Who once a day with his embossed froth
The turbulent surge shall cover; thither come
And let my gravestone be your oracle.
Lips, let sour words go by and language end:
What is amiss plague and infection mend!
Graves only be men’s works and death their gain!
Sun, hide thy beams! Timon hath done his reign.”[161:1]
A character far more repulsive, but depicted with the greatest force, is Malefort Senior, of Massinger’s “Unnatural Combat.” Malefort is an Admiral of Marseilles who is challenged by his apostate son to a duel and comes off victorious, the son being slain. Shortly afterwards, Theocrine, Malefort’s daughter, is sought in marriage by the son of the Governor; the father consents, but his strange extravagances towards her, as he loads her with jewels, riches and a superfluity of caresses, is generally commented upon, and before long it appears that he has fallen in love with her. The remainder of the plot hastens to the catastrophe, Theocrine being dishonoured and virtually murdered by a false friend of her father’s. Malefort himself is persecuted by ghosts, and is finally killed by a flash of lightning.
A modern author would no doubt represent such a character as Malefort as suffering from some mental disease, but Massinger appears to have considered the unnatural passion of the father for his daughter as the fruit of the unnatural combat in which he kills his son. He cares more for the development of this idea than for the mental condition of Malefort, who
speaks, in one place, of his son’s blood as growing upon him like Hercules’ poisoned shirt, though he seems also to feel an inward cause of his passion which he cannot explain. Montreville, the false friend, supposes that he may be mad, and recommends: