Balm. From very early times the balm, or balsam, has been valued for its curative properties, and, as such, is alluded to in “Troilus and Cressida” (i. 1):
“But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,
Thou lay’st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.”
In “3 Henry VI.” (iv. 8) King Henry says:[478]
“My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds.”
Alcibiades, in “Timon of Athens” (iii. 5), says:
“Is this the balsam, that the usuring senate
Pours into captains’ wounds? Banishment!”
Macbeth, too, in the well-known passage ii. 2, introduces it:
“Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.”
As the oil of consecration[479] it is spoken of by King Richard (“Richard II.,” iii. 2):
“Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king.”