“Cassius. But, soft, I pray you: what, did Cæsar swoon?
Casca. He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at mouth, and was speechless.
Brutus. ’Tis very like; he hath the falling-sickness.
Cassius. No, Cæsar hath it not; but you, and I,
And honest Casca, we have the falling-sickness.”
Fistula. At the present day a fistula means an abscess external to the rectum, but in Shakespeare’s day it was used in a more general signification for a burrowing abscess in any situation.[604] The play of “All’s Well that Ends Well” has a special interest, because, as Dr. Bucknill says, its very plot may be said to be medical. “The orphan daughter of a physician cures the king of a fistula by means of a secret remedy left to her as a great treasure by her father. The royal reward is the choice of a husband among the nobles of the court, and ‘thereby hangs the tale.’” The story is taken from the tale of Gilletta of Narbonne, in the “Decameron” of Boccaccio. It came to Shakespeare through the medium of Painter’s “Palace of Pleasure,” and is to be found in the first volume, which was printed as early as 1566.[605] The story is thus introduced by Shakespeare in the following dialogue (i. 1), where the Countess of Rousillon is represented as inquiring:
“What hope is there of his majesty’s amendment?
Laf. He hath abandoned his physicians, madam; under whose practices he hath persecuted time with hope; and finds no other advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time.
Count. This young gentlewoman had a father—O, that ‘had!’ how sad a passage ’tis!—whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far, would have made nature immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. Would, for the king’s sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of the king’s disease.
Laf. How called you the man you speak of, madam?
Count. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so; Gerard de Narbon.