A Poetical Translation Of The Fables of Phaedrus With The Appendix of Gudius, And an accurate Edition of the Original on the opposite Page. To which is added, A Parsing Index For the Use of Learners. By Christopher Smart |
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XIV. | FABLE XIV. The Cobler turn'd Doctor. |
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A Poetical Translation Of The Fables of Phaedrus | ||
27
FABLE XIV. The Cobler turn'd Doctor.
A bankrupt Cobler, poor and lean,
(No bungler e'er was half so mean)
Went to a foreign place, and there
Began his med'cines to prepare:
But one, of more especial note,
He call'd his sov'reign antidote;
And by his technical bombast
Contriv'd to raise a name at last.
It happen'd that the king was sick,
Who, willing to detect the trick,
Call'd for some water in an ew'r,
Poison in which he feign'd to pour;
The antidote was likewise mix'd;
He then upon th'empiric fix'd
To take the medicated cup,
And, for a premium, drink it up—
The quack, thro' dread of death, confess'd
That he was of no skill possess'd;
But all this great and glorious jobb
Was made of nonsense and the mob.
Then did the king his peers convoke,
And thus unto th'assembly spoke:
“My lords and gentlemen, I rate
“Your folly as inordinate,
“Who trust your heads into his hand,
“Where no one had his heels japann'd.”—
(No bungler e'er was half so mean)
Went to a foreign place, and there
Began his med'cines to prepare:
But one, of more especial note,
He call'd his sov'reign antidote;
And by his technical bombast
Contriv'd to raise a name at last.
It happen'd that the king was sick,
Who, willing to detect the trick,
Call'd for some water in an ew'r,
Poison in which he feign'd to pour;
The antidote was likewise mix'd;
He then upon th'empiric fix'd
To take the medicated cup,
And, for a premium, drink it up—
The quack, thro' dread of death, confess'd
That he was of no skill possess'd;
But all this great and glorious jobb
Was made of nonsense and the mob.
Then did the king his peers convoke,
And thus unto th'assembly spoke:
“My lords and gentlemen, I rate
“Your folly as inordinate,
29
“Where no one had his heels japann'd.”—
This story their attention craves,
Whose weakness is the prey of knaves.
Whose weakness is the prey of knaves.
A Poetical Translation Of The Fables of Phaedrus | ||