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b. Reassure the patient that his family will take care of him.
c. Refer the patient to a church for spiritual counseling.
d. Tell the patient that hospice care is available immediately.
ANS: A
Because of the grim diagnosis, the patient expresses confusion and lacks a clear direction. The
patient is not able to process information at this time and is overwhelmed. Sitting quietly with
the patient shows acceptance, empathy, and allows the nurse to observe nonverbal
communication. The patient can benefit from a calming atmosphere and time to process the
new information. Assuring the patient of family involvement requires consultation with the
family first. Spiritual counseling may not be indicated for this patient if the patient does not
wish to participate. Discussing hospice at this early stage is premature; the patient needs time
to process the news and gather information but is not able to do so right now.
DIF: Cognitive Level: Applying OBJ: NCLEX: Safe and Effective Care Environment
TOP: Integrated Process: Communication and Documentation
4. The nurse is preparing to begin the patient hand-off procedure for five patients. Who should
the nurse include in this process?
a. Only the licensed nurses
b. The nursing personnel caring for the patients
c. The entire interdisciplinary team
d. The nurses and health care provider
ANS: B
All the nursing personnel on the unit who will be interacting with this group of patients should
actively participate in the patient hand-off. This would include nursing assistive personnel
(NAP) and the nurses. An interdisciplinary team usually meets when there is a problem with a
patient and all the team members need to discuss approaches and plans with and for a patient
or as a routine meeting. The health care provider does not participate in the patient hand-off
procedure.
DIF: Cognitive Level: Remembering OBJ: NCLEX: Safe and Effective Care Environment
5. The nurse brings the patient’s medications into the room, and the patient shouts, “You don’t
care if I take these, so get out of my room!” Which response by the nurse is most appropriate?
a. “Who misinformed you about my feelings?”
b. “You seem very angry about the medications.”
c. “We know each other; why are you saying this?”
d. “I cannot leave until you take these medications.”
ANS: B
Stating observations encourages the patient to be aware of his or her behavior. This neutral
response would allow the patient time to explain the meaning behind the anger. Asking who
misinformed the patient is confrontational. “Why” questions tend to put people on the
defensive. Stating that the nurse cannot leave until the medications are taken is also
confrontational and would set up a possible power struggle between the two.
6. The patient shouts at the nurse, “No one answered my nurse call system all night!” Which
response would the nurse use with this patient to restore therapeutic communication?
a. “Shouting is going to disturb other patients.” b.
“I see how that would make you very angry.” c.
“Are you sure the nurses were avoiding you?”
d. “The unit has many very sick patients right now.”
ANS: B
Regardless of whether the nurses answered the patient’s nurse call system during the night,
the patient felt ignored. By empathizing with the patient’s distress and reflecting feelings, the
nurse displays respect and understanding of his or her experience. Reprimanding the patient is
humiliating and conveys the nurse’s lack of regard for the patient’s feelings. Quieting the
patient is achievable by displaying empathy, caring, respect, and willingness to hear his or her
complaints. Questioning the patient’s perception is demeaning and forces the patient to justify
feelings, similar to asking a “why” question. Stating that the unit has very sick patients
implies that the patient is not as important as the others are.
7. A patient with a history of violence directed toward others becomes very excited and agitated
during the nurse’s interview. Which intervention does the nurse implement to foster
therapeutic communication?
a. Call the security staff for assistance.
b. Ask the patient to use self-control.
c. Lean forward and touch the patient’s arm.
d. Assume an open, nonthreatening posture.
ANS: D
The nurse should use neutralizing skills and assume an open, nonthreatening posture that
conveys respect and acceptance, creating an atmosphere in which the patient can
communicate without feeling threatened or defensive. Calling security in the patient’s
presence is likely to aggravate the patient and escalate the potential for violence because it is
humiliating, conveys the nurse’s rejection of the patient, and threatens to take all control
away. Asking the patient to use self-control is reprimanding, humiliating, and conveys
rejection and lack of respect by the nurse. The patient can perceive leaning in and touching as
threatening.
8. The nurse admits a patient who is nonverbal and agitated. What can the nurse do to
communicate effectively with the patient?
a. Use a communication aid.
b. Wait for family to arrive.
c. Call interpreter services.
d. Treat the patient for pain.
ANS: A
Patients with sensory losses require communication techniques that maximize existing
sensory and motor functions. Some patients are unable to speak because of physical or
neurological alterations such as paralysis; a tube in the trachea to facilitate breathing; or a
stroke resulting in aphasia, difficulty understanding, or verbalizing. Many types of
communication aids are available for use, including writing boards, flash cards, and picture
boards. The nurse needs to determine what will work for the patient. Waiting for family is
unacceptable because the patient needs care and the family may be delayed or not come at all.
Interpreter services are for patients who do not speak the language. The nurse should not
assume the patient has pain before completing an assessment.
TOP: Nursing Process: Assessment
9. A patient’s mother died several days ago. The patient begins to cry and states, “The pain of
her death is impossible to bear.” Which statement by the nurse is the most effective response?
a. “I was depressed last year when my mother died, too.”
b. “I know things seem bleak, but you are doing so well.”
c. “I can see this is a very difficult time for you right now.”
d. “Should I cancel your appointment with the cardiologist?”
ANS: C
The nurse conveys empathy and respect by acknowledging the patient’s grief. This is an
effective response and is likely to enhance the nurse–patient relationship because it is patient
centered, displays caring and respect, and helps to make the patient feel accepted. Relating
personal details about the nurse’s life redirects the focus of the communication to the nurse
and fails to support the objectives of the nurse–patient relationship. Responding with a
comment about the patient’s progress and asking about the cardiologist’s appointment ignores
the patient’s grief and conveys a lack of respect and consideration.
10. A patient who says that both parents died of heart disease early in life is waiting for diagnostic
testing results. The patient is biting fingernails and pacing around the room. Which statement
should the nurse use to clarify patient information?
a. “I can see that you are anxious about dying.”
b. “Tell me more about your family’s history.”
c. “Do you have your parents’ medical records?”
d. “I’m not sure that I understand what you mean.”
ANS: B
Asking for more information about the family’s history directs the patient to expand on a
specific, pertinent topic and relate key details before moving to another topic. “Early in life”
and “heart disease” need to be defined by the patient; “early in life” can indicate a wide range
of ages, depending on the definition of “early,” and “heart disease” can mean conditions such
as heart failure, coronary artery disease, valve disease, and arrhythmias. Until the patient
discusses his particular concerns, the nurse cannot be sure about the source of his anxiety.
Asking for the records can display a lack of respect by implying that the patient is an
unreliable source for information. Stating that the nurse is not sure what the patient means is
vague, leaving the patient to guess what the nurse wants to know.
11. The patient tells the nurse, “I must be very sick because so many tests are being performed.”
Which statement does the nurse use to clarify the patient’s message?
a. “I sense that you are very worried.”
b. “Why do you mention this so frequently?”
c. “We should talk about this more.”
d. “Are you saying you think you are seriously ill?”
ANS: D
The nurse clarifies the patient’s message. This encourages the patient to expand on a thought
or feeling that seems vague to the nurse. Pointing out that the patient has stated this before can
be misinterpreted to mean that the patient is forgetful or annoying, and “why” questions tend
to put people on the defensive. Stating that the nurse feels that the patient is worried is a
suitable response but does not clarify what the patient actually said. Telling the patient he or
she “should” talk about this topic is confrontational.
12. The patient tells the nurse, “I want to die.” Which is the best response by the nurse to facilitate
therapeutic communication?
a. “Now why would you say a thing like that?”
b. “Tell me more about how you’re feeling.”
c. “We need to tell the provider how you feel.”
d. “You have too much to live for to say that.”
ANS: B
The patient’s statement warrants further investigation to determine how serious the patient is
about dying and whether he or she has a plan. To elicit more information from the patient in a
respectful and caring manner, the nurse allows the patient to expand on the statement, “I want
to die” by stating, “Tell me more.” The statement displays concern for and value of the patient
by acknowledging the patient’s message and encouraging him or her to continue. Safety is a
major concern when a patient wants to die, and the remaining options are likely to be
perceived as patronizing and/or dismissive.
13. The nurse is explaining a procedure to a 3-year-old patient. Which strategy would the nurse
use for patient teaching?
a. Ask the patient to draw her feelings.
b. Show needles, syringes, and bandages.
c. Tell the patient about postoperative pain.
d. Use dolls and stories to explain surgery.
ANS: D
Using dolls, stuffed animals, or puppets with stories is a suitable way to explain surgery to the
3-year-old patient because storytelling is a familiar communication method for the toddler’s
developmental stage. A 3-year-old child is unlikely to understand an explanation about the
surgery suited for an adult, and the discussion can frighten the child and upset the family or
guardian. A 3-year-old child lacks the fine motor and cognitive skills to draw an abstract
concept. A toddler is unlikely to understand and probably would be frightened by a discussion
about postoperative pain.
14. The nurse is caring for a patient who states, “I don’t feel well today.” Which is the best
response by the nurse?
a. Ask the patient to continue to describe the feeling.
b. Measure the blood pressure and temperature.
c. State that the patient’s diagnostic testing had normal results.
d. Compare recent laboratory results with the prior results.
ANS: A
Because the patient’s statement is too vague, the nurse asks him or her to continue describing,
“I don’t feel well today,” because many disorders begin with nonspecific complaints.
Depending on the details the patient shares, the nurse plans and implements nursing care
individualized to his or her description. This may include taking vital signs, and reviewing lab
data, but before taking action the nurse needs more information. Telling the patient that test
results are normal is dismissive of the concern.
15. The nurse is caring for a patient who refuses to participate in physical therapy (PT) and states,
“I really don’t like to exercise.” Which response by the nurse is most likely to help engage the
patient in PT?
a. “It makes the pain worse, doesn’t it?” b.
“What don’t you like about exercise?” c.
“You really should do these exercises.”
d. “Do you like to do any other activities?”
ANS: B
The nurse asks an open-ended question using the patient’s words to uncover information
about the patient’s refusal to participate in PT by asking what the patient dislikes about
exercise. Using the patient’s words conveys acceptance and value because the nurse listened
closely enough to repeat what the patient said. Asking the patient a yes-or-no question such
as, “It makes the pain worse, doesn’t it?” is unlikely to promote further discussion because it
is a closed, yes/no question. Telling the patient to do the exercises is giving advice; rather the
nurse can tell the patient the reason for the therapy and the benefits of doing it or the risks of
not doing it. Asking about other activities moves the focus away from the patient’s need for
physical therapy. This is also a yes/no question.
16. The nursing staff are using the SBAR communication technique during patient hand-off
communication. The circumstances leading up to the current status would be explained by the
nurses during which step of the technique?
a. Situation
b. Background
c. Assessment
d. Recommendations
ANS: B
The background explains circumstances leading up to the situation. The situation explains
what is happening at the present time. The assessment phase identifies what the problem is
thought to be. The recommendations explain how to correct the problem.
17. The nursing staff are working with a postoperative patient from another culture who does not
understand or speak the English language well. Which approach by the nurse would be best?
a. Act out what the patient needs to do.
b. Obtain a medical interpreter.
c. Assess if the patient can read or write.
d. Talk slowly when instructions are given.
ANS: B
A medical interpreter would be most helpful for effective communication. Acting out what the
patient needs to do is ineffective and may be embarrassing to both the patient and the nurse.
Since the patient and nurse do not speak a common language, defining the patient’s ability to
read or write in his native language does not solve the communication problem. Talking
slowly will not improve the patient’s ability to understand an unfamiliar language.
18. The nurse is working toward discharging a patient. Which of following demonstrates patient
engagement during the discharge process?
a. Teaching the patient how to use his equipment
b. Having the patient establish daily goals
c. Reviewing the discharge instructions with the patient
d. Including the family in the discharge planning
ANS: B
All of the answers are important to the discharge process but having the patient set his or her
own daily goals establishes true patient engagement. The other interventions are performed by
the nurse and do not really engage the patient. Patient engagement requires that the patient’s
preferences be incorporated.
19. The registered nurse is orienting a new nurse to the unit. They are completing paperwork on a
newly admitted patient. When the experienced nurse asks what the new nurse thinks the
patient will need to learn for self-care at home, the new nurse expresses surprise. What
statement by the registered nurse is most appropriate?
a. “You should always at least start thinking about discharge planning.”
b. “We don’t want to wait too long because unexpected things happen.”
c. “The admitting nurse has to fill in all sections of this document.”
d. “Best practice is to begin discharge planning on admission.”
ANS: D
Discharge planning should begin on admission to be accurate, thorough, and to allow the
patient and/or family enough time to learn information or to master skills they will need at
home. The other options may be at least partially true, but the only comprehensive answer is
that it is best practice.
DIF: Cognitive Level: Understanding OBJ: NCLEX: Safe and Effective Care Environment
20. A student is watching a nurse perform a medication reconciliation prior to transferring the
patient to a skilled nursing facility. What explanation of this process to the student is best?
a. “It is required by the Joint Commission before discharge or transfer.”
b. “It creates an accurate list of medications so errors do not occur later.”
c. “It helps us recognize lapses in patients’ ability to remember their medications.”
d. “Receiving facilities won’t accept patients without a reconciliation.”
ANS: B
Medication reconciliation is the process of creating the most accurate list of medications a
patient is taking and comparing it to provider admission, transfer, and discharge orders. This
is done in order to prevent medication errors at each transition.
DIF: Cognitive Level: Understanding OBJ: NCLEX: Safe and Effective Care Environment
21. A nurse is reviewing medications and treatments one final time before the patient goes home.
The patient becomes agitated and says “I just can’t do this! I’m too upset to ever be able to
learn this!” What action by the nurse is best?
a. Provide immediate remediation on the knowledge and skills.
b. Ask the patient if home health care might be acceptable.
c. Request the provider re-examine all the discharge orders.
d. Tell the patient you would like to understand what is most difficult.
ANS: D
Just prior to discharge, the nurse reviews the discharge orders and plans with the patient.
When the patient cannot recall information or perform needed skills, the nurse can provide
immediate re-teaching and skills practice. However, this patient is upset, so the nurse must
first determine the most bothersome aspect of the situation, which may or may not include the
instructions. The nurse must first assess this before deciding if home health care is acceptable
or before asking the provider to review the orders to see if they are all necessary.
MULTIPLE RESPONSE
1. During a home care visit, the patient experiences an angry outburst and hits the nurse on the
thigh and yells at her. The patient continues to be threatening. What are the most appropriate
initial actions by the nurse? (Select all that apply.)
a. Increase the personal space between the nurse and patient.
b. Call law enforcement to take the patient to the hospital.
c. Restrain the patient’s hands to the chair.
d. Be empathetic to the patient’s feelings and concerns.
e. Call the nursing agency to ask for advice in working with this patient.
f. Use a calm, quiet voice when talking with the patient.
ANS: A, D, F
The priority in this situation is the safety of both nurse and patient. The nurse should ensure
there is adequate personal space between the two of them so the patient cannot strike the
nurse. Being empathetic displays respect; even if the nurse disagrees with the patient’s
perception, it is real to that person. Using a calm, quiet voice is a de-escalation technique. The
patient may or may not need hospitalization, but calling the police would not be the first
action. The patient’s hands should not be restrained as this could cause the patient to escalate
and perhaps feel assaulted. The nursing agency should be consulted, but not as an initial
action. The nurse needs to create an environment that is safe for both parties.
2. Which of the following pieces of information should be included in a hand-off to ensure

patient safety? (Select all that apply.)
a. Code status
b. Recent changes in condition
c. Age
d. Family visitation
e. Use of oxygen
ANS: A, B, E
It is important to include information on a patient’s background, assessment, nursing
diagnosis, interventions (including the patient’s response), family information, discharge
plans, and current priorities when handing off your patient to another unit or area. However,
only code status, recent changes in patient’s condition, and use of oxygen directly impact
patient safety.
3. A faculty member is explaining personal factors that influence communication. What factors
does the faculty member include? (Select all that apply.)
a. Perceptions
b. Values
c. Emotions
d. Relationships
e. Pain
ANS: A, B, C, D
Although a patient’s pain may affect communication, it is not a personal factor as are
perceptions, values, emotions, and relationships.
Discovering Diverse Content Through
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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

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2. Which of the following pieces of information should be included in a hand-off to ensure

So saying, he leaves the room, and almost simultaneously

“Whom if you’ll see, you must be weaponless.”

Brandimant. “Frantic companion, lunatic and wood,

[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?

“Sirrah, how came I thus disguis’d,

A more serious study of insanity, in a work of that unbridled force

“His heart is quiet—like a desp’rate man,

At the conclusion of the scene the distracted father is made to recite

“I’ll make a pickaxe of my poniard

The next scene—an interpolation—is the weirdest and perhaps the

“Make me curse,” he cries, “make me rave, make me

“Why did I not give you gowns and goodly things,

“O Lear, Lear, Lear.

He invokes the most terrible of curses on his ungrateful daughter.

“O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!

“O how this mother swells up toward my heart!

“No, I’ll not weep;

It is from this point, though the physicians, with Dr Bucknill at

“Arms, arms, sword, fire! Corruption in the place!

Now Edgar is again the object of a delusion; he is one of those

“My tears,” he says, “begin to take his part so much,

A long interval (according to Daniel, four dramatic days) has

“Ay, every inch a king.

“Matter and impertinency,” to quote the words of Edgar, mingle in his

“Do not laugh at me,

Cordelia’s heart-felt reply:

“And so I am, I am.”[74:2]

“Pray you now, forget and forgive,”[74:3]

“Her voice was ever soft,

A few questions and replies, and the catastrophe is upon us.

“And my poor fool is hang’d! No, no, no life!

Lear is dead; he has rejoined his belovèd daughter; he has been

“She speaks much of her father; says she hears

She is led in, crooning to herself, chattering incoherently of her

“How should I your true love know

“He is dead and gone, lady,

“White his shroud as the mountain-snow . .

“O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt

Her pitiful condition soon reinforces his determination to be

“Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,

Though of a wholly different nature from the insanity of Lear,