Here are the opening lines of the Medieval
poem:[1]
"Seignor qui ci estes venu
Petit et grant, jone et chenu,
Il vos est trop bien avenu
Sachiez de voir;
Je ne vos vueil pas decevoir
Bien le porroz apercevoir
Ainz que m'en voise.
Asiez vos, ne fetes noise
Si escotez s'il ne vos poise
Je sui uns mires."
He has been long with the lord of Caire, where he won much gold;
in Puille, Calabre, Luserne.
"Ai herbes prises
Qui de granz vertuz sont enprises
Sus quelque mal qu'el soient mises
Le maus s'enfuit."
There is no reference in the poem to a cure about to be performed in
the presence of the audience, which does not however exclude the
possibility of such cure being effected.
It would be interesting to know under what circumstances such a poem
was recited, whether it formed part of a popular representation. The
audience in view is of a mixed character, young and old, great and
small, and one has a vision of the Quack Doctor at some village fair,
on the platform before his booth, declaiming the virtues of his
nostrums before an audience representative of all ranks and ages. It
is a far cry from such a Medieval scene to the prehistoric days of the
Rig-Veda, but the mise-en-scene is the same; the popular 'seasonal'
feast, the Doctor with his healing herbs, which he vaunts in skilful
rhyme, the hearers, drawn from all ranks, some credulous, some amused.
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