Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/240

Rh “Where but by chance a silver drop hath fallen,” she will bind up as she is bid ; she will even do this in fanciful reference to the one subject of all thought, her son's imprisonment. “I tore them from their bonds; and cried aloud,

O that these hands could so redeem my son, As they have given these hairs their liberty But now I envy at their liberty,

And will again commit them to their bonds, Because my poor child is a prisoner.” The despairing cry of overwhelming misery, which can ap prehend no hope even in heaven, expresses itself in the fancy that she can never again see her son even beyond the grave, for canker sorrow will change him. “And so he'll die; and, rising so again, When I shall meet him in the court of heaven

I shall not know him : therefore never, never

Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.” Her last words indicate a state of hallucination.

Grief

represents her son's voice and figure to her senses. Or if this be not taken literally, it at least represents one manner in which hallucination is produced. An absorbing emotion constantly directs the attention to one idea—image. This creation of the mind at length becomes accepted by the sense, and the hallucination of insanity exists. This differs in its origin, and its significance, from hallucination arising from some abnormal state of the nerves of sense merely,

which may exist, as it did in Ben Jonson and Nicolai, without any deviation from a sound state of mental health.

If the lively representation of Arthur's presence be not intended to convey the idea of actual hallucination, it at

least expresses the complete dominion which an absorbing emotion attains over the attention and mental conception.

“K. Phi. You are as fond of grief as of your child. Q