After following the little Stream of Tears from the Spring of Chance, Cueur and Desire enter a broad valley in a deserted region. Here, on the bank of the muddy stream, they find a dilapidated hut roofed with straw. An inscription above the low doorway reads:
This wide and frightening valley is called by all
men the Valley of Deepest Thoughts. Here in
this hut
lives Melancholy, no man's friend.
Desire remains on his horse, while Cueur has dismounted, leaving his lance
leaning against his handsome saddle. To enter the hut he must bend low. Through a wide window on the side facing the viewer, Dame Melancholy can be seen ~~ a lamentable figure of a woman all in black, trying to warm her hands over a tiny fire. Cueur politely asks her for a little bread for himself and his companion. She tosses him a piece of gray bread, not out of compassion but because she knows thar this bread has never yet agreed with whomever ate it, for it is made of a grain called Hard Want, mixed with water from the Stream of Tears. But the travelers are so famished by now that they eat it nonetheless, quenching their thirst with the muddy water from the Stream of Tears. In the end , Melancholy agrees to show them on their way.
Again the painting does not quite express the despair it is supposed to illustrate. The hut is not shown surrounded by a thorny thicket, as described in the text, nor does it look dilapidated with its neat and solid thatched roof, despite the few cracks in the masonry between the timbers. The figure of Melancholy in her dark gown, with her long flowing hair, delicate hands, and woefully upturned eyes, compels admiration. As a forceful counterpoint to Melancholy, toward whom Cueur is inclined, there is Desire at the left, watching him with some concern but on the whole a figure of strength and unbroken vitality. The lively colors at the left,
whence a narrow strip of blue sky extends even over the roof of Melancholy's home, appears to promise a victory of desire over dark mournfulness in the end....
...Continued..
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