Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/254

Rh virulence of the poison be increased, the resistance would in one case, as in the other, be eventually overpowered. If Jaques had fallen on the bed of sickness, or under the dark shadow of real grief, it is probable that his fantastic melancholy would have been converted into the melancholia of disease, which, assimilating all things into itself, would first have defied, and finally have subjugated the reason, and have given him cause to exclaim with Messala:

“Oh, hateful error, melancholy’s child, Why dost thou shew to the apt thoughts of men, The things that are not.”

There are few words which have been used both by Shake speare and others in such various and different senses as melancholy. The history of words is the history of thought, and a complete account of the life and adventures of this word, from its birth in Greek physics, its development through philo sophy and poetry, to its present state of adult vigour in the prose of every-day life, would be an interesting exercitation, but neither an easy nor a brief one. Originally employed to express a medical theory of the ancients on the origin of madness, it has singularly enough been used to denote the most opposite emotional states. Choler signifies anger, a meaning upon which Shakespeare frequently quibbles; but melancholer, black choler, means the opposite of anger, namely, emotional depression. It has however only recently settled into this signification. The learned Prichard asserts that the ancient writers attached to it no idea of despondency, but only that of madness in general. Dr. Daniel Tuke, however, points out that in this opinion, Prichard has not displayed his usual accuracy. “Hippocrates, in one of his aphorisms says, “If fear or distress continue for a long time, this is a symptom of melancholy.’ And in other places he distinguished melan choly from mania, by the absence of violence ; at other times, however, he applies the word to madness in general. Modern