“She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek : she pin'd in thought, And, with a green and yellow melancholy, She sat, like patience on a monument, Smiling at grief.”
The alliance, or rather the resemblance, existing between pride and melancholy, is noted in Troilus and Cressida. Speaking of Achilles, the enquiry is made “Is he not sick?” Ajax replies:
“Yes, lion sick of a proud heart: You may call it melan choly, if you will favour the man ; but by my head it is pride.”
But the melancholy which approaches most nearly to that of Jaques is that of Antonio, the merchant of Venice.
In
his noble simplicity he does not parade it like Jaques, who rather prides himself in the sable plumage of his disposition. Antonio merely calls his depression sadness, and attempts not to account for it.
“Ant. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad; It wearies me ; you say, it wearies you ; But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born, I am to learn ; And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.” His friends endeavour to account for the emotional pheno menon in various ways, more or less unjust. His “mind is tossing on the ocean,” and “fear of misfortune makes him sad,” or he is in love. “Fie, fie " that folly at least is not to be imputed to the staid nobleness of his character. Then it must be constitution and the work of nature; he's sad
because he is not merry; “Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time ;” some will grin at anything, and others will smile at nothing; “Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.”
