To charge your hungry souls with such full surfeits
As being gorged once, make ye lean with plenty;
And when ye’ve skimmed the vomit of your riots,
Ye’re fat in no felicity but folly;
Then your last sleeps seize on ye; then the troops
Of worms crawl round and feast; good cheer, rich fare,
Dainty, delicious!”
How does Corax propose to cure such a patient as this? Spurred on by the flatteries of Rhetias—“a reduced Courtier”—nothing daunted by the picturesque report that Meleander “chafes hugely, fumes like a stew-pot,”[94:1] he coolly explains his intention of out-Heroding Herod—“We will roar with him, if he roar,”[94:1]—and suiting the action to the word he “produces a frightful mask and headpiece.”[94:1] Meleander enters, armed with a poleaxe and raving in a vein which must have delighted the greediest of the groundlings. A battle of words and mock actions ensues, and the madman is soon reduced to a state of comparative calm. He lays down the poleaxe, and Corax removes the mask. The physician then proceeds to minister to the mind diseased with tales of his own supposed mental sufferings, assuming apparently that like counteracts like in madness as in melancholy. This is to some
extent true, and Shakespeare rightly represents Lear as in a state of comparative tranquillity when in the presence of Edgar. But Ford’s play would seem to be inspired rather by a desire to please than by a fidelity to real life. The concluding scene,[95:1] however, so far as it concerns Meleander, is sufficient compensation, for again it recalls “King Lear” in its general nature if not in matters of detail. The madman has been put to sleep, his hair and beard have been trimmed and his gown is changed. Music, as in “King Lear,” is playing, and a song, full of delicate charm, is being sung by a Boy outside. At its close Meleander awakens, confused and half-dreaming. He is inclined to sleep again, but the physician hails him—somewhat boisterously, one would think—and in spite of his patient’s brusque “Away, beast! let me alone,” he succeeds in rousing him. The madness certainly appears to have left him; he is now quite calm, though the burden of his troubles still oppresses him.
“The weight of my disease,” he says,