Although ye thirst no whit the less,
Yet shall ye drink the more, doubtless.
After which drinking, ye shall be as meet
To stand on your head as on your feet.’
The same sort of significant irony runs through the Apothecary’s knavish enumeration of miraculous cures in his possession.
‘For this medicine helpeth one and other,
And bringeth them in case that they need no other.
Here is a syrapus de Byzansis,
A little thing is enough of this;
For even the weight of one scrippal