No More Learning

SGANARELLE (_assuming various amusing attitudes_):
_Singulariter, nominativo haec musa_, "the muse," _bonus_,
_bona, bonum, Deus sanctus, estne oratio latenas?
Quare_? "Why? " _Luia substantivo et adjectivum
concordat in generi, numerum, et casus_.

GERONTE: Oh! Why did I not study?

JACQUELINE: What a clever man he is!

SGANARELLE: Thus these vapours of which I speak
passing from the left side, where the liver is, to the right
side where the heart is, it happens that the lungs, which
we call in Latin _armyan_, having communication with the
brain, which in Greek we name _nasmus_, by means of the
_vena cava_, which we call in Hebrew _cubile_, in their way
meet the said vapours, which fill the ventricles of the
omoplata; and as the said vapours--be sure you understand
this argument, I beg you--and as these said vapours have
a certain malignancy--listen carefully to this, I pray you.

GERONTE: Yes.

SGANARELLE: Are gifted with a certain malignancy
which is caused--please pay attention----

GERONTE: I am doing so.

SGANARELLE: Which is caused by the acridity of the
humour engendered in the concavity of the diaphragm, it
happens that these vapours--_Ossabundus, nequezs, nequer,
potarinum, quipsa milus_. That is just what makes your
daughter dumb.

GERONTE: No one, doubtless, could argue better.
There is but one thing that puzzles me. It seems to me
that you place the heart and liver differently from where
they are; the heart is on the left side, and the liver on
the right.
SGANARELLE: Yes, that was so formerly; but we have
changed all that, and nowadays we practise medicine by
an entirely new method.

GERONTE: I did not know that. I must ask you to
pardon my ignorance.

SGANARELLE: There is no harm done. You are not
obliged to be as clever as we are.

GERONTE: Certainly not. But what do you think,
monsieur, ought to be done for this complaint?

SGANARELLE: My advice is that she should be put to
bed, and, for a remedy, you must see that she takes plenty
of bread soaked in wine.

GERONTE: Why so, monsieur?

SGANARELLE: Because in bread and wine mixed together
there is a sympathetic virtue which causes speech.
Don't you know that they give nothing else to parrots,
and that they learn to speak by being fed on this diet?

GERONTE: That is true. What a great man you are!
Quick, bring plenty of bread and wine.

SGANARELLE: I shall come back at night to see how
she is getting on.

GERONTE: Just wait a moment, please.