchor_28:1_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_28:1_62" class="fnanchor">[28:1]</a> Leonato, in “Much Ado” talks (from our point of view -ominously) of those who would</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Give preceptial medicine to rage,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Charm ache with air and agony with words.”<a name="FNanchor_28:2_63" id="FNanchor_28:2_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_28:2_63" class="fnanchor">[28:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Shakespeare is not predicting here, as has been suggested, the -application of gentle methods to insanity, but ridiculing those -who were so foolish as to apply “a moral medicine to a mortifying -mischief.” Even as he wrote lightly of the silken thread, he would have -heard in imagination the clank of the lunatic’s chains.</p> - -<p>Another addition to the attractions of the asylum was the course of -slow starvation, and this is hinted at in a casual allusion by Romeo in -“Romeo and Juliet”:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line"><!-- Page 29 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>“Why Romeo, art thou mad?” <span class="largefont">asks Benvolio.</span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Not mad,” <span class="largefont">answers Romeo,</span> “but bound more than a madman is,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Shut up in prison, kept without my food,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Whipped and tormented.”<a name="FNanchor_29:1_64" id="FNanchor_29:1_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_29:1_64" class="fnanchor">[29:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>Pinch the conjuror knows what to do in cases of madness:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Mistress, both man and master is possess’d . . .</div> - <div class="line indentq">They must be bound and laid in some dark room.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>George, in “The Honest Whore,” has heard of domestic cures: “’Sfoot! -I have known many women that have had mad rascals to their husbands, -whom they would belabour by all means possible to keep ’em in their -right wits.” And a character in Marston’s “What You Will” speaks in a -delightfully brisk and business-like manner: “Shut the windows, darken -the room, fetch whips; the fellow is mad, he raves, he raves—talks -idly—lunatic.”</p> - -<p>Few tests were needed to convince the keepers of an asylum that -their patient was mad, and if it could be made a matter of pecuniary -advantage to them to incarcerate any person, they would often take him -and clothe him in the “fool’s coat” or clap him into the “madman’s -cage” without making too many inquiries. Thus the madhouse became, -in many a sinister sense, “a house of correction to whip us into our -senses.”<a name="FNanchor_29:2_65" id="FNanchor_29:2_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_29:2_65" class="fnanchor">[29:2]</a></p> - -<p><!-- Page 30 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -Before we leave the historical side of our subject, some mention must -be made of the famous Bedlam, so often mentioned in connexion with -the mad folk of our plays. The real and original Bedlam, “Bethlem -monastery,” as it is called, “the madman’s pound,” which is actually -introduced into one or more of the plays under consideration,<a name="FNanchor_30:1_66" id="FNanchor_30:1_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_30:1_66" class="fnanchor">[30:1]</a> -was formerly the Hospital of <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Mary Bethlehem in Bishopsgate Street. -The Priory was founded for this Order in 1247 by an ex-sheriff named -Simon Fitz-Mary. It passed through many vicissitudes, chief among which -were a seizure by the Crown in 1375 and the dissolution by Henry <abbr title="the Eighth">VIII.</abbr> -in 1547. After this latter date the revenues were held by the Mayor, -the commonalty and the citizens of London. For some hundred and fifty -years the Hospital had been used for lunatics, and the only difference -in this use caused by its dissolution as a religious house seems to -have been that it became incorporated as a Royal Foundation. For a -considerable time it suffered through poverty, being largely dependent -on legacies, such as Sir Thomas Gresham’s in 1575, and on general alms. -Mistress Trainewell, in Brome’s “Northern Lass” (1632), mentions Bedlam -among other objects of charity, and suggests to Squelch an excellent -<!-- Page 31 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>reason for patronising it. The passage may be quoted in full:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="hang"><i>Squelch</i>: “I will now bestow my wealth in monumental good -deeds, and charitable uses in my life-time, to be talked well -on when I am dead.”</p> - -<p class="hang"><i>Trainewell</i>: “Yes, build almshouses and hospitals for beggars, -and provide in Bridewell houses of correction for your friends -and kindred. Pray give enough to Bedlam, you may feel some part -of that benefit yourself before you die, if these fits hold -you.”</p></div> - -<p>The later history of Bedlam is uneventful, and, to us, unimportant. -In 1676 it was transferred to London Wall, the new buildings being -known as the “New Hospital of Bethlehem,” and in 1815 to Lambeth. -Bethlem Hospital was by far the best known of London mad-houses in the -Seventeenth Century; two more are mentioned by Stow in his “Survey of -London,” and may be noted here. The first was “an Hospitall in the -Parish of Barking Church,” founded “by Robert Denton Chaplen, for the -sustentation of poore Priests, and other both men and women, that were -sicke of the Phrenzie, there to remaine till they were perfectly whole, -and restored to good memorie.”<a name="FNanchor_31:1_67" id="FNanchor_31:1_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_31:1_67" class="fnanchor">[31:1]</a> In another place, under the title -of “An house belonging to Bethlem,” we read: “Then had ye an house -wherein sometime were distraught and lunatike people, of what antiquity -founded, or by whom I have not read, neither of the suppression, but -it was said that sometime a King of England, <!-- Page 32 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>not liking such a kind -of people to remaine so neare his pallace, caused them to be remoued -farther of, to Bethlem without Bishops gate of London, and to that -Hospitall the said house by Charing crosse doth yet remaine.”<a name="FNanchor_32:1_68" id="FNanchor_32:1_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_32:1_68" class="fnanchor">[32:1]</a></p> - -<p>No doubt there were also private asylums in existence, where the -treatment of the patients was harsh, and their comforts were few. The -conditions, indeed, seem to have been very similar to those of Bedlam. -These and other details may be gathered chiefly from four plays, in -each of which there are “madhouse scenes”—they are “The Pilgrim” by -John Fletcher, “The Honest Whore” by Thomas Dekker, “Northward Ho,” -the joint work of Dekker and Webster, and “The Changeling,” ascribed -to Middleton, who was probably aided in it by Rowley. A comparison of -these plays should give a very fair account of a seventeenth century -lunatic asylum.<a name="FNanchor_32:2_69" id="FNanchor_32:2_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_32:2_69" class="fnanchor">[32:2]</a></p> - -<p>It is not difficult to obtain admission to this asylum, for the -charge is only a penny or twopence, and Bellamont and his friends -in “Northward Ho” look at the “mad Greeks” for a short time before -calling for their horses, which are stabled at “the Dolphin without -<!-- Page 33 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>Bishopsgate” near by. The hospital consists of “a parlour, kitchen, -and larder below stairs, and twenty-one rooms where the poor distracted -people lie, and above stairs eight rooms more for servants”; the madmen -may either be visited in their cells, or brought in for inspection -by the visitors. Preferring the former alternative we approach the -cells, and hear a confused roaring—“the Chimes of Bedlam.” It is -“Mad Bess roaring for meat or the Englishman for drink”; like “bells -rung backward” they are nothing but “confusion and mere noises.” The -“shaking of irons” adds to the din, which is increased by the snatches -of coarse song which are continually assailing our ears, the playing of -rough games such as “barley-break,” the running and jumping of the more -violent of the patients, and the cries of those who are undergoing a -treatment of the whip:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i7h">“If sad, they cry,</div> - <div class="line">If mirth be their conceit, they laugh again;</div> - <div class="line">Sometimes they imitate the beasts and birds,</div> - <div class="line">Singing or howling, braying, barking, all</div> - <div class="line">As their wild fancies prompt ’em.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>When the lunatics are brought in, or (as was more usual in real life -though unsuited for dramatic representation), we visit them in their -“cages” or cells, we are confronted with a strange sight. A “pretty -poet” who “ran mad for a chambermaid” invokes Titania and Oberon, -<!-- Page 34 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>and speaks in the sanest of tones of “daisies, primrose, violets”; -his madness, though at the time we do not know it, is feigned. The -Englishman is still crying for drink. Everyone must go down on his -knees and pledge him: “A thousand pots, and froth ’em, froth ’em!” The -parson, “that run mad for tithe goslings,” threatens to excommunicate -and curse the whole company. A musician walks slowly and deliberately -apart; he fell mad “for love of an Italian dwarf.” Many a lunatic -resembles Candido, “much gone indeed,” who believes himself to be a -prentice, “talks to himself,” selling “pure calicos, fine hollands, -choice cambrics, neat lawns,” and resenting interference in a way which -is positively dangerous. Near him is a lad brought in (like Alinda) “a -little craz’d, distracted” and not suffering acutely; he is allowed -comparative freedom and accorded light treatment till more dangerous -symptoms shew themselves. He</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i8">“talks little idly</div> - <div class="line">And therefore has the freedom of the house.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>We speak to the keepers about their charges, and they seem mildly -interested. The most entertaining characters we may discuss at length -with them; and, if we will brave their foul talk, we may even converse -with the patients as freely as they are permitted to converse with -each other. We must be prepared, in this case, <!-- Page 35 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>to hear frank comments -on our personal appearance and the wildest of guesses, often mere -expressions of an <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">idée fixe</i> on our profession or our business. The -lunatics will not, of course, allow that they are mad, though they may -recognise that they are ill and under a doctor’s care. This, however, -is less common with our asylum patients than with those undergoing -private treatment, such as Ford’s Meleander. The mere suggestion -that they may be of unsound mind usually amuses them, or makes them -indignant. It is only when the keeper ceases to reproach them with -madness and turns the conversation to “Whips!” that they become serious -again. Perhaps, after all, a talk with the keeper will best serve our -purpose.</p> - -<p>Friar Anselmo is at hand and will describe to us with more sympathy -than many of his kind the condition of the inmates:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“There are of madmen, as there are of tame,</div> - <div class="line indentq">All humoured not alike. We have here some</div> - <div class="line indentq">So apish and fantastic, play with a feather;</div> - <div class="line indentq">And, though ’twould grieve a soul to see God’s image</div> - <div class="line indentq">So blemished and defaced, yet they do act</div> - <div class="line indentq">Such antic and such pretty lunacies,</div> - <div class="line indentq">That, spite of sorrow, they will make you smile.</div> - <div class="line indentq">Others, again, we have, like hungry lions,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Fierce as wild bulls, untameable as flies;</div> - <div class="line indentq">And these have oftentimes from strangers’ sides</div> - <div class="line indentq">Snatch’d rapiers suddenly and done much harm;</div> - <div class="line indentq">Whom if you’ll see, you must be weaponless.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">We may ask him about his treatment of these poor creatures, who are -ever in fear of the lash. <!-- Page 36 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>It will be easily justified:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“They must be used like children; pleased with toys,</div> - <div class="line indentq">And anon whipt for their unruliness.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Alternate cajolings and threats are the mildest form of treatment that -we can hope to see in these places. The Elizabethan asylum keeper holds -with Shakespeare that</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i6">“Diseases desperate grown</div> - <div class="line">By desperate appliance are relieved</div> - <div class="line">Or not at all.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>In the middle of this entertaining discussion we are interrupted. A -prospective patient, it seems, is being announced, but the first words -of the Master, who enters with him, suggest that we have been fortunate -enough to meet with a case of false incarceration. A scholarly young -man has been confined without cause and his friends in high quarters -have come, armed with a “discharge from my lord cardinal,” to demand -his release. “I am heartily sorry,” says the Master, “If ye allow him -sound, pray take him with ye.” A gentleman protests that there is -nothing in the Scholar</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i6h">“light nor tainted,</div> - <div class="line">No startings nor no rubs in all his answers;</div> - <div class="line">In all his letters nothing but discretion,</div> - <div class="line">Learning and handsome style.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>He is quite “perfect”; “a civiler discourser I ne’er talked with.” -Then, before the Master, the Scholar is catechised:</p> - -<p>“You find no sickness?” “Do ye sleep o’ nights?” “Have you no fearful -dreams?” The <!-- Page 37 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>answers, to the Master’s disgust, are satisfactory. “I -think,” exclaims the friend, “You keep him here to teach him madness.” -But, just then, his “eyes alter,” and</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“On a sudden, from some word or other.</div> - <div class="line indentq">When no man could expect a fit, he has flown out.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">The mention of “stubborn weather” and “strange work at sea,” starts in -him a new delusion or revives an old one. He rants and raves: “I am -Neptune.” Now it is the Master’s turn to jeer, and the visitors retire, -discomfited.</p> - -<p>It may be noticed, in passing, that the questions addressed by the -keepers of madhouses to prospective patients in order to ascertain -whether or no they are indeed mad are hardly less irrelevant and -absurd than those of “Sir Topas” in “Twelfth Night.” Antonio, in the -“Changeling,” is asked as “easy questions”: “How many true (<i>i.e.</i> -honest) fingers has a tailor on his right hand?” . . . “and how many -on both?”—“How many fools goes to a wise man?” These remind us of the -questions put by the Fool to King Lear.</p> - -<p>Our madhouse does not contain only those lunatics who are termed -“madmen”; there is another variety, known most commonly as the “fool.” -Now the word “fool,” in Elizabethan literature, has a number of -connotations. It may be used, as in Shakespeare, for the professional -jester of the court, who was, indeed, <!-- Page 38 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>often a little wanting in -ordinary intelligence, though this was amply atoned for by his witty -and pregnant remarks. It is also used in a general sense, as to-day, -of a person who has acted, or who habitually acts, in an unwise way. -With reference, however, to our plays, it has more often approximately -the technical meaning of “imbecile”—a term used of those whose brains -are constitutionally affected and whose insanity is therefore rather a -quantitative rather than a qualitative defect. Taken in this sense, the -word “fool” may be applied to some of the asylum’s inmates, the word -“madman” to others. The two classes are not always well distinguished -in these plays, but the fools can generally be detected by the inanity, -rather than the violence, of their words and actions. They tend to -reply in the style of Antonio, the feigning fool of “The Changeling”—</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“He, he, he! well, I thank you, cousin, he, he, he!”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">To which Lollio, the attendant, replies: “He can laugh; I perceive by -that he is no beast.”</p> - -<p>The two classes of patients are apparently allowed to mix in each -others’ company. “We have,” says Lollio, “two sorts of people in the -house, and both under the whip, that’s fools and madmen; the one has -not wit enough to be knaves, and the other not knavery enough to be -fools.” They are kept under very much the same discipline, though the -fools are sent to the “Fools’ <!-- Page 39 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>College”—which is an institution of the -madhouse itself—and are put to school in various classes in the hope -of improving their wit.</p> - -<p>The seventeenth-century asylum, it must be remembered, claims to -have worked cures, though at first it seems hard to believe that its -designation as “the school where those that lose their wits Practise -again to get them” is anything more than a phrase. As we enter the -domain of Anselmo we are met by a “sweeper,” who describes himself as -one of the “implements” of the house—“a mad wag myself here once; but -I thank father Anselmo, he lashed me into my right mind again.”</p> - -<p>We are struck at once, as we read these accounts of Bedlam, by the -inconsequence, verging at times on brutal heartlessness, with which -those responsible for the lunatics’ welfare refer to them. It is the -expression of that spirit upon which we have remarked continually -throughout this historical survey. In concluding it we can hardly -illustrate this last point better than by considering a few of the -occasions on which the mad folk are held up to ridicule or satire. It -is, of course, the dramatist with whom we have properly to reckon for -this, yet he was clearly influenced by the attitude of the time, and -contemporary prose-references endorse the spirit of the plays.</p> - -<p>Satire abounds on the coarsest of subjects—that<!-- Page 40 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> of the “horn-mad” -patient—and further examples need hardly be given. More interesting is -the comment of the keeper in the “Pilgrim” when a patient enters crying -“Give me some drink.”</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i6h">“Oh, there’s the Englishman! . . .</div> - <div class="line">These English are so malt-mad there’s no meddling with ’em;</div> - <div class="line">When they have a fruitful year of barley there,</div> - <div class="line">All the whole island’s thus.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>A similar skit follows on the parson above-mentioned “that run mad for -tithe goslings.” But Fletcher’s best effort in this direction is the -introduction of the Welshman, who, but for his premature exit might -have served as quite a reasonable understudy for Fluellen. “Whaw, -Master Keeper,” is his first remark, “Give me some ceeze and onions, -give me some wash brew . . . Pendragon was a shentleman, marg you, sir. -And the organs at Rixum were made by revelations: There is a spirit -blows the bellows, and then they sing.” He will “sing, dance and do -anything,” and when the Englishman and the Scholar challenge him, he -threatens to “get upon a mountain and call my countrymen.” Dekker, in -the “Honest Whore,” is able to hit the lawyers. There are none of that -company, he says, among Anselmo’s madmen. “We dare not let a lawyer -come in, for he’ll make ’em mad faster than we can recover ’em.” -Questioned as to how long it takes to “recover” any of the patients, -our informant replies that <!-- Page 41 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>“An alderman’s son will be mad a great -while. . . . A whore will hardly come to her wits again. A Puritan, -there’s no hope of him, unless he may pull down the steeple and hang -himself i’ the bell-ropes.”<a name="FNanchor_41:1_70" id="FNanchor_41:1_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_41:1_70" class="fnanchor">[41:1]</a></p> - - -<hr class="footnotes" /> -<p class="sectctrfn">FOOTNOTES:</p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_8:1_11" id="Footnote_8:1_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8:1_11"><span class="label">[8:1]</span></a> <abbr title="First">I.</abbr> Samuel, <abbr title="sixteen">xvi.</abbr>, 14.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_9:1_12" id="Footnote_9:1_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9:1_12"><span class="label">[9:1]</span></a> “Macbeth,” <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 3, 84.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_10:1_13" id="Footnote_10:1_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10:1_13"><span class="label">[10:1]</span></a> “Twelfth Night,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_10:2_14" id="Footnote_10:2_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10:2_14"><span class="label">[10:2]</span></a> “King Lear,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 4, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_11:1_15" id="Footnote_11:1_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11:1_15"><span class="label">[11:1]</span></a> “King Lear,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 4, 52, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_11:2_16" id="Footnote_11:2_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11:2_16"><span class="label">[11:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 1, 64.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_11:3_17" id="Footnote_11:3_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11:3_17"><span class="label">[11:3]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 4, 122.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_11:4_18" id="Footnote_11:4_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11:4_18"><span class="label">[11:4]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 4, 148-9.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_11:5_19" id="Footnote_11:5_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11:5_19"><span class="label">[11:5]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 5, 31.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_11:6_20" id="Footnote_11:6_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11:6_20"><span class="label">[11:6]</span></a> Middleton: “A Fair Quarrel,” <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_12:1_21" id="Footnote_12:1_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12:1_21"><span class="label">[12:1]</span></a> <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_12:2_22" id="Footnote_12:2_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12:2_22"><span class="label">[12:2]</span></a> <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_12:3_23" id="Footnote_12:3_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12:3_23"><span class="label">[12:3]</span></a> “Othello,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 2, 109.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_12:4_24" id="Footnote_12:4_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12:4_24"><span class="label">[12:4]</span></a> <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_12:5_25" id="Footnote_12:5_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12:5_25"><span class="label">[12:5]</span></a> <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 6. <abbr title="Compare">Cf.</abbr> with these the phrases: “planet-struck,” -“planet-stricken,” <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr>; <i>e.g.</i> Brome’s “City Wit,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 1—Crazy: “Sure -I was planet-struck.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_14:1_26" id="Footnote_14:1_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14:1_26"><span class="label">[14:1]</span></a> For further information on this subject Bulleine’s -“Bulwark of Defence” and Sir Thomas Browne’s “Vulgar Errors” may be -consulted.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_14:2_27" id="Footnote_14:2_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14:2_27"><span class="label">[14:2]</span></a> Act <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr> Sc. <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, <abbr title="compare">cf.</abbr> Jonson: “The Alchemist,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, <abbr title="one">i.</abbr> -Face of Dol:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i2">“She is a most rare scholar,</div> - <div class="line">And is gone mad with studying Broughton’s works.</div> - <div class="line">If you but name a word touching the Hebrew</div> - <div class="line">She falls into her fit and will discourse</div> - <div class="line">So learnedly of genealogies,</div> - <div class="line">As you would run mad, too, to hear her, sir.”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_15:1_28" id="Footnote_15:1_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15:1_28"><span class="label">[15:1]</span></a> “Much Ado About Nothing,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 1, 368.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_15:2_29" id="Footnote_15:2_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15:2_29"><span class="label">[15:2]</span></a> “Comedy of Errors,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 1, 68.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_15:3_30" id="Footnote_15:3_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15:3_30"><span class="label">[15:3]</span></a> For further information on this interesting word see -the New English Dictionary. <abbr title="sub voce"><i>s.v.</i></abbr> “horn-mad.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_16:1_31" id="Footnote_16:1_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16:1_31"><span class="label">[16:1]</span></a> “Law Tricks,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_16:2_32" id="Footnote_16:2_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16:2_32"><span class="label">[16:2]</span></a> “Merry Wives of Windsor,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 5, 153.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_16:3_33" id="Footnote_16:3_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16:3_33"><span class="label">[16:3]</span></a> “Match Me in London,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_17:1_34" id="Footnote_17:1_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17:1_34"><span class="label">[17:1]</span></a> All taken from plays of the period under consideration.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_17:2_35" id="Footnote_17:2_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17:2_35"><span class="label">[17:2]</span></a> “Taming of the Shrew,” Ind. <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 135.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_18:1_36" id="Footnote_18:1_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18:1_36"><span class="label">[18:1]</span></a> “Duchess of Malfi,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_18:2_37" id="Footnote_18:2_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18:2_37"><span class="label">[18:2]</span></a> “Troilus and Cressida,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 3, 92.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_19:1_38" id="Footnote_19:1_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19:1_38"><span class="label">[19:1]</span></a> “Epicene,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_19:2_39" id="Footnote_19:2_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19:2_39"><span class="label">[19:2]</span></a> “Hamlet,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 4, 139, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_19:3_40" id="Footnote_19:3_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19:3_40"><span class="label">[19:3]</span></a> “Philaster,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 3, 45, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_20:1_41" id="Footnote_20:1_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20:1_41"><span class="label">[20:1]</span></a> “Comedy of Errors,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 4, 52-3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_20:2_42" id="Footnote_20:2_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20:2_42"><span class="label">[20:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="line">l.</abbr> 96.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_20:3_43" id="Footnote_20:3_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20:3_43"><span class="label">[20:3]</span></a> “Honest Whore,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_20:4_44" id="Footnote_20:4_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20:4_44"><span class="label">[20:4]</span></a> “Hamlet,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 1, 7.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_21:1_45" id="Footnote_21:1_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21:1_45"><span class="label">[21:1]</span></a> “King John,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 4, 48, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_21:2_46" id="Footnote_21:2_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21:2_46"><span class="label">[21:2]</span></a> “Twelfth Night,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 3, 1, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_21:3_47" id="Footnote_21:3_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21:3_47"><span class="label">[21:3]</span></a> “Lover’s Melancholy,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_21:4_48" id="Footnote_21:4_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21:4_48"><span class="label">[21:4]</span></a> “Duchess of Malfi,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_22:1_49" id="Footnote_22:1_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22:1_49"><span class="label">[22:1]</span></a> “Hamlet,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 2, 212.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_22:2_50" id="Footnote_22:2_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22:2_50"><span class="label">[22:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 2, 6-7.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_22:3_51" id="Footnote_22:3_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22:3_51"><span class="label">[22:3]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 5, 4, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_23:1_52" id="Footnote_23:1_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23:1_52"><span class="label">[23:1]</span></a> “Lover’s Melancholy,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_23:2_53" id="Footnote_23:2_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23:2_53"><span class="label">[23:2]</span></a> “Epicene,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_23:3_54" id="Footnote_23:3_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23:3_54"><span class="label">[23:3]</span></a> “Honest Whore,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_23:4_55" id="Footnote_23:4_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23:4_55"><span class="label">[23:4]</span></a> “Hamlet,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 1, 171.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_24:1_56" id="Footnote_24:1_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24:1_56"><span class="label">[24:1]</span></a> “Lover’s Melancholy,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_24:2_57" id="Footnote_24:2_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24:2_57"><span class="label">[24:2]</span></a> “Hamlet,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 2, 93.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_25:1_58" id="Footnote_25:1_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25:1_58"><span class="label">[25:1]</span></a> <i>e.g.</i> A lunatic’s legal acts were annulled and his -property was placed under control. (See further, <abbr title="Encyclopaedia Britannica">Encyl. Brit.</abbr>, <i><abbr title="sub voce">s.v.</abbr></i> -Insanity.)</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_25:2_59" id="Footnote_25:2_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25:2_59"><span class="label">[25:2]</span></a> “Epicene,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_25:3_60" id="Footnote_25:3_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25:3_60"><span class="label">[25:3]</span></a> “The Changeling,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_26:1_61" id="Footnote_26:1_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26:1_61"><span class="label">[26:1]</span></a> “King Lear,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 3, 13, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_28:1_62" id="Footnote_28:1_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28:1_62"><span class="label">[28:1]</span></a> “As You Like It,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 2, 420, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_28:2_63" id="Footnote_28:2_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28:2_63"><span class="label">[28:2]</span></a> “Much Ado About Nothing,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 1, 24, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_29:1_64" id="Footnote_29:1_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29:1_64"><span class="label">[29:1]</span></a> “Romeo and Juliet,” <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 2, 54, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_29:2_65" id="Footnote_29:2_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29:2_65"><span class="label">[29:2]</span></a> Shirley: “Bird in a Cage,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_30:1_66" id="Footnote_30:1_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30:1_66"><span class="label">[30:1]</span></a> Notably into “Northward Ho.” The madhouses of “The -Pilgrim,” “The Honest Whore,” and “The Changeling” are private asylums.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_31:1_67" id="Footnote_31:1_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31:1_67"><span class="label">[31:1]</span></a> Stow: “Survey of London” (Clarendon Press), <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 137.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_32:1_68" id="Footnote_32:1_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32:1_68"><span class="label">[32:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 98.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_32:2_69" id="Footnote_32:2_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32:2_69"><span class="label">[32:2]</span></a> The chief sources from which this description is -compiled are:—“The Pilgrim,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr> 6, <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr> 3, <abbr title="five">v.</abbr> 5; “The Honest Whore,” -<abbr title="five">v.</abbr> 12, 13; “The Changeling,” <abbr title="one">i.</abbr> 2, <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr> 3, <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr> 3, <abbr title="five">v.</abbr> 3; “Northward Ho,” -<abbr title="four">iv.</abbr> 1. For obvious reasons the specific references to every quotation -are not given.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_41:1_70" id="Footnote_41:1_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41:1_70"><span class="label">[41:1]</span></a> Another interesting passage, no doubt satirical, but -too long for quotation at length, occurs in “The Duchess of Malfi,” Act -<abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, <abbr title="Scene">Sc.</abbr> 2: It begins:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“A mad lawyer and a secular priest</div> - <div class="line indentq">A doctor that hath forfeited his wits</div> - <div class="line indentq">By jealousy,” <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr>, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="newchapter" /> -<p><!-- Page 42 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.<br /> - -<small><span class="smcap">The Presentation of Madness—from the Standpoint of Literature.</span></small></h2> -</div> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i5">“This mirthful comic style</div> - <div class="line">Makes us at once both serious, and smile.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="attribution">(<i><abbr title="Alexander">Alex.</abbr> Brome.</i>)</p> - - -<p>The questions which we have now to answer, before passing to our main -study and considering the mad folk as individuals, are two in number. -The first is a general one: What is the place of such a feature as -madness in drama? The second is more particular: What place does -madness assume in the body of drama under consideration? Let us take -them in this order.</p> - -<p>1. Clearly there is a great difference between madness in tragedy and -madness in comedy. Many of us would hold to the one and emphatically -despise the other. At all events, risking confusion through an -over-complicated scheme of sub-division, we shall deal with each -separately.</p> - -<p>The representation of madness in tragedy might be objected to upon the -following grounds: If carried out well, it becomes too terrible for the -stage; if badly, it is nothing but a ludicrous caricature of greatness. -This is at least plausible, and the last proposition is evidently true. -But what of the first? Is madness really too terrible <!-- Page 43 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>for dramatic -presentation, or is it not eminently suited to the stage by virtue of -its peculiar qualities?</p> - -<p>The critic replies that madness is sheer suffering of the most painful -sort, that the ravings of a noble mind o’erthrown have passed the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ne -plus ultra</i> of the tragic, while the babblings of mere imbecility -have not reached the level of tragedy at all. “Such suffering” (he -will say), “as is the lot of Lear, should never be dwelt upon, -much less paraded before crowds, and decked out with the tinsel -of the stage. Think of physical suffering comparable with it, if -that be possible—for is not mental suffering far more terrible and -heart-rending than physical?—and you would never talk of putting the -maniac on the stage. Think of the repulsion caused by the blinding of -Gloster and the murder of Lady Macduff’s infant son,—and is not the -madness of Lear more terrible? ‘King Lear’ is, of course, a brilliant -exception, but the exception proves the rule.”</p> - -<p>With this last provoking platitude we need not quarrel, but the main -assertion must be challenged nevertheless. In the first place it is -a fact that we do not feel the same repulsion at the representation -of madness on the stage as we do at a similar case in real life, -whereas with physical brutality the effect seems in drama to be almost -magnified. Could we possibly feel <!-- Page 44 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>more keenly the blow which Othello -gives to Desdemona if the scene took place in our own family? It is -at least doubtful. But if we think of the suffering of Lear, or of -Ophelia, and suppose one-tenth of it inflicted on our dearest friend, -the thought becomes perfectly unbearable. It is not that we do not -enter into the spirit of “King Lear,” but rather that the sufferings of -the aged King, by reason of their very remoteness from human life, give -us the actual “tragic feeling” which Shakespearean tragedy inevitably -produces.</p> - -<p>Not only so, but the state of the madman, provided that apart from him -the play contains the requisite tragic hero, is admirably calculated -to contribute, through the emotions of pity and fear, to that καθάρσις -which Aristotle considers to be the essence of tragedy. Tragic -pity will most surely be excited at the misfortunes of “one who is -undeserving,” that is of</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i8h">“a man</div> - <div class="line">More sinn’d against than sinning.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Hardly any disaster which may befall a human being can excite such -tragic pity as the crowning disaster of insanity. Whatever a man’s -sins, we feel that the loss of reason more than atones for them all. -If the greatest villain in drama should lose his reason, we should -feel this; when Lear, the rash, impetuous King of Britain, becomes -insane, we cry out, forgetting for the time his <!-- Page 45 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>tragic error, that -his punishment is too great for him. When the brief scene is ended we -consign him to the Great Silence, not with feelings of rebellion but -with a sense of supreme calm:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i8">“He hates him</div> - <div class="line">That would upon the rack of this tough world</div> - <div class="line">Stretch him out longer.”<a name="FNanchor_45:1_71" id="FNanchor_45:1_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_45:1_71" class="fnanchor">[45:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">So equally with tragic fear. This emotion, which is no vulgar sense -of possible or impending misfortune to ourselves, but an awed and -sympathetic feeling for a character essentially of the nature of our -own, is brought out to the full by means of the portrayal of madness. -For what reduces men so quickly to the same level as the loss of reason -by a fellow-man? In real life our hearts are stirred by compassion, -yet moved by inexpressible awe, as we see or hear of one whom we have -known and whose senses have deserted him. Be he of high or low station, -it matters nothing. Differences of rank are forgotten—and this is -less often so with physical calamity. Loss of reason has effected -the belated recognition of our common humanity. Carry this into the -imaginative world of drama, and you have the emotion of tragic fear.</p> - -<p>The representation, then, of madness in tragedy would seem to be -not only permissible, but of the greatest value to the drama when -this madness is worked into the plot and becomes an <!-- Page 46 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>essential part -of it. Often, however, and especially with the lesser lights of the -Elizabethan stage, it held a place wholly subsidiary to the main theme -of the tragedy. If tragic fear and tragic pity were to be evoked it -would be by other means; madness was required for colouring effects, -and to lend a peculiar atmosphere to the tragedy. It was sketched but -lightly, frequently with little attempt at reality; whether this arose -from the dramatists’ lack of ability, or from a desire to lessen the -supposed pain, can only be a matter of conjecture. The introduction -of madness, as a subsidiary element, into tragedy, appears to be -justifiable only when it is regarded objectively with no relation to -the pain caused to the sufferer. Let us illustrate. The Duchess of -Malfi, previously to her death, is made to listen to the cries and to -watch the antics of madmen. The intention of the author is evident. -Whether we consider him to have been successful or not, we can hardly -cavil at his device when we bear in mind the nature of the tragedy. -But had a madman been introduced and presented as a new character -with a definite interest of his own, either at this or at an earlier -stage of the play, we should have rightly condemned the new feature as -inartistic and revolting, for our centre of gravity, so to say, would -at once have been shifted from the unfortunate lady to the unfortunate -madman. <!-- Page 47 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>The conception of madness in tragedy is a powerful one and -cannot be trifled with.</p> - -<p>There is another point of view from which the question must be -considered before we pass from tragedy to comedy,—namely, that of -the action. It is recognised that in tragedy properly so called the -conflict must spring from the actions of the hero, and that the -calamity which marks the tragedy must be unmistakeably dependent upon -this generating action. Now the hero, to commit a tragic error, must -obviously be responsible for his actions,—otherwise the tragedy -will rest upon an irrational basis, which would be absurd. No -abnormal mental state, then, such as would arise from drunkenness, -hallucination, or insanity, can serve to generate the conflict. The -most usual and natural position for the introduction of insanity will -be either during a considerable part of the decline of the action from -the crisis (as with Ophelia’s madness in “Hamlet”)<a name="FNanchor_47:1_72" id="FNanchor_47:1_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_47:1_72" class="fnanchor">[47:1]</a> or immediately -preceding the catastrophe ( <abbr title="compare">cf.</abbr> the sleep-walking of Lady Macbeth), when -it adds greatly to the force of the tragedy. The construction of “King -Lear” is in this respect peculiar. Lear’s madness, to the ordinary -spectator, is first noticeable in the third act;<a name="FNanchor_47:2_73" id="FNanchor_47:2_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_47:2_73" class="fnanchor">[47:2]</a> <!-- Page 48 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>but, as Dr. -Bradley points out, it is more satisfactory from the point of view of -the construction to consider, not Lear, but Goneril, Edmund and Regan, -as the leading characters in the play.<a name="FNanchor_48:1_74" id="FNanchor_48:1_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_48:1_74" class="fnanchor">[48:1]</a></p> - -<p>What of madness in comedy? This, we confess, it is difficult, if not -impossible, to justify. Feigned madness may, no doubt, have some -place in a comedy, and such tricks as occur in “Northward Ho!” where -the poet Bellamont narrowly escapes being immured in a madhouse, -may, and certainly did appeal to a certain kind of audience. But the -introduction of Bedlam into a romance such as “The Pilgrim,” or a -comedy of low life such as “The Changeling,” merely for the sake of -giving some cheap amusement to the groundlings, reveals a mind which -one would suppose to be untouched by the elements of human pity. It -can only be understood in the light of the treatment accorded to the -lunatic in real life. And our authors’ sins do not end here. In more -than one comedy in which the madman appears, little or no attempt is -made to give even an approximate idea of what he might be expected to -say or do. His presence is merely an excuse <!-- Page 49 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>for the coarsest of jokes -and the vilest of songs, which, no doubt, lost nothing in the acting. -The degradation of a theme which is properly tragic is unhappily -only what may be expected from playwrights whose work graced the -Post-Restoration stage.</p> - -<p>In tragi-comedy, it may be said, madness has a legitimate place, and we -find the authors of “The Two Noble Kinsmen,” among others, making full -use of it. We shall best see, when we consider this play separately, -how impossible it is to reconcile madness with the dénouement of -comedy. We may be able to put a hook into the nose of leviathan, but -we can no more use the sufferings of mad folk and then bring them to a -dénouement, in a tragi-comedy worthy of the name, than we can supply -a “happy ending” to “Hamlet” or “Lear.” The heights of mania are very -high, as the depths of idiocy are very low. The maniac, though cured -of his disease, does not fit into comedy, any more than the imbecile, -however well-born, can harmonise with tragedy. From one point of view -at least, a great man is at his greatest when he is possessed by an -uncontrollable passion. If the madman of a tragi-comedy is sufficiently -great for tragedy, the play cannot be resolved into a comedy; if he is -not a possible tragic hero, his madness is not sufficiently imposing to -raise the conflict to a crisis. We are on the horns of <!-- Page 50 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>a dilemma which -may be avoided in practice by some dramatic genius, but which were -certainly not avoided in Elizabethan drama by those authors who rushed -in where others might fear to tread.</p> - -<p>2. We have now to enquire into the actual presentation of madness in -our tragedy and comedy, and it must be confessed at once that the -results will be somewhat disappointing. We have between twenty and -thirty plays of which it may fairly be said that the conception of -madness enters definitely into the plot, and of this number all, save -four or five, are comedies. The tragedies may briefly be considered -first.</p> - -<p>In “King Lear,” mad folk are given an exalted place. On the madness of -the old King depends the whole play; the scenes which are naturally -the most striking become more terrible because of his ravings; their -effect is further enhanced by the feigned madness of Edgar and by the -curious half-imbecility of the Fool. In “Hamlet” the hero’s assumption -of an “antic disposition” is inextricably interwoven with the main -plot, while Ophelia’s loss of reason is largely responsible for the -catastrophe. Nowhere else in Elizabethan Tragedy do we find so bold a -use of the madman as here. Turn to “The Changeling” and Middleton’s -ideas of what can be done with <!-- Page 51 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>him take shape. There is a comic -underplot, alternating during the greater part of the play with a fine -tragic theme, and only becoming connected with it towards the end—this -underplot embodies the grossest of all possible conceptions of madness. -From a sublime passion, it becomes material for vulgar intrigue. Even -where mad folk are seriously treated in these tragedies, they are not -portrayed with the power of which the author is capable. Penthea, for -example, in Ford’s “Broken Heart,” though not, as has been suggested, -a mere reminiscence of Ophelia, is somewhat slightly and inadequately -drawn. And one would at least have expected Webster, with his penchant -towards the carnival of horrors, to have produced something better than -the inane songs and dances which, with hardly the saving grace of being -grotesque, disfigure the fourth act of the “Duchess of Malfi.” The fact -is that the common Elizabethan treatment of insanity was so far removed -from the humane that the subject was regarded rather as one for mirth -than for solemnity—for comedy and not for tragedy.</p> - -<p>Reconciling ourselves as best we can to this state of things, let us -examine some representative comedies. There are, in the first place, -those in which insanity plays quite a subsidiary part and is not in the -least essential <!-- Page 52 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>to the main plot. In “The Silent Woman,” for example, -the pretended madness of Morose is an occasion for much merriment, -but it lasts only for part of a scene. In “Northward Ho!”, Maybery, -Greenshield and their friends lay a merry plot against Bellamont and -contrive to secure his arrest as a madman, though here again, the jest -is but a short one. Similarly, in “Twelfth Night,” Malvolio is treated -as if he were insane, much to the delight of Maria, Sir Toby, and -the lesser folk; while in the “Comedy of Errors” many accusations of -madness are bandied to and fro, which more than once lead to violence. -Sometimes the madness is only reported. In “Cymbeline,” the Queen is -said in the fourth act to be afflicted by</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“A fever with the absence of her son,</div> - <div class="line indentq">A madness of which her life’s in danger,”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">and there is little doubt that her violent death, “most -shameless-desperate,” was due to some derangement of the reason. So, -too, the Lady Constance dies “in a frenzy,” and Brutus’ Portia, it is -reported,</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i8h">“fell distract</div> - <div class="line">And, her attendants absent, swallow’d fire.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Such scenes as these last three, however, Shakespeare has, with his -usual tact, kept off the stage, knowing that in the case of “Cymbeline” -he would otherwise introduce too violent a nemesis into what was -rapidly becoming the dénouement of a romantic comedy. <!-- Page 53 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>Massinger, on -the contrary, in “A New Way to Pay Old Debts,” seems rather to welcome -this nemesis, allowing his extortioner, Sir Giles Overreach, when -outwitted in the fifth act, to go mad and to be taken off to Bedlam. -It will be noticed that most of the examples just given (excluding -those of “reported” insanity) have been mainly of pretended madness; -where bona-fide mad folk are introduced into comedy without affecting -the construction of the play, this is usually for the sake of a vulgar -realism or of comic effect falsely so-called. We have already seen -enough of this and may pass on.</p> - -<p>In “Bartholomew Fair” we have a madman delineated with some care. -Trouble-all, the lunatic in question, only makes his appearance -in the fourth act, but from his entry to the close of the play he -evokes, together with Quarlous, who masquerades in his clothes, a -considerable share of attention. His place in the plot is an important -one. Dame Purecraft, who is being wooed by that notorious Puritan, -Zeal-of-the-Land Busy, and by a gentleman named Winwife, has had it -foretold that she must marry a madman within seven days. She has been -daily to Bedlam to enquire if any insane gentlemen are available, but -it is only when she meets Trouble-all that she feels any inclination -towards one. By a trick, however, Quarlous, a “gamester” and a friend -of <!-- Page 54 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>Winwife’s, succeeds in duping and eventually marrying the Dame, -and although Trouble-all discovers the ruse, all ends happily. It will -be seen, when a sketch of the madman is attempted on another page, how -carefully the lunatic is portrayed.</p> - -<p>It is needless to examine all the comedies in which the madman is more -intricately interwoven with the plot than in “Bartholomew Fair,” for -the work is seldom done with any appreciable dramatic skill, or with -the least vestige of sympathy. The plot of “The Mad Lover,” a play -in Fletcher’s worst style, will serve as a typical example. Madness -here forms the basis and theme of the plot. Memnon, a valiant general -somewhat advanced in years, albeit a blunt, uncourtly fellow, has -returned from his victories to the Court of Paphos. He falls in love -with Calis, the King’s sister, who is herself in love with Memnon’s -brother, Polydore. The General proposes in truly singular fashion; his -courtship begins and ends with three remarks: “I love thee, lady,” -“With all my heart I love thee,” and finally, “Good lady, kiss me!” -Calis, supposing not unnaturally that he is mad, ignores him; when she -has left the room, the Mad Lover suddenly grows quarrelsome, talks -wildly, and declares that his suit shall succeed. Calis, re-entering, -is held up, and, growing fearful, tries to humour him, but <!-- Page 55 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>he rushes -from her presence with wild threats. In the next act, we find him -contemplating death for the purpose of presenting his lady with his -heart. This announcement of his project sends more than one of his -friends to plead for him with the Princess. Meanwhile, Polydore, who -has overheard his brother entreating the surgeon to cut out his heart -and seen the surgeon beat a hasty retreat, concludes that the “cause is -merely heat” and contrives a double expedient. For Memnon he dresses -up another woman as the Princess, in the hope that he may be satisfied -with her; at the same time, he reports to Calis that Memnon has carried -out his threat and makes believe to present the General’s heart in a -cup together with some verses from her “dead” lover. This makes her a -little remorseful. But Memnon refuses to be deceived, and it is only -when Polydore himself pretends to be dead that the Princess is induced -to change her mind and marry Memnon. Instantly the Mad Lover becomes -sane, and all is well.</p> - -<p>Of the tragi-comedies into which this theme is introduced we may take -two—“The Lover’s Melancholy” and “Match Me in London”—as being -representative. Each shows some improvement on the “Mad Lover.” The -“Lover’s Melancholy” is based, as the name partly implies, on the -melancholy of Palador, Prince of Cyprus, <!-- Page 56 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>whose love Eroclea has -“disappeared,” though in reality she is present in disguise during the -whole play. The plot turns on the situation caused by the heroine’s -secret presence. Among the disasters occasioned by her “loss” is the -madness of her father, Meleander; his recovery, in the fifth act, is -the best part of that act, the Prince having rediscovered his love long -before (<abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 3.). Dr. Ward considers that the melancholy of Palador -“recalls Hamlet.”<a name="FNanchor_56:1_75" id="FNanchor_56:1_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_56:1_75" class="fnanchor">[56:1]</a> The young Prince is certainly an interesting -character, and the curtness of his exclamations and replies, together -with the natural grace of his disposition, afford quite a noticeable -contrast with the now coherent, now raving old father. Both characters -are intimately connected with the plot; and both present traits, as -will be seen, which are fully in harmony with their conditions. It only -remains to wish that Ford had not been inspired by Burton, and that the -zealous physician Corax had refrained from presenting the Prince with -that “trifle” of his “own brain,” to wit, the tedious and unnecessary -“Masque of Melancholy.”</p> - -<p>It may at first appear a violent anti-climax to come to Dekker’s “Match -Me in London.” Nevertheless the working into the plot of Tormiella’s -feigned madness is quite in the true dramatic spirit, and one scene -leaves us a little <!-- Page 57 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>suspicious, as is so often the case with the -plays of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, of the influence of Ophelia. -Tormiella is a young shopkeeper’s wife whom the King tries to seduce; -he visits her in disguise and she is beguiled away, with the compliance -of her father. The situation develops thus: Malevento, Tormiella’s -father, rushes on the stage, crying out that his daughter has lost her -reason:<a name="FNanchor_57:1_76" id="FNanchor_57:1_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_57:1_76" class="fnanchor">[57:1]</a></p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line"><abbr title="Malevento"><i>Mal.</i></abbr> O royal Sir, my daughter Tormiella</div> - <div class="line i2h">Has lost her use of reason and gone mad.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line"><i>King.</i> When?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line"><abbr title="Malevento"><i>Mal.</i></abbr> Not half an hour since.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line"><i>King.</i> Mad now! now frantic!</div> - <div class="line i2h">When all my hopes are at the highest pitch</div> - <div class="line i2h">To enjoy her beauties! talk no more; thou liest.</div> - <div class="right">[<i>Enter Gazetto.</i></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line"><abbr title="Gazetto"><i>Gaz.</i></abbr> May it please your Majesty—</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line"><i>King.</i> Curses consume thee—oh—</div> - <div class="right">[<i>Strikes him.</i></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line"><abbr title="Gazetto"><i>Gaz.</i></abbr> It is dispatch’d, the Queen is lost, never to be found.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line"><i>King.</i> Wave upon wave,</div> - <div class="line i2h">Hard-hearted Furies, when will you dig my grave?</div> - <div class="line i2h">You do not hear him, thunder shakes Heaven first.</div> - <div class="line i2h">Before dull earth can feel it:—</div> - <div class="line i2h">My dear, dear’st Queen is dead.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">The King is distracted. “Without a woman,” he says, he will himself -“run mad at midnight.” The physician is to use his “skill,” but if that -prove unavailing the King’s resolve is taken nevertheless.</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i9"><!-- Page 58 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>“I will marry</div> - <div class="line">The lunatic lady, she shall be my Queen,</div> - <div class="line">Proclaim her so.”<a name="FNanchor_58:1_77" id="FNanchor_58:1_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_58:1_77" class="fnanchor">[58:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>So saying, he leaves the room, and almost simultaneously Tormiella -enters. She plays the madwoman for some time before the physician; -but, discovering at length that he is in reality an agent for her -husband, she reveals her sanity to him, together with the reasons for -her assumption of madness. The action hurries on from this point with -increasing rapidity; and, after several plots have been thwarted, the -dead come to life and sinners are converted, after the approved manner -of romantic comedy. But enough has been said to shew how the somewhat -vulgar plot is given a startling and unexpected turn, at a point where, -to tell the truth, it is badly needed. The actual “mad scene” is -extremely short, but it serves a true dramatic purpose and is far from -being the worst thing in the play. We are a long way from the comic -scenes of the “Changeling” and the “Honest Whore” of Dekker himself.</p> - -<p>In these few pages we have briefly considered the places occupied -by mad folk in some of the most representative of our tragedies and -comedies. In many of them sublime passion is degraded for the most -vulgar of purposes; in many more there is little attempt to realise the -<!-- Page 59 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>nature of insanity—mere surface work, a “writing down” to the lowest -type of contemporary play-goer. Such prostitution of art appears to us, -in the light of Shakespeare’s plays and of our own opinions, unworthy -and base. Yet it must not be forgotten that many of the “madhouse -scenes” of our plays contain much genuine humour which from the point -of view of the day was harmless and legitimate. And as we have already -agreed to take up, as far as possible, the position of the author -himself, we shall restrain our Puritanical or artistic indignation, -and pass on to consider our mad folk themselves, as men and women -rather than as puppets of a playwright, from the point of view not of -construction but of character.</p> - - -<hr class="footnotes" /> -<p class="sectctrfn">FOOTNOTES:</p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_45:1_71" id="Footnote_45:1_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45:1_71"><span class="label">[45:1]</span></a> “King Lear,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 3, 313.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_47:1_72" id="Footnote_47:1_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47:1_72"><span class="label">[47:1]</span></a> Taking the Play Scene (<abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 2.) as the crisis.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_47:2_73" id="Footnote_47:2_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47:2_73"><span class="label">[47:2]</span></a> Indeed many critics find incipient madness in Lear’s -conduct even earlier, <i>i.e.</i> from the very beginning of the play. This -view I cannot hold; Lear’s actions in the early part of the play do not -seem to me to be the result of anything but the childishness of old -age. The King is quite responsible for his actions. If he were not, he -would be the one exception to Shakespeare’s practice in his tragedies.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_48:1_74" id="Footnote_48:1_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48:1_74"><span class="label">[48:1]</span></a> <abbr title="Shakespearean Tragedy">Sh. Trag.</abbr>, <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 53.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_56:1_75" id="Footnote_56:1_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56:1_75"><span class="label">[56:1]</span></a> <abbr title="English Dramatic Literature">Eng. Dram. Lit.</abbr>: <abbr title="Volume two">Vol. ii.</abbr>, <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 297.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_57:1_76" id="Footnote_57:1_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57:1_76"><span class="label">[57:1]</span></a> “Match Me in London,” Act <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, <abbr title="Scene">Sc.</abbr>1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_58:1_77" id="Footnote_58:1_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58:1_77"><span class="label">[58:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="newchapter" /> -<p><!-- Page 60 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br /> - -<small><span class="smcap">Mad Folk in Comedy and Tragedy</span>—(i.) <span class="smcap">The Maniacs.</span></small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">“Whom if you’ll see, you must be weaponless.”</p> - -<p class="attribution">(<cite>The Honest Whore.</cite>)</p> - - -<p>In the division of our study upon which we have now entered, the -various figures of madmen will be considered under some five or -six headings. We shall naturally exclude the mere crowds of madmen -who enter the plays as lay figures rather than as personalities of -the drama. The largest of the remaining classes will be dealt with -first, namely, that which includes “maniacs,” or “madmen” in the -proper acceptation of the term. Next come the half-witted, who will -not detain us long; then the melancholiacs, who appear so frequently -that they demand a section to themselves; next those suffering from -hallucinations and delusions, who have not perhaps crossed the -border-line, or who exhibit abnormal symptoms which can hardly be -included in the term insanity, though they are very near it. Lastly, -there is a group of pretenders,—of whom Hamlet and Edgar are the -chief,—members of which attract our attention in several other plays.</p> - -<p><!-- Page 61 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> -Greene’s Orlando, a rude and undeveloped character, whose frenzy is -quite conventional, may be briefly mentioned by way of prelude. His -ravings are composed mainly of scraps of classical lore: “Woods, trees, -leaves; leaves, trees, woods, <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">tria sequuntur tria; ergo optimus vir -non est optimus magistratus</span>, a peny for a pote of beer and sixe pence -for a peec of beife? wounds! what am I the worse? O Minerva! salve; -good morrow; how do you to-day? Sweet goddesse, now I see thou lovest -thy ulisses, lovely Minerva, tell thy ulisses, will Jove send Mercury -to Calipso to lett me goe?”<a name="FNanchor_61:1_78" id="FNanchor_61:1_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_61:1_78" class="fnanchor">[61:1]</a> It will be seen that Greene has no -idea of making his madman anything more than a source of amusement. His -violence is noteworthy: more than once he “beats” those who listen to -his ravings. Scraps of incident like the fight with Brandimant, King of -the Isles, are highly significant:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line"><i>Brandimant.</i> “Frantic companion, lunatic and wood,</div> - <div class="line i5h">Get thee hence, or else I vow by heaven,</div> - <div class="line i5h">Thy madness shall not privilege thy life.”</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="right">[<i>Alarum. They fight. Orlando kills Brandimant.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>The following dialogue, too, is delightfully naïve:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i1"><i>Enter Tom and Ralph.</i></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line"><i>Ralph.</i> <span class="pad1">O Tom, look where he is! Call him madman.</span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"><div class="line"><i>Tom.</i> <span class="pad1h">Madman, Madman.</span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line"><i>Ralph.</i> <span class="pad1">Madman, Madman.</span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line"><i>Orlando.</i> What say’st thou, villain?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="right">[<i>Beats him.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent"><!-- Page 62 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -It only remains to add that after being treated for his disease by -Melissa, a witch—she sprinkles, among other things, many Latin verses -over him—Orlando recovers his sanity, and cries:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Sirrah, how came I thus disguis’d,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Like mad Orestes, quaintly thus attir’d?”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>A more serious study of insanity, in a work of that unbridled force -which characterised the University Wits, is Kyd’s portrayal of -Hieronimo and Isabella.<a name="FNanchor_62:1_79" id="FNanchor_62:1_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_62:1_79" class="fnanchor">[62:1]</a></p> - -<p>Hieronimo, Marshal of Spain, whose son Horatio has been murdered by -the King’s nephew, Lorenzo, is stricken with insanity as a result of -the shock; his lunacy is intermittent (closely akin to the disease -known as manic depressive insanity), but it is only right to add that -this result is largely due to the addition of certain scenes to the -play by another hand. Kyd represents Hieronimo as afflicted by a deep -melancholy which is only a later phase of his grief and in no way -prevents him from doing his ordinary duties; the scenes in which his -ravings are at their wildest are commonly attributed to Ben Jonson. It -is therefore of little use attempting to trace any regular development -of Hieronimo’s madness; a short account of it will suffice.</p> - -<p>It breaks out, not when entering the arbour “in his shirt, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr>,” he -first discovers his murdered <!-- Page 63 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>son, but after he has cut him down from -the tree on which he has been hanged, and has lamented the murder with -his wife. All his ravings, as we are told later in the play, are of -Horatio.</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“His heart is quiet—like a desp’rate man,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Grows lunatic and childish for his son.</div> - <div class="line indentq">Sometimes, as he doth at his table sit,</div> - <div class="line indentq">He speaks as if Horatio stood by him;</div> - <div class="line indentq">Then, starting in a rage, falls on the earth,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Cries out ‘Horatio, where is my Horatio?’</div> - <div class="line indentq">So that with extreme grief and cutting sorrow</div> - <div class="line indentq">There is not left in him one inch of man.”<a name="FNanchor_63:1_80" id="FNanchor_63:1_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_63:1_80" class="fnanchor">[63:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">At the conclusion of the scene the distracted father is made to recite -some Latin verses, usually attributed to Kyd himself. Hieronimo’s -“tragical speeches” do not again reveal a mind unhinged, until the -eleventh scene of the third act, where the interpolator is once more -busy. This, however, occurring as it does in Kyd’s part of the play, -where the Marshal is still sane, must not be mistaken for a sign of -madness. He utters the word “son.” In his disordered brain this starts -a train of bewildered reasoning. “My son, and what’s a son?”—he -debates the question dispassionately until he once more remembers his -loss. Then his grief breaks forth: he rants of Nemesis and Furies, -murder and confusion, and even in Kyd’s work we now see that “this man -is passing lunatic.” From this point onwards Hieronimo pursues his -course of revenge with all the dogged <!-- Page 64 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>cunning of real madness. His -violence surprises the King, who is ignorant of its cause. He digs with -his dagger; he would “rip the bowels of the earth.” “Stand from about -me,” he cries to the courtiers,</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“I’ll make a pickaxe of my poniard</div> - <div class="line indentq">And here surrender up my marshalship;</div> - <div class="line indentq">For I’ll go marshal up the fiends in hell,</div> - <div class="line indentq">To be avenged on you all for this.”<a name="FNanchor_64:1_81" id="FNanchor_64:1_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_64:1_81" class="fnanchor">[64:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">The next scene—an interpolation—is the weirdest and perhaps the most -effective in the play. Tormented by delusions of spirits, yet hotly -denying his madness even while raving on all kinds of topics, Hieronimo -is confronted with a painter, Bazardo. Ever mindful of his cruel -bereavement, he entreats Bazardo to paint a picture of him with his -wife and son, to paint a murderer, “a youth run through and through,” -and—if he only could—“to paint a doleful cry.” At the end of this -scene Hieronimo is at his greatest, and, although in a more detailed -study of the play the manner of his revenge and his death would find -due place, we will be content to leave him here:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="hang">“Make me curse,” <span class="largefont">he cries,</span> “make me rave, make me cry, -make me mad, make me well again, make me curse hell, invocate -heaven, and in the end leave me in a trance—and so forth.</p> - -<p class="hang"><i>Painter.</i> And is this the end?</p> - -<p class="hang"><i>Hieronimo.</i> O no, there is no end: the end is death and -madness! As I am never better than when I am <!-- Page 65 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>mad; then, -methinks, I am a brave fellow; then I do wonders; but reason -abuseth me, and there’s the torment, there’s the hell. At the -last, sir, bring me to one of the murderers; were he as strong -as Hector, thus would I tear and drag him up and down.”<a name="FNanchor_65:1_82" id="FNanchor_65:1_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_65:1_82" class="fnanchor">[65:1]</a></p> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Hieronimo’s wife, Isabella, who is similarly afflicted by Horatio’s -murder, though she plays a much smaller part in the play, first “runs -lunatic” in a short scene with her maid. Here her talk is mere nonsense:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Why did I not give you gowns and goodly things,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Bought you a whistle and a whipstalk too,</div> - <div class="line indentq">To be revenged on their villanies?”<a name="FNanchor_65:2_83" id="FNanchor_65:2_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_65:2_83" class="fnanchor">[65:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">She seems sane enough, however, in the “Painte Scene,” and only appears -once again,<a name="FNanchor_65:3_84" id="FNanchor_65:3_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_65:3_84" class="fnanchor">[65:3]</a> when she cuts down the accursèd arbour and, after a -long soliloquy, stabs herself.</p> - -<p>The comparatively rough sketches of Greene and Kyd—the first, in -order of time, of those under consideration—have been introduced thus -early into this chapter for the sake of contrast with the figures that -follow.<a name="FNanchor_65:4_85" id="FNanchor_65:4_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_65:4_85" class="fnanchor">[65:4]</a> Kyd, in “The Spanish Tragedy,” almost certainly inspired -“Titus Andronicus,” and we may be fairly sure of his influence on -“Hamlet.” Now that we have <!-- Page 66 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>examined the work of the instructor, let us -turn to Shakespeare’s maniacs and see how the pupil has bettered the -instruction.</p> - -<p>The most powerful character among the maniacs, by far the grandest -figure in our drama of insanity, if not indeed in the whole of -English drama, is King Lear. “Grandly passive”—the description is -Professor Dowden’s—“played upon by all the manifold forces of nature -and society,” he “passes away from our sight, not in any mood of -resignation or faith or illuminated peace, but in a piteous agony of -yearning for that love which he had found only to lose for ever.”<a name="FNanchor_66:1_86" id="FNanchor_66:1_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_66:1_86" class="fnanchor">[66:1]</a> -This alone would make him a noteworthy figure, but he has far greater -claims on our admiration and wonder. He is as lovable, even in his -greatest weakness, as the most affectionate of all Shakespeare’s -characters, yet more terrible than his darkest villains. He takes -hold at once of our sympathy, our pity and our imagination, and the -tragic feelings evoked by the drama conflict in us with the more human -emotions roused by his own essential humanity.</p> - -<p>At the beginning of the play he is often said to be already insane, -especially by those medical writers who are somewhat inclined to -pervert Shakespeare in order to read in him their own opinions. “The -general belief is that the <!-- Page 67 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>insanity of Lear originated solely from the -ill-treatment of his daughters, while in truth he was insane before -that, from the beginning of the play, when he gave his kingdom away.” -Thus Dr. Brigham, in the “American Journal of Insanity,” and thus more -than one of his kind. But if what they assert be true, and Lear is -really mad in the first scene of the play, then “King Lear” is not, in -the Shakespearean sense, a tragedy at all. Lear is not mad, however, at -this point, as an examination of the scene will shew. His apparently -arbitrary division of the kingdom has really been planned before the -opening of the play; the protestations of love on the part of his -daughters are only planned as an impressive setting for the bestowal of -the richest portion upon his best-loved child. Nor was it the King’s -original intention to live with each of his daughters in turn: “I loved -her most,” he says of Cordelia, “and thought to set my rest on her kind -nursery.”<a name="FNanchor_67:1_87" id="FNanchor_67:1_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_67:1_87" class="fnanchor">[67:1]</a> His powers are indeed failing; his childishness, his -vanity, his wayward temper have more sway over him than of old; but -at the very worst his state is but one of incipient senile decay. His -daughters themselves recognise this. “’Tis the infirmity of his age,” -says Regan to Goneril, “such unconstant starts are we like to have from -him as this of Kent’s <!-- Page 68 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>banishment,” and Goneril adds that they must -“look . . . to receive, not alone the imperfections of long-ingraffed -condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and -choleric years bring with them.”<a name="FNanchor_68:1_88" id="FNanchor_68:1_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_68:1_88" class="fnanchor">[68:1]</a> Here, then, he stands, impatient -and passionate, “a very foolish, fond old man,” but sane in every sense -of the word. Only a physician could detect in his “unconstant starts” -a predisposition to insanity, with which, since it is not part of the -play, we need not concern ourselves.</p> - -<p>When the King next appears, his passion is for a time calmed, and his -state, apart from the short scene with Oswald (i., 4, 84, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr>), one -of tolerant indulgence. The caustic comments of the fool he listens to -and encourages; it is only when Goneril appears that his tone changes -to one of ill-concealed irritation. “How now, daughter! what makes that -frontlet on? Methinks you are too much of late i’ the frown.”<a name="FNanchor_68:2_89" id="FNanchor_68:2_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_68:2_89" class="fnanchor">[68:2]</a> He -pierces the thin disguise of urbanity which cloaks her speeches, and -attacks with all the fierceness he can summon the ingratitude which it -conceals. It is by no chance that he strikes his head as he exclaims:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i5">“O Lear, Lear, Lear.</div> - <div class="line">Beat at this gate, that let thy folly in,</div> - <div class="line">And thy dear judgment out.”<a name="FNanchor_68:3_90" id="FNanchor_68:3_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_68:3_90" class="fnanchor">[68:3]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent"><!-- Page 69 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -He invokes the most terrible of curses on his ungrateful daughter. -His words are here and there broken, but their sense is only too -clear. Hot tears escape him in spite of himself; his manhood he feels -to be shaken, and when alone with his Fool and the faithful Kent (now -disguised as “Caius” the servant), he feels that passion and shock have -done their worst. Even as he listens to the jests of the Fool, he knows -that the curse is coming upon him. The “self-consciousness of gathering -madness” breaks through all restraint:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!</div> - <div class="line indentq">Keep me in temper, I would not be mad”<a name="FNanchor_69:1_91" id="FNanchor_69:1_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_69:1_91" class="fnanchor">[69:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>From this time onward his self-control grows less and less; try as he -will, he is unable to restrain his passion:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“O how this mother swells up toward my heart!</div> - <div class="line indentq">Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Thy element’s below!”<a name="FNanchor_69:2_92" id="FNanchor_69:2_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_69:2_92" class="fnanchor">[69:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>But the passionate nature is reasserting itself and will not be kept -down. Sarcasm, tenderness, and anger alternate in his speeches; he -responds to the least sign of love, but anything less draws from him -the bitterest reproaches. He prays for patience and for the judgment -of Heaven to be manifested in his favour. Now he begins to approach -incoherence, and the abruptness which marks the matter as <!-- Page 70 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>well as the -manner of his speech shews only too plainly the affection of his mind. -His state of mind is truly described as one of “high rage.”</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i8h">“No, I’ll not weep;</div> - <div class="line">I have full cause of weeping; but this heart</div> - <div class="line">Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,</div> - <div class="line">Or e’er I’ll weep.—O fool, I shall go mad.”<a name="FNanchor_70:1_93" id="FNanchor_70:1_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_70:1_93" class="fnanchor">[70:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>It is from this point, though the physicians, with Dr Bucknill at -their head, deny it, that we can actually assert that Lear is insane. -Hitherto there have been signs that his madness was imminent, but it is -the scene on the Heath which is “par excellence,” the scene of Lear’s -madness. It is true that, as Dr. Bucknill says, he has “threatened, -cursed, wept, knelt, beaten others, beaten his own head.”<a name="FNanchor_70:2_94" id="FNanchor_70:2_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_70:2_94" class="fnanchor">[70:2]</a> But -“the addition of a physical cause” marks the crisis of what Shakespeare -certainly means to be understood as insanity in the sense which that -term commonly bears. From this time predominates that symptom which is -so widespread in cases of insanity—the domination of an <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">idée fixe</i>. -After Lear has announced “My wits begin to turn”<a name="FNanchor_70:3_95" id="FNanchor_70:3_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_70:3_95" class="fnanchor">[70:3]</a> (a statement of -itself not without significance), Edgar enters, disguised as Tom o’ -Bedlam. Lear mistakes him; the idea dominant in his mind comes to the -surface: “Didst <!-- Page 71 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>thou give all to thy daughters? And art thou come to -this?”<a name="FNanchor_71:1_96" id="FNanchor_71:1_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_71:1_96" class="fnanchor">[71:1]</a></p> - -<p>However, the ravings of the King by no means continue incessantly from -this point. Indeed, in the presence of Edgar he becomes comparatively -tranquil, and henceforward periods of storm and calm follow in quick -succession. His speeches still contain much reason, and they have lost -little of their wonderful force. Edgar, appearing unclothed, is to -Lear an enviable object—“the thing itself.” Hence, through another -semi-delusion, he becomes a “learned Theban,” a “philosopher.”<a name="FNanchor_71:2_97" id="FNanchor_71:2_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_71:2_97" class="fnanchor">[71:2]</a> -This delusion continually recurs, and is developed with much force and -even eloquence, but with less poetry.</p> - -<p>In the scene where Lear arraigns a pair of joint-stools as his supposed -daughters,<a name="FNanchor_71:3_98" id="FNanchor_71:3_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_71:3_98" class="fnanchor">[71:3]</a> we can trace all the wanderings of the deluded mind. -In their “warp’d looks,” the King can read “what store (their) heart -is made on.” He resolves to have them tried for their cruelty. Some -people are standing about him. One (Edgar) is taken for a “robèd man -of justice.” Another (the Fool) is “his yokefellow of equity.” Kent -is “o’ the commission,” and must take his place beside them. Goneril -is arraigned first, and Lear takes his oath that “she kicked the poor -King, her father.” The joint-stool naturally <!-- Page 72 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>makes no reply; her guilt -is thereby confirmed. “She cannot deny it.” The other sister is then -brought forward. But even as the self-constituted witness is about to -give evidence, the image vanishes from his mind; the delusion changes; -the criminal has escaped:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Arms, arms, sword, fire! Corruption in the place!</div> - <div class="line indentq">False justicer, why hast thou let her ’scape?”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Now Edgar is again the object of a delusion; he is one of those scanty -hundred followers: “You, sir, I entertain for one of my hundred; only -I do not like the fashion of your garments.” It is all so true, and at -the same time so pathetic! Edgar feels that he can hardly sustain his -disguise.</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“My tears,” <span class="largefont">he says,</span> “begin to take his part so much,</div> - <div class="line indentq">They mar my counterfeiting.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>A long interval (according to Daniel, four dramatic days) has passed -before Lear again appears.<a name="FNanchor_72:1_99" id="FNanchor_72:1_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_72:1_99" class="fnanchor">[72:1]</a> He is “fantastically dressed with wild -flowers” and is at first ignorant of Edgar’s presence. Now he is wild, -full of delusions, and certain of nothing. His mind first runs upon -soldiers and war: “There’s your press-money. That fellow handles his -bow like a crow-keeper.”<a name="FNanchor_72:2_100" id="FNanchor_72:2_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_72:2_100" class="fnanchor">[72:2]</a> Now he recalls a scene with Goneril, now -the terrors of the storm on the heath, now some memory of his former -greatness. “<abbr title="Is it">Is’t</abbr> not <!-- Page 73 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>the King?” asks Gloster, and the reply of Lear -rings true:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i7h">“Ay, every inch a king.</div> - <div class="line">When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.”<a name="FNanchor_73:1_101" id="FNanchor_73:1_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_73:1_101" class="fnanchor">[73:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">“Matter and impertinency,” to quote the words of Edgar, mingle in his -speech. He seems no longer to suspect the nature of his disease. He -only knows that he needs surgeons: “I am cut to the brains!” Mr. Cowden -Clarke aptly draws the reader’s attention to this phrase,—expressive -of what acute physical and mental suffering!—together with such -phrases as “I am not ague-proof” and “Pull off my boots, harder, -harder.” It is in this scene, perhaps, more even than in the Storm -Scene of the third act, that we feel the acutest distress at the King’s -sad condition.</p> - -<p>We are relieved at length. When next we meet King Lear,<a name="FNanchor_73:2_102" id="FNanchor_73:2_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_73:2_102" class="fnanchor">[73:2]</a> it is -at Cordelia’s tent in the camp. Gentle hands are ministering to him; -loving faces are near to welcome him, when he shall awaken from the -sleep which it is hoped will be his cure. He awakens to the sound of -“soft music,” growing gradually louder—how different from the “chimes -of Bedlam”!—and when Cordelia speaks to him, he believes her to be a -spirit from Heaven. Then at last he wakes—still infirm of mind, but -faintly conscious of infirmity, not frantic with physical and mental -<!-- Page 74 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>pain. Everything in this scene is touched with the most delicate -pathos; Lear’s wistful plea:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i6">“Do not laugh at me,</div> - <div class="line">For, as I am a man, I think this lady,</div> - <div class="line">To be my child Cordelia.”<a name="FNanchor_74:1_103" id="FNanchor_74:1_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_74:1_103" class="fnanchor">[74:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Cordelia’s heart-felt reply:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“And so I am, I am.”<a name="FNanchor_74:2_104" id="FNanchor_74:2_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_74:2_104" class="fnanchor">[74:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Kent’s loyal assertion that his master is in his “own kingdom,” and the -old father’s final</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Pray you now, forget and forgive,”<a name="FNanchor_74:3_105" id="FNanchor_74:3_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_74:3_105" class="fnanchor">[74:3]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">as if he were hardly convinced even yet that Cordelia’s end was not -revenge.</p> - -<p>With such tender care as might now have been his lot, the old King -would surely have recovered something like his former state of mind. -But this is not to be, and our dramatic selves at least will not wish -that it should be so. When Lear enters, with Cordelia dead in his arms -and the rest following behind, we feel perhaps as nowhere else his -tragic greatness. One wrathful speech, one tender reminiscence, and -another of the fiercest:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i7h">“Her voice was ever soft,</div> - <div class="line">Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman,</div> - <div class="line">I kill’d the slave that was a-hanging thee.”<a name="FNanchor_74:4_106" id="FNanchor_74:4_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_74:4_106" class="fnanchor">[74:4]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">A few questions and replies, and the catastrophe is upon us. Exquisite -sympathy creates exquisite pathos:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line"><!-- Page 75 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>“And my poor fool is hang’d! No, no, no life!</div> - <div class="line indentq">Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,</div> - <div class="line indentq">And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Never, never, never, never, never!—</div> - <div class="line indentq">Pray you, undo this button; thank you, sir,—</div> - <div class="line indentq">Do you see this? Look on her—look—her lips—</div> - <div class="line indentq">Look there, look there!”<a name="FNanchor_75:1_107" id="FNanchor_75:1_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_75:1_107" class="fnanchor">[75:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>Lear is dead; he has rejoined his belovèd daughter; he has been -“dismissed with calm of mind, all passion spent.” What greater -consummation could we desire?</p> - -<p>There is little need to insist upon the grandeur and pathos of Lear, -and, happily, with our next subject of study, the need is equally -small. Yet Shakespeare’s presentation of Ophelia is utterly different -from his presentation of Lear. The madness of Lear we are able to trace -from its first symptoms; we follow it through all its involutions and -are present at its partial cure. Ophelia we see but once after she -“becomes distract.” A brief word of introduction, and she appears; a -few broken words and snatches of song and she has left us. A brief -re-entry and she has passed us again, and all is over—all save the -report of her death. Lear is an old man, predisposed to insanity by -a passionate temper and a mind weakened by old age. Ophelia is a -young girl, a “Rose of May,” whose loss of reason excites in us not -so much terror as sheer pity. With Lear the crisis is brought on by -thwartings of the will, followed by the severest <!-- Page 76 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>physical exposure and -shock. With Ophelia the cause is mental shock following the deepest -of sorrows. Lear dies half-sane; Ophelia is never restored to her -right mind,—her death is not shewn to us like that of Lear. There is -a reason for these differences. Ophelia is no tragic personage and -our sympathies are not to remain for long with her misery. She must -disappear, lest she should destroy all our interest in the main plot. -And thus we must not expect to find the depth in her character which we -find in the character of Lear.</p> - -<p>Before her affliction wins for her our sympathy, Ophelia stands in our -estimation far below Shakespeare’s other heroines. Perhaps it would -not be too much to say that at times, like Isabella in “Measure for -Measure,” she is actually repellent, and for exactly the opposite -reason. She is passive and reserved, gentle to the point of weakness, a -tool in the hand of any man who could gain her confidence. This is the -reason for her mind giving way. Throughout her life, she has leaned for -support, not on her own strength, but upon the strength of her father -and her brother. Her father is murdered, her lover distracted, her -brother far away—and Ophelia herself is unable to stand alone.</p> - -<p>We may have blamed her for a too ready acquiescence in her father’s -prying schemes and despised her for throwing over her lover, but -<!-- Page 77 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>whatever her sins, they are more than atoned for by the treatment to -which she has to submit at the hands of Hamlet himself; and when, in -addition to this, her father is killed and she loses her reason, we -feel that these calamities have been wholly undeserved. Thus, when -a Gentleman of the Court prepares the Queen for her sad entry, our -sympathy is entirely won:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“She speaks much of her father; says she hears</div> - <div class="line indentq">There’s tricks <abbr title="in">i’</abbr> the world, and hems and beats her heart;</div> - <div class="line indentq">Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,</div> - <div class="line indentq">That carry but half sense.”<a name="FNanchor_77:1_108" id="FNanchor_77:1_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_77:1_108" class="fnanchor">[77:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>She is led in, crooning to herself, chattering incoherently of her -sorrows, confusing them in her mind and mingling them together in her -speech. Her songs have been censured for their alleged grossness. Small -wonder if they should contain reminiscences of her lover’s foul talk, -yet for the most part these ditties are mere expressions of piercing -sorrow at his supposed untimely madness. First she is clearly recalling -the scenes where he has disdained her.</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“How should I your true love know</div> - <div class="line i5">From another one?”<a name="FNanchor_77:2_109" id="FNanchor_77:2_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_77:2_109" class="fnanchor">[77:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">But as the Queen demands the meaning of the song, its theme changes:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“He is dead and gone, lady,</div> - <div class="line i1 indentq">He is dead and gone;</div> - <div class="line indentq">At his head a grass-green turf,</div> - <div class="line i1 indentq">At his heels a stone.”<a name="FNanchor_77:3_110" id="FNanchor_77:3_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_77:3_110" class="fnanchor">[77:3]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent"><!-- Page 78 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> -And then, as the King comes in, she confuses the two calamities, and -sings, as though her lover and not her father were dead:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“White his shroud as the mountain-snow . .</div> - <div class="line i1 indentq">Larded with sweet flowers;</div> - <div class="line indentq">Which bewept to the grave did go,</div> - <div class="line i1 indentq">With true-love showers.”<a name="FNanchor_78:1_111" id="FNanchor_78:1_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_78:1_111" class="fnanchor">[78:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">The King’s voice seems here to divert the broken current of her -thoughts and she wanders again. Then, returning to the tragic -theme with the most piteous of cries: “We must be patient; but I -cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him <abbr title="in">i’</abbr> the cold -ground,”<a name="FNanchor_78:2_112" id="FNanchor_78:2_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_78:2_112" class="fnanchor">[78:2]</a> she goes out.</p> - -<p class="noindent">Before long Lærtes returns, furious with rage at his father’s violent -end and eager to be revenged “most throughly” on his enemies. He has -not heard of his sister’s affliction and is dumbfounded, as at this -moment she returns. Then he realises what has taken place and all his -anger melts into a terrible grief:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt</div> - <div class="line indentq">Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye . . .</div> - <div class="line indentq">O heavens! <abbr title="is it">is’t</abbr> possible a young maid’s wits</div> - <div class="line indentq">Should be as mortal as an old man’s life?”<a name="FNanchor_78:3_113" id="FNanchor_78:3_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_78:3_113" class="fnanchor">[78:3]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Her pitiful condition soon reinforces his determination to be revenged: -“This nothing’s more than matter,”<a name="FNanchor_78:4_114" id="FNanchor_78:4_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_78:4_114" class="fnanchor">[78:4]</a> he exclaims, and the -spectator re-echoes the cry as he gazes on the enraged brother and the -afflicted girl whose <!-- Page 79 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>sorrows have been more than she can bear. In her -madness there is not a jot of the maniacal frenzy which is the great -characteristic of Lear. Her nature was ever too gentle:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,</div> - <div class="line indentq">She turns to favour and to prettiness.”<a name="FNanchor_79:1_115" id="FNanchor_79:1_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_79:1_115" class="fnanchor">[79:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>Though of a wholly different nature from the insanity of Lear, -Shakespeare’s delineation of Ophelia’s madness is in its way quite as -masterly. We see nothing of it in its earlier stages—indeed it would -seem to have been of sudden birth and to have developed quickly. In -her ravings there is none of that force and pregnancy which marks the -invective of Lear; two fixed ideas dominate her mind and constantly -recur to it; apart from these she is totally incoherent. We are told, -by those who know, that her insanity takes the form of erotomania, “the -fine name for that form of insanity in which the sentiment of love is -prominent;”<a name="FNanchor_79:2_116" id="FNanchor_79:2_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_79:2_116" class="fnanchor">[79:2]</a> we should suppose, indeed, from what she says, that -her father’s death is its chief cause, as the King and Queen naturally -think also; but this can hardly be assumed, for we cannot say how far -she confuses the two causes of her affliction.</p> - -<p>The Queen’s account of the death of Ophelia is in keeping both with -the tone of the “mad scene” and with the nature of Ophelia’s malady. -<!-- Page 80 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>Exquisitely pathetic, it tells how the distraught girl, obeying a -common instinct of the insane for floral decoration (an instinct which -we also find in “King Lear”) clambered with “fantastic garlands,” on to -a willow which overhung a stream. Mad folk are notoriously regardless -of danger, and Ophelia’s rashness led to a premature grave:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i8h">“An envious sliver broke;</div> - <div class="line">When down her weedy trophies and herself</div> - <div class="line">Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,</div> - <div class="line">And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up;</div> - <div class="line">Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes,</div> - <div class="line">As one incapable of her own distress,</div> - <div class="line">Or like a creature native and indued</div> - <div class="line">Unto that element: but long it could not be</div> - <div class="line">Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,</div> - <div class="line">Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay</div> - <div class="line">To muddy death.”<a name="FNanchor_80:1_117" id="FNanchor_80:1_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_80:1_117" class="fnanchor">[80:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>It will be seen that Shakespeare’s Ophelia, though not in the technical -sense a tragic character, is essentially a character of tragedy, for -it would be only in the gravest and most pathetic of tragi-comedies -that scenes so magnificently portrayed as those of Ophelia’s madness -and the report of her death could be allowed to appear. And in no case -could we witness with equanimity her restoration to complete sanity. -The character was apparently a popular one on the Elizabethan stage and -in more than one contemporary play there are resemblances to it which -are so marked as to <!-- Page 81 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>make a conjecture of mere coincidence impossible. -We are now to consider a personage similarly conceived, but treated -with none of the “high seriousness” of Ophelia and in altogether a -lighter vein—and introduced into a comedy. This character (that of -the ‘Gaoler’s Daughter’ in ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen,’ probably the work -of Shakespeare and Fletcher) is certainly one of the imitations of -Ophelia. It is with equal certainty the work of Fletcher—indeed, the -present writer is only prepared to admit Shakespeare’s hand at all in -two or three scenes, and these are entirely concerned with the main -plot, whereas the story of the Gaoler’s Daughter is a side issue, -and she never appears on the stage at the same time as the Two Noble -Kinsmen themselves. The nature of Fletcher’s imitation—we might almost -say his caricature—of Ophelia will best be seen from a brief account -of the various scenes in which the Gaoler’s Daughter appears.</p> - -<p>The main plot embodies the well-known story of Palamon and Arcite -and their love for the fair Emilia. It will be remembered that in -Chaucer’s version of the story it was “by helping of a freend” that -Palamon escaped from prison; in our play the friend is none other than -the daughter of the gaoler. She is prompted to do this service by a -hopeless and entirely unrequited love for the unfortunate <!-- Page 82 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>prisoner, -which helps to drive her to distraction. The exact nature of her malady -is somewhat doubtful, and the author is not concerned to make it clear. -One suspects that he was none too clear on the subject himself. The -Doctor, who, unlike Shakespeare’s physicians, is a rather incompetent -fellow with a very competent tongue, says that her disease is “not an -engraffed madness, but a most thick and profound melancholy.”<a name="FNanchor_82:1_118" id="FNanchor_82:1_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_82:1_118" class="fnanchor">[82:1]</a> -Various other references, however, suggest mania rather than -melancholy, and as the girl is an obvious imitation of Ophelia, she may -best be considered here.</p> - -<p>The whole story of the development of her madness is told in those -portions of the play which form the underplot, and, in its first -stages, it is told with considerable skill. A “Wooer” is asking -the Gaoler for his daughter’s hand, and during the conversation -the daughter herself comes in and the talk runs on the noble -prisoners.<a name="FNanchor_82:2_119" id="FNanchor_82:2_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_82:2_119" class="fnanchor">[82:2]</a> The daughter is full of their praises. “By my troth, -I think fame but stammers ’em; they stand a grise above the reach of -report.” “The prison itself is proud of ’em; and they have all the -world in their chamber.” Then the two prisoners appear “above” and the -girl at once shews the nature of her interest—much as Portia, in “The -Merchant of Venice” is made to display her preference for Bassanio:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="hang"><!-- Page 83 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span><i>Gaoler</i>: “Look yonder they are! that’s Arcite looks out.”</p> - -<p class="hang"><i>Daughter</i>: “No, sir, no; that’s Palamon; Arcite is the -lower of the twain; you may perceive a -part of him.”</p> -</div> - -<p>The love which one has probably suspected here is openly revealed -in the fourth scene of the second act, which consists solely of a -soliloquy by the Gaoler’s Daughter. The course of her love is made -plain to us: first she admired him; finally, pity having sprung from -admiration and helpless love from pity, she</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Extremely lov’d him, infinitely lov’d him.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Her love has been fed by the plaintive songs he sings and impassioned -by his kindness, his courtesy and a chance caress. On the next -occasion<a name="FNanchor_83:1_120" id="FNanchor_83:1_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_83:1_120" class="fnanchor">[83:1]</a> we see her more sympathetically yet—her love has -achieved something, Palamon is free, and before long his deliverer is -to meet him with food. But though she wanders by night through the -forest, she is unable to find him. For two days nothing has passed -her lips save a little water, she has not slept, and her whole being -is alive with terror at the “strange howls” which seem to tell of her -hero’s untimely fate. “Dissolve my life!” she cries, with the dire -foreboding of the incipient lunatic,</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i9">“Let not my sense unsettle,</div> - <div class="line">Lest I should drown, or stab, or hang myself . . .</div> - <div class="line i9">So, which way now?</div> - <div class="line">The best way is the next way to a grave:</div> - <div class="line">Each errant step beside is torment.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p><!-- Page 84 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>For a moment she disappears, only to re-enter<a name="FNanchor_84:1_121" id="FNanchor_84:1_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_84:1_121" class="fnanchor">[84:1]</a> in a state -bordering on frenzy. Dawn has broken, and her search has been -unsuccessful:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i10h">“Palamon!</div> - <div class="line">Alas no! he’s in heaven—where am I now?</div> - <div class="line">Yonder’s the sea, and there’s a ship; how’t tumbles!</div> - <div class="line">And there’s a rock lies watching under water;</div> - <div class="line">Now, now, it beats upon it; now, now, now,</div> - <div class="line">There’s a leak sprung, a sound one; how they cry!</div> - <div class="line">Spoom her before the wind, you’ll lose all else;</div> - <div class="line">Up with a course or two, and back about, boys;</div> - <div class="line">Good night, good night; ye’re gone. I’m very hungry:</div> - <div class="line">Would I could find a fine frog! he would tell me</div> - <div class="line">News from all parts o’ the world; then would I make</div> - <div class="line">A careck of a cockle-shell, and sail</div> - <div class="line">By east and north-east to the King of Pygmies,</div> - <div class="line">For he tells fortunes rarely.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>She leaves us again, breaking into the first of her mad songs:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“For I’ll cut my green coat a foot above my knee;</div> - <div class="line i1 indentq">Hey nonny, nonny, nonny.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>Up to this point the character of the Gaoler’s Daughter is not unworthy -of Shakespeare, but Fletcher could not keep at so high a level for -long. More than any of his contemporaries he creates mad folk for the -purpose of embellishing his comedies; in this play, having developed a -situation with many fine capabilities, he proceeds to rush in and spoil -his own work in the worst possible way. The luckless girl is introduced -into a rustic scene<a name="FNanchor_84:2_122" id="FNanchor_84:2_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_84:2_122" class="fnanchor">[84:2]</a> and made to sing for the delectation of -some peasants, to exchange coarse banter with them, and <!-- Page 85 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>even to join -in their morris. From this time forward the underplot is hopelessly -degraded, both by its being drawn out to an absurd length and by its -ending in the coarsest of scenes which leads to what we are asked to -believe is the girl’s complete restoration to sanity.</p> - -<p>The Wooer first acquaints the Gaoler with his sweetheart’s -complaint.<a name="FNanchor_85:1_123" id="FNanchor_85:1_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_85:1_123" class="fnanchor">[85:1]</a> We learn that it has been preceded by the natural -irritation which is common in such cases, and that she has answered her -father’s questions:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i4">“So childishly,</div> - <div class="line">So sillily, as if she were a fool,</div> - <div class="line">An innocent.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Since we have last seen her, her senses have quite gone. She constantly -repeats phrases which tell of her trouble—“Palamon is gone,” “Palamon, -fair Palamon,” and the like. She even plagiarises Desdemona, and -sings nothing but “Willow, willow, willow.” She has been playing and -garlanding herself with flowers; now she weeps, now smiles, now sings; -reckless of danger, she sits by a lake, and attempts to drown herself -at the Wooer’s approach. She appears at length<a name="FNanchor_85:2_124" id="FNanchor_85:2_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_85:2_124" class="fnanchor">[85:2]</a> and carries on -the same kind of conversation, fancifully constructing long trains -of imagination from the smallest incidents. While ever and anon the -theme of <!-- Page 86 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>Palamon recurs: he is still in love with her—“a fine young -gentleman,” and he “lies longing” for her in the wood.</p> - -<p>This her father reports to the Doctor: “She is continually in a -harmless distemper, sleeps little; altogether without appetite, save -often drinking; dreaming of another world and a better; and what -broken piece of matter so e’er she’s about the name Palamon lards -it.”<a name="FNanchor_86:1_125" id="FNanchor_86:1_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_86:1_125" class="fnanchor">[86:1]</a> The Doctor is out of his depth. He understands little of -the mind diseased, holding the popular notion that it is “more at some -time of the moon than at other some,” and confessing that he “cannot -minister” to her “perturbed mind.” The remedy which he proposes is -of the crudest. The Wooer is to dress as if he were Palamon, satisfy -all the girl’s desires, and wait for her to return to her right mind. -Both Wooer and Gaoler protest against the extreme application of this -“cure,” but the Doctor is so insistent that they give in, and when in -the last scene Palamon enquires after the girl who procured his escape -and who, he has heard, has been ill, he is told that she is</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i7">“well restor’d</div> - <div class="line">And to be married shortly.”<a name="FNanchor_86:2_126" id="FNanchor_86:2_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_86:2_126" class="fnanchor">[86:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">It is unnecessary to dwell on the cure, for long before this stage the -story has lost all semblance of probability.</p> - -<p><!-- Page 87 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -The inferiority of the Gaoler’s Daughter to Ophelia is as patent as -that of the false to the true Florimel of Spenser’s “Færie Queene.” -A little more skill on the part of the author and a great deal more -restraint would, no doubt, have effected an enormous improvement, -but it is unlikely that Fletcher could ever have made us take the -same interest in the Gaoler’s Daughter as we take in Ophelia. She -is quite unnecessary to the plot, and would require far greater -depth of characterisation before she could appeal with any force to -our sympathies. Had this been done, the taint of the comic and the -coarseness removed, the ravings lessened and the execrable character -of the Doctor changed, we might have had another Ophelia and not an -exaggerated and debased imitation.</p> - -<p>Whatever the nature of the madness of our last subject, the affliction -of Penthea, in Ford’s “Broken Heart” is certainly acute melancholia. -She is dealt with here for the sake of contrast with the two preceding -characters. “The Broken Heart,” as far as its “mad-scenes” are -concerned, has certainly more in common with “Hamlet” than with “The -Two Noble Kinsmen.” It is a tragedy of more than usual gloom, and the -scenes in question are marked by a subdued restraint quite absent -from the “Two Noble Kinsmen.” Penthea talks much more coherently than -either Ophelia or her ape; and though there <!-- Page 88 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>is a distinct want in her -speeches of that colour which so marks the other two plays, she is much -nearer Ophelia in spirit and essentials than the girl for whom Ophelia -actually stood as a model.</p> - -<p>The story, so far as it concerns Penthea, is this: She is in love with -Orgilus, son of a counsellor to the King of Laconia, but has been -compelled to marry Bassanes, a jealous nobleman whom she detests. Her -brother Ithocles’ love for the King’s daughter, Calantha, becomes known -to Penthea, who, in spite of her brother’s cruelty to her, tries to -bring about their union; when she is dead, however, her lover stabs -Ithocles and the Princess dies of a broken heart. Penthea’s situation, -when in the second act she has an interview with Orgilus, is this: she -is contracted to Bassanes, and though she loathes him and will have no -more to do with him than she can help she will not consent to break the -bond of marriage. Her loss of reason, which terminates in her death -in the fourth act, is one of the main factors of the series of events -which leads up to the impressive final situation.</p> - -<p>The scenes which portray the melancholy and distraction of Penthea are -much superior to the others in which she appears, by reason of the -irresistible sympathy which they inspire. We are not greatly enamoured -of the unhappy girl in the first scenes; her character is somewhat -slightly drawn, and, as one commentator <!-- Page 89 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>puts it, there is “a trace of -selfishness in her sorrow, which operates against the sympathy excited -by her sufferings.”<a name="FNanchor_89:1_127" id="FNanchor_89:1_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_89:1_127" class="fnanchor">[89:1]</a> This is dispelled in that touching scene -(<abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 5), where Penthea pleads with Calantha on behalf of her brother. -Her plaintive farewell to life, in the same scene, is not less touching:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i9">“Glories</div> - <div class="line">Of human greatness are but pleasing dreams</div> - <div class="line">And shadows soon decaying; on the stage</div> - <div class="line">Of my mortality my youth hath acted</div> - <div class="line">Some scenes of vanity, drawn out at length</div> - <div class="line">By varied pleasures sweetened in the mixture,</div> - <div class="line">But tragical in issue . . .</div> - <div class="line i7h">. . . You may see</div> - <div class="line">How weary I am of a lingering life,</div> - <div class="line">Who count the best a misery.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">When she next enters “with her hair loose” (<abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 2), Bassanes and -Orgilus are engaged in a violent quarrel. She is followed by Ithocles -heart-broken like Shakespeare’s Lærtes, begging her to look up and -speak to him:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i6h">“Your Ithocles, your brother,</div> - <div class="line">Speaks t’ ye; why do you weep? Dear, turn not from me.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">The sight moves all to pity or remorse, save only Orgilus, whose bitter -sarcasm, when rebuked by Ithocles, turns to a dreadful thirst for -revenge. But the afflicted girl recks nothing of this. Loss of sleep -and a voluntary fast have combined with her heavy sorrows to produce -the inevitable <!-- Page 90 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>result; her depression has deprived her of her reason -and she is sinking into her grave:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i8">“There’s not a hair</div> - <div class="line">Sticks on my head, but, like a leaden plummet,</div> - <div class="line">It sinks me to my grave: I must creep thither;</div> - <div class="line">The journey is not long.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">“Her fancies guide her tongue,” but the burden of her talk is the -subject of marriage, child bearing, infidelity, and true love. Her -resolve to die by starvation is certainly the project of a disordered -brain, though Mr. Saintsbury treats it as if it were not, and censures -the character as unnatural!<a name="FNanchor_90:1_128" id="FNanchor_90:1_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_90:1_128" class="fnanchor">[90:1]</a> Assuming that</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“There is no peace left for a ravished wife</div> - <div class="line indentq">Widowed by lawful marriage,”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">she declares that her blood shall</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i4">“be henceforth never heightened</div> - <div class="line">With taste of sustenance,”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">and falls fainting into her attendant’s arms. The subsequent account of -her death<a name="FNanchor_90:2_129" id="FNanchor_90:2_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_90:2_129" class="fnanchor">[90:2]</a> is the more pathetic by reason of its brevity:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line"><i>Philema.</i> <span class="pad6h">“She called for music,</span></div> - <div class="line">And begged some gentle voice to tune a farewell</div> - <div class="line">To life and griefs; Christalla touched the lute;</div> - <div class="line">I wept the funeral song.</div> -<br /> - <div class="line"><i>Christalla.</i> <span class="pad4h">Which scarce was ended</span></div> - <div class="line">But her last breath sealed up these hollow sounds,</div> - <div class="line">‘O cruel Ithocles and injured Orgilus’</div> - <div class="line">So down she drew her veil, so died.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>The presentation of Penthea’s madness is one of the few examples of a -truly artistic <!-- Page 91 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>treatment of the subject, and “The Broken Heart” is -one of the few post-Shakespearean plays which with some touches by -the Master-hand might have become a really great romantic tragedy. -Penthea is, to tell the truth, about as far inferior to Ophelia as -she is superior to the Gaoler’s Daughter. The partly unsympathetic -presentation of her character in the first part of the play, the lack -of picturesqueness and relief from the gloom of the tragedy, the -suspicion of melodrama in the surrounding scenes and the involved -nature of the plot—all these combine to place Penthea on a lower level -than Ophelia. And, in addition, she is less important and hence less -striking from a purely dramatic point of view.</p> - -<p>Something has already been said of the plot and the personages of “The -Lover’s Melancholy,” but the melancholy of Palador and the madness -of Meleander may be briefly considered here as furnishing additional -examples of Ford’s treatment of the subject. Palador’s melancholy, -which gives the title to the piece, seems to be largely temperamental -and scarcely a case for the physician, though Corax, his medical -adviser, goes to some pains to “cure” it, and is in consequence, -hailed as a “perfect arts-man.”<a name="FNanchor_91:1_130" id="FNanchor_91:1_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_91:1_130" class="fnanchor">[91:1]</a> The Prince’s melancholy is thus -described:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i5"><!-- Page 92 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>“He’s the same melancholy man</div> - <div class="line">He was <abbr title="at his">at’s</abbr> father’s death; sometimes speaks sense,</div> - <div class="line">But seldom mirth; will smile, but seldom laugh;</div> - <div class="line">Will lead an ear to business, deal in none;</div> - <div class="line">Gaze upon revels, antic fopperies,</div> - <div class="line">But is not moved; will sparingly discourse,</div> - <div class="line">Hear music; but what most he takes delight in</div> - <div class="line">Are handsome pictures.”<a name="FNanchor_92:1_131" id="FNanchor_92:1_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_92:1_131" class="fnanchor">[92:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">His melancholy apparently began at his father’s death and was increased -by the disappearance of Eroclea. We need not stay long over him. -Corax, who is apparently a man of many theories and much resource, -presents the Prince with a Masque,<a name="FNanchor_92:2_132" id="FNanchor_92:2_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_92:2_132" class="fnanchor">[92:2]</a>—already mentioned—in which -madmen of various sorts pass over the stage and make speeches. The -last of these persons is Palador’s lost love in disguise who appears -as “Love-Melancholy.” How far the Prince’s malady is relieved by this -is uncertain; but the form of “Parthenophil” arouses memories and the -re-appearance of Eroclea in the next act is the real “potent” which -restores the melancholy lover.</p> - -<p>The madness of Meleander, Eroclea’s father, is more interesting. He -has, so far as we know, no sort of predisposition to insanity, which -comes upon him following a cloud of troubles—he has been accused of -treason, his lands have <!-- Page 93 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>been seized and his daughter has disappeared. -We are informed by our physician that his affliction is not madness; it -is</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i10h">“His sorrows—</div> - <div class="line">Close-griping grief and anguish of the soul—</div> - <div class="line">That torture him.”<a name="FNanchor_93:1_133" id="FNanchor_93:1_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_93:1_133" class="fnanchor">[93:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Yet we can find in Meleander all those “signs” which by now we are -beginning to associate with insanity. The unfortunate man “sleeps -like a hare, with his eyes open,” he groans, “thunders” and “roars,” -and his “eyes roll.” He talks wildly, yet at times coherently, knows -his daughter Cleophila, enquires “Am I stark mad?” His maniacal -excitability displays itself in his laughter, “the usher to a violent -extremity.”<a name="FNanchor_93:2_134" id="FNanchor_93:2_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_93:2_134" class="fnanchor">[93:2]</a> The reaction soon follows; he faces those about him -and remarks:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“I am a weak old man; all these are come</div> - <div class="line indentq">To jeer my ripe calamities.”<a href="#Footnote_93:2_134" class="fnanchor">[93:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">At times—and this is surely the greatest praise we can give him—his -ravings remind us of Lear’s, with their mingled sarcasm, pathos and -unconcealed rage. His brother’s son Menaphon approaches him with a -“Good uncle!” What, outside Shakespeare, can be more like Lear before -his eloquence goes and leaves his rage supreme, than Meleander’s -furious reply:<a name="FNanchor_93:3_135" id="FNanchor_93:3_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_93:3_135" class="fnanchor">[93:3]</a></p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i7">“Fools, desperate fools!</div> - <div class="line">You’re cheated, grossly cheated; range, range on,</div> - <div class="line">And roll about the world to gather moss,</div> - <div class="line">The moss of honour, gay reports, gay clothes,</div> - <div class="line"><!-- Page 94 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>Gay wives, huge empty buildings, whose proud roofs</div> - <div class="line">Shall with their pinnacles even reach the stars,</div> - <div class="line">Ye work and work like moles, blind in the paths</div> - <div class="line">That are bored through the crannies of the earth,</div> - <div class="line">To charge your hungry souls with such full surfeits</div> - <div class="line">As being gorged once, make ye lean with plenty;</div> - <div class="line">And when ye’ve skimmed the vomit of your riots,</div> - <div class="line">Ye’re fat in no felicity but folly;</div> - <div class="line">Then your last sleeps seize on ye; then the troops</div> - <div class="line">Of worms crawl round and feast; good cheer, rich fare,</div> - <div class="line">Dainty, delicious!”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>How does Corax propose to cure such a patient as this? Spurred on -by the flatteries of Rhetias—“a reduced Courtier”—nothing daunted -by the picturesque report that Meleander “chafes hugely, fumes like -a stew-pot,”<a name="FNanchor_94:1_136" id="FNanchor_94:1_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_94:1_136" class="fnanchor">[94:1]</a> he coolly explains his intention of out-Heroding -Herod—“We will roar with him, if he roar,”<a href="#Footnote_94:1_136" class="fnanchor">[94:1]</a>—and suiting the -action to the word he “produces a frightful mask and headpiece.”<a href="#Footnote_94:1_136" class="fnanchor">[94:1]</a> -Meleander enters, armed with a poleaxe and raving in a vein which must -have delighted the greediest of the groundlings. A battle of words -and mock actions ensues, and the madman is soon reduced to a state -of comparative calm. He lays down the poleaxe, and Corax removes the -mask. The physician then proceeds to minister to the mind diseased with -tales of his own supposed mental sufferings, assuming apparently that -like counteracts like in madness as in melancholy. This is to some -<!-- Page 95 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>extent true, and Shakespeare rightly represents Lear as in a state -of comparative tranquillity when in the presence of Edgar. But Ford’s -play would seem to be inspired rather by a desire to please than by -a fidelity to real life. The concluding scene,<a name="FNanchor_95:1_137" id="FNanchor_95:1_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_95:1_137" class="fnanchor">[95:1]</a> however, so far -as it concerns Meleander, is sufficient compensation, for again it -recalls “King Lear” in its general nature if not in matters of detail. -The madman has been put to sleep, his hair and beard have been trimmed -and his gown is changed. Music, as in “King Lear,” is playing, and a -song, full of delicate charm, is being sung by a Boy outside. At its -close Meleander awakens, confused and half-dreaming. He is inclined to -sleep again, but the physician hails him—somewhat boisterously, one -would think—and in spite of his patient’s brusque “Away, beast! let me -alone,” he succeeds in rousing him. The madness certainly appears to -have left him; he is now quite calm, though the burden of his troubles -still oppresses him.</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i2">“The weight of my disease,” <span class="largefont">he says,</span></div> - <div class="line">“Sits on my heart so heavy,</div> - <div class="line">That all the hands of art cannot remove</div> - <div class="line">One grain, to ease my grief.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Corax has, indeed, in preparation, a cordial which is to effect this, -but it is reserved—not wholly for dramatic reasons,—to a fitting -climax. Successive messengers first bring the <!-- Page 96 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>news that the Prince, -now happy (though the father knows it not) in the possession of his -love, has restored to Meleander all the honours he formerly enjoyed, -together with new honours and marks of favour undreamed of. Then at -last Eroclea is presented to him and his restored reason stands the -test of happiness. Explanations ensue; all part friends; and “sorrows -are changed to bride-songs.”</p> - -<p>It will be seen that Ford’s conception of madness is by no means a -low one; he has not debased it by making it a sport for those to whom -it is a thing to fleer and jest at; he has introduced it into comedy -indeed, but it must be remembered that Ford’s tragi-comedy is a wholly -different thing from the gross buffooneries of Fletcher, Dekker and -Middleton, and that the madness of Meleander, though resembling that -of Lear, is on a far lower scale. It rises now and then to unusual -heights, but remains at their exalted level for so short a time that we -never look at it seriously for long. The gloom is also lightened by the -antics of the whimsical Corax, whose triumphs of psycho-medical skill -would, no doubt, in happier times, have induced him to set up a private -Bedlam of his own!</p> - -<p>In considering Chettles’ “Tragedy of Hoffman”<a name="FNanchor_96:1_138" id="FNanchor_96:1_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_96:1_138" class="fnanchor">[96:1]</a> we are met by an -initial difficulty of <!-- Page 97 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>authorship, for the resemblance between this -play and “Hamlet,” as well as between Lucibella and Ophelia, would -suggest plagiarism. The question, however, is difficult to decide, -and can hardly be discussed here. Whatever be the solution, Lucibella -is a most effective character. To a certain degree her madness is -merely conventional. But there are numerous touches of real art in -her portrayal, and she is not degraded like the Gaoler’s Daughter in -“The Two Noble Kinsmen” by being made “a motley to the view.” On the -contrary, as one editor points out, Chettle surpasses Shakespeare by -making her, unlike Ophelia, directly instrumental in bringing about the -dénouement of the play.</p> - -<p>The madness of Lucibella is brought about by the murder of her lover, -Lodowick, through the agency of Hoffman. In her mad wanderings she -discovers the skeletons of Hoffman’s father, and of Prince Otho, for -whose death her lover’s murderer is also responsible. Eventually the -mischief caused by the first shock is undone by a second; Lucibella -recovers her reason. Hear her in her first ravings:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Oh [Oh] a sword, I pray you, kill me not,</div> - <div class="line indentq">For I am going to the river’s side,</div> - <div class="line indentq">To fetch white lilies and blue daffodils,</div> - <div class="line indentq">To stick in Lod’wick’s bosom, where it bled,</div> - <div class="line indentq">And in mine own . . . .</div> - <div class="line indentq">‘<em>We must run all away, yet all must die</em>’</div> - <div class="line indentq"><!-- Page 98 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>’Tis so;—I wrought it in a sampler.</div> - <div class="line indentq">’Twas heart in hand, and true love’s knots and words,</div> - <div class="line indentq">All true stitch, by my troth, the posy thus—</div> - <div class="line indentq">‘<em>No flight, dear love, but death shall sever us</em>.’</div> - <div class="line indentq">Neither did that! He lies here, does he not?”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">She cannot make up her mind whether her lover is really dead or not. -Only conscious of a vague calamity, she cries:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Tell Lod’wick, Lucibell would speak with him!</div> - <div class="line indentq">I’ve news from heav’n for him, he must not die;</div> - <div class="line indentq">I’ve robb’d Prometheus of his moving fire:—</div> - <div class="line indentq">Open the door!—I must come in, and will;</div> - <div class="line indentq">I’ll beat myself to air, but I’ll come in!”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">So saying, she knocks violently at the door of the vault; those who -surround her fear that she will “do violence upon herself.” She -understands:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Oh, never fear me! there is somewhat cries</div> - <div class="line indentq">Within me, ‘No!’ tells me there’re knaves abroad;</div> - <div class="line indentq">Bids me be quiet, lay me down, and sleep.”<a name="FNanchor_98:1_139" id="FNanchor_98:1_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_98:1_139" class="fnanchor">[98:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Her violence is noteworthy; three or four men attempt to hold her; but -she succeeds in freeing herself from them, and wanders abroad.</p> - -<p>When we next see her the second shock is at work and Lucibella is -returning to sanity. Mathias, Lodowick’s brother, still fears for her -life, having seen her “clamb’ring upon the steepness of the rock,” but -what she has seen in Hoffman’s cave has saved her mental life. She -talks still with the fierce sarcasm of mania.</p> - -<p>Shewing the skeletons, she cries:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i11"><!-- Page 99 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>“Is it not like</div> - <div class="line">I keep a princely house, when I have such</div> - <div class="line">Fat porters at my gate.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Still, as before, she lards her speech with scraps of song:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i1">“Here, look here!</div> - <div class="line">Here is a way goes down!</div> - <div class="line i1">Down, down, down,</div> - <div class="line">Hey down, down!”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">This ditty is reminiscent of the descent to the cave, but the next -moment the memory of that is gone and only the consciousness of her -loss remains:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“I sang that song while Lod’wick slept with me:”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">But at length, gradually and before our eyes, she recovers her lost -reason. Her speech to the Duchess of Luneberg shews what seems to be -the wandering of her still distraught mind. She displays the rich -clothes of Otho:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“A poor maiden, mistress, has a suit to you,</div> - <div class="line indentq">And ’tis a good suit, very good apparel.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">And she breaks into song again. But shortly afterwards she recognises -the two corpses, and as Lorick unfolds the ghastly story of Hoffman’s -crime the princess comes to her right mind again. At the end of the -scene she declares her complete sanity:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Nay I will come; my wits are mine agen,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Now faith grows firm to punish faithless men.”<a name="FNanchor_99:1_140" id="FNanchor_99:1_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_99:1_140" class="fnanchor">[99:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>For a moment now we may look at the madness of Cardenes, which enters -into the plot <!-- Page 100 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>of Massinger’s “A Very Woman.” He is son to the Duke -of Messina and a rival of Don John Antonio, the Prince of Tarent, for -the hand of Almira, daughter of the Viceroy of Sicily. In a violent -quarrel with Antonio, who is enraged at not being the favoured suitor, -Cardenes is wounded—it is at first thought mortally, but he recovers, -though for a time he loses his senses. Eventually he is restored by a -physician named Paulo. We see very little of him in his mad condition. -First we learn that his disease is</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i9">“Melancholy</div> - <div class="line indentq">And at the height, too, near akin to madness . . .</div> - <div class="line i4">. . . His senses are distracted,” <span class="largefont">says Paulo,</span></div> - <div class="line">“Not one, but all; and if I can collect them</div> - <div class="line indentq">With all the various ways invention</div> - <div class="line indentq">Or industry e’er practised, I shall write it</div> - <div class="line indentq">My masterpiece.”<a name="FNanchor_100:1_141" id="FNanchor_100:1_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_100:1_141" class="fnanchor">[100:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">When Cardenes actually appears,<a name="FNanchor_100:2_142" id="FNanchor_100:2_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_100:2_142" class="fnanchor">[100:2]</a> any maniacal excitement which -may have disturbed him has disappeared, and he appears to be in a state -of simple melancholia:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Farewell, farewell, for ever, name of mistress!</div> - <div class="line indentq">Out of my heart I cross thee; love and women</div> - <div class="line indentq">Out of my thoughts.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">This is the burden of his discourse. Paulo encourages him by mild -half-contradictions:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“And yet I’ve heard of many virtuous women.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">But Cardenes’ new-learned philosophy remains unchanged:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Not many, doctor; there your reading fails you:</div> - <div class="line indentq">Would there were more, and in their loves less dangers.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent"><!-- Page 101 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>The treatment recommended for this “strange melancholy” by the -physician, who is of good reputation and has received many gifts from -the Duke of Messina and others, is most noteworthy. He is no friend -of prevailing customs: The patient “must take air.” Though, as the -surgeons protest, “he hath lost already . . . much blood,”</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“To choke up his spirits in a dark room,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Is far more dangerous.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">The remainder of the cure is not unlike the prescription of Corax. The -physician applies himself to all the patient’s “humours,” “checking the -bad and cherishing the good.”</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i7h">“For these I have</div> - <div class="line">Prepared my instruments, fitting his chamber</div> - <div class="line">With trapdoors, and descents; sometimes presenting</div> - <div class="line">Good spirits of the air, bad of the earth,</div> - <div class="line">To pull down or advance his fair intentions.</div> - <div class="line">He’s of a noble nature, yet sometimes</div> - <div class="line">Thinks that which, by confederacy, I do,</div> - <div class="line">Is by some skill in magic.”<a name="FNanchor_101:1_143" id="FNanchor_101:1_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_101:1_143" class="fnanchor">[101:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Who can wonder, for “Protean Paulo” with his quaint devices shews a -truly super-human versatility. At all events, he succeeds in gathering -the “scatter’d sense” of Cardenes, who thanks him profusely for having -been</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“My friar, soldier (and) philosopher,</div> - <div class="line indentq">My poet, architect, physician.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Paulo is indeed a disinterested and enthusiastic doctor, and is really -more interesting than Cardenes himself.</p> - -<p><!-- Page 102 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -The madness of Sir Giles Overreach is worth our notice, as being -introduced merely as a stage device, to emphasise the defeat of the -cruel extortioner and to serve as a climax to the comedy. The last -act of the play, into which he is introduced, shows every sign at -the outset of being the usual type of “last act” of a tragi-comedy. -Overreach, with “distracted looks,” has learned how he has been tricked -both by his creature, Marall, and by his daughter Margaret, who, -against his will, has married her lover, and now appears with him, -as his wife. The usurer is overcome by the double shock. “My brain -turns,” he cries. His rage passes all bounds. He attempts to kill his -daughter and threatens to make the house “a heap of ashes.” Flourishing -his sword, he raves of his courage; those standing around are, to his -disordered mind,</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i12">“hangmen,</div> - <div class="line">That come to bind my hands, and then to drag me</div> - <div class="line">Before the judgment seat: now they are new shapes,</div> - <div class="line">And do appear like Furies, with steel whips</div> - <div class="line">To scourge my ulcerous soul. Shall I then fall</div> - <div class="line">Ingloriously and yield? No! spite of Fate,</div> - <div class="line">I will be forced to hell like to myself.</div> - <div class="line">Though you were legions of accursed spirits,</div> - <div class="line">Thus would I fly among you.”<a name="FNanchor_102:1_144" id="FNanchor_102:1_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_102:1_144" class="fnanchor">[102:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">He flings himself on the ground, foaming and biting the earth, only to -be disarmed, bound and carried “to some dark room.” He will be <!-- Page 103 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>tended -by physicians from Bedlam, who will try</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“What art can do for his recovery.”<a name="FNanchor_103:1_145" id="FNanchor_103:1_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_103:1_145" class="fnanchor">[103:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">The climax could hardly be more effective, were it not for Lord Lovell, -who, before winding up the business of the play, thinks it necessary -to point the moral in the most objectionable manner, only surpassed by -Massinger himself elsewhere:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Here is a precedent to teach wicked men,</div> - <div class="line indentq">That when they leave religion, and turn atheists,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Their own abilities leave them.”<a name="FNanchor_103:2_146" id="FNanchor_103:2_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_103:2_146" class="fnanchor">[103:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>With Overreach may be compared Webster’s Ferdinand, who, after causing -his sister, the Duchess of Malfi, with her little children, to be -murdered, is driven by remorse to self-questionings and fears, and -thence to raving madness. Webster’s presentation of insanity is far -superior, in these scenes, to that by Massinger just cited. For the -ravings of Ferdinand come upon us with the greatest force after the -awful tragedy for which he has been responsible—we are spared the -comments of Justice Greedy on the situation. Further, the madness of -Ferdinand is what we should expect from one of so passionate a nature, -and its course, as will now be seen, is depicted with realistic force -to its terrible end.</p> - -<p>His insanity takes the form, so we are told, of lycanthropia,<a name="FNanchor_103:3_147" id="FNanchor_103:3_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_103:3_147" class="fnanchor">[103:3]</a> -victims of which, we learn <!-- Page 104 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>imagine themselves transformed into -wolves and do deeds of violence to dead bodies; the Duke has already -been found at night, has “howled fearfully” and seems in danger of -his life. When he enters, he is persecuted by a fear of his shadow, -which he tries unreasoningly to kill. The Doctor approaches him, but -can do nothing with his patient beyond extracting one expression of -fear: “Hide me from him; physicians are like kings, they brook no -contradiction.” But the timidity lasts but a moment, and Ferdinand -leaves the stage in a fit of insane passion.</p> - -<p>When he reappears, it is but for a moment; his words are few but tense, -and recall the terrible crime he has committed. “Strangling is a very -quiet death . . . So, it must be done in the dark: the Cardinal would -not for a thousand pounds the doctor should see it.” In the next scene, -he is more violent. Interrupting a struggle between Bosola, his bloody -instrument, and his brother the crafty Cardinal, he wounds them both, -in spite of the latter’s cry for assistance, and is himself stabbed by -Bosola, who stigmatises him as “thou main cause of my undoing.” In his -last moments he recovers something of his reason.</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“He seems to come to himself,” <span class="largefont">says Bosola,</span></div> - <div class="line">“Now he’s so near the bottom.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">And in truth the last words which fall from <!-- Page 105 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>the Duke’s lips reiterate -the remorse which he feels for his crime.</p> - -<p>As concluding examples of the presentation of the madman, in the most -usual sense of the word, may be taken two of Fletcher’s characters and -one of Jonson’s. Fletcher’s productions shall be considered briefly in -succession: they are “The Passionate Madman,” in the play, with that -sub-title, usually known as “The Nice Valour,”<a name="FNanchor_105:1_148" id="FNanchor_105:1_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_105:1_148" class="fnanchor">[105:1]</a> and Shattillion -in “The Noble Gentleman.”</p> - -<p>“The Passionate Madman,” who has no name besides, is inspired, like -many of his fellows, rather by a desire to please the public than -by a passion for probability. His peculiar mania takes the form of -a succession of “fits,” characterised as the “love fit,” the “merry -fit,” the “angry fit” and so on. There is seldom any reason adduced -for the change from one state to another, which is probably governed -by the dramatic situation. There seems to be no authority for the -classification of insanity in so many compartments in this manner; -if the author ever thought about this at all, he probably arrived at -a generalisation of the most common attribute of mania—the violent -and rapid succession of emotions—in much the same way as Jonson -generalised traits of character into “humours.”</p> - -<p><!-- Page 106 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> -The madman of this play is a kinsman to the Duke of Genoa. He makes -his appearance at the end of the first act,<a name="FNanchor_106:1_149" id="FNanchor_106:1_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_106:1_149" class="fnanchor">[106:1]</a> coming on with a -wooden smile and making “a congee or two to nothing.” He selects a -courtier for the object of his affections, makes love to him as if to -a lady, and as the object of his choice is quite willing to sustain -the delusion, he works himself up to a great state of excitement. In -the next scene<a name="FNanchor_106:2_150" id="FNanchor_106:2_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_106:2_150" class="fnanchor">[106:2]</a> it appears “by his flattering and his fineness” -that “he is still in his love-fit,” and his mistress, thinking it well -to humour him, disguises herself as Cupid and persuades him that if he -comes away she will make all ladies follow him. She really hopes to -cure him:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“She keeps this shape. . . .</div> - <div class="line indentq">To see if she can draw all his wild passions</div> - <div class="line indentq">To one point only, and that’s love, the main point.”<a name="FNanchor_106:3_151" id="FNanchor_106:3_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_106:3_151" class="fnanchor">[106:3]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>She has every opportunity of trying, for at this moment the “love -fit” obligingly gives way to the “angry fit.” Galoshio, the clown, -has been “almost beaten blind” by the Passionate Madman, “twice -thrown down stairs, just before supper,” and “pluck’d and tugg’d by -th’ hair o’ th’ head about a gallery half an acre long.”<a name="FNanchor_106:4_152" id="FNanchor_106:4_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_106:4_152" class="fnanchor">[106:4]</a> The -Passionate Lord, after giving this foretaste of his achievements, is -not long in appearing, “rudely and <!-- Page 107 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>carelessly apparelled, unbraced -and untrussed,”<a name="FNanchor_107:1_153" id="FNanchor_107:1_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_107:1_153" class="fnanchor">[107:1]</a> and followed by the Lady, still in disguise. -The fit would seem at first to be one of melancholy, which rejects all -the Lady’s blandishments and stigmatises those of her sex as “fair -mischiefs.” As Lapet, Galoshio’s master, approaches, the “furious fit” -succeeds. Lapet is struck down and discreetly shams death, while the -madman accompanies his truncheon-blows with wild snatches of song. -We see no more of our madman after this until the fifth act when the -“merry fit” has sway. The burden of his speech is “Ha! ha! ha!” and his -songs are wildly merry: he begins to be “song-ripe.”<a name="FNanchor_107:2_154" id="FNanchor_107:2_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_107:2_154" class="fnanchor">[107:2]</a> The Lady -once more appears, followed by several others dressed as fools. But a -cure is unexpectedly wrought more quickly than she could accomplish it. -“The Soldier” (brother to Chamont, the chief character of the play) has -been insulted by the madman at an earlier stage in it, and, much to -the dismay of the Lady and her attendants, he now stabs the Passionate -Lord, and makes his escape. He only re-appears at the end of the -play, cured of his wound and at the same time of his madness. La Nove -explains this to the Duke:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line"><!-- Page 108 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>“Death cannot be more free from passions, sir,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Than he is at this instant; he’s so meek now,</div> - <div class="line indentq">He makes those seem passionate were never thought of;</div> - <div class="line indentq">And, for he fears his moods have oft disturbed you, sir,</div> - <div class="line indentq">He’s only hasty now for his forgiveness.”<a name="FNanchor_108:1_155" id="FNanchor_108:1_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_108:1_155" class="fnanchor">[108:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">There is little to add to this sketch, which is sufficiently -expressive. The Lord is not interesting, still less striking, as a -character; no attempt is made to introduce a vestige of reality into -the madness, and thus the comedy leaves us unmoved. We cannot even be -indignant at it—it is so feeble.</p> - -<p>Is it necessary to complete the story by adding that the Passionate -Lord marries the Lady?</p> - -<p>As a slightly different example of Fletcher’s work, we may consider his -“Noble Gentleman” and the madman Shattillion. We can diagnose his case -more readily than that of the Passionate Lord. He suffers from a kind -of persecutory delusion, being</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i4">“strong opinion’d that the wench he lov’d</div> - <div class="line">Remains close prisoner by the King’s command,</div> - <div class="line">Fearing her title.”<a name="FNanchor_108:2_156" id="FNanchor_108:2_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_108:2_156" class="fnanchor">[108:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">At the same time, he believes that certain enemies have designs on his -life. Meeting his cousin Cleremont, he enquires of him his “faction,” -and being told:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“I know no parties nor no factions, sir,”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">he commands him:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i6h"><!-- Page 109 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>“Then wear this cross of white,</div> - <div class="line">And where you see the like, they are my friends;</div> - <div class="line">Observe them well, the type is dangerous.”<a name="FNanchor_109:1_157" id="FNanchor_109:1_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_109:1_157" class="fnanchor">[109:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">A touch of the pathetic (often mingled with the comic), accompanies the -“poor, grieved gentlewoman” who once refused his suit and for love of -whom Shattillion’s mind became unhinged, who:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Follows him much lamenting, and much loving,</div> - <div class="line indentq">In hope to make him well.”<a name="FNanchor_109:2_158" id="FNanchor_109:2_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_109:2_158" class="fnanchor">[109:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">But, says Longueville, a courtier,</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i4h">“he knows her not,</div> - <div class="line">Nor any else that comes to visit him.”<a href="#Footnote_109:2_158" class="fnanchor">[109:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>Shattillion is plainly created for a dramatic purpose. The main story -concerns the gulling of a gentleman named Mount-Marine by his wife, -who persuades him that the King has granted him many high honours, and -that he is Duke of Burgundy. Shattillion, whose delusions persuade him -that he has himself a claim to the crown, is worked into the plot with -considerable skill, and his quarrel in the fifth act with the “Duke” -and his servant unites the two plots with great effect.</p> - -<p>A short study of the “mad scenes” will shew the strength and the -weakness of this character. The particular form of his mania is brought -out very clearly. The madman is perfectly sure about the plots laid -for him; his friends are really enemies disguised to “sift into” his -words; <!-- Page 110 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span><em>he</em> “can see and can beware”; <em>he</em> has his wits about him and -thanks Heaven for it! The burst of laughter with which the audience -would greet this assertion is at once hushed as the Lady laments the -o’erthrow of her lover’s noble mind;</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“That was the fairest hope the French court bred,</div> - <div class="line indentq">The worthiest and the sweetest-temper’d spirit,</div> - <div class="line indentq">The truest, and the valiantest, the best of judgment.”<a name="FNanchor_110:1_159" id="FNanchor_110:1_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_110:1_159" class="fnanchor">[110:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">She is remorse-stricken at being the cause of it all, and prays Heaven -to be merciful; she will do all she can to restore her lover to his -senses.</p> - -<p>A long interval elapses before Shattillion is again introduced.<a name="FNanchor_110:2_160" id="FNanchor_110:2_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_110:2_160" class="fnanchor">[110:2]</a> -Now he has heard of the “new duke” and he is suspicious and curious, -so much so that he is gesticulating and enquiring about it in the -open street. The Lady appears and begs Madam Marine to take him into -her house “from the broad eyes of people.” She does so. Shattillion, -now believing that he is “betray’d” and about to be beheaded, is led -away giving his last instructions. Before long, we see him once more, -this time in Marine’s house, proving to Marine that he (Shattillion) -is of the blood royal, and but for the interference of his friends he -would seize Marine as a traitor. In the next act he persuades Jacques, -Marine’s old servant, that he too is in danger of his life, and drags -him into his house for shelter. As they <!-- Page 111 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>go in, the Lady appears, and, -knocking at Shattillion’s door, is repulsed as another enemy. The -madman’s imagination goes so far as to see “some twenty musketeers in -ambush,” and he suspects his love of being their captain. Meanwhile -Jacques, disguised as a woman, is leaving the house, when his preserver -stops him, accuses him of being</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i8">“A yeoman of the guard,</div> - <div class="line">Disguised in woman’s clothes, to work on me,</div> - <div class="line">To make love to me and to trap my words</div> - <div class="line">And so ensnare my life.”<a name="FNanchor_111:1_161" id="FNanchor_111:1_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_111:1_161" class="fnanchor">[111:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Jacques at length escapes, and after another adventure returns as -servant to the “Duke.” In this capacity he is forced into a fierce -quarrel with Shattillion, who, in his furious loyalty, seizes Marine -and throws him to the ground. Hereupon the Lady has a remedy to propose:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“A strange conceit hath wrought this malady;</div> - <div class="line indentq">Conceits again must bring him to himself;</div> - <div class="line indentq">My strict denial to his will wrought this,</div> - <div class="line indentq">And if you could but draw his wilder thoughts</div> - <div class="line indentq">To know me, he would, sure, recover sense.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Longueville undertakes the charge. Assuring Shattillion that the King -has rewarded his loyalty, he presents to him the Lady, who, he says, -has been released from prison for his sake. Shattillion is overcome, -and after a few minutes falls asleep. Longueville knows that this is a -good sign:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“His eyes grow very heavy. Not a word,</div> - <div class="line indentq">That his weak senses may come sweetly home.”<a name="FNanchor_111:2_162" id="FNanchor_111:2_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_111:2_162" class="fnanchor">[111:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent"><!-- Page 112 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -He wakes, indeed, still “weak and sickly,” but himself again.</p> - -<p>The general impression left by this comedy is, on the whole, pleasant, -that part of it concerned with Shattillion included. The antics of -the madman himself are certainly comic, especially on the stage, and -the lighter side of his mania is persistently put forward. The only -pathetic touch is, in fact, the genuine sorrow of his Lady. This -predominance of the comic may be regretted, though in a play of the -farcical nature of “The Noble Gentleman” little else could be expected. -However, the sound, realistic basis of the disease, together with -the simple and unassuming cure—which, nevertheless, would hardly be -successful in real life,—makes the treatment of Shattillion as far -superior to the treatment of the Passionate Lord as the one play is to -the other. Considered absolutely, the representation of Shattillion -is chiefly remarkable for its reality, its skilful weaving into the -plot, and its mingling of pathos with broad humour. On the other hand -the pathos would not be so artificial if the entrance of the lady were -somewhat less mechanical—we could almost certainly predict when she -will enter in the last two acts. Fletcher’s almost total blindness to -everything but the comic and its possibilities also detracts from the -effect of Shattillion, and the very obvious dramatic <!-- Page 113 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>motive for his -introduction does not, on reflection, improve matters.</p> - -<p>We have now passed from the heights of tragedy, through its pathos, and -the ill-blended pathos and broad humour of inferior tragi-comedy to the -pure and simple inanity of “The Nice Valour”—a work which certainly -appears to be unfinished. In considering Shattillion, we have risen -as high as we can hope to do within the limits of comedy, and before -leaving the raving lunatic for another class of madman we must descend -slightly as we consider Ben Jonson’s comedy of “Bartholomew Fair,” and -his madman, Trouble-all.</p> - -<p>The plot has already been outlined, and it will be seen that the place -of the madman is an important one. Theoretically, he is of prime -importance to the play, since it is foretold that Dame Purecraft, who -has already had two suitors, shall “never have happy hour unless she -marry within this sen’night; and when it is it must be a madman,” and -it is Quarlous, dressed in Trouble-all’s clothes and affecting his -malady, who eventually marries her. As a matter of fact, the main -portion of the play is concerned with other things, and we only meet -our madman in the fourth act. From this point onward, the author shews -great ingenuity in his handling of him; the burden of his remarks -alone serves as a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">point d’appui</i> <!-- Page 114 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>for the spectator (who by this time -is probably getting wearied), while the humorous situations which he -provokes, culminating in the acuteness of Quarlous and its success, are -largely responsible for the undoubted popularity of the comedy with -both reader and spectator.</p> - -<p>This is, of course, very much to the credit of a comedy which -professedly deals with low life; it is more to our purpose to -remark that as a picture of madness the character of Trouble-all is -exceptionally correct. Gifford’s note to Cunningham’s edition of Ben -Jonson remarks that “Even the trifling part of Trouble-all, in any -other writer than Jonson, would be thought deserving of praise for -its correct delineation of a particular species of insanity, too -inoffensive for fear and too slight for commiseration.”<a name="FNanchor_114:1_163" id="FNanchor_114:1_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_114:1_163" class="fnanchor">[114:1]</a> Gifford -is right, both in what he states and in what he implies. We expect -correctness from Jonson and we are not disappointed.</p> - -<p>A sketch of the madman should make this clear. He was “an officer -in the court of pie-poudres last year and put out of his place by -Justice Overdo.”<a name="FNanchor_114:2_164" id="FNanchor_114:2_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_114:2_164" class="fnanchor">[114:2]</a> His affliction is marked by the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">idée fixe</i>; -he raves continually about the Justice, and will do nothing—not even -the simplest actions of daily life—without satisfying himself that he -has Overdo’s warrant for it. How true to life this feature is may be -read in <!-- Page 115 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>any modern book on insanity. He appears first of all in the -fair, where Overdo is being put into the stocks: “If you have Justice -Overdo’s warrant,” he says, “’tis well; you are safe: that is the -warrant of warrants.”<a name="FNanchor_115:1_165" id="FNanchor_115:1_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_115:1_165" class="fnanchor">[115:1]</a> He is walking to and fro, with all the -restless impatience of mania, demanding to be shewn Adam Overdo. In -his frantic wanderings he comes upon Dame Purecraft, who apparently -thinks him more suitable for her than any madman she has yet seen -and cries: “Now heaven increase his madness and bless and thank it.” -Trouble-all’s reply does not vary: “Have you a warrant? an you have a -warrant, shew it.”<a href="#Footnote_115:1_165" class="fnanchor">[115:1]</a> Person after person presents himself but the -madman’s reply is always the same. Every conversation he interrupts -with his query, and, when he is ignored, he turns away in disgust. Once -he exasperates a watchman, who strikes him. The latent rage of the -lunatic shews itself, but the madman’s rationalisation first provides -it with an excuse: “Strikest thou without a warrant? take thou that.” -When Quarlous personates the lunatic<a name="FNanchor_115:2_166" id="FNanchor_115:2_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_115:2_166" class="fnanchor">[115:2]</a> our author rightly depicts -him as only partially successful, though his end is nevertheless as -well reached as if he had been wholly so. He raves occasionally about -a warrant, but it is not hard to see his sanity peeping through the -veil of assumed madness. Much of his talk <!-- Page 116 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>is comparatively coherent, -and beyond his occasional references to the warrant he makes no attempt -to play the madman. To turn his literal phrase into metaphor, he is -“mad but from the gown outward.”<a name="FNanchor_116:1_167" id="FNanchor_116:1_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_116:1_167" class="fnanchor">[116:1]</a> Trouble-all himself, when -Quarlous’ purpose is accomplished, makes one furious entry, armed “with -a dripping pan,”<a href="#Footnote_116:1_167" class="fnanchor">[116:1]</a> but he does no mischief, and soon disappears.</p> - -<p>Trouble-all is a noteworthy character, though a small one; yet, -for more than one reason, the character is less praiseworthy than -Fletcher’s Shattillion. Considerable care is shewn in the sketch, but -little or no sympathy; and, if madness is to be utilised in comedy, the -comic element should at least, as has been seen, be mingled with some -touches of pathos. As it is, any other character than the madman would -have served Jonson equally well, provided that it had supplied him with -the same dramatic advantages. When Overdo says: “Alas, poor wretch! -how it yearns my heart for him!” we believe him about as readily as if -Jonson had made the same remark in an “author’s footnote.”</p> - -<p>In one respect, and in one respect only, can any claim be made -on behalf of Jonson’s character to rank above Fletcher’s “Noble -Gentleman.” Fletcher makes us look at madness from the point of view -of the madman, <!-- Page 117 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>and tries to put us in sympathy with him. We have -seen that he is only partially successful. Jonson, on the other hand, -treats madness in quite an objective way, uses it frankly for a -subsidiary dramatic purpose, and portrays his madman with the utmost -conscientiousness and care. It may be just a question—though the -writer himself does not think so—whether from the point of view of art -Jonson’s production is not the more praiseworthy.</p> - -<p>Be that, however, as it may, it is nevertheless absolute Ben Jonson!</p> - - -<hr class="footnotes" /> -<p class="sectctrfn">FOOTNOTES:</p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_61:1_78" id="Footnote_61:1_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61:1_78"><span class="label">[61:1]</span></a> From the Alleyn <abbr title="Manuscript">MS.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_62:1_79" id="Footnote_62:1_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62:1_79"><span class="label">[62:1]</span></a> “Spanish Tragedy.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_63:1_80" id="Footnote_63:1_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63:1_80"><span class="label">[63:1]</span></a> “Spanish Tragedy,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 12a.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_64:1_81" id="Footnote_64:1_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64:1_81"><span class="label">[64:1]</span></a> “Spanish Tragedy,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 12.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_65:1_82" id="Footnote_65:1_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65:1_82"><span class="label">[65:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 12a.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_65:2_83" id="Footnote_65:2_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65:2_83"><span class="label">[65:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 8.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_65:3_84" id="Footnote_65:3_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65:3_84"><span class="label">[65:3]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_65:4_85" id="Footnote_65:4_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65:4_85"><span class="label">[65:4]</span></a> Other examples of conventional madness abound. See <a href="#Footnote_151:1_227">page -151, Note 1</a>. (Ann Ratcliff, in “The Witch of Edmonton.”) Peele, in the -“Old Wives’ Tale,” presents us with a character, Venelia, sent mad by a -sorcerer, Sacrapant:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">She “runs madding, all enraged, about the woods</div> - <div class="line">All by his cursèd and enchanting spells.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">But, apart from this, she does nothing!</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_66:1_86" id="Footnote_66:1_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66:1_86"><span class="label">[66:1]</span></a> “Shakespeare, His Mind and Art,” <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 272.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_67:1_87" id="Footnote_67:1_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67:1_87"><span class="label">[67:1]</span></a> “King Lear,” <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 1, 125-6.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_68:1_88" id="Footnote_68:1_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68:1_88"><span class="label">[68:1]</span></a> “King Lear,” <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 1, 296, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_68:2_89" id="Footnote_68:2_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68:2_89"><span class="label">[68:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 4, 207-8.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_68:3_90" id="Footnote_68:3_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68:3_90"><span class="label">[68:3]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 4, 292-4.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_69:1_91" id="Footnote_69:1_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69:1_91"><span class="label">[69:1]</span></a> “King Lear,” <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 5, 50-1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_69:2_92" id="Footnote_69:2_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69:2_92"><span class="label">[69:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 4, 56-8.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_70:1_93" id="Footnote_70:1_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70:1_93"><span class="label">[70:1]</span></a> “King Lear,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 4, 285-9.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_70:2_94" id="Footnote_70:2_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70:2_94"><span class="label">[70:2]</span></a> “The Mad Folk of Shakespeare,” <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 194.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_70:3_95" id="Footnote_70:3_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70:3_95"><span class="label">[70:3]</span></a> “King Lear,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 2, 67.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_71:1_96" id="Footnote_71:1_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71:1_96"><span class="label">[71:1]</span></a> “King Lear,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 4, 49-50.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_71:2_97" id="Footnote_71:2_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71:2_97"><span class="label">[71:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 4 passim.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_71:3_98" id="Footnote_71:3_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71:3_98"><span class="label">[71:3]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 6.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_72:1_99" id="Footnote_72:1_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72:1_99"><span class="label">[72:1]</span></a> “King Lear,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 6, 81, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_72:2_100" id="Footnote_72:2_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72:2_100"><span class="label">[72:2]</span></a> <abbr title="line">l.</abbr> 85.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_73:1_101" id="Footnote_73:1_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73:1_101"><span class="label">[73:1]</span></a> <abbr title="lines">ll.</abbr> 109-10.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_73:2_102" id="Footnote_73:2_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73:2_102"><span class="label">[73:2]</span></a> “King Lear,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 7.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_74:1_103" id="Footnote_74:1_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74:1_103"><span class="label">[74:1]</span></a> “King Lear,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 7, 68-9.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_74:2_104" id="Footnote_74:2_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74:2_104"><span class="label">[74:2]</span></a> <abbr title="line">l.</abbr> 70.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_74:3_105" id="Footnote_74:3_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74:3_105"><span class="label">[74:3]</span></a> <abbr title="line">l.</abbr> 84.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_74:4_106" id="Footnote_74:4_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74:4_106"><span class="label">[74:4]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 3, 272-4.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_75:1_107" id="Footnote_75:1_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75:1_107"><span class="label">[75:1]</span></a> “King Lear,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 3, 305, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_77:1_108" id="Footnote_77:1_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77:1_108"><span class="label">[77:1]</span></a> “Hamlet,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 5, 4, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_77:2_109" id="Footnote_77:2_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77:2_109"><span class="label">[77:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 5, 23, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_77:3_110" id="Footnote_77:3_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77:3_110"><span class="label">[77:3]</span></a> <abbr title="lines">ll.</abbr> 29-32.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_78:1_111" id="Footnote_78:1_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78:1_111"><span class="label">[78:1]</span></a> “Hamlet,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 5, 35, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_78:2_112" id="Footnote_78:2_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78:2_112"><span class="label">[78:2]</span></a> <abbr title="lines">ll.</abbr> 68-70.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_78:3_113" id="Footnote_78:3_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78:3_113"><span class="label">[78:3]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 5, 155, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_78:4_114" id="Footnote_78:4_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78:4_114"><span class="label">[78:4]</span></a> <abbr title="line">l.</abbr> 173.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_79:1_115" id="Footnote_79:1_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79:1_115"><span class="label">[79:1]</span></a> <abbr title="lines">ll.</abbr> 188-9.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_79:2_116" id="Footnote_79:2_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79:2_116"><span class="label">[79:2]</span></a> Ferriar, quoted by Dr. Bucknill, <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 155 (op. cit.)</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_80:1_117" id="Footnote_80:1_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80:1_117"><span class="label">[80:1]</span></a> “Hamlet,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 7, 167, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_82:1_118" id="Footnote_82:1_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82:1_118"><span class="label">[82:1]</span></a> “Two Noble Kinsmen,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_82:2_119" id="Footnote_82:2_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82:2_119"><span class="label">[82:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_83:1_120" id="Footnote_83:1_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83:1_120"><span class="label">[83:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_84:1_121" id="Footnote_84:1_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84:1_121"><span class="label">[84:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 4.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_84:2_122" id="Footnote_84:2_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84:2_122"><span class="label">[84:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 5.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_85:1_123" id="Footnote_85:1_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85:1_123"><span class="label">[85:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_85:2_124" id="Footnote_85:2_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85:2_124"><span class="label">[85:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 1, 104, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_86:1_125" id="Footnote_86:1_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86:1_125"><span class="label">[86:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_86:2_126" id="Footnote_86:2_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86:2_126"><span class="label">[86:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_89:1_127" id="Footnote_89:1_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89:1_127"><span class="label">[89:1]</span></a> Ward, <abbr title="English Dramatic Literature">Eng. Dram. Lit.</abbr>, <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 300. The original -criticism, as Dr. Ward points out, is Gifford’s. <abbr title="Compare">Cf.</abbr> the latter’s -edition of Ford, <abbr title="volume one">vol. i.</abbr>, <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 337.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_90:1_128" id="Footnote_90:1_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90:1_128"><span class="label">[90:1]</span></a> “Elizabethan Literature,” <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 408.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_90:2_129" id="Footnote_90:2_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90:2_129"><span class="label">[90:2]</span></a> “The Broken Heart,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 4.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_91:1_130" id="Footnote_91:1_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91:1_130"><span class="label">[91:1]</span></a> “The Lover’s Melancholy,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_92:1_131" id="Footnote_92:1_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92:1_131"><span class="label">[92:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_92:2_132" id="Footnote_92:2_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92:2_132"><span class="label">[92:2]</span></a> A similar device is found in Brome’s play, “The -Antipodes,” where, however, the physician uses the fantastic but less -morbid device of a “play within a play.” See page 136.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_93:1_133" id="Footnote_93:1_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93:1_133"><span class="label">[93:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_93:2_134" id="Footnote_93:2_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93:2_134"><span class="label">[93:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_93:3_135" id="Footnote_93:3_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93:3_135"><span class="label">[93:3]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_94:1_136" id="Footnote_94:1_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94:1_136"><span class="label">[94:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_95:1_137" id="Footnote_95:1_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95:1_137"><span class="label">[95:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_96:1_138" id="Footnote_96:1_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96:1_138"><span class="label">[96:1]</span></a> Acted in 1602; first printed in 1631.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_98:1_139" id="Footnote_98:1_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98:1_139"><span class="label">[98:1]</span></a> “Hoffman,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_99:1_140" id="Footnote_99:1_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99:1_140"><span class="label">[99:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_100:1_141" id="Footnote_100:1_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100:1_141"><span class="label">[100:1]</span></a> “A Very Woman,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_100:2_142" id="Footnote_100:2_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100:2_142"><span class="label">[100:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_101:1_143" id="Footnote_101:1_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101:1_143"><span class="label">[101:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_102:1_144" id="Footnote_102:1_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102:1_144"><span class="label">[102:1]</span></a> “A New Way to Pay Old Debts,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_103:1_145" id="Footnote_103:1_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103:1_145"><span class="label">[103:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_103:2_146" id="Footnote_103:2_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103:2_146"><span class="label">[103:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_103:3_147" id="Footnote_103:3_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103:3_147"><span class="label">[103:3]</span></a> “The Duchess of Malfi,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_105:1_148" id="Footnote_105:1_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105:1_148"><span class="label">[105:1]</span></a> It is referred to, however, in the following pages as -“The Passionate Madman.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_106:1_149" id="Footnote_106:1_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106:1_149"><span class="label">[106:1]</span></a> “The Passionate Madman,” <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_106:2_150" id="Footnote_106:2_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106:2_150"><span class="label">[106:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_106:3_151" id="Footnote_106:3_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106:3_151"><span class="label">[106:3]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_106:4_152" id="Footnote_106:4_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106:4_152"><span class="label">[106:4]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_107:1_153" id="Footnote_107:1_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107:1_153"><span class="label">[107:1]</span></a> Compare “Hamlet,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 1, 77, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line"><i>Ophelia</i>: “My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,</div> - <div class="line i4">Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac’d,</div> - <div class="line i4">No hat upon his head . . he comes before me.”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_107:2_154" id="Footnote_107:2_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107:2_154"><span class="label">[107:2]</span></a> “The Passionate Madman,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_108:1_155" id="Footnote_108:1_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108:1_155"><span class="label">[108:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_108:2_156" id="Footnote_108:2_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108:2_156"><span class="label">[108:2]</span></a> “The Noble Gentleman,” <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_109:1_157" id="Footnote_109:1_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109:1_157"><span class="label">[109:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_109:2_158" id="Footnote_109:2_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109:2_158"><span class="label">[109:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_110:1_159" id="Footnote_110:1_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110:1_159"><span class="label">[110:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_110:2_160" id="Footnote_110:2_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110:2_160"><span class="label">[110:2]</span></a> Act <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, Sc. 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_111:1_161" id="Footnote_111:1_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111:1_161"><span class="label">[111:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_111:2_162" id="Footnote_111:2_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111:2_162"><span class="label">[111:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_114:1_163" id="Footnote_114:1_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114:1_163"><span class="label">[114:1]</span></a> <abbr title="Page">p.</abbr> 210.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_114:2_164" id="Footnote_114:2_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114:2_164"><span class="label">[114:2]</span></a> “Bartholomew Fair,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_115:1_165" id="Footnote_115:1_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115:1_165"><span class="label">[115:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_115:2_166" id="Footnote_115:2_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115:2_166"><span class="label">[115:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_116:1_167" id="Footnote_116:1_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116:1_167"><span class="label">[116:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 3.</p></div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="newchapter" /> -<p><!-- Page 118 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.<br /> - -<small><span class="smcap">Mad Folk in Comedy and Tragedy.</span></small><br /> - -<small>(<abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>) <span class="smcap">Imbecility.</span></small></h2> -</div> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“I ask’d her questions and she answered me</div> - <div class="line indentq">So far from what she was, so childishly,</div> - <div class="line indentq">So sillily, as if she were a fool,</div> - <div class="line indentq">An innocent.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="attribution">(“<cite>Two Noble Kinsmen.</cite>”)</p> - - -<p>Of the few sketches of imbeciles which we find in the drama under -consideration there is hardly one which can properly be called a -full-length portrait. As a class, the idiots come in for a fair -share of attention; the “fool” as well as the “madman” is shewn us -in the asylums of Fletcher and Middleton, but no dramatist seems to -have thought the tragic or the comic possibilities of the “lunatic -lean-witted fool” sufficiently promising to justify the inclusion -of him as a prominent character of a play. This is not altogether -surprising; the imbecile—we shall take the term as nearly as possible -in its precise signification<a name="FNanchor_118:1_168" id="FNanchor_118:1_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_118:1_168" class="fnanchor">[118:1]</a>—was not considered as an ordinary -madman; he was treated like the half-developed creature he really was, -looked <!-- Page 119 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>after more carefully than the madman, and trained in simple -things just like a child. So the fool occupied a subordinate place, in -drama as well as in life.</p> - -<p>The word “fool” as has been explained,<a name="FNanchor_119:1_169" id="FNanchor_119:1_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_119:1_169" class="fnanchor">[119:1]</a> is used in our plays -in more senses than one, and a few characters who answer to the -description “simple,” “idiot” or “imbecile” may now be mentioned. They -demand little space, for, though serving a dramatic purpose, they have -little interest or importance in themselves. Nearest sanity is Pogio of -Chapman’s “Gentleman Usher,” whose half-witted condition seems to be -largely pose; it is a strange way of carrying out his own dictum that -“gentility must be fantastical.” Bergetto, too, in Ford’s play, “’Tis -pity she’s a Whore,” though consistently spoken of as “fool’s head,” -“dunce” and the like, could hardly be called anything more serious -than a foolish fellow. Jerome, in Chettle’s “Tragedy of Hoffman,” and -Cloten, the “empty purse” of Cymbeline, have both something of the -true congenital idiot about them. With Jerome, however, our judgment -is influenced more by impression than by anything he says or does in -the play. Hoffman and others call him an “idiot,” and he himself owns -“They say I am a fool,” after which he speaks of seeking out “my notes -of Machiavell.” But this is mere <!-- Page 120 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>foolish talk, as, indeed, are most -of his speeches. In a quaint scene he addresses the people as their -King, but is outdone by a later speech of Hoffman’s, which he himself -solicits saying, “I charge you all, upon pain of death, that you hear -my cousin.” The action of a fool, indeed, but was it not also the -action of honest Brutus? Therefore we must cling to our estimate of -Jerome, framed from his own speeches, as justification for including -him in this category. Both the actions and the words of Shakespeare’s -Cloten are those of a man mentally deficient; Guiderius was not far -from the truth when he said:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i11h">“not Hercules</div> - <div class="line">Could have knock’d out his brains, for he had none”;<a name="FNanchor_120:1_170" id="FNanchor_120:1_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_120:1_170" class="fnanchor">[120:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">and everyone who knows him wonders</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“That such a crafty devil as is his mother</div> - <div class="line indentq">Should yield the world this ass.”<a name="FNanchor_120:2_171" id="FNanchor_120:2_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_120:2_171" class="fnanchor">[120:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>A quaint pair of simples may be seen in Lyly’s “Mother Bombie.” -Memphio, an avaricious old man, has a supposed son, Accius by name, -whom he wishes to marry to Silena; both parties being mentally -defective, the old man takes it for granted that their offspring will -be sane. Silena is described as “no natural fool”; and though this -would at first seem to be untrue, it becomes doubtful later if the -author had any very clear idea of the nature of her malady. She begins -by being “passing amiable, but very simple,” but <!-- Page 121 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>before long her -condition approaches mania. Her first speech is typical: “My name is -Silena. I care not who know it, so I do not; my father keeps me close, -so he does; and now I have stolen out, so I have; to go to old Bombie -to know my fortune, so I will.” Candius, who listens to her, thinks -her at first a “fool,” but decides that as “so fair a face cannot be -the scabbard of a foolish mind,” she must be mad. In her meeting with -Accius, in the fourth act of the farce, she justifies this conclusion -by mistaking him for a “joint-stool.”<a name="FNanchor_121:1_172" id="FNanchor_121:1_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_121:1_172" class="fnanchor">[121:1]</a></p> - -<p>Before leaving the imbeciles, we must make a bare mention of -Shakespeare’s Caliban—bare, because we are hardly justified in calling -him a human being at all. The son of a witch,</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“A freckled whelp hag-born—not honour’d with</div> - <div class="line indentq">A human shape,”<a name="FNanchor_121:2_173" id="FNanchor_121:2_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_121:2_173" class="fnanchor">[121:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">he is only distinguished, as Coleridge says, from the brutes by his dim -understanding (bereft, however, of moral reason) and the absence in him -of all the instincts of absolute animals. Schlegel gives perhaps the -best account of Shakespeare’s creation when he says: “It is as though -the use of reason and human speech should be communicated to a stupid -ape.”<a name="FNanchor_121:3_174" id="FNanchor_121:3_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_121:3_174" class="fnanchor">[121:3]</a> Such <!-- Page 122 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>a being as this can certainly not be classed with -such “simples” and “fools” as have just been mentioned.</p> - -<p>To the ordinary reader of drama the word “fool” describes, not a -natural imbecile, but a peculiar type of character in the tragedy and -comedy of Shakespeare. The Shakespearean fool has a significance which -it would be out of place to dwell upon here; he is, however, speaking -generally, perfectly sane, and rather rich than defective in intellect. -Thus he has nothing in common with the “naturall fooles . . . suted in -long coats” mentioned by Nash,<a name="FNanchor_122:1_175" id="FNanchor_122:1_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_122:1_175" class="fnanchor">[122:1]</a> and but little with the “fool” -of many a country village. For this strange character is most often a -half-demented fellow with a gift for making curt, cutting remarks, and -a tongue which, since its owner fears nobody, invariably vents whatever -his breast may forge. There would seem to be only one of Shakespeare’s -fools who is really half-witted, and that one is, of course, the fool -in “King Lear.”</p> - -<p>This point is well made by Dr. Bradley: “To suppose that the Fool is, -like many a domestic fool at that time, a perfectly sane man pretending -to be half-witted, is surely a most <!-- Page 123 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>prosaic blunder. There is no -difficulty in imagining that, being slightly touched in the brain, -and holding the office of fool, he performs the duties of his office -intentionally as well as involuntarily—it is evident that he does -so. But unless we suppose that he <em>is</em> touched in the brain, we lose -half the effect of his appearance in the Storm-scenes. The effect of -those scenes (to state the matter as plainly as possible) depends -largely on the presence of three characters and on the affinities and -contrasts between them; on our perception that the differences of -station in King, Fool, and beggar-noble, are levelled by one blast of -calamity; but also on our perception of the differences between these -three in one respect,—viz., in regard to the peculiar affliction of -insanity. . . . The insanity of the King differs from that of the -beggar, not only in its nature, but also in the fact that one is real -and the other simply a pretence. Are we to suppose then that the -insanity of the third character, the Fool, is in this respect a mere -repetition of the second, the beggar,—that it is _mere_ pretence? -To suppose this is not only to impoverish miserably the impression -made by the trio as a whole, it is also to diminish the heroic and -pathetic effect of the character of the Fool.”<a name="FNanchor_123:1_176" id="FNanchor_123:1_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_123:1_176" class="fnanchor">[123:1]</a> If further proof -were needed it could be found <!-- Page 124 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>in the expressions and the turns of -thought which characterise him throughout the play,—they are not the -expressions of mania, nor yet of perfect self-possession; they are -often, indeed, the expressions which one would expect of a feeble mind. -Can one suppose,—to take only one example—that any sane man, even in -the position of a Court fool, would insist, as mercilessly as the Fool -does in the first scenes, upon the ingratitude of Lear’s daughters? -None of Shakespeare’s other fools will be found to probe a wound so -deep, but it is exactly what one would expect from a Fool whose brain -is really slightly touched. It is true that he also diverts the King’s -attention from his troubles in the same scenes, but it is only to -return to them again with an even more piercing sting.</p> - -<p>Still further, if we assume the actual imbecility of the Fool, a flood -of light is at once thrown upon the question of his age—not that it -matters in the least what his age is, but some critics have found a -difficulty in reconciling the references which seem to make him now -a boy, now a man. He is, in fact, a man, but his feeble intellect, -together perhaps with a certain physical frailty, causes him to be -treated occasionally as a boy, much in the same way that Antonio -is treated by Lollio in the “Changeling.” We need not stay longer, -however, to defend this view, for, as Dr. Bradley <!-- Page 125 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>says: “Arguments -against the idea that the Fool is wholly sane are either needless or -futile; for in the end they are appeals to the perception that this -idea almost destroys the poetry of the character.”<a name="FNanchor_125:1_177" id="FNanchor_125:1_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_125:1_177" class="fnanchor">[125:1]</a></p> - -<p>Alone, then, in this division of our subject, we place the Fool of -“King Lear.” Demented persons may occur here and there in our plays -(such is Cassandra in “Troilus and Cressida”) and there may even be -some congenital imbeciles (as Cloten in “Cymbeline”). But such cases -of dementia are hard to distinguish from those of mania. In both -cases—especially in the second—it is often hard to say whether or -no the author intended the idea of idiocy to be conveyed. So Lear’s -Fool remains unrivalled and we are glad of it. For nowhere in drama is -there a more delicate intermingling of laughter and tears, of terror -and pathos, than in this play of “King Lear.” The Fool needs no more -lengthy description. To see him (whether as we watch or as we read) -alone suffices, and nothing else will do so. When we have looked on -him, we have seen “sunshine and rain at once”; there is no “better way.”</p> - - -<hr class="footnotes" /> -<p class="sectctrfn">FOOTNOTES:</p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_118:1_168" id="Footnote_118:1_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118:1_168"><span class="label">[118:1]</span></a> Strictly speaking, the insanity of the imbecile is -congenital; the general conformation of his brain is faulty, and the -mental phenomena of his condition are for the most part “dissociated -from active bodily disease.” (See <abbr title="Encyclopaedia Britannica">Encyl. Brit.</abbr>, <abbr title="sub voce">s.v.</abbr> Insanity.)</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_119:1_169" id="Footnote_119:1_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119:1_169"><span class="label">[119:1]</span></a> Above, <a href="#Page_37"><abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 37 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_120:1_170" id="Footnote_120:1_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120:1_170"><span class="label">[120:1]</span></a> “Cymbeline,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 2, 114.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_120:2_171" id="Footnote_120:2_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120:2_171"><span class="label">[120:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 1, 57.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_121:1_172" id="Footnote_121:1_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121:1_172"><span class="label">[121:1]</span></a> <abbr title="Compare">Cf.</abbr> “Lear,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 6, 54. The expression was -proverbial, it is true.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_121:2_173" id="Footnote_121:2_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121:2_173"><span class="label">[121:2]</span></a> “Tempest,” <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_121:3_174" id="Footnote_121:3_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121:3_174"><span class="label">[121:3]</span></a> It is interesting to compare the higher conception of -Caliban seen in Browning’s “Caliban upon Setebos,” where, though the -brute sprawls “with elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin,” in -the “cool slush,” he nevertheless reasons vaguely upon such problems as -the existence of evil, of pain, and of a law governing the universe.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_122:1_175" id="Footnote_122:1_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122:1_175"><span class="label">[122:1]</span></a> In “Have with you to Saffron Walden.” The “fool’s -coat” is often mentioned in our plays.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_123:1_176" id="Footnote_123:1_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123:1_176"><span class="label">[123:1]</span></a> “Shakespearean Tragedy,” <abbr title="pages">pp.</abbr> 311-12.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_125:1_177" id="Footnote_125:1_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125:1_177"><span class="label">[125:1]</span></a> “Shakespearean Tragedy,” <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 312.</p></div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="newchapter" /> -<p><!-- Page 126 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br /> - -<small><span class="smcap">Mad Folk in Comedy and Tragedy.</span></small><br /> - -<small>(<abbr title="Three">iii.</abbr>) <span class="smcap">Melancholy.</span></small></h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>“Many new and old writers have spoken confusedly of it, -confounding melancholy and madness.”</p> - -<p class="attribution">(<i>Burton: “<cite class="notag">Anatomy of Melancholy</cite>.”</i>)</p> -</div> - - -<p>The representation of “melancholy” and of the disease which we know -as “melancholia” was extremely common in seventeenth century drama. -Its popularity with playwrights of all kinds can be traced to several -causes. In the first place it gave ample opportunity for introducing -poetry of no mean order, which seems to have been more popular on the -stage a few centuries ago than it is to-day. Then “melancholy” was -commonly associated with unrequited love, and the sad lover has always -been a favourite character both in comedy and in tragedy. Again, a -hero or heroine afflicted with “melancholy” was, after all, in the -seventeenth-century acceptation of the term, quite sane. “Melancholy,” -then, became a kind of “humour”—as in the eyes of the mediæval -physician it literally had been—and it was not regarded in at all the -same way as other species of mental disorder.</p> - -<p>We must distinguish, however, between the <!-- Page 127 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>variety of ways in which -the word “melancholy” is used in these dramas, where there are -“large volumes of it in print to very slender purpose.”<a name="FNanchor_127:1_178" id="FNanchor_127:1_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_127:1_178" class="fnanchor">[127:1]</a> When -Shakespeare says in “Cymbeline”</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i6h">“O melancholy!</div> - <div class="line">Who ever yet could find thy bottom? find</div> - <div class="line">The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish crare</div> - <div class="line">Might easiliest harbour in,”<a name="FNanchor_127:2_179" id="FNanchor_127:2_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_127:2_179" class="fnanchor">[127:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">he is expressing feelings shared by anyone who tries to fathom the -treatment of melancholy by Shakespeare’s own contemporaries. There was -no common and generally recognised conception of melancholy as of the -more obvious forms of insanity. Hence it becomes impossible to consider -the question of melancholy from the standpoint of medicine, still less -to make any division such as the threefold medical division of to-day, -into acute melancholia, excited melancholia, and that alternation of -depression and excitement known as “<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">folie circulaire</span>.” We shall instead -divide our subject more broadly and simply into Melancholy True and -Melancholy False, taking but a few typical cases to illustrate each of -these divisions in turn.</p> - -<p>By Melancholy True is meant what we call nowadays “melancholia,”—that -is, a mental disease in which the prevailing symptom is depression,—a -mental disease from the author’s <!-- Page 128 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>point of view and not merely from -ours. Some cases which would come under this heading have already, for -convenience’ sake, been treated above. There is the melancholia of -Penthea, hardly distinguishable from madness, and utilised dramatically -in a similar way. There is also the melancholy of Palador, which seems -to us less a case for the physician than it did to the author. Ford’s -conception of melancholy as a disease is clearly influenced by Burton, -and he would no doubt have agreed with the doctors of Christopher Sly -that “Melancholy is the Nurse of frenzy,”<a name="FNanchor_128:1_180" id="FNanchor_128:1_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_128:1_180" class="fnanchor">[128:1]</a> if, indeed, he would -not have gone farther and declined to distinguish between them. Other -cases of melancholia are merely described, and will hardly repay study. -Such is Viola’s well-known description of one (imaginary) girl who</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i9">“Never told her love,</div> - <div class="line">But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud</div> - <div class="line">Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought</div> - <div class="line">And with a green and yellow melancholy</div> - <div class="line">She sat like Patience on a monument,</div> - <div class="line">Smiling at grief.”<a name="FNanchor_128:2_181" id="FNanchor_128:2_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_128:2_181" class="fnanchor">[128:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Shakespeare’s King John is thinking of another kind of melancholy when -he says to Hubert:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i7">“. . . that surly spirit, melancholy,</div> - <div class="line">Had baked thy blood and made it heavy-thick.”<a name="FNanchor_128:3_182" id="FNanchor_128:3_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_128:3_182" class="fnanchor">[128:3]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>In the two characters which we shall now study,—Aspatia of the “Maid’s -Tragedy” and <!-- Page 129 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>Euphrasia in “Philaster”—we shall see that there is -with Beaumont and Fletcher a considerable lightening of the subject, -with a consequent artistic gain, but possibly a loss in force and -impressiveness.</p> - -<p>Aspatia is, of course, throughout the play, subordinated to Evadne, -and she appears only in the first two acts and the last, her death -occurring in the last scene. From her first appearance, after her -betrothed husband has taken Evadne to wife at the King’s command, the -pitiableness of her situation and the nobility and the purity of her -character endear her to us unchangeably. None of the indecency which -mars the play clings to the wronged Aspatia; many would go so far as to -consider her laments more effective, because less revolting, than those -of Ophelia. Wherever we see her</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Nothing but sad thoughts in her breast do dwell.”<a name="FNanchor_129:1_183" id="FNanchor_129:1_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_129:1_183" class="fnanchor">[129:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">When Melantius offers her his ill-timed congratulations on the marriage -which he supposes to have been hers, her reply is short:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i6h">“My hard fortunes</div> - <div class="line">Deserve not scorn; for I was never proud</div> - <div class="line">When they were good.”<a name="FNanchor_129:2_184" id="FNanchor_129:2_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_129:2_184" class="fnanchor">[129:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">In the next scene, however, when the presence of the bride makes the -hurt keener, her tongue is loosened. No sweeter song, in spite of the -rather vulgar criticism of Evadne, can be found <!-- Page 130 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>outside Shakespeare -than the only one Aspatia gives us:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Lay a garland on my hearse,</div> - <div class="line i2 indentq">Of the dismal yew,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Maidens, willow trenches bear;</div> - <div class="line i2 indentq">Say I died true;</div> - <div class="line indentq">My love was false, but I was firm</div> - <div class="line i2 indentq">From my hour of birth.</div> - <div class="line indentq">Upon my buried body lie</div> - <div class="line i2 indentq">Lightly, gentle earth.”<a name="FNanchor_130:1_185" id="FNanchor_130:1_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_130:1_185" class="fnanchor">[130:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">“Fie <abbr title="on it">on’t</abbr> madam!” says Evadne, “The words are so strange, they are able -to make one dream of hobgoblins.”</p> - -<p>The effect of Aspatia’s appearances enhances enormously the effect of -the play as a whole.</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“She carries with her an infectious grief,</div> - <div class="line indentq">That strikes all her beholders.”<a name="FNanchor_130:2_186" id="FNanchor_130:2_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_130:2_186" class="fnanchor">[130:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Her father is distressed beyond measure; her betrothed, “servile ‘<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">iure -divino</span>’ royalist” as he is, is stricken with the keenest remorse. Even -the apparently buoyant Evadne is moved to pity.</p> - -<p>Perhaps, in the scene between Aspatia and her waiting women, the -wronged woman loses a little of our sympathy. The dramatists have -evidently succumbed to the Muse of Poetry and Aspatia’s laments become -drawn-out and a little monotonous. Yet the poetry is at times almost -perfect; it is only her continual harping on the subject of “Man, Oh -that beast man!”<a name="FNanchor_130:3_187" id="FNanchor_130:3_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_130:3_187" class="fnanchor">[130:3]</a> which makes us fear lest melancholy become -<!-- Page 131 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>raving madness. When she subsides at last into “dull silence,” our -love for her is at its height: she is indeed “like Sorrow’s monument.”</p> - -<p>In the last act she appears once more,<a name="FNanchor_131:1_188" id="FNanchor_131:1_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_131:1_188" class="fnanchor">[131:1]</a> in the disguise of a -supposed brother, with the seeming intention of killing her faithless -lord. A tragic Viola indeed, she succeeds in getting wounded, and -eventually dies, not without witnessing the death of Evadne and holding -Amintor’s hand in token of reconciliation.</p> - -<p>The girl Euphrasia, in “Philaster,” has less of tragedy and more of -romance, more even of Shakespeare’s own poetry. In her disguise as -Bellario, Philaster’s page, she appears as a “pretty, sad-talking -boy,”<a name="FNanchor_131:2_189" id="FNanchor_131:2_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_131:2_189" class="fnanchor">[131:2]</a> and it would seem to be rather the prince, who sits -“cross-armed,” “sighs away the day” for love of Arethusa, and talks -furthermore in several places of going mad,<a name="FNanchor_131:3_190" id="FNanchor_131:3_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_131:3_190" class="fnanchor">[131:3]</a> who should come -under this category of melancholiacs. But he himself proves to his own -satisfaction that he is sane enough; and though such a statement is not -always to be believed, it seems for once to correspond with the point -of view of the author. But Euphrasia herself is continually reminding -us of her melancholy, which has all the appearance of being conceived -as similar to that of Aspatia, although it is less pronounced. It -springs <!-- Page 132 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>from love, it is nowhere put down to a mere caprice, and -although in neither of these two plays is any cure attempted, this is -because the characters are subordinated to others and for the sake of a -unified plot.</p> - -<p>The melancholy of Mistress Constance, in Brome’s “Northern Lass,” was -probably meant by the author to be taken more seriously than most -people would find possible to-day. In conception it resembles the -melancholy-madness of Fletcher’s “Passionate Madman.” Its cause, to go -no further, is the same. Love has “overwhelmed her spirits, and turned -the faculties of all her senses into a rude confusion, sending forth -the uses of them extravagantly.” The method of her cure, according -to Pate (disguised as a Doctor) is as simple as are the lightning -cures of Fletcher: “The party that she loves must be the doctor, the -medicine and the cure.” This <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">médecin malgré lui</i>, however, finds his -patient too much for him. “I fear she is wiser than all of us, that -have to do with her. She knows my gown better than I do; for I have had -but two hours’ acquaintance with it.” Constance, though at times she -sings snatches of song, does not rave like Shattillion or the Gaoler’s -Daughter; the prevailing symptom of her melancholy is depression. As -a character she is peculiarly lacking in charm, though the title-page -of the play, which declares it to <!-- Page 133 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>be “a comedy often acted with good -applause,” in high places, would suggest that the heroine was popular -enough at the time.</p> - -<p>Almira, the daughter of the Viceroy of Sicily, in Massinger’s “A Very -Woman,” might profitably be considered in a later section dealing with -unclassified abnormal states of mind. However, the malady produced in -her by the supposed loss of her lover was apparently conceived by the -dramatist as “melancholy-madness,” and therefore it finds a place here. -Gifford, in a note in his edition of Massinger, describes Almira’s -complaint as “not madness, but light-headedness.” She is firmly -convinced that Cardenes, who has been wounded in a scuffle with his -rival, is dead, and all her friends’ attempts to convince her to the -contrary merely strengthen her belief.</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i10">“I know you,</div> - <div class="line">And that in this you flatter me; he’s dead,</div> - <div class="line">As much as could die of him: but look yonder!</div> - <div class="line">Amongst a million of glorious lights</div> - <div class="line">That deck the heavenly canopy, I have</div> - <div class="line">Discern’d his soul, transform’d into a star.</div> - <div class="line">Do you not see it?”<a name="FNanchor_133:1_191" id="FNanchor_133:1_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_133:1_191" class="fnanchor">[133:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>The belief induces semi-hallucinations. She hears “a dismal sound”—it -is Antonio in hell, “on the infernal rack where murderers are -tormented.”<a href="#Footnote_133:1_191" class="fnanchor">[133:1]</a> This sets a train of delusive ideas in motion; -her cousin fears “she’ll grow into a <!-- Page 134 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>frenzy,” when one of her women -exclaims “Her fit begins to leave her,” and she is once more herself, -relating her “strangest waking dream of hell and heaven.”<a name="FNanchor_134:1_192" id="FNanchor_134:1_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_134:1_192" class="fnanchor">[134:1]</a> -Notwithstanding these temperate intervals her father is alarmed, and -fears, not without reason, that</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“She’ll do some violent act upon herself.”<a name="FNanchor_134:2_193" id="FNanchor_134:2_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_134:2_193" class="fnanchor">[134:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Her hands are therefore to be bound and a physician sent for. We hear -a good deal more of her melancholy during the play, but it becomes -conventional, and after the second act we think of her as quite a -rational human being—as a “Very Woman.” It is the strange change in -her affections which gives the great interest to her character which it -certainly possesses; for that reason it would hardly be fair to attempt -to compare her either with Aspatia or with Euphrasia, interest in whom -is dependent on other considerations.</p> - -<p>A case of melancholy, both interesting and amusing, similar in -conception and treatment to the mania of Shattillion and of the -Passionate Lover mentioned above,<a name="FNanchor_134:3_194" id="FNanchor_134:3_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_134:3_194" class="fnanchor">[134:3]</a> is furnished by Brome’s -“Antipodes.” As we should expect in an “approved Comedy” acted in -the year 1638, the subject is approached only from its lighter -side; within the limits which such a treatment necessarily imposes -the play is pleasant enough, and the principal characters are very -laughable. <!-- Page 135 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>Joyless and Diana, it appears, have a son Peregrine, a -lad of twenty-five, who has been married for some years to a girl -named Martha. But Peregrine, whose inclination has always been for a -roving life, has developed a melancholy in consequence of his parents’ -opposition to his desire for travel. The disease, when the play -opens, is “inclining still to worse, As he grows more in days,” and -the father’s anxiety is aggravated by the fact that Martha is also -afflicted with a similar trouble, caused by her husband’s neglect. Her -symptoms are somewhat different:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Indeed she’s full of passion, which she utters</div> - <div class="line indentq">By the effects, as diversely, as several</div> - <div class="line indentq">Objects reflect upon her wand’ring fancy,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Sometimes in extreme weepings, and anon</div> - <div class="line indentq">In vehement laughter; now in sullen silence,</div> - <div class="line indentq">And presently in loudest exclamations.”<a name="FNanchor_135:1_195" id="FNanchor_135:1_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_135:1_195" class="fnanchor">[135:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Doctor Hughball, a physician of renown, undertakes both cases, and -in addition that of Joyless, whom “some few yellow spots” about the -temples proclaim to be “jealous-mad.” This doctor, like others of the -“cure-all” tribe whom we have recently encountered, has had great -experience of mental disease. He has cured</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“A country gentleman, that fell mad</div> - <div class="line indentq">For spending of his land before he sold it.”<a name="FNanchor_135:2_196" id="FNanchor_135:2_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_135:2_196" class="fnanchor">[135:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>A lady who fell mad with “tedious and painful study” to find “a way -to love her husband,” and “horn-mad citizens, he cures them by the -<!-- Page 136 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>dozens”!<a name="FNanchor_136:1_197" id="FNanchor_136:1_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_136:1_197" class="fnanchor">[136:1]</a> Brought face to face with the melancholiac in one -of his “fits,” Hughball sets about humouring him, “applauding” his -“noble disposition,” and “adoring” his “spirit of travel.” He tells his -patient that he has been all over the world, even in the Antipodes, -meeting his praise of Mandeville, Drake, and other worthies with vivid -and imaginative descriptions of the unknown lands on the other side of -the world. Everything, it appears, goes by contraries:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i11">“There the deer</div> - <div class="line">Pursue the hounds, and (which you may think strange),</div> - <div class="line">I ha’ seen one sheep worry a dozen foxes,</div> - <div class="line">By moonshine, in a morning before day,</div> - <div class="line">They hunt, trail scents with oxen and plough with dogs.”<a name="FNanchor_136:2_198" id="FNanchor_136:2_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_136:2_198" class="fnanchor">[136:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Peregrine is subdued; he could listen to the Doctor “a whole -fortnight,” and gladly accepts his offer to travel with him to this -wonderful land. Hence, in the next scene, by the device of a play -within a play,<a name="FNanchor_136:3_199" id="FNanchor_136:3_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_136:3_199" class="fnanchor">[136:3]</a> the Doctor is able to effect a threefold cure. -Joyless’ jealousy is overcome; Martha (after being disguised as a Queen -and formally presented to her husband), wins back the love of the -melancholy Peregrine; and Peregrine himself, though falling back more -than once during the play-scenes to “Mandeville-madness,” is eventually -cured. In the concluding <!-- Page 137 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>scenes, where music “upon the Recorders” is -being played, we are shewn the melancholiac’s return to complete sanity.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>“I am what you are pleased to make me; but withal . . . ignorant -of my own condition, whether I sleep or wake, or talk, or -dream; whether <em>I</em> be, or be not; or if I am, whether I do, or -do not anything.”<a name="FNanchor_137:1_200" id="FNanchor_137:1_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_137:1_200" class="fnanchor">[137:1]</a></p> -</div> - -<p>Revelations and recognitions follow, in spite of the Doctor’s warning -against “troubling his brain with new discoveries.” Peregrine is then -made to “recover roundly” by means of a short masque (preceded by “a -most untunable flourish”!) introducing “Discord, Folly, Jealousy, -Melancholy, and Madness.” When these characters have been routed by -Harmony and her train, Peregrine declares “Indeed, I find me well.”</p> - -<p>The treatment of melancholy in this play is in no way serious, and -shews us little of real value.</p> - -<p>“Melancholy False”<a name="FNanchor_137:2_201" id="FNanchor_137:2_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_137:2_201" class="fnanchor">[137:2]</a> is hard to define; the <!-- Page 138 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>criterion must -ultimately be a subjective one. It is depicted as a state of the mind -in which the person concerned has full control of himself,—as a cloak -which he assumes for his own purposes, and which he is able to throw -off should necessity arise. At its very worst, it would only be spoken -of to-day as “depression.” Sometimes, it is true, this melancholy seems -to give a definite colour to the person whom it characterises—to -be, in fact, part of his temperament; but in these cases no mention -is made of any possible cure of the trouble—sometimes not even of -the cause—so that the suggestion of disease does not arise in the -spectator’s mind. No doubt such a condition, if persisted in, would -often have disastrous results. Such a “humour” was dangerous, but it -was nevertheless a “humour.”</p> - -<p>It may be objected that many persons, using these tests, might well -put Euphrasia and Aspatia in the present category. It is true. But -if we made no distinctions and adopted no classifications but those -which were indisputable and self-evident, we should make very few, -and those would be of little value. We have it on excellent authority -that the only way to “part sadness and melancholy” is “by a familiar -demonstration of the working.”<a name="FNanchor_138:1_202" id="FNanchor_138:1_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_138:1_202" class="fnanchor">[138:1]</a> To a layman it would probably -be clear that the melancholy <!-- Page 139 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>of Aspatia and Euphrasia, of Mistress -Constance and Almira, is meant to be of a different kind from that of -several characters with whom we shall now have to deal.</p> - -<p>The largest variety of “cases” is furnished by Shakespeare, and for -this reason our study of this type may be confined to his works. Some -of the “cases” are described by Dr. Bucknill:<a name="FNanchor_139:1_203" id="FNanchor_139:1_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_139:1_203" class="fnanchor">[139:1]</a> “the melancholy -of pride in Achilles, of prosperity in Antonio, of constitution and -timidity in the Queen of ‘Richard II,’ of contemplation in Jacques.” -We might possibly add more, but here are instances enough (if they are -really instances) to shew the nature of this melancholy.</p> - -<p>Surprise might perhaps be expressed that Shakespeare should make such -large use of this “humour”; it would be expected that he, whom we -have shewn to be familiar with all kinds of insanity, would conceive -of melancholia more nearly after the fashion of the present-day -physician. The explanation is simple. Shakespeare knew perfectly well -that melancholy could be a disease, and has described it as such. Let -us remember the quotations, given above,<a name="FNanchor_139:2_204" id="FNanchor_139:2_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_139:2_204" class="fnanchor">[139:2]</a> from “Twelfth Night” -and “King John.” And who was it that “besieged with sable-coloured -melancholy . . . did commend the black-oppressing humour to the most -<!-- Page 140 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>wholesome physic of thy health-giving air?”<a name="FNanchor_140:1_205" id="FNanchor_140:1_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_140:1_205" class="fnanchor">[140:1]</a> Yet Shakespeare -was equally well acquainted with that hypochondriacal melancholia and -that temperamental depression which play a large part in modern life, -and both of these, to say nothing of the love-melancholy which varies -from slight depression to acute mania, he found it convenient to use. -The contemporary dramatists, however great or small their knowledge, -usually preferred the “love melancholy” and used it almost exclusively.</p> - -<p>The melancholy of Achilles is quite superficial. He is “lion sick of -a proud heart”<a name="FNanchor_140:2_206" id="FNanchor_140:2_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_140:2_206" class="fnanchor">[140:2]</a> just as Ajax is “melancholy without cause,” and -nobody in the play interprets his behaviour otherwise. The estimate -just quoted of him is one of the least violent of the opinions of Ajax; -Agamemnon calls him “over-proud and under-honest”;<a name="FNanchor_140:3_207" id="FNanchor_140:3_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_140:3_207" class="fnanchor">[140:3]</a> Ulysses says -that he is</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i5h">“possess’d . . . with greatness</div> - <div class="line">And speaks not to himself but with a pride</div> - <div class="line">That quarrels at self-breath.”<a name="FNanchor_140:4_208" id="FNanchor_140:4_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_140:4_208" class="fnanchor">[140:4]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Ulysses’ descriptions of the general’s occupations, of his jests at -Agamemnon and the Greeks, of his delight in Patroclus’ imitations, -and the “loud applause” which comes from his “deep chest”<a name="FNanchor_140:5_209" id="FNanchor_140:5_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_140:5_209" class="fnanchor">[140:5]</a> are -sufficient proof that his malady is not very serious. Certainly, -judging from the <!-- Page 141 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>care with which Shakespeare demonstrates the nature -of its source, we shall conclude that this melancholy is presented to -us as a “humour.”</p> - -<p>The “Merchant of Venice” is coloured by the sadness of its hero, even -at the height of his prosperity. At the outset of the play he declares -to his friends:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“In sooth, I know not why I am so sad;</div> - <div class="line indentq">It wearies me; you say it wearies you;</div> - <div class="line indentq">But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,</div> - <div class="line indentq">What stuff ’tis made of, whereof it is born,</div> - <div class="line indentq">I am to learn.</div> - <div class="line indentq">And such a want-wit sadness makes of me</div> - <div class="line indentq">That I have much ado to know myself.”<a name="FNanchor_141:1_210" id="FNanchor_141:1_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_141:1_210" class="fnanchor">[141:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">We at least are not at a loss to explain Antonio’s depression. It is -not alone the boredom of “unruffled prosperity”<a name="FNanchor_141:2_211" id="FNanchor_141:2_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_141:2_211" class="fnanchor">[141:2]</a>—this sorts ill -with the character of the noble merchant: it is rather a peculiarity -of temperament which colours both adversity and prosperity. For such -melancholy as marks Antonio’s farewell to Bassanio:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“I am a tainted wether of the flock,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Meetest for death,”<a name="FNanchor_141:3_212" id="FNanchor_141:3_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_141:3_212" class="fnanchor">[141:3]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">is not the necessary concomitant either of prosperity or of adversity. -The two speeches quoted are examples of the same condition of mind; -the melancholy which they exhibit has the double dramatic purpose of -beautifying the character of Antonio and of giving the spectator <!-- Page 142 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>that -“preadjustment” which is so valuable an aid to the plot.</p> - -<p>Similarly we have in “Richard <abbr title="the Second">II</abbr>” the melancholy of the Queen, which -prepares us for the troubles about to befall her. This melancholy may -best be attributed, not necessarily, as Dr. Bucknill suggests, to her -temperament, certainly not to any prosperity she may have enjoyed, but -rather to a vague fear as to the results of her husband’s perilous -journey, coupled possibly with her experience of the King’s rashness -and a recognition of his recent weakness in dealing with Mowbray and -Bolingbroke. It is, at all events, merely a passing sadness of the -“inward soul” and her “heavy sad”-ness is soon dispersed, changing -first to real grief, which gives place before her weaker husband—true -woman that she is!—to a resolution concealing for a time her sorrow.</p> - -<p>In Jacques we have a character of more complexity. His humour he -describes as “a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, -extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of -my travels in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous -sadness.”<a name="FNanchor_142:1_213" id="FNanchor_142:1_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_142:1_213" class="fnanchor">[142:1]</a> He wishes, in his own words, to</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Cleanse the foul body of the infected world,</div> - <div class="line indentq">If they will patiently receive my medicine.”<a name="FNanchor_142:2_214" id="FNanchor_142:2_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_142:2_214" class="fnanchor">[142:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent"><!-- Page 143 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -But the Duke, usually so gentle, is quite out of sympathy with the -pseudo-reformer. Jacques, he says, has been a libertine, and like -many a reformed sinner, the ex-voluptuary would merely “disgorge into -the general world,” “all the embossèd sores and headed evils” of his -unregenerate days.<a name="FNanchor_143:1_215" id="FNanchor_143:1_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_143:1_215" class="fnanchor">[143:1]</a></p> - -<p>So much discussion has been lavished on the “case” of Jacques that -we shall not attempt to do more than shew what we believe to be its -perfectly superficial nature. Judging from the play as a whole, and -more especially from the Duke’s contempt and Rosalind’s banter, we -should suppose this to be Shakespeare’s view. As Dr. Moulton very -justly remarks, egotism is plainly shewn to be at the root of his -disposition. He has lived out his life in a short time; now he turns -everything, for sheer self-love, into matter not for jests but for -scurrilous abuse, or at best for a malevolent, sarcastic humour.</p> - -<p>Yet the morbidity of Jacques’ melancholy suggests that, more than any -other of Shakespeare’s similarly conceived characters, he carries about -with him a secret malady when he persists in his attitude towards -the world. One day the secret wound will fester; his “weeping” and -his “sullen fits” will become uncontrollable; his frantic abuse will -turn to frenzy; his ironic, half-humorous sallies will change to -the <!-- Page 144 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>disconnected utterances of a maniac; or his surly humour will -sink lower and lower until it reaches the dead level of melancholic -depression.</p> - -<p>Here, then, we have, in briefest outline, some of the types of -melancholy—true and false—presented by Shakespeare and certain of his -contemporaries. Numerous examples from other authors of the time might -be added, but we have seen enough to be clear on two points. These are, -the essential difference between the true and the false melancholy, and -the use of each to the dramatist in his work, both for its own sake -and because of the opportunities which it gives for the introduction -of poetical passages. From the character who entertains a “wilful -stillness”</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“With purpose to be dress’d in an opinion</div> - <div class="line indentq">Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,”<a name="FNanchor_144:1_216" id="FNanchor_144:1_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_144:1_216" class="fnanchor">[144:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">to the true victim of his sorrow, holding, against his will (like -Constance in “King John”)</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i6">“The eternal spirit . . .</div> - <div class="line">In the vile prison of afflicted breath,”<a name="FNanchor_144:2_217" id="FNanchor_144:2_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_144:2_217" class="fnanchor">[144:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">the melancholiac has great dramatic possibilities, of which, for the -most part, the fullest advantage is taken.</p> - -<p>This seems to be the most convenient place to discuss the question -of the real (as distinguished from the assumed) mental condition <!-- Page 145 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>of -Hamlet. That it is an abnormal condition most careful readers of the -play will not question. How otherwise can we explain his habitual -inaction, his sudden fits of energy, his violence to those whom he -loves, his strange self-questionings, and his even stranger apathy to -those things which should most move him? The whole question of the -cause of Hamlet’s procrastination depends on our estimate of his mental -state. Goethe’s description of Hamlet as “a beautiful, pure, noble, -and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which makes the -hero,” is clearly at variance with facts, and the estimates of both -Coleridge and Dowden largely ignore the practical side of the character -of Hamlet. Only by recognising what the play certainly tells us, that -the melancholy of Hamlet is really a disease, can we obtain anything -like a reasonable explanation of his strange movements. After all, he -is not the one-sided, unequally-developed weakling that certain school -editions of Shakespeare would have us suppose. He is, without any -doubt, a man of practical ability, capable of prompt, energetic action, -skilled in all manly exercises. Intellectually, his “noble mind” -compels the greatest regard, he has studied long at the University and -possesses besides such qualities as would serve him admirably as ruler -of Denmark. Fortinbras says of him that</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i9h"><!-- Page 146 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>“He was likely</div> - <div class="line">Had he been put on, to have proved most royally.”<a name="FNanchor_146:1_218" id="FNanchor_146:1_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_146:1_218" class="fnanchor">[146:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">His moral nature is equally praiseworthy. Ordinarily strong of will, -“most generous and free from all contriving,”<a name="FNanchor_146:2_219" id="FNanchor_146:2_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_146:2_219" class="fnanchor">[146:2]</a> though probably at -times inclined to be passionate and on occasions headstrong to excess, -he was certainly not the man to procrastinate through “losing himself -in labyrinths of thought” as Schlegel asserts him to have done.</p> - -<p>If we would find the key to this mystery, Hamlet himself will give it -us in his first soliloquy. He meditates suicide, from which he is only -kept by the fact that “the Everlasting” has “fix’d His canon ’gainst -self-slaughter.”<a name="FNanchor_146:3_220" id="FNanchor_146:3_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_146:3_220" class="fnanchor">[146:3]</a> Then he explains why everything to him is -“weary, stale, flat and unprofitable”—it is the terrible shock of his -mother’s incestuous marriage following that of the death of his father, -and the suspicious circumstances which attended it, that has given -rise to this abnormal state of mind. His melancholy is augmented by -the nature of the command laid on him by the Ghost and the consequent -secrecy which he must put upon himself:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.”<a name="FNanchor_146:4_221" id="FNanchor_146:4_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_146:4_221" class="fnanchor">[146:4]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">This is Melancholy True—a state of mind which <!-- Page 147 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>cannot be thrown -off like a cloak, yet which is abnormal. It is an excellent case -for the pathologist. Truly conceived, it furnishes the only -satisfying explanation of the strange phases of Hamlet’s so-called -“character”—the depression, the self-weariness, the irritability, -the violence, the satisfaction at the smallest thing achieved, the -impossibility of carrying out the original purpose—all these things -are the natural outcome of melancholia.</p> - -<p>A two-fold objection to this view has to be met. It will be said that -such a conception of Hamlet destroys the moral lesson of the play. And -would that it did! It is unfortunate that certain critics are unable -to pick up a play without looking at once for the moral. Those who -have done this with “Hamlet” have succeeded in shifting the centre of -gravity from the author to themselves. They say that the play shews how -wrong it is to procrastinate, and how by procrastination we lose far -more than we gain. It is, according to these critics, a mere sermon -preached on the text</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i6">“That we would do</div> - <div class="line">We should do when we would.”<a name="FNanchor_147:1_222" id="FNanchor_147:1_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_147:1_222" class="fnanchor">[147:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">How, they say, can this sermon be preached if the chief -illustration—the man by whom we are all to be warned—is exculpated -from blame by illness?</p> - -<p><!-- Page 148 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> -They know little of tragedy—or at least of Shakespeare’s tragedy—who -hold a view like this. What Shakespeare habitually does is to shew us -a man, by nature fitted to be a hero of tragedy, with a fatal defect, -the consequences of which are worked out in the play. Looked at from -this point of view, the sentimental objection at once vanishes, and the -second objection arises. It is a more serious one: Can a man suffering -from melancholia—to put the thing in its most prosaic form—any more -than a man suffering from any other form of insanity, be admitted as -a tragic hero? The answer is that he can. And this partly because his -exact state of mind is not determined, partly because it is a condition -not generally recognised as one of disease, and tragedy has always -to be considered from the point of view, not of the doctor, but of -the author and the audience. As Dr. Bradley, who very ably sums up -the question, says in his Lectures on Shakespearean Tragedy: “The man -who suffers as Hamlet suffers—and thousands go about their business -suffering thus in greater or less degree—is considered irresponsible -neither by other people nor by himself: he is only too keenly conscious -of his responsibility. . . . . Hamlet’s state is not one which a healthy -mind is unable sufficiently to imagine. It is probably not further from -average experience, nor more difficult to realise, than the <!-- Page 149 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>great -tragic passions of Othello, Antony or Macbeth.”<a name="FNanchor_149:1_223" id="FNanchor_149:1_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_149:1_223" class="fnanchor">[149:1]</a></p> - -<p>Before we leave Hamlet, it should be emphasised that the state of mind -of the hero is quite a subordinate question in the play itself. “It -would be absurdly unjust to call ‘Hamlet’ a study of melancholy, but -it contains such a study,” is Dr. Bradley’s way of putting it.<a name="FNanchor_149:2_224" id="FNanchor_149:2_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_149:2_224" class="fnanchor">[149:2]</a> -The significance of this is that we must not expect the indications of -Hamlet’s disease to be developed to any degree, nor refuse to claim for -it a place among our examples of “Melancholy True,” just because the -author fails to introduce the hero to a physician!<a name="FNanchor_149:3_225" id="FNanchor_149:3_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_149:3_225" class="fnanchor">[149:3]</a></p> - - -<hr class="footnotes" /> -<p class="sectctrfn">FOOTNOTES:</p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_127:1_178" id="Footnote_127:1_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127:1_178"><span class="label">[127:1]</span></a> As Pate says in Brome’s “Northern Lass” (<abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 1).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_127:2_179" id="Footnote_127:2_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127:2_179"><span class="label">[127:2]</span></a> “Cymbeline,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 2, 203.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_128:1_180" id="Footnote_128:1_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128:1_180"><span class="label">[128:1]</span></a> Induction, <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 135.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_128:2_181" id="Footnote_128:2_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128:2_181"><span class="label">[128:2]</span></a> “Twelfth Night,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 4, 113, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_128:3_182" id="Footnote_128:3_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128:3_182"><span class="label">[128:3]</span></a> “King John,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 3, 42.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_129:1_183" id="Footnote_129:1_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129:1_183"><span class="label">[129:1]</span></a> “The Maid’s Tragedy,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_129:2_184" id="Footnote_129:2_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129:2_184"><span class="label">[129:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_130:1_185" id="Footnote_130:1_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130:1_185"><span class="label">[130:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_130:2_186" id="Footnote_130:2_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130:2_186"><span class="label">[130:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_130:3_187" id="Footnote_130:3_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130:3_187"><span class="label">[130:3]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_131:1_188" id="Footnote_131:1_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131:1_188"><span class="label">[131:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 4.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_131:2_189" id="Footnote_131:2_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131:2_189"><span class="label">[131:2]</span></a> “Philaster,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_131:3_190" id="Footnote_131:3_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131:3_190"><span class="label">[131:3]</span></a> <i>e.g.</i> <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 1, 277; <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 2, 83, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_133:1_191" id="Footnote_133:1_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133:1_191"><span class="label">[133:1]</span></a> “A Very Woman,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_134:1_192" id="Footnote_134:1_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134:1_192"><span class="label">[134:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_134:2_193" id="Footnote_134:2_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134:2_193"><span class="label">[134:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_134:3_194" id="Footnote_134:3_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134:3_194"><span class="label">[134:3]</span></a> <abbr title="Pages">pp.</abbr> 105 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_135:1_195" id="Footnote_135:1_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135:1_195"><span class="label">[135:1]</span></a> “The Antipodes,” <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_135:2_196" id="Footnote_135:2_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135:2_196"><span class="label">[135:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_136:1_197" id="Footnote_136:1_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136:1_197"><span class="label">[136:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_136:2_198" id="Footnote_136:2_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136:2_198"><span class="label">[136:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 6.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_136:3_199" id="Footnote_136:3_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136:3_199"><span class="label">[136:3]</span></a> The scenes in which Joyless, Diana, Peregrine and the -rest listen to this play and pass comments on it often bear a striking -resemblance to the better known “Knight of the Burning Pestle.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_137:1_200" id="Footnote_137:1_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137:1_200"><span class="label">[137:1]</span></a> “The Antipodes,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 9.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_137:2_201" id="Footnote_137:2_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137:2_201"><span class="label">[137:2]</span></a> A medical friend reminds me that there is, properly -speaking, no such thing as “melancholy false,” and that the characters -mentioned under this head are not suffering, in his opinion, from -any form of mental disease. I will therefore repeat here that the -classification of “melancholy” adopted in this chapter is <em>not</em> a -scientific one, that it is made on a seventeenth century, rather than -on a twentieth century basis—we are trying, that is, to take up the -positions of the several dramatists. Few specialists of to-day would -consider Jacques, Achilles or Antonio to be in a state of disease, -but that the Elizabethan doctor would have diagnosed their malady as -“melancholy” I have little doubt. The ordinary spectator would probably -not consider the question in any detail.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_138:1_202" id="Footnote_138:1_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138:1_202"><span class="label">[138:1]</span></a> “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” Moth: <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 2, 9-10.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_139:1_203" id="Footnote_139:1_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139:1_203"><span class="label">[139:1]</span></a> “Mad Folk,” <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr>, <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 310.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_139:2_204" id="Footnote_139:2_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139:2_204"><span class="label">[139:2]</span></a> <abbr title="Page">p.</abbr> 128.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_140:1_205" id="Footnote_140:1_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140:1_205"><span class="label">[140:1]</span></a> “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 1, 233, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_140:2_206" id="Footnote_140:2_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140:2_206"><span class="label">[140:2]</span></a> “Troilus and Cressida,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 3, 92, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_140:3_207" id="Footnote_140:3_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140:3_207"><span class="label">[140:3]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 3, 132.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_140:4_208" id="Footnote_140:4_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140:4_208"><span class="label">[140:4]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 3, 180.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_140:5_209" id="Footnote_140:5_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140:5_209"><span class="label">[140:5]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 3, 161, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_141:1_210" id="Footnote_141:1_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141:1_210"><span class="label">[141:1]</span></a> “Merchant of Venice,” <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 1, 1, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_141:2_211" id="Footnote_141:2_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141:2_211"><span class="label">[141:2]</span></a> Bucknill, “Mad Folk,” <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr>, <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 307.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_141:3_212" id="Footnote_141:3_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141:3_212"><span class="label">[141:3]</span></a> “Merchant of Venice,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 1, 114, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_142:1_213" id="Footnote_142:1_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142:1_213"><span class="label">[142:1]</span></a> “As You Like It,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 1, 15, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_142:2_214" id="Footnote_142:2_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142:2_214"><span class="label">[142:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 7, 60.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_143:1_215" id="Footnote_143:1_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143:1_215"><span class="label">[143:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 7, 67-9.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_144:1_216" id="Footnote_144:1_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144:1_216"><span class="label">[144:1]</span></a> “Merchant of Venice,” <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 1, 91-2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_144:2_217" id="Footnote_144:2_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144:2_217"><span class="label">[144:2]</span></a> “King John,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 4, 18.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_146:1_218" id="Footnote_146:1_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146:1_218"><span class="label">[146:1]</span></a> “Hamlet,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 2, 408.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_146:2_219" id="Footnote_146:2_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146:2_219"><span class="label">[146:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 7, 136—the King’s testimony.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_146:3_220" id="Footnote_146:3_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146:3_220"><span class="label">[146:3]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 2, 131-2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_146:4_221" id="Footnote_146:4_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146:4_221"><span class="label">[146:4]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 2, 159.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_147:1_222" id="Footnote_147:1_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147:1_222"><span class="label">[147:1]</span></a> “Hamlet,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 7, 119-20.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_149:1_223" id="Footnote_149:1_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149:1_223"><span class="label">[149:1]</span></a> “Shakespearean Tragedy,” <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 121.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_149:2_224" id="Footnote_149:2_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149:2_224"><span class="label">[149:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="Page">p.</abbr> 121.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_149:3_225" id="Footnote_149:3_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149:3_225"><span class="label">[149:3]</span></a> Beside the melancholy of Hamlet we might place that of -Haraldus, the young Prince of Shirley’s play, “<cite>The Politician</cite>,” were -it not that the part played by his melancholy is purely nominal. His -father—the Politician—sends two courtiers to cure him, and they make -him drunk. His excesses bring on a fever which causes his death. His -likeness to Hamlet only strikes us here and there, and the melancholy, -such as it is, is caused chiefly by the discovery that he is a bastard.</p></div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="newchapter" /> -<p><!-- Page 150 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br /> - -<small><span class="smcap">Mad Folk in Comedy and Tragedy</span>—(<abbr title="Four">iv.</abbr>) <span class="smcap">Delusions, -Hallucinations and other Abnormal States</span>.</small></h2> -</div> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“How now; who’s there? spirits, spirits?”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="attribution">(“<cite>Spanish Tragedy.</cite>”)</p> - - -<p>Delusions and hallucinations occurring in cases of real madness we have -already encountered, but since these phenomena are themselves symptoms -of a disordered state of mind we must not neglect instances in which -they occur with persons otherwise sane. These spring to the memory; -who, for example, can ever forget the sights which Faustus sees in his -last hour on earth?</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“O, I’ll leap up to my God; who pulls me down?</div> - <div class="line indentq">See, see, where Christ’s blood streams in the firmament.</div> - <div class="line indentq">One drop would save my soul, half a drop—Ah, my Christ!</div> - <div class="line indentq">Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!</div> - <div class="line indentq">Yet will I call on Him: Oh, spare me, Lucifer!</div> - <div class="line indentq">Where is it now? ’tis gone: And see where God</div> - <div class="line indentq">Stretcheth out His arm, and bends His ireful brows;</div> - <div class="line indentq">Mountains and hills, come, come and fall on me,</div> - <div class="line indentq">And hide me from the heavy wrath of God.”<a name="FNanchor_150:1_226" id="FNanchor_150:1_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_150:1_226" class="fnanchor">[150:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">More examples of such hallucinations in moments of great stress might -be quoted. It will best serve our purpose if we consider <!-- Page 151 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>one typical -case (Frank, in “The Witch of Edmonton,”) and afterwards discuss a case -of special interest—that of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.</p> - -<p>Frank Thorney, in “The Witch of Edmonton,” has married one Winifred, -but is forced into a bigamous marriage with Susan, whom he afterwards -murders, without letting any suspicion fall on himself. He is tormented -on his sick-bed by phantoms indistinguishable from realities, more -particularly by the ghost of Susan, and at last reveals to Winifred the -awful truth.</p> - -<p>“I am not idle,” he says, and he is right. But thick-coming fancies -disturb him. The ghost of Susan appears. He stares at it fixedly, then -turns to the other side, only to be confronted again by the apparition. -When it vanishes he is raving of “a force in which were drawn a -thousand ghosts, leap’d newly from their graves, to pluck me into a -winding-sheet.” He has, so he says, “Some windmill in my brains for -want of sleep,” but sleep only comes with the unburdening of the guilty -conscience.<a name="FNanchor_151:1_227" id="FNanchor_151:1_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_151:1_227" class="fnanchor">[151:1]</a></p> - -<p>Macbeth (like Frank Thorney) is at no time <!-- Page 152 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>in the play insane, but -he becomes the victim of “horrible imaginings” which beyond a certain -point seem to him to be real.<a name="FNanchor_152:1_228" id="FNanchor_152:1_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_152:1_228" class="fnanchor">[152:1]</a> Macbeth is predisposed to -hallucinations by a remarkably vivid power of imagination, which finds -expression from the very outset of the play. The mere suggestion of -the murder of Duncan he describes as a “horrid image” which unfixes -his hair and makes his seated heart knock at his ribs, against the use -of nature. Thus we have a character whose imagination torments him -throughout his career of crime till he has “supped full of horrors” and -the “taste of fears” has almost lost all significance.<a name="FNanchor_152:2_229" id="FNanchor_152:2_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_152:2_229" class="fnanchor">[152:2]</a></p> - -<p>In the well-known “Dagger Scene”<a name="FNanchor_152:3_230" id="FNanchor_152:3_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_152:3_230" class="fnanchor">[152:3]</a> we are confronted with the -first of Macbeth’s hallucinations. It is before the murder of Duncan, -and the spectral dagger only deceives him for a moment. Making an -unsuccessful attempt <!-- Page 153 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>to clutch it, he is for a short moment at a loss -to explain a weapon which he can see but cannot handle. Then he rightly -concludes that it is but a “dagger of the mind, a false creation”; his -eyes “are made the fools o’ the other senses,” yet the image does not -disappear till courage comes again and with it “the heat of deeds.”</p> - -<p>Duncan is murdered; “after life’s fitful fever he sleeps well,” but the -regicide’s better self torments him more and more, and the Lady fears -for his sanity:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i5">“These deeds must not be thought</div> - <div class="line">After these ways; so, it will make us mad.”<a name="FNanchor_153:1_231" id="FNanchor_153:1_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_153:1_231" class="fnanchor">[153:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Macbeth, however, is losing his self-control. At the moment of the -murder a fresh hallucination troubled him, and though its true nature -is now recognised, and he can “moralise” upon it, its very mention -fills the Lady with fears.</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!</div> - <div class="line indentq">Macbeth doth murder sleep’. . . .</div> - <div class="line indentq">Still it cried, ‘Sleep no more!’ to all the house:</div> - <div class="line indentq">‘Glamis hath murther’d sleep, and therefore Cawdor</div> - <div class="line indentq">Shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.’”<a name="FNanchor_153:2_232" id="FNanchor_153:2_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_153:2_232" class="fnanchor">[153:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Dr. Bucknill, it is true, considers that this is not an hallucination, -on account of the word “methought.”<a name="FNanchor_153:3_233" id="FNanchor_153:3_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_153:3_233" class="fnanchor">[153:3]</a> But the same word would -have been used of the dagger, which the critic himself admits to have -been an hallucination. Nor is the length of the fancied speeches any -<!-- Page 154 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>obstacle, the greater part of the speech in which they occur being -Macbeth’s own embellishment of the event.</p> - -<p>The hallucination at the banquet is more formidable. Macbeth, having -caused Banquo to be murdered—the murder being unknown to his -guests—is regretting his absence, “thus by a voluntary mental act -calling before his mind’s eye the image of the murdered man.”<a name="FNanchor_154:1_234" id="FNanchor_154:1_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_154:1_234" class="fnanchor">[154:1]</a> At -the mention of him, an image rises in the place reserved for Macbeth -himself. It shakes its “gory locks” at the murderer, it nods but will -not speak, and only vanishes like the “air-drawn dagger,” when Macbeth -begins to overcome his fear and brave it. When he pledges Banquo it -appears again; once more he declaims violently against it and it -vanishes, but not before he has</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i2h">. . “displac’d the mirth, broke the good meeting</div> - <div class="line">With most admir’d disorder.”<a name="FNanchor_154:2_235" id="FNanchor_154:2_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_154:2_235" class="fnanchor">[154:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">to say nothing of a certain amount of suspicion attached to it.</p> - -<p>The remainder of the story, from the psychological point of view, can -best be told in Dr. Bucknill’s words.<a name="FNanchor_154:3_236" id="FNanchor_154:3_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_154:3_236" class="fnanchor">[154:3]</a> “Macbeth,” he says, “saved -himself from actual insanity by rushing from the maddening horrors of -meditation into a course of decisive resolute action. From henceforth -<!-- Page 155 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>he gave himself no time to reflect; he made the firstlings of his -heart the firstlings of his hand; he became a fearful tyrant to his -country; but he escaped madness. This change in him, however, effected -a change in his relation to his wife, which in her had the opposite -result. . . . Her attention, heretofore directed to her husband and to -outward occurrences, was forced inwards upon that wreck of all-content -which her meditation supplied.” She becomes mad; no medicine can -minister to her mind, diseased by crime and remorse, and her madness -is fatal. But Macbeth never becomes insane. “Some say he’s mad,” it is -true, yet</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i3">“Others, that lesser hate him,</div> - <div class="line">Do call it valiant fury.”<a name="FNanchor_155:1_237" id="FNanchor_155:1_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_155:1_237" class="fnanchor">[155:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">He has saved his own mental life, but he has flung away the “eternal -jewel” of his soul.</p> - -<p>Lady Macbeth, at every point in the play, is strongly contrasted with -her husband. She is frankly distressed at the developments of Macbeth’s -criminal career. He bids her be “innocent of the knowledge” till she -applaud his deeds. She thus drifts farther away from him and leaves him -to pursue his bloody course alone. Her meditation breeds madness. She -lacks, even as her husband had done,</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“the season of all natures, sleep,”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">being</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i3h">“Troubled with thick-coming fancies</div> - <div class="line">That keep her from her rest.”<a name="FNanchor_155:2_238" id="FNanchor_155:2_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_155:2_238" class="fnanchor">[155:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent"><!-- Page 156 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> -The scene in which she betrays her secret in her sleep is full of -significance, shewing the terrible impression made on her by the -murder of Duncan, and no less by the slaughter of Lady Macduff. After -her fainting fit, which follows the discovery of Duncan’s murder, she -ceases to occupy a prominent place in the tragedy. Her death is almost -unnoticed. Whether she died naturally or whether her attendants were -unable to keep from her the “means of all annoyance,” it is hard to -say. But once again Shakespeare shews his dramatic skill in relating -rather than portraying the scene of her death.</p> - -<p>Returning to Macbeth, one must remark in conclusion that it is only -when Shakespeare’s art in delineating the various types of insanity -is studied as a whole that this character can be fully appreciated. -Yet even from a superficial examination of the play the value to the -dramatist of Macbeth’s hallucinations must be clear. For they not only -add to the scenic effect of the play, but they constitute a striking -contrast between the murderer and his wife, besides clarifying the -already powerful idea of his accusing imagination.</p> - -<hr class="thoughtbreak" /> - -<p><!-- Page 157 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> -We must now briefly consider another kind of abnormality which has -not yet been mentioned. Occasionally, in reading the dramatists of the -period, we meet with persons whom at first we suppose to be insane, -but who are, in reality, not so. Yet their states of mind are far -from normal. Occasionally they seem to be possessed by insane desires -and ambitions; sometimes lust has taken complete possession of them; -sometimes remorse, vengeance or similar passion dominates all their -actions. It is hard to point to any of their actions and to say: “That -is the act of a madman.” To-day, no doubt, did they exist in the flesh, -they would be removed to a Mental Hospital and treated for disease of -the mind. But looked at by their author and by his audience and in an -Elizabethan environment, they were not, in all probability, and in the -ordinary sense of the word, madmen. And for that reason we can only -allow them a passing consideration here, though every one of them would -repay detailed study.</p> - -<p>One or two examples may be cited from Shakespeare—the first being -Constance, in “King John.” Dr. Bucknill, without the least hesitation, -styles her mad,—but he is a physician. Shakespeare, who may be -supposed to have known better, represents her as passionate by nature, -and half-demented with grief. But she <!-- Page 158 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>is never more than half-crazy, -always retaining sufficient of her native strength of will to control -her wonderful imagination. Her own explanation of her conduct:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Grief fills the room up of my absent child,”<a name="FNanchor_158:1_239" id="FNanchor_158:1_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_158:1_239" class="fnanchor">[158:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">is quite sufficient. Her reply to Pandulph’s accusation,</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow,”<a name="FNanchor_158:2_240" id="FNanchor_158:2_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_158:2_240" class="fnanchor">[158:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">is conclusive proof that she is to be regarded as sane. She does -not, like many a lunatic, merely protest that she is not mad; she -gives what, according to the standard of the day, would pass as clear -evidence of her sanity:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine;</div> - <div class="line indentq">My name is Constance; I was Geffrey’s wife;</div> - <div class="line indentq">Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost!</div> - <div class="line indentq">I am not mad; I would to heaven I were!</div> - <div class="line indentq">For then, ’tis like I should forget myself . . .</div> - <div class="line indentq">If I were mad, I should forget my son,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Or madly think a babe of clouts were he.</div> - <div class="line indentq">I am not mad; too well, too well I feel</div> - <div class="line indentq">The different plague of each calamity.”<a name="FNanchor_158:3_241" id="FNanchor_158:3_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_158:3_241" class="fnanchor">[158:3]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>Constance, even when her blemishes are taken into account, is a sublime -figure. At times the poet’s instinct seems for a moment to fail him; -his touch is less sure and his Fury becomes dangerously like a common -scold. But at her best she is unsurpassed, and if we wonder at the -skill with which Shakespeare portrays and utilises true madness on the -stage, we must not forget to withhold a portion of our <!-- Page 159 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>admiration for -his sure-footed walk on the border line.</p> - -<p>Timon of Athens, too, is a wonderful character—the wonder of the -play. A good-natured, generous and wealthy noble, he has attracted to -him crowds of parasites whom he calls friends, but who in reality do -nothing but receive his favours. At length he discovers their essential -baseness, and becoming, in his own words, “misanthropos” who “hates -mankind,”<a name="FNanchor_159:1_242" id="FNanchor_159:1_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_159:1_242" class="fnanchor">[159:1]</a> leaves Athens, with oaths and curses, for a cave near -the sea-shore. There he ends his days—the manner of his death is -uncertain. His friends consider him beyond all doubt insane. A creditor -says that his debts “may well be called desperate ones, for a madman -owes ’em”;<a name="FNanchor_159:2_243" id="FNanchor_159:2_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_159:2_243" class="fnanchor">[159:2]</a> others sum the matter up tersely by saying “Lord -Timon’s mad.”<a name="FNanchor_159:3_244" id="FNanchor_159:3_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_159:3_244" class="fnanchor">[159:3]</a> Alcibiades excuses Timon’s behaviour on the ground -that</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i11">“his wits</div> - <div class="line">Are drown’d and lost in his calamities.”<a name="FNanchor_159:4_245" id="FNanchor_159:4_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_159:4_245" class="fnanchor">[159:4]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Only Flavius, his faithful steward, gives no hint that he considers his -lord insane, though even he is struck with Timon’s unhappy condition, -so “full of decay and failing.”<a name="FNanchor_159:5_246" id="FNanchor_159:5_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_159:5_246" class="fnanchor">[159:5]</a> Flavius, in this as in other -particulars, seems, like Ulysses, in “Troilus and Cressida” and other -characters in different plays, to be Shakespeare’s mouthpiece. <!-- Page 160 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>There -is nothing in his representation of Timon which gives us cause to -impute madness to the protagonist. His state of mind is one of acute -depression, which we should call melancholia, were there any hint that -such a conception entered into the mind of the author. The condition of -Timon is not unlike that of Hamlet, and we could easily understand his -feigning madness to avoid the real evil coming upon him.</p> - -<p>If any further proof were needed that Timon is not a maniac his -speeches would suffice. The objection that “all satire upon the -hollowness of the world would lose much of its point if it came from -the lips of an undoubted lunatic,”<a name="FNanchor_160:1_247" id="FNanchor_160:1_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_160:1_247" class="fnanchor">[160:1]</a> is perfectly valid. In “King -Lear” the speeches which contain the most sarcasm, as well as the most -poetry, are those of the earlier scenes, in which Lear has not yet -become entirely a maniac. This kind of speech is characteristic of -Timon to the end. His very last words, though lacking the force of the -first outburst, are equally coherent and contain far more poetry:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Come not to me again: but say to Athens,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Timon hath made his everlasting mansion</div> - <div class="line indentq">Upon the beached verge of the salt flood;</div> - <div class="line indentq">Who once a day with his embossed froth</div> - <div class="line indentq">The turbulent surge shall cover; thither come</div> - <div class="line indentq">And let my gravestone be your oracle.</div> - <div class="line indentq"><!-- Page 161 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>Lips, let sour words go by and language end:</div> - <div class="line indentq">What is amiss plague and infection mend!</div> - <div class="line indentq">Graves only be men’s works and death their gain!</div> - <div class="line indentq">Sun, hide thy beams! Timon hath done his reign.”<a name="FNanchor_161:1_248" id="FNanchor_161:1_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_161:1_248" class="fnanchor">[161:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>A character far more repulsive, but depicted with the greatest force, -is Malefort Senior, of Massinger’s “Unnatural Combat.” Malefort is an -Admiral of Marseilles who is challenged by his apostate son to a duel -and comes off victorious, the son being slain. Shortly afterwards, -Theocrine, Malefort’s daughter, is sought in marriage by the son of the -Governor; the father consents, but his strange extravagances towards -her, as he loads her with jewels, riches and a superfluity of caresses, -is generally commented upon, and before long it appears that he has -fallen in love with her. The remainder of the plot hastens to the -catastrophe, Theocrine being dishonoured and virtually murdered by a -false friend of her father’s. Malefort himself is persecuted by ghosts, -and is finally killed by a flash of lightning.</p> - -<p>A modern author would no doubt represent such a character as Malefort -as suffering from some mental disease, but Massinger appears to have -considered the unnatural passion of the father for his daughter as -the fruit of the unnatural combat in which he kills his son. He cares -more for the development of this idea than for the mental condition -of Malefort, who <!-- Page 162 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>speaks, in one place, of his son’s blood as growing -upon him like Hercules’ poisoned shirt, though he seems also to feel an -inward cause of his passion which he cannot explain. Montreville, the -false friend, supposes that he may be mad, and recommends:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“A deep-read man, that can with charms and herbs</div> - <div class="line indentq">Restore you to your reason.”<a name="FNanchor_162:1_249" id="FNanchor_162:1_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_162:1_249" class="fnanchor">[162:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">But from the general character of the play it is easy to see that he is -not considered insane.</p> - -<p>Here, then, we have an attempt made to subject an outrageous and -unnatural passion, the manifestations of which bear at times the -closest resemblance to mania, to the dramatic treatment of tragedy. -That Massinger has wholly succeeded, few would be rash enough to -assert. He has given us a grim and ghastly picture, full of brute -strength but wanting in that higher power which restrains and subdues. -He has created a character at times human, always terrible, but only -partially effective in the highest sense of the word.</p> - -<p>It is probable that if Constance and Malefort had been portrayed -as mad and not merely as possessed by an overpowering passion, the -result in each case would have been a considerable dramatic gain. -The death of the Lady Constance “in a frenzy”—like the deaths of -Lady Macbeth and the Queen in “Cymbeline”—is only reported <!-- Page 163 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>by a -messenger. Had that frenzy actually been depicted, the result would -have been a weakening of the whole plot, but a decided increase in -the effectiveness of Constance. In the two plays which we shall now -consider, a comparatively poor theme is treated in such a way that the -passion portrayed is heightened,—without being raised, however, to the -level of madness. It is interesting to speculate on the result had this -been done—whether the madness would have elevated the drama or whether -the paucity or the inconsequence of the theme would have debased the -presentation of insanity.</p> - -<p>Grimaldi, the remorse-stricken renegade of Massinger’s play “The -Renegado,” who first immures a young girl, and afterwards repents, is -reduced in the fourth act to a state approaching insanity. He is a -poor sort of creature, at any rate until the concluding portion of the -play, where he contrives a remarkable stratagem which brings about the -dénouement. His remorse bears many of the signs of madness, and indeed -may have been intended for such by the author. For days he has taken no -food; the mention of the words “church” and “high altar” increases his -melancholy; his speech ends ever with “those dreadful words damnation -and despair.”<a name="FNanchor_163:1_250" id="FNanchor_163:1_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_163:1_250" class="fnanchor">[163:1]</a> His “ravings” lead him to contemplate all kinds of -extravagances; he would do a <!-- Page 164 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>“bloody justice” on himself, pull out his -eyes, lop off his legs, and give his body to those whom he has injured. -He does none of these things, however,—a Jesuit priest, habited like a -Bishop, curing him by the very simple means of granting him absolution. -The wild ravings give place to calmer expressions of contrition and -he goes off with a riming couplet! It is unnecessary to follow him; -one only wishes that the extreme nature of his remorse had not made it -advisable for us to include such a creature, for whom little can be -felt but contempt.</p> - -<p>Our last example is Memnon, in Fletcher’s play, “The Mad Lover.” Here -is a character for whom we cannot help entertaining some regard, but we -are at a loss to know what exactly to make of him. If he is really mad, -as seems at first sight unlikely, it is a very unreal kind of madness, -with more dramatic purpose than realism. One of the characters, -indeed, calls him “stupid mad,” and the term is not an inapt one. We -should be inclined to group him with the pretenders, but for three -considerations. Firstly, he never declares nor even hints to anyone -that he is not what he seems, as Hamlet does to Horatio and as Memnon -himself might with perfect ease have done—for example, to Siphax. Then -his recovery, however sudden, complete and unreal, is only the sort -of thing one would expect from Fletcher, and may be <!-- Page 165 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>left out of the -question. Lastly, in the scene where he refuses the whore, it is true -that he shews considerable sagacity and discrimination. Nevertheless -it is no more than has actually been found in “cases” arising from -the same cause as Memnon’s. Yet obviously, as we shall see, the mad -lover is not mad in the acceptation of the word then common, and the -hypothesis of an abnormal passion will meet the case, better perhaps -than if we consider our hero either mad or sane.</p> - -<p>The plot has already been sketched, and a few references should make -this statement clear. The lover’s rude courtship is the fruit of long -campaignings and absence from court; when he is told by his friend -of the strange impression he has made he speaks perfectly rationally -and merely becomes confirmed in his purpose. The extravagant idea of -cutting out his heart is the first sign of the strength of his passion. -Yet his soliloquy:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“’Tis but to die. Dogs do it, ducks with dabbling,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Birds sing away their souls, and babies sleep ’em . . .”<a name="FNanchor_165:1_251" id="FNanchor_165:1_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_165:1_251" class="fnanchor">[165:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">is spoken in a temper quite unlike the madman’s. His argument might -even by some be considered valid: “For in the other world she is bound -to have me,” he says, “Her princely word is past.” When others enter, -he grows wilder, and throughout the play talks in the <!-- Page 166 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>most extravagant -vein, more particularly to the surgeon whom he tries to persuade to cut -out his heart. “Here I am, sir,” says Memnon,</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Come, look upon me, view the best way boldly;</div> - <div class="line indentq">Fear nothing, but cut home. If your hand shake, sirrah,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Or any way deface my heart i’ the cutting,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Make the least scratch upon it . . . .</div> - <div class="line i6h">. . . I’ll slice thee to the soul. . . .</div> - <div class="line indentq">I will not have you smile, sirrah, when you do it,</div> - <div class="line indentq">As though you cut a lady’s corn; ’tis scurvy.</div> - <div class="line indentq">Do me it, as thou dost thy prayers, seriously.”<a name="FNanchor_166:1_252" id="FNanchor_166:1_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_166:1_252" class="fnanchor">[166:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Here is a man whose mind is certainly in an abnormal condition, and, -whatever the precise nature of that condition may be, it alone gives -to the play the least vestige of probability. If Memnon were sane, the -play would be absurd; if he were mad, then madness would once more be -degraded. As it is, he is not an unpleasing fellow; at times he is -even touched with pathos: any verdict on him would assuredly be more -favourable than a just verdict on the play as a whole.</p> - - -<hr class="footnotes" /> -<p class="sectctrfn">FOOTNOTES:</p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_150:1_226" id="Footnote_150:1_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150:1_226"><span class="label">[150:1]</span></a> Dr. Faustus, <abbr title="line">l.</abbr> 1419, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr> (Oxford text.)</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_151:1_227" id="Footnote_151:1_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151:1_227"><span class="label">[151:1]</span></a> The insanity of Ann Ratcliff, in this play, may also -be noticed, though it is of the same rude type as that of Greene’s -Orlando. “See, see, see,” she cries, “the Man in the Moon has built a -new windmill, and what running there’s from all quarters of the city, -to learn the art of grinding.” The only feature of interest in her -frenzy is the expression of physical pain which we noticed in “King -Lear.” Her ribs are like to break, and “there’s a Lancashire horn-pipe -in my throat. Hark how it tickles it, with Doodle, doodle, doodle, -doodle,” <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_152:1_228" id="Footnote_152:1_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152:1_228"><span class="label">[152:1]</span></a> With Macbeth might be compared two other -remorse-stricken murderers in little known plays. Glapthorne’s -“Albertus Wallenstein” is the story of a man who causes his son and -his son’s betrothed to be killed and is then haunted by his crimes. -His soul “is shaken with a nipping frost”; he mistakes his son’s page -for a ghost and murders him; after this false visions of spirits are -ever before him. Only when mortally wounded by conspirators is his mind -at rest. In Denham’s “Sophy” (which is in spirit outside our period, -though it was acted in 1641), Abbas, King of Persia, is likewise -tormented by the ghosts of those whom he has murdered. Abbas, unlike -Macbeth and Wallenstein, is quite a maniac, and does not recover his -senses before his death.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_152:2_229" id="Footnote_152:2_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152:2_229"><span class="label">[152:2]</span></a> <abbr title="compare">cf.</abbr> “Macbeth,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 5, 9, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr> “I have almost forgot -the taste of fears . . .”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_152:3_230" id="Footnote_152:3_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152:3_230"><span class="label">[152:3]</span></a> Act <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, Scene 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_153:1_231" id="Footnote_153:1_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153:1_231"><span class="label">[153:1]</span></a> “Macbeth,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 3, 32-3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_153:2_232" id="Footnote_153:2_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153:2_232"><span class="label">[153:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 2, 35, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_153:3_233" id="Footnote_153:3_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153:3_233"><span class="label">[153:3]</span></a> “Mad Folk,” <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr>, <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 20.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_154:1_234" id="Footnote_154:1_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154:1_234"><span class="label">[154:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 24.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_154:2_235" id="Footnote_154:2_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154:2_235"><span class="label">[154:2]</span></a> “Macbeth,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 4, 109.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_154:3_236" id="Footnote_154:3_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154:3_236"><span class="label">[154:3]</span></a> “Mad Folk,” <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr>, <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 29.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_155:1_237" id="Footnote_155:1_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155:1_237"><span class="label">[155:1]</span></a> “Macbeth,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 2, 13.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_155:2_238" id="Footnote_155:2_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155:2_238"><span class="label">[155:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 2, 37-8.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_158:1_239" id="Footnote_158:1_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158:1_239"><span class="label">[158:1]</span></a> “King John,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 4, 93.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_158:2_240" id="Footnote_158:2_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158:2_240"><span class="label">[158:2]</span></a> <abbr title="line">l.</abbr> 43.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_158:3_241" id="Footnote_158:3_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158:3_241"><span class="label">[158:3]</span></a> <abbr title="lines">ll.</abbr> 45, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_159:1_242" id="Footnote_159:1_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159:1_242"><span class="label">[159:1]</span></a> “Timon of Athens,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 3, 53.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_159:2_243" id="Footnote_159:2_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159:2_243"><span class="label">[159:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 4, 101-2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_159:3_244" id="Footnote_159:3_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159:3_244"><span class="label">[159:3]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 6, 129.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_159:4_245" id="Footnote_159:4_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159:4_245"><span class="label">[159:4]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 3, 88.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_159:5_246" id="Footnote_159:5_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159:5_246"><span class="label">[159:5]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 3, 465.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_160:1_247" id="Footnote_160:1_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160:1_247"><span class="label">[160:1]</span></a> Raised and disputed by Bucknill, “Mad Folk,” <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr>, <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> -259.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_161:1_248" id="Footnote_161:1_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161:1_248"><span class="label">[161:1]</span></a> “Timon of Athens,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 1, 217, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_162:1_249" id="Footnote_162:1_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162:1_249"><span class="label">[162:1]</span></a> “The Unnatural Combat,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_163:1_250" id="Footnote_163:1_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163:1_250"><span class="label">[163:1]</span></a> “The Renegado,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_165:1_251" id="Footnote_165:1_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165:1_251"><span class="label">[165:1]</span></a> “The Mad Lover,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_166:1_252" id="Footnote_166:1_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166:1_252"><span class="label">[166:1]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 2.</p></div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="newchapter" /> -<p><!-- Page 167 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br /> - -<small><span class="smcap">Mad Folk in Comedy and Tragedy.</span></small><br /> - -<small>(<abbr title="Six">vi.</abbr>) <span class="smcap">The Pretenders.</span></small></h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>“I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I -know a hawk from a handsaw.”</p> - -<p class="attribution">(“<cite>Hamlet.</cite>”)</p> -</div> - - -<p>Last of all in the long train of madmen which has now almost passed -us come the Pretenders—characters who have feigned insanity for -some purpose. We need not, of course, devote much space here to -pseudo-lunatics like Morose in “The Silent Woman,” Bellamont in -“Northward Ho,” Malvolio and Christopher Sly. These are all sane enough -and have no wish to be thought otherwise. They are victimised by the -pretences of others, and shew none of the signs which were supposed -to characterise insanity. Thus they have small interest for us and no -place in the present section.</p> - -<p>A somewhat different example may be taken from Day’s “Law -Tricks,”<a name="FNanchor_167:1_253" id="FNanchor_167:1_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_167:1_253" class="fnanchor">[167:1]</a> where Polymetes, son of the reigning Duke, pretends, on -his father’s sudden return from a long journey, to be deeply immersed -in his studies, in order to avert the Duke’s reproaches for his neglect -and loose living. His page, a boy “worth his weight <!-- Page 168 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>in pearl,” comes -to the Duke with a cock-and-bull story about an “English poet” who is -with the Prince. This is presently supplemented by Julio, who explains -that “the boy is lunatic.” His description of the supposed origin -of the lunacy is most interesting. “Coming abruptly to the Prince’s -chamber about some ordinary service, I found him in his study and a -company of bottle-nosed devils dancing the Irish hay about him, which -on the sudden so started the poor boy as he clean lost his wits, and -ever since talks thus idle as your Excellence hath heard him.” The -“studies” of Polymetes, it later appears, are in astrology!</p> - -<p>The “true Pretenders”—if the term may be allowed—have on the other -hand considerable interest, and are well worthy of attention. Among -other things we may take into consideration the intention with which -they are portrayed, how far they fulfil that intention, how closely -they counterfeit insanity—if any such attempt is really made,—and -what worth they have as characters—how nearly, in other words, they -resemble men and women.</p> - -<p>Beginning at the bottom of the scale, let us take Middleton’s -“Changeling,” a play already studied, in which Antonio, the -“Changeling” of the piece, counterfeits idiocy, and Franciscus his -companion, pretends to be a madman. Their devices, which form the -substance of a <!-- Page 169 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>somewhat coarse underplot, are not successful. This -would surprise nobody; the intention of the author (or authors) being -mainly comic relief, little care is shewn and the characters are -almost worthless. Franciscus says in the last scene, “I was changed -from a little wit to be stark mad”; and Antonio, “I was changed too -from a little ass as I was to a great fool as I am!”<a name="FNanchor_169:1_254" id="FNanchor_169:1_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_169:1_254" class="fnanchor">[169:1]</a> The last -statement we can take literally. For, after all, idiocy is fairly easy -to counterfeit, and he would be a fool indeed who could not do at least -equally well. Franciscus is rather better, and might really be very -effective on the stage. He is supposed to have “run mad for love,” and -was a “pretty poet” till the muses forsook him. He discourses most -appropriately of “Titania” and “flowery banks,” invokes his imaginary -mistress, and pledges her in imaginary wine.<a name="FNanchor_169:2_255" id="FNanchor_169:2_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_169:2_255" class="fnanchor">[169:2]</a> He succeeds in -extorting the pity of Isabella with his ravings. The least spark -sets him alight; the mere mention of “Luna” is sufficient for him to -rhapsodise upon, and he works himself up to a state of violence which -has to be calmed by the whip. His snatches of song are equally true -to life. But he does not re-appear for any length of time after this -scene, and he never again reaches the same level of excellence. Apart -from this skill in counterfeit Franciscus appears to have no character -worthy <!-- Page 170 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>of the name, and is therefore of small importance.</p> - -<p>Something has already been said of the shopkeeper’s wife, Tormiella, -of Dekker’s tragi-comedy “Match me in London”; here, as in “The -Changeling,” and as in many another minor play, the feigned madness is -utilised for the plot and makes little difference to the character. -We have seen that Dekker has shewn considerable skill in weaving this -pretended madness into the plot as well as in introducing it at a -favourable place. But the scene is so short, and its place in the play -of such relatively small importance, that we need do no more here than -repeat that the “feigning” is well done and serves its purpose.</p> - -<p>Space may also be found for Dol in Jonson’s “Alchemist.” She goes mad -for the benefit of Sir Epicure Mammon in the fourth act of the play, -but unfortunately the learned dramatist infuses little probability into -her feigning. She is not so successful a lunatic as Quarlous, though -her task is certainly less simple. She appears before Mammon “in her -fit of raving” to discourse of “Alexander’s death,” the “communion of -vowels and consonants,” “Pythagoras,” “the tongue of Eber and Javan” -and so forth. The alleged reason for this is given us earlier in the -play in a speech by Face already quoted.<a name="FNanchor_170:1_256" id="FNanchor_170:1_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_170:1_256" class="fnanchor">[170:1]</a></p> - -<p><!-- Page 171 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> -In the “Honest Whore,”<a name="FNanchor_171:1_257" id="FNanchor_171:1_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_171:1_257" class="fnanchor">[171:1]</a> Bellafront, for her own purposes, -feigns madness. Her pretence is skilful, though Friar Anselmo does not -consider her dangerous. “How now, huswife,” he says good-humouredly, -“whether gad you?” “A-nutting forsooth,” answers Bellafront, “How do -you, gaffer? How do you, gaffer? there’s a French curt’sy for you too.” -“Do you not know me?” she enquires. “No,” reply all. “What are they?” -asks Anselmo, “come tell me, what are they?” Her answer reminds us of -“Hamlet.” “They’re fish-wives,” she says, “will you buy any gudgeons?” -At a later stage in the proceedings, she is anxious to tell everyone’s -fortunes and demands sugar-plums as a reward. This madness, however, is -not without method, for the fortune-telling leads to discoveries and -explanations. When at last Matheo, whom Bellafront wishes to marry, -declares that if her wits are restored he will consent, she at once -reveals her sanity:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i5">“Matheo, thou art mine.</div> - <div class="line">I am not mad; but put on this disguise</div> - <div class="line">Only for you.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>We now come without any further slips of prolixity to the only two -pretenders for whom we can entertain the least enthusiasm—to the -classical examples of feigned madness in English Drama, Edgar and -Hamlet.</p> - -<p><!-- Page 172 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> -Edgar is represented as simulating “Poor Tom” of Bedlam, one of the -lunatics who roamed about the countryside, possessed by the “foul -fiend,” and dependent upon such charity as kindly hearts might prompt. -How well he counterfeits need only be suggested. It is, after all, an -easy matter for an author to portray feigned madness for a scene or two -with something like accuracy. But what a genius is required to lead his -pretender, so to say, “through fire and through flame,” place him in -all kinds of situations, cause him to change his disguise from lunatic -to peasant, then back to lunatic again, marking all the time by subtle -touches the most delicate shades of expression. The burthen of his cry, -as one would expect, is “Poor Tom’s a-cold. . . . The foul fiend follows -me.” Persistently he raves and consistently, but at times “the natural -touch” overcomes him,</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“My tears begin to take his part so much</div> - <div class="line indentq">They mar my counterfeiting.”<a name="FNanchor_172:1_258" id="FNanchor_172:1_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_172:1_258" class="fnanchor">[172:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">An even more wonderful effect of art is pointed out by Mr. Cowden -Clarke. Gloster, now blind, would seem to recognise amidst the wild -ravings of his son “some tone or inflection in Edgar’s voice . . . and -he links (his son’s conduct) with that of Lear’s daughters. Edgar, -instinctively feeling this, perseveres with his Bedlam <!-- Page 173 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>cry, to drown -the betrayed sound of his own voice and maintain the impression of his -assumed character.” If this is really Shakespeare’s art and not the -imagination of the critic—as some might think it to be—it is but one -more illustration of his dramatic genius.</p> - -<p>Apart from such details as these, the character of Edgar, especially -during his feigned madness, is a genuine masterpiece. At times during -the play he has certainly some of the frigidity—closely allied to -a quality which is dangerously like self-righteousness—which marks -Shakespeare’s own Isabella. But in these scenes of madness he is all -tenderness and forgiveness. His compassion on his blinded father we -feel the more keenly in contrast with Gloster’s own conduct and the -ingratitude of Lear’s children. Edgar is Shakespeare at his best and -truest—he rings true—we may even say that he stands for Truth itself. -And thus his feigned madness is no ordinary stage-device requisitioned -by an unmanageable plot. It has uses connected with the plot, indeed, -but beyond these it brings out characteristics of the man which endear -him to the most hostile spectator.</p> - -<p>Lastly we come to Hamlet and his feigned madness. Like most of the -Pretenders he is introduced into a play where real madness also plays -a part, but unlike any of them he is actually in a condition verging -on madness. <!-- Page 174 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>Possibly it is by a kind of self-preservative instinct -that he chooses that disguise for his purpose of deceiving the King. -Fortunately he is able to prevent his mind actually giving way, and so -he defeats the King’s designs, seeing “a cherub that sees them.” He -shrinks from nothing; his demeanour towards those whom he loves, and -especially towards Ophelia, fully bears out his supposed affliction. He -appears with doublet all unbraced,</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“No hat upon his head, his stockings foul’d,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Ungarter’d and down-gyved to his ancle;</div> - <div class="line indentq">Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,</div> - <div class="line indentq">And with a look so piteous in purport</div> - <div class="line indentq">As if he had been loosed out of hell</div> - <div class="line indentq">To speak of horrors.”<a name="FNanchor_174:1_259" id="FNanchor_174:1_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_174:1_259" class="fnanchor">[174:1]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">His attitude and his words seem to confirm the judgment of Polonius: -“This is the very ecstasy of love.”<a name="FNanchor_174:2_260" id="FNanchor_174:2_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_174:2_260" class="fnanchor">[174:2]</a> He is caught in no trap. The -presence of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern does not suffice to</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“Get from him why he puts on this confusion</div> - <div class="line indentq">Grating so harshly all his days of quiet</div> - <div class="line indentq">With turbulent and dangerous lunacy.”<a name="FNanchor_174:3_261" id="FNanchor_174:3_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_174:3_261" class="fnanchor">[174:3]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Only the faithful Horatio knows that; elsewhere Hamlet “keeps aloof” -from the topic with true madman’s instinct, whenever his state is -mentioned. The King pretends to Polonius that while the disease is not -so serious as it seems, only Hamlet’s absence from Denmark can prevent -it from becoming so. In this way he <!-- Page 175 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>gets him removed. But throughout -the play, whether in his attempts to deceive the Court or in his -foiling of the King’s design, Hamlet acts with what might be called the -craft of true madness.</p> - -<p>It is unnecessary to insist on the complexity and the lifelike truth -of Hamlet’s character. No personage in the world’s drama has excited -more criticism. The Prince of Denmark is on all sides acknowledged to -be supreme. And for that reason it is needless to attempt to prove what -otherwise would be the main contention of this chapter—that Hamlet is -in every way the greatest of the Pretenders whom we have studied, and, -indeed, of the madmen, true and false, who form the subject of this -essay.</p> - - -<hr class="footnotes" /> -<p class="sectctrfn">FOOTNOTES:</p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_167:1_253" id="Footnote_167:1_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167:1_253"><span class="label">[167:1]</span></a> Act <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, scene 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_169:1_254" id="Footnote_169:1_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169:1_254"><span class="label">[169:1]</span></a> “The Changeling,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_169:2_255" id="Footnote_169:2_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169:2_255"><span class="label">[169:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_170:1_256" id="Footnote_170:1_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170:1_256"><span class="label">[170:1]</span></a> <a href="#Footnote_14:2_27">Page 14, note 2</a>.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_171:1_257" id="Footnote_171:1_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171:1_257"><span class="label">[171:1]</span></a> “Honest Whore,” <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 13.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_172:1_258" id="Footnote_172:1_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172:1_258"><span class="label">[172:1]</span></a> “King Lear,” <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 6, 63-4.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_174:1_259" id="Footnote_174:1_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174:1_259"><span class="label">[174:1]</span></a> “Hamlet,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 1, 78, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_174:2_260" id="Footnote_174:2_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174:2_260"><span class="label">[174:2]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="line">l.</abbr> 102.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_174:3_261" id="Footnote_174:3_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174:3_261"><span class="label">[174:3]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 1, 2-4.</p></div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="newchapter" /> -<p><!-- Page 176 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br /> - -<small><span class="smcap">Conclusion.—Shakespeare and his Contemporaries.</span></small></h2> -</div> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“All pains the immortal spirit must endure,</div> - <div class="line indentq">All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,</div> - <div class="line indentq">Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="attribution">(<i>Matthew Arnold: “<cite class="notag">Shakespeare</cite>.”</i>)</p> - - -<p>In such a study as this, dealing largely with the work of Shakespeare’s -contemporaries, it is to be hoped that it will not be out of place to -centre the concluding portion around Shakespeare himself. It is but one -aspect of our study to compare our greatest dramatist and his fellows -with respect to their presentation of madness, and it is throwing a -dim light on Shakespeare’s greatness to make the comparison in such a -trivial sphere. Our conclusion is thus doubly insignificant, yet we -enter upon it nevertheless. For if it tells us nothing that is new, it -serves at least to strengthen our present convictions, and this from an -entirely new standpoint. We shall, then, compare Shakespeare and his -contemporaries from three points of view: in their general ideas and -sentiments concerning madness, in their dramatic use of madness, and in -their representation of mad folk as complete figures, the Elizabethan -dramatists bow one and all before their master.</p> - - -<p><!-- Page 177 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p> -<h3><i>General Ideas and Sentiments.</i></h3> - -<p>1. To a certain extent, in madness as in other departments of life, -Shakespeare took over the general notions of his day and introduced -them fairly liberally into his work. He could hardly do otherwise, -for the subject of lunacy was so commonplace and found so ready a way -into ordinary conversation that the dramatist who, like Shakespeare, -mirrored the life and speech of every day, would find himself, even -against his will, borrowing figures from Bedlam. Many of these we -have already noticed; a very few more will show the diversity of the -references. The shipwrecked mariners in “The Tempest,” “felt a fever of -the mad and play’d Some tricks of desparation.” Theseus speaks of “The -lunatic, the lover and the poet” as being “of imagination all compact.” -Rosalind mentions “the dark house and the whip,” Romeo the prison, the -bonds and the torments, Othello the popular view of the influence of -the moon. This breadth of treatment in casual allusions alone might -be contrasted with the meagre work of his contemporaries. But we must -pass on to notice that Shakespeare himself was far in advance of his -time, seeing in some way features of insanity which were commonly -overlooked, and using remedies which we consider quite “modern,” even -to-day. His tests <!-- Page 178 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>for insanity are certainly somewhat crude, but they -occur rather as allusions, where, as we have seen, he adopted the ideas -of his day, than in full-length portraits, in which he is remarkably -exact. A physician of the last century<a name="FNanchor_178:1_262" id="FNanchor_178:1_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_178:1_262" class="fnanchor">[178:1]</a> remarks on Lear: “Lear’s -is a genuine case of insanity from the beginning to the end, such as -we often see in aged persons. On reading it we cannot divest ourselves -of the idea that it is a real case correctly reported.” This is high -praise; and although Shakespeare hardly requires such commendation, it -is interesting to notice the small details which are true to life. We -have such phrases in “King Lear” as</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i5">“O Lear, Lear, Lear!</div> - <div class="line">Beat at this gate that let thy folly in,</div> - <div class="line">And thy dear judgment out,”<a name="FNanchor_178:2_263" id="FNanchor_178:2_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_178:2_263" class="fnanchor">[178:2]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">where the old king beats his head, as</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!</div> - <div class="line indentq">Keep me in temper; I would not be mad,”<a name="FNanchor_178:3_264" id="FNanchor_178:3_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_178:3_264" class="fnanchor">[178:3]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">as:</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line">“O how this mother swells up towards my heart!”<a name="FNanchor_178:4_265" id="FNanchor_178:4_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_178:4_265" class="fnanchor">[178:4]</a></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">“My wits begin to turn,” “I am cut to the brains,” and the like. These -are touches which can be paralleled by none other of the authors who -have been dealt with in this study. They are the result of a shrewd, -penetrating observation applied to those mental phenomena which <!-- Page 179 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>were -displayed before the gaze of any who cared to notice them. If we would -contrast genius with mediocrity, we have only to look at the general -attitude of Shakespeare’s contemporaries towards madness and their -representation of it. Take the scene of Lear’s partial restoration to -reason. With its soft, sweet music, with the loving faces surrounding -the sleeping sufferer, with the gradual re-awakening of sanity—what a -contrast there is between this and the metamorphosis of Memnon, the mad -lover, or even the rude art of Ford when he pictures the restoration of -Meleander.</p> - - -<h3><i>Dramatic use of Madness.</i></h3> - -<p>2. The superiority of Shakespeare, again, in his dramatic use of -madness! If there is one thing more than another which arrests a -student of this subject it is Shakespeare’s refusal to sacrifice so -grand a passion to the interests of comedy, to expose it as a butt for -the jests of the groundlings and a subject for idle conversation. His -madmen are among his sublimest figures; he introduces them, not after -the manner of Dekker and Middleton, as characters of light comedy, -but as the agents or the victims of tragedy, “more sinned against -than sinning.” They contribute to no coarse underplot, they are not -introduced to enhance the supposed terrors of melodrama—they form part -of the <!-- Page 180 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>plot itself, are inextricably interwoven with it, colour its -very texture, determine its whole character. This is no imagination, -but sheer fact. “Lear” <em>is</em> the mad king. The word “Hamlet” calls up -an image, either of the hero’s “antic disposition” or (which is still -more likely) of the lonely pathos of Ophelia in her last passion. -Think, on the contrary, of Shakespeare’s contemporaries. There is -Fletcher, whose Mad Lover certainly colours the play, but what a play -of farce and absurdity! There is Webster, whose sole use of the madman -is for the pageantry, and for the intensification by means of it of -the effect of his catastrophe. Or there is Dekker, who paints the -interior of a Bedlam, for the same reason as elsewhere he leads us -into a brothel-house—for the sake of a so-called realism. Or, if you -prefer it, there is Middleton, whose madmen supply material for the -introduction of a trivial underplot and a few coarse jests and songs. -Nowhere, except perhaps in Ford, who appears to have been attracted by -insanity, to have studied it and to have painted it with some insight -and sympathy, is there any approach in this body of drama to the -sustained excellence of Shakespeare.</p> - - -<h3><i>Mad Folk.</i></h3> - -<p>3. The same fact emerges when we take the complete figures and consider -them, as has been <!-- Page 181 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>done, from a purely literary standpoint. We need -not go over the whole story again; it will be sufficient if we cast -our eye back over each group and seize upon the most prominent figures -in it. Take Trouble-all, Meleander, Shattillion, and the Passionate -Madman, and, following the prescription which Paulina gives to Leontes -in the “Winter’s Tale,” choose the best traits from each, concentrate, -add, improve—and you are still far from the august figure of Lear. -Surround Ophelia with the heroines of Beaumont, Fletcher, and Ford. -Will anyone assert that either Aspatia, or the Gaoler’s Daughter, or -Penthea approaches the fair Ophelia? Take the Pretenders: where have -you so admirable a pretence as that of Hamlet, a pretence so realistic -that many critics of to-day maintain that it is reality, and most -allow that, if not actually mad, the Prince of Denmark was perilously -near a state of insanity? It is certainly not in the antics of the boy -of Polymetes, or of the fool “Tony” represented in “The Changeling.” -Considered from this point of view alone, there is no pretender who -does the thing so well as Hamlet,—as a masterpiece of literary art no -character can touch him. If anyone could be said to have the slightest -claim to do so it would be Shakespeare’s own Edgar, less important in -relation to the plot, far less universal in his appeal to mankind as a -representative of humanity, yet perhaps <!-- Page 182 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>more wonderfully impressive in -the place he occupies than any other personage could possibly be.</p> - -<p>Or let us look at that unimportant yet not wholly negligible group of -persons who have been made the victims of others, written down as asses -by the world at large, and are cowering over there in a corner. Even -here we see that Shakespeare’s figures are by far the most noteworthy. -Morose is not uninteresting, and the dismay of Bellamont, the -“reverent” poet, as he is apprehended for a madman and seems to be in -danger of confinement in Bedlam, is quite a diverting incident in the -plot. But compare them with Shakespeare’s figures. Here is Christopher -Sly, “old Sly’s son of Burton-heath, by birth a pedlar, by education a -card-maker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present profession -a tinker.” There is individuality here, conveyed in a few lines,—which -are quite sufficient, notwithstanding, to stamp the character with the -impress of Shakespeare’s seal. Better still, take Malvolio, who is -accused of madness for a jest, but whose character as previously drawn -would make an admirable reason for the jest being taken seriously. So -much does he take things to heart that Sir Toby thinks he may actually -go mad through disappointment. “Why, thou hast put him in such a dream -that when the image of it leaves him <!-- Page 183 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>he must run mad.”<a name="FNanchor_183:1_266" id="FNanchor_183:1_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_183:1_266" class="fnanchor">[183:1]</a> Thorough -as always, true to life, this is very Shakespeare: none other can -approach him in his own arena of the stage.</p> - -<hr class="thoughtbreak" /> - -<p>The last figure seems to have disappeared from the stage, the unmeaning -groups of madmen have dispersed, and with them the crowd. We turn to -go. Yet, as for a moment we look back on the scene we have just left, -a solitary figure meets our eye. It is no madman, no pretender, and no -dupe. It is just the Fool, the Fool unparalleled, the Fool of Lear. Ere -his master’s afflictions could drive him mad like that master, he went -“to bed at noon.” Now he returns to remind us of his other master,—of -his creator,—who painted him on the same canvas which holds Edgar and -Lear, a figure</p> - -<div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="line i8">“sublime</div> - <div class="line">With tears and laughter for all time.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">With no more fitting words, inasmuch as they describe not alone the -Fool but all Shakespeare’s mad folk, could we close our study.</p> - - -<hr class="footnotes" /> -<p class="sectctrfn">FOOTNOTES:</p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_178:1_262" id="Footnote_178:1_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178:1_262"><span class="label">[178:1]</span></a> Dr. Brigham.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_178:2_263" id="Footnote_178:2_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178:2_263"><span class="label">[178:2]</span></a> “King Lear,” <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 4, 292.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_178:3_264" id="Footnote_178:3_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178:3_264"><span class="label">[178:3]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 5, 50.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_178:4_265" id="Footnote_178:4_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178:4_265"><span class="label">[178:4]</span></a> Ibid., <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 4, 53, and passim.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_183:1_266" id="Footnote_183:1_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183:1_266"><span class="label">[183:1]</span></a> “Twelfth Night,” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 5, 211.</p></div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="newchapter" /> -<p><!-- Page 184 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p> -<h2><a name="BIBLIOGRAPHY" id="BIBLIOGRAPHY"></a>BIBLIOGRAPHY.</h2> -</div> - - -<h3 class="noindent">1. HISTORY AND CRITICISM.</h3> - -<ul class="list"> -<li>The Cambridge History of English Literature.</li> - -<li>English Dramatic Literature—<abbr title="Adolphus William">A. W.</abbr> Ward.</li> - -<li>History of English Poetry—<abbr title="William John">W. J.</abbr> Courthope.</li> - -<li>The Mad Folk of Shakespeare—Dr. Bucknill.</li> - -<li>Notes on Shakespeare in various editions—notably the Variorum.</li> - -<li>Shakespearean Tragedy—<abbr title="Andrew Cecil">A. C.</abbr> Bradley.</li> - -<li>Shakespeare, his mind and art—<abbr title="Edward">Ed.</abbr> Dowden.</li> - -<li>Introductions to the various editions mentioned below under</li> -<li>“Drama.”</li> - -<li>Notes and Lectures—<abbr title="Samuel Taylor">S. T.</abbr> Coleridge.</li> - -<li>Francis Beaumont—<abbr title="George Campbell">G. C.</abbr> Macaulay.</li> - -<li>The Oxford Dictionary—passim.</li> - -<li>Encyclopædia Britannica—<abbr title="sub voce">s.v.</abbr> Insanity.</li> - -<li>History of the Insane in the British Isles—Tuke.</li> - -<li>The Psychology of Insanity—<abbr title="Bernard">B.</abbr> Hart.</li> - -<li>Survey of London—Stow, <abbr title="editor">ed.</abbr> Kingsford.</li> - -<li>“Have with you to Saffron Walden”—Nash.</li> - -<li>“The Belman of London”—Dekker.</li> - -<li>“Anatomie of the Bodie of Man”—Vicary.</li> - -<li>“Nymphidia”—Drayton.</li> - -<li>“The Battle of Agincourt”—Drayton.</li> -</ul> - - -<h3 class="noindent">2. DRAMA.</h3> - -<p>The Works of:</p> - -<table summary="Bibliography of Dramatists" border="0"> - <tr> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdleft">Shakespeare</td> - <td class="tdleft">Globe <abbr title="Edition">Edn.</abbr> (and others).</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdleft">Lyly</td> - <td class="tdleft"><abbr title="edition">edn.</abbr> 1858.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdleft">Marlowe</td> - <td class="tdleft">Oxford Press.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdleft">Beaumont & Fletcher</td> - <td class="tdleft"><abbr title="editor">ed.</abbr> Dyce (11 <abbr title="volumes">vol.</abbr>).</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdleft">Massinger</td> - <td class="tdleft"><abbr title="editor">ed.</abbr> Gifford (4 <abbr title="volumes">vol.</abbr>).</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdleft">Webster</td> - <td class="tdleft">Mermaid <abbr title="Edition">Edn.</abbr></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdleft"><!-- Page 185 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>Ford</td> - <td class="tdleft"><abbr title="editor">ed.</abbr> Gifford (2 <abbr title="volumes">vol.</abbr>).</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdleft">Middleton</td> - <td class="tdleft"><abbr title="editor">ed.</abbr> Bullen (8 <abbr title="volumes">vol.</abbr>).</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdleft">Dekker</td> - <td class="tdleft"><abbr title="editor">ed.</abbr> Pearson (4 <abbr title="volumes">vol.</abbr>).</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdleft">Jonson</td> - <td class="tdleft">Mermaid <abbr title="Edition">Edn.</abbr></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdleft">Marston</td> - <td class="tdleft"><abbr title="editor">ed.</abbr> Bullen.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdleft">Shirley</td> - <td class="tdleft"><abbr title="editor">ed.</abbr> Dyce; <abbr title="editor">ed.</abbr> Gifford.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdleft">Brome</td> - <td class="tdleft"><abbr title="edition">edn.</abbr> 1873.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdleft">Day</td> - <td class="tdleft"><abbr title="editor">ed.</abbr> Bullen.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdleft">Chettle: </td> - <td class="tdleft">Hoffman</td> - <td class="tdleft"><abbr title="edition">ed.</abbr> 1852.</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p><abbr title="Nota Bene">N.B.</abbr>—References are to the editions named above. Specific notes are -given where possible to all quotations directly bearing on the subject -of the essay.</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="newchapter" /> -<p><!-- Page 186 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span></p> -<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX OF WORKS DEALT WITH OR QUOTED.</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">[<i>The letters <abbr title="eff eff">ff.</abbr> denote that the work is dealt with in some detail in -the pages referred to.</i>]</p> - - -<ul class="list"> -<li class="newletter hang">“Albertus Wallenstein.” <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Alchemist, The.” <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“American Journal of Insanity.” <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Anatomie of the Bodie of Man, The.” <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Anatomy of Melancholy, The.” <a href="#Page_8">8-9</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Antipodes, The.” <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a></li> - -<li class="hang">“As You Like It.” <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142-4</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“Ball, The.” <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Bartholomew Fair.” <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53-4</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Battle of Agincourt, The.” <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Belman of London, The.” <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Bird in a Cage, The.” <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Broken Heart, The.” <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Bulwark of Defence, A.” <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“Caliban upon Setebos.” <a href="#Page_121">121-2</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Changeling, The.” <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“City Wit, The.” <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Comedy of Errors, The.” <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Compendious Pygment, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr>, A.” <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Coronation, The,” <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Cymbeline.” <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“Dr. Faustus.” <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Duchess of Malfi, The.” <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a></li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“Elizabethan Literature” (Saintsbury). <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Emperor of the East.” <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang"><!-- Page 187 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>“English Dramatic Literature” (Ward). <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“English Moor, The.” <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“<a name="Epicene" id="Epicene"></a>Epicene.” <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“Færie Queene, The.” <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Fair Quarrel, A.” <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“Gentleman Usher, The.” <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“Hamlet.” <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, -<a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, -<a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Have with you to Saffron Walden.” <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Henry <abbr title="the Sixth">VI.</abbr>, Part <abbr title="Two">II.</abbr>” <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Hoffman, The Tragedy of.” <a href="#Page_96">96 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_119">119-20</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Honest Whore, The.” <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“Julius Cæsar.” <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“King John.” <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“King Lear.” <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10-11</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, -<a href="#Page_66">66 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_178">178-9</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, -<a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Knight of the Burning Pestle, The.” <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“Law Tricks.” <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167-8</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Lover’s Melancholy, The.” <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, -<a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Love’s Labour’s Lost.” <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“Macbeth.” <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Mad Folk of Shakespeare, The.” <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154-5</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Mad Lover, The.” <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54-5</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Maid’s Tragedy, The.” <a href="#Page_128">128 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Match me in London.” <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56-8</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Measure for Measure.” <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang"><!-- Page 188 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>“Merchant of Venice, The.” <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Merry Wives of Windsor, The.” <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Midsummer Night’s Dream, A.” <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Mother Bombie.” <a href="#Page_120">120-1</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Much Ado about Nothing.” <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“New Way to Pay Old Debts, A.” <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a></li> - -<li class="hang">“Nice Valour, The.” See “<a href="#Passionate_Madman">Passionate Madman</a>.”</li> - -<li class="hang">“Noble Gentleman, The.” <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_116">116-7</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Northern Lass, The.” <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a></li> - -<li class="hang">“Northward Ho!” <a href="#Page_32">32 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Nymphidia,” <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“Old Wives’ Tale, The.” <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Orlando Furioso.” <a href="#Page_61">61 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Othello.” <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“<a name="Passionate_Madman" id="Passionate_Madman"></a>Passionate Madman, The.” <a href="#Page_105">105 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Philaster.” <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Pilgrim, The.” <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Politician, The.” <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Popish Impostures, A Dictionary of.” <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“Renegado, The.” <a href="#Page_163">163-4</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Richard <abbr title="the Second">II.</abbr>” <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Romeo and Juliet.” <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“Shakespeare, his Mind and Art.” <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Shakespearean Tragedy.” <a href="#Page_122">122-3</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148-9</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Silent Woman, The.” See “<a href="#Epicene">Epicene</a>.”</li> - -<li class="hang">“Sophy, The.” <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Spanish Tragedy, The.” <a href="#Page_62">62 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a></li> - -<li class="hang">“Survey of London, A.” <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“Taming of the Shrew, The.” <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Tempest, The.” <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Timon of Athens.” <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“’Tis pity she’s a Whore.” <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang"><!-- Page 189 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>“Troilus and Cressida.” <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140-1</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Twelfth Night.” <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182-3</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Two Noble Kinsmen, The.” <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“Unnatural Combat, The.” <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“Very Woman, A.” <a href="#Page_99">99 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_133">133 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr></a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Vulgar Errors.” <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li> - - -<li class="newletter hang">“What you will” (Marston). <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Winter’s Tale, The.” <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Witch, The.” <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> - -<li class="hang">“Witch of Edmonton, The.” <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.</li> -</ul> - - -<p class="sectctr"> -<span class="smcap">W. Heffer & Sons <abbr title="Limited">Ltd.</abbr>,<br /> -104, Hills Road, Cambridge.</span></p> - - -<p> </p> -<hr class="newchapter" /> -<p> </p> -<div class="notebox"> -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="tnhead"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE</p> -</div> - - -<p>Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the -original. Words with and without accents appear as in the original.</p> - -<p>Ellipses match the original.</p> - -<p>The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the -public domain.</p> - - -<p>The Table of Contents’ entry for the Preface was added by the -Transcriber.</p> - -<p>The following corrections have been made to the original text:</p> - -<div class="tnblock"> -<p>Page 14: “Romeo and Juliet” (<abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 3,[original has a period] -47-8)</p> - -<p>On page 19, footnote anchor [19:3] has been added by the -Transcriber.</p> - -<p>Page 20: Guildenstern’s[original has “Guildernstern’s”] account -of Hamlet</p> - -<p>Page 31: mad-houses in the Seventeenth[original has -“Seventeeth”] Century</p> - -<p>Page 35: expressions of an idée[original has “idèe”] fixe</p> - -<p>Page 37: “You keep him here to teach him madness.”[quotation -mark missing in original]</p> - -<p>Page 55: melancholy of Palador, Prince of Cyprus,[comma missing -in original]</p> - -<p>Page 57: <i>King.</i> When?[original has exclamation point]</p> - -<p>Page 95: “[quotation mark missing in original]Sits on my heart -so heavy</p> - -<p>Page 143: unregenerate days.[143:1][original has “2”]</p> - -<p>Page 185: References are to the editions named above.[original -has a comma]</p> - -<p>Page 187: entry “Epicene.”[original has “Epicure.”]</p> - -<p>Page 187: entry “Færie[original has “Faerie”] Queene, The.”</p> - -<p>Page 187, entry “Hamlet.”: 173 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr>,[comma missing in original] -180, 181</p> - -<p>Page 188, entry “Philaster.”: 5, 19, 129,[original has a -semi-colon] 131 <abbr title="and following">ff.</abbr>, 138, 139.</p> - -<p>[14:2] Act[original has extraneous period] <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr> Sc. <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr></p> - -<p>[11:5] Ibid.,[original has two commas], <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 5, 31.</p> - -<p>[74:4] Ibid., <abbr title="five">v.</abbr>, 3,[original has “.,”] 272-4.</p> - -<p>[77:2] Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>,[comma missing in original] 5, 23, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p> - -<p>[111:1] Ibid., <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>,[comma missing in original] 3.</p> - -<p>[141:3] “Merchant of Venice,” <abbr title="four">iv.</abbr>, 1, 114[original has -“1-114”], <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p> - -<p>[144:1] “Merchant of Venice,” <abbr title="one">i.</abbr>, 1, 91-2[original has “1-91, -2”].</p> - -<p>[151:1] may also be noticed, though[original has “thought”] it -is</p> - -<p>[159:2] Ibid., <abbr title="three">iii.</abbr>, 4, 101-2.[period missing in original]</p> - -<p>[174:1] “Hamlet,[comma missing in original]” <abbr title="two">ii.</abbr>, 1, 78, <abbr title="et cetera">etc.</abbr></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<hr class="pgx" /> -<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELIZABETHAN DRAMA AND ITS MAD FOLK***</p> -<p>******* This file should be named 63896-h.htm or 63896-h.zip *******</p> -<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/3/8/9/63896">http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/8/9/63896</a></p> -<p> -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed.</p> - -<p>Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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