O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown! The courtier’s, scholar’s, soldier’s, eye, tongue, sword: The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion and the mould of form, The observed of all observers,—quite, quite down! And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, That suck’d the honey of his music vows, Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth, Blasted with ecstasy. Hamlet, Act III., Sc. I.
There’s something in his soul, O’er which his melancholy sits on brood; And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose, Will be some danger. Hamlet, Act III., Sc. I.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas’d; Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; Raze out the written troubles of the brain; And, with some sweet oblivious antidote, Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart? Macbeth, Act V., Sc. III.
* * * * * * Infected minds To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
Remove from her the means of all annoyance, And still keep eyes upon her. Macbeth, Act V., Sc. I.
Infirmity doth still neglect all office, Whereto our health is bound; we are not ourselves, When nature, being oppress’d, commands the mind To suffer with the body: I’ll forbear; And am fall’n out with my more headier will, To take the indispos’d and sickly fit For the sound man. King Lear, Act II., Sc. IV.
This is in thee a nature but infected; A poor unmanly melancholy, sprung From change of fortune. Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III.
The mere want of gold, and the falling-from of his friends, drove him into this melancholy. Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III.
Tell him * * * * * * * * * that his lady mourns at his disease: Persuade him that he hath been a lunatic. Taming of the Shrew, Ind., Sc. I.