Painted Comfort

"Bid him come in, and paint some comfort,
For surely there's none lives but painted comfort". (3.xii.74-75a)

Hieronimo, while mourning his son, invites a painter into his home in hopes of finding some comfort. In saying, "there's none lives but painted comfort", it seems that he is saying that one can only be comforted by something they force upon themselves. In order to find any comfort at all in the death of his son, Hieronimo must have somebody else take action. He seems unable to find any peace by himself. As Hieronimo is talking to the painter, he asks him to paint something that will bring him solace. He first starts off by asking for "my wife Isabella standing by me, with a speaking look to/my son Horatio " to "this tree, this very tree" to "a murderer" to "behold a man hanging, and tottering, and tottering, as/you know the wind will wave a man, and I with a trice to cut/him down"(3.xii.116-117a, 122a, 126a, 142-145a). In Horatio's attempt to remember his son in a positive note, and to thus find some sort of comfort in his death, he simply recreates the image of Horatio's death.