Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/138

Rh outraged modesty. She is concealing, and, as well as may be, bearing up against the anguish gnawing at her heart. But fancy and intellect are benumbed by sorrow, only to display themselves at a later date, again active, though perverted, under the stimulus of disease.

It is left in some doubt to what extent grief at the death of Polonius concurred, with pining sorrow at the blight of her love, in giving rise to Ophelia's distraction. The King and Queen, and Laertes, evidently refer it to the former cause; yet although in her gentle ravings she constantly refers to her father's death, and never directly to her lover's unkindness, we are inclined to refer to the latter as by far the most potent, though it may, perhaps, not be the sole cause of her distraction. This opinion founds itself upon the form of insanity which is depicted, namely, mania with prevalent ideas of the sentiment of love, or erotomania, as it is learnedly called. "In medicine," says Ferriar, "we have fine names at least, for every species of disease," and erotomania is the fine name for that form of insanity in which the sentiment of love is prominent, as nymphomania is the fine name for an allied but sufficiently distinct variety in which the instinct is excessive.

We have somewhere read that Ophelia's snatches of song were culled from the street ballads of the day, and that Shakespeare thus obtained an easy theatrical effect. This, however, seems probable only with reference to the two longer and more indelicate effusions beginning, "Good morrow, 'tis St. Valentine's day," and "By Gis and by Saint Charity." The snatches of song which precede have so peculiar a reference to her state of mind, that it seems impossible they could be other than impromptu, strung together at the time: