So down she drew her veil, so died.”
The presentation of Penthea’s madness is one of the few examples of a truly artistic
treatment of the subject, and “The Broken Heart” is one of the few post-Shakespearean plays which with some touches by the Master-hand might have become a really great romantic tragedy. Penthea is, to tell the truth, about as far inferior to Ophelia as she is superior to the Gaoler’s Daughter. The partly unsympathetic presentation of her character in the first part of the play, the lack of picturesqueness and relief from the gloom of the tragedy, the suspicion of melodrama in the surrounding scenes and the involved nature of the plot—all these combine to place Penthea on a lower level than Ophelia. And, in addition, she is less important and hence less striking from a purely dramatic point of view.
Something has already been said of the plot and the personages of “The Lover’s Melancholy,” but the melancholy of Palador and the madness of Meleander may be briefly considered here as furnishing additional examples of Ford’s treatment of the subject. Palador’s melancholy, which gives the title to the piece, seems to be largely temperamental and scarcely a case for the physician, though Corax, his medical adviser, goes to some pains to “cure” it, and is in consequence, hailed as a “perfect arts-man.”[91:1] The Prince’s melancholy is thus described:
He was at’s father’s death; sometimes speaks sense,
But seldom mirth; will smile, but seldom laugh;
Will lead an ear to business, deal in none;
Gaze upon revels, antic fopperies,
But is not moved; will sparingly discourse,