Comedy plays; Hypochondria -- Drama; Molière, 1622-1673 -- Translations into English
CHORUS
A really, really, really good answer.
You really deserve to enter
into our learned group.
THIRD DOCTOR
From the answers, it seems
clearer than sunlight
that this brainy
baccalaureate holder didn’t spend his life
playing hippity-hop nor smoking
cigarettes; but let him explain why a heap
of bran and a little milk
with phlebotomy and purging of the humors
are called doctor’s idols by those who are naysayers
and also an asses’ bridge.
If, first off, our freedom to
question is acceptable to the gentleman in charge
as well as to the gentlemanly doctors and
all the ranks of kind listeners.
BACCALAUREATE HOLDER
Mister Chrysologos, that is, he who talks of gold, the doctor, asks me
why a little milk and a heap of bran, phlebotomy and purging of humors
are called doctor’s idols and asses’ bridge by naysayers. My answer is
that prescribing such things doesn’t require a lot of knowledge and
out of those four things doctors make louis, pistoles, and fourths of
ecus.
CHORUS
You answered really, really well.
You really deserve to enter
into our learned group.
FOURTH DOCTOR
With the permission of you, sir, who are in charge, and of the entire
faculty, and of the company attending these activities of ours, I
will ask you learned baccalaureate holder, what are the remedies to
be given both to a man and to a woman suffering from the illness
called hydropsy, from bodily issues such as apoplexy, convulsion, and
paralysis?
BACCALAUREATE HOLDER
Give a clyster,
Afterwards purify,
Then purge.
CHORUS
You answered really, really well.
You really deserve to enter
into our learned group.
FIFTH DOCTOR
If it seems okay to you sir, who are in charge,
to the very learned faculty, and to the company that is listening to
us,
I will ask you, learned baccalaureate holder, to return one day to a
house full of illnesses. What are the remedies to come up with for
colicosis, febrosis, for maniacs, nephritics, frenetics, melancholics,
demoniacs, asthmatics and pulmonics, for catharrosics, tussicolisics,
guttosics, lepers and gallosics, for apostemasis, plague and ulcers,
for every broken or fractured member?
BACCALAUREATE HOLDER
Give a clyster,
Afterwards purify,
Then purge.
CHORUS
You answered really, really well,
You really deserve to enter
into our learned group
SIXTH DOCTOR
With the kind allowance of the respected gentleman in charge, of the
successors of Hippocrates, and of the whole circle of those with their
eyes fixed on us, I ask you, oh determined baccalaureate holder, a
college graduate not unworthy of Montpelier, what are the remedies to
be given to the blind, the deaf, the mute, to manchotics, claudics,
and all the estropiatics, for problem feet, toothaches, afflictions,
rabies, and the overwhelmingly great commotion in every newlywed?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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