[215] Fr. "guerir," to heal.
[216] Poor, or, perhaps, poorly.
+ _Of Socrates and his scoldinge wyfe._ xlix.
+ Laertius wryteth, that the wyse man Socrates had a coursed scoldinge
wyfe, called Xantippe, the whiche on a daye after she hadde alto[217]
chydde him powred a * * * * * potte on his heed. He, takynge all
paciently, sayde: dyd nat I tell you that, whan I herde Xantippe thonder
so fast, that it wolde rayne anone after?
Wherby ye maye se, that the wyser a man is, the more pacience he taketh.
The wyse poet Virgil sayth: all fortune by suffrance must be ouercome.
+ _Of the phisitian that bare his paciente on honde, he had eaten an
asse._ l.
+ A Phisitian, which had but smalle lerning, vsed whan he came to viset
his pacientes to touche the pulce; and if any appayred, he wolde lay the
blame on the paciente, and beare him on hande,[218] that he did eate
fygges, apples, or some other thinge that he forbade: and bicause the
pacientes other whyle confessed the same, they thought he had ben a
very connynge man. His seruante hadde great maruayle, howe he parceyued
that, and desyred his mayster to telle hym, whether he knewe hit by
touching of the pulce, orels by some other hygher knowlege. Than sayde
his mayster: for the good seruice that thou haste done me, I wyll open
to the this secrete point. Whan I come in to the pacientes chamber, I
loke al a bout: and, if I spye in the flore shales,[219] parynge of
chese, of aples, or of peares, or any other scrappes, anone I
coniecte,[220] that the paciente hath eaten thereof. And so to th' ende
I wold be blameles, I lay the faute on theyr mysdiettynge.
Nat longe after, the same seruaunte toke on hym to practise physike,
whyche in lyke maner blamed his pacientes, and sayde, that they kepte
nat the diete that he gaue them; and he bare them on hande that they
yete some what, wherof he sawe the scrappes in the flore. On a tyme he
cam to a poure man of the countre, and promysed to make him hole, if he
wolde be gouerned after him, and sa gaue him to drinke I wote nat what,
and went his waye tyll on[221] the morowe. Whan he came agayne, he
founde the man sicker than euer he was. The rude fole, nat knowinge the
cause, behelde here and there aboute, and whan he coude se no skrappes
nor parynges, he was sore troubled in his mynde. So at the last he
espied a saddel vnder the bed. Than said he all a loude, that he hadde
at length parceyued, howe the sicke man enpayred: he hath so excessiuely
passed diete (quod he), that I wonder he is nat deed. How so, quod they?
Marye, quod he, ye haue made him to eate an holle asse! Lo, where the
saddell lyethe yet vnder the bedde. For he thoughte the saddell had be
lefte of the asse, as bones are of fleshe. For which folysshnes he was
well laughed to skorne and mocked.
Thus as a good faythfull phisitian is worthy of greate honour: for
truely of hym dependethe the greattest parte of mans helthe, so lyke
wyse a folysshe and an vnlerned, that thynkethe to cure with wordes,
that he ought to do with herbes, is nat onely worthy to be deryded and
mocked, but also punysshed: for nothynge is more perillous.