which he compares with Seneca's
"Et ferrum et ignis sæpe medicinæ loco est. Extrema primo nemo tentavit loco,"[122]
—a passage that may very well be the original for the modern oracle about fire and iron—is really much closer to the aphorism of Hippocrates, that "Extreme remedies are proper for extreme diseases," and cannot be said to be more than a proverb. In any case, it lay to Shakspere's hand in Montaigne,[123] as translated by Florio:
"To extreme sicknesses, extreme remedies."
Equally inconclusive is the equally close parallel between Macbeth's
"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?"
and the sentence of Hercules:
"Nemo polluto queat Animo mederi."[124]
Such a reflection was sure to secure a proverbial vogue, and in The Two Noble Kinsmen (in which Shakspere indeed seems to have had a hand), we have the doctor protesting: "I think she has a perturbed mind, which I cannot minister to."[125]
And so, again, with the notable resemblance between Hercules' cry: