ti pieghi, tieni lo culo chiuso._[198]

Which is to saye in englysshe: woman, if thou spynne, and thy spyndell
falle awaye, whan thou stoupest to reache for him, holde thyne ****
close. He sayde, that this passed all the preceptes and medicines of the
phisitians.

By whiche tale one may lerne, that all is nat gospell that suche
wanderers about saye, nor euerye word to be beleued: For often tymes:--

_Gelidus jacet anguis in herba._

FOOTNOTES:

[196] A word used by Chaucer. It signifies a person licensed to preach
and beg within a certain _limit_. There was an order of mendicant
friars.

"Lordings, ther is in Engelond, I gesse, A mersschly land called
Holdernesse, In which there went a lymytour aboute, To preche and eek to
begge, it is no doubte."

CHAUCER'S _Sompnour's Tale_; Works, ed. Bell. ii. 103.

[197] Scrowl.

+ _Of the phisitian, that vsed to write bylles ouer eue._ xxxviii.

+ A certayne phisitian of Italy vsed ouer night to write for sondry
diseasis diuers billes, called resceitz, and to put them in a bag al to
gether. In the morning whan the vrins (as the custome is) were brought
to him, and he [was] desired to showe some remedy, he wolde put his hand
in to the bag, and at al auentures take oute a bille. And in takinge
oute the bille he wolde say to him that came to seke remedye in their
language: _Prega dio te la mandi bona_. That is to saye: Praye God to
sende the a good one.

By this tale ye may se, that miserable is their state whiche fortune
muste helpe and nat reason. Suche a phisitian on a tyme sayde to
Pausanias: Thou aylest nothinge. No, sayde he, I haue nat had to do with
thy phisicke. And an other tyme a frende of his sayde: Syr, ye ought not
to blame that phisitian: for his phisicke dyd you neuer hurte. Thou
sayest trouthe, quod he: for, if I hadde proued his phisicke, I shulde
nat nowe haue been alyue. And ageyne to an other that sayde: Syr, ye be
an olde man, he answered: yea, thou were nat my phisitian. Such maner
[of] checkes are to lyttell for the leude foles, that wyll practise
phisicke, before they knowe what [be]longeth to theyr name.

FOOTNOTES:

[198] In orig. and in Singer this is printed as prose, according to the
usual practice. The same is the case with the line below.

+ _Of hym that wolde confesse hym by writinge._ xxxix.

+ Ther was a yonge man on a tyme, which wrote a longe lybell[199] of his
synnes; whether he did hit for hypocrisy, folysshe