With us there was A Doctor of Physic; <br />In all this world was there none him like, <br />To speak of physic and of surgery, <br />For he was grounded in astronomy. <br />He kept his patient a full great deal <br />In hours, by his magic natural. <br />Well could he fortune the ascendant <br />Of his images for his patient. <br />He knew the cause of every malady, <br />Were it of hot, or cold, or moist, or dry, <br />And where they engendered, and of what humor. <br />He was a very perfect practitioner: <br />The cause he knew, and of his harm the root, <br />Anon he gave the sick man his boot. <br />Full ready had he his apothecaries <br />To send him drugs and electuaries, <br />For each of them made other for to win – <br />His friendship was not new to begin. <br />Well knew he the old Aesculapius, <br />And Dioscorides and too Rufus, <br />Old Hippocrates, Hali, and Galen, <br />Serapion, Rhazes, and Avicen, <br />Averroes, Damascene, and Constantine, <br />Bernard, and Gatisden, and Gilbertus. <br />Of his diet measurable was he, <br />For it was of no superfluity, <br />But of great nourishing and digestable. <br />His study was but little on the Bible. <br />In sanguine and in perse he clad was all, <br />Lined with taffeta and with sendal. <br />And yet he was but easy of dispense; <br />He kept that he won in pestilence. <br />For gold in physic is a cordial, <br />Therefore he loved gold in special. <br /> <br />© 2009 Forrest HainlineHainline<br /><br />Forrest Hainline<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/general-prologue-16-the-doctor-of-physic-geoffrey-chaucer-forrest-hainline-s-minimalist-translation/
