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Medical References in the Dramas of John Lyly

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MEDICAL REFERENCES IN THE DRAMAS OF JOHN LYLY By ALICE WILLCOX NEW YORK MONG the members of Lyly’s must be stopt, or puld out.”1 Most /yk dramatis personae there is often it was “puld out.” The third func­ yyk only one practitioner of tion of a barber, the one which added ™ medicine. This is Motto, the “surgeon” to his title, was to let blood barber-surgeon in “Midas.” Lyly rep­ and dress wounds. Lyly does not repre­ resents him primarily as a comic char­ sent Motto as performing these duties acter. He is, moreover, a stupid man, but Dello declares that his master is a easily outwitted by two court pages and “Barber and a Surgeon.”2 not beneath deliberately lying about his Lyly also makes a thrust at the ethics abilities in order to gain his ends. of the trade. Motto demands of Dello, The comic relief in “Midas” centers in return for all he has taught him, only in Motto’s struggle with Licio and Pe­ that he keep secret the plot to regain tulus, court pages, for possession of the the beard. Dello replies, “O sir, you golden beard which the barber shaved know I am a Barber, and cannot tittle from Midas’ chin. Petulus stole it. tattle, I am one of those whose tongues Motto, naturally, wants it back. He are swelde with silence.”3 But Licio hears Petulus complaining of the tooth­ knows better. He declares that “it is as ache to his friend Licio. When he is hard for a barber to keepe a secrete in certain Petulus can overhear him he his mouthe, as a burning coale in his discusses with his apprentice, Dello, a hand.”4 It is this very loquacity that remarkable cure he has performed on brings about Motto’s downfall. In spite an imaginary patient by merely rub­ of Dello’s warning that he “will blab al bing his gums with an ointment. At anone”5 he keeps on until he has con­ once Petulus is interested. Motto’s price fessed that Midas has asses’ ears. is the golden beard. It is finally ac­ It is always dangerous to assume a cepted, but Petulus has had an idea. dramatist’s opinions from the words of Once the tooth is taken care of, he trips his characters. In the case of Motto we Motto into admitting that Midas has cannot say that Lyly thought barber­ grown asses’ ears, a treasonous state­ surgeons inferior socially just because ment, and demands the beard back as the pages considered him so far be­ his price for silence. neath them. But that the pages did con­ In Lyly’s portrayal the barber-sur­ sider him inferior they make very plain. geon is represented as performing two They do not even permit him to speak of the functions of his trade. He is a their language. Motto uses the word barber, as we know one today, and a “rewme,” and Licio exclaims, “Deus dentist, as the Elizabethans knew them. bone, is that word come into the Bar­ Dentistry was definitely limited. As bers bason?”6 Bond says in a note on Licio said, “If your tooth be hollow it this passage: “probably it is the fre­ quent or special application of the term writes that “mans bodie is made of that was new in fashion,” hence Licio’s foure Elements, that is to wit, of Earth, surprise. It seems to me rather that Water, Fire, and Aire.”11 Each of these Licio is upbraiding Motto for using a elements has a first or principal quality. word which he considers suitable only The principal quality of fire is heat; of for courtiers and physicians. Dello’s water, moisture; of air, coldness; and reply seems to bear out this interpreta­ of earth, dryness. These four elements, tion. He says, “I sir and why not? My by means of their qualities, produce in Master is a barber and a Surgeon.”7 the human body the four humours. As Again Motto says, “I am as melancholy he puts it, “euery of the humours com- as a cat.”8 Licio immediately takes of­ meth of the qualytie of the Elements.”12 fence. The process takes place in the liver Melancholy? Marie gup, is melancholy a where: word for a barbers mouth? thou shouldst . heate turneth what is colde and say, heauie, dull and doltish. Melancholy moyst into ye kind of fleme, and then is the creast of Courtiers armes, and now what is hot and moyst, into the kind of euery base companion, being in his muble blood: and then what is hot and drye into fubles, says he is melancholy.9 the kinde of Choler: and then what is Petulus continues the lecture: cold and drye into the kinde of melan­ cholia.13 Motto, thou shouldst say thou art lump­ ish. If thou encroach upon our courtly In the “Woman in the Moon” Lyly tearmes, weele trounce thee: belike if represents nature as creating a woman. thou shouldst spit often, thou wouldst As she does this she says: call it the rewme. Motto, in men of repu­ Now fire be turned to choler, ayre to bloud, tation and credit it is the rewme; in such Water to humor purer then it selfe, mechanicall mushrumpes, it is a catarre, And earth to flesh more cleare then Christall a pose, the water euill.10 rock.14 In the character of the barber-sur­ In this passage Lyly has done just what geon as Lyly draws it we probably have one would expect of a layman writing a fair representation of that group as it on scientific matters. Part of it is cor­ was at the time. With abilities definitely rect, judged by the standards of his limited, and morals not above reproach, time. The rest of it sounds just as cor­ we could hardly expect to find them a rect but is apparently invention. The class of highly respected citizens. four elements are correct as stated by The fundamental principle of Eliza­ Bartholomaeus. It appears that he must bethan medicine is the classical and me­ have thought of man’s body as consist­ dieval idea of elements and humours. ing only of humours, for though he ex­ These beliefs are expounded at great plains the creation of each humour in length in Bartholomaeus Anglicus’ en­ great detail, he says nothing about flesh cyclopedia of medieval knowledge, “De or bones. Lyly goes half way with the proprietatibus rerum.” In quoting from physiologists. He gives his woman two this work I have used the popular six­ humours, choler and blood, then, de­ teenth century version known as “Bat­ parting from orthodoxy, he has her man vppon Bartholome” because I feel flesh created out of earth. Just what he that the average Elizabethan knew it means by having water changed to better than the original. Bartholomaeus “humor” is doubtful. Moisture, accord­ ing to Bartholomaeus, is changed to As for the cause and effects, Lyly puts it “fleme.” As for the creation of the hu­ very well. mours themselves, Lyly is very unscien­ I shall instill such melancholy moode, tific. Bartholomaeus says that what is As by corrupting of her purest blood, hot is turned to blood, and air, whose Shall first with sullen sorrows clowde her principal element is coldness, when braine, combined with moisture, produces And then surround her heart with froward care, “fleme,” when combined with dryness, She shall be sick with passions of the hart, melancholy. If Lyly had turned the Selfwild, and toungtide, but full frought words around to read “Now ayre be with tears.19 turned to choler, fire to bloud,” he Again in Endymion he says, “That mel­ would have been more nearly correct. ancholy blood must be purged, which This process of the creation of the draweth you to a dotage no less miser­ humours was believed to take place in able than monstrous.”20 the liver. Perhaps because of this, the Bartholomaeus describes melancholy liver was considered the seat of the af­ in great detail. He says the word comes fections. Is it possible that our present from “Melon, that is blacke, and Calor notion that the heart is the seat of love that is humour: whereupon it is called was beginning to come into vogue in Melancholia, as it were a blacke hu­ Lyly’s time? Be that as it may, Lyly ex­ mour.”21 The disease of melancholy is presses doubt of the liver theory in “En­ caused, he says, if this humour has “mas- dymion.” He writes: “I brooke not thys terie in any body.”21 Among the effects idle humor of loue, it tickleth not my he gives the following: “The patient is lyuer, from whence the Louemongers in faint, and fearfull in heart without former age seemed to inferre they cause, ... he dreameth dredfull darke should proceede.”15 In spite of Lyly’s dreames, . such have lyking and doubt the liver theory was clung to for laugh alway of sorrowfull things, and some time, a fact to which Shakespeare make sorrow and dolor for joyful bears witness in “Much Ado About things.”22 He holds his “peace” when he Nothing,” for he wrote, “If ever love should speak, and speaks “too much” had interest in his liver.”16 when he should be still. That the dis­ Of the four humours Lyly was most ease could cause madness is attested to interested in melancholy. Apparently in by him for he says that some suffering from it “deeme themselves that they be Lyly’s time melancholy was fashionable.
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