Out, you impostors! Quack salving, cheating mountebanks! your skill Is to make sound men sick, and sick men kill.

I bought an unction of a mountebank, So mortal that, but dip a knife in it, Where it draws blood so cataplasm so rare, Collected from all simples that have virtue Under the moon, can save the thing from death That is but scratched withal. I'll touch my point With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly, It may be death.

Void of all honor, avaricious, rash, The daring tribe compound their boasted trash-- Tincture of syrup, lotion, drop, or pill; All tempt the sick to trust the lying bill.

From powerful causes spring the empiric's gains, Man's love of life, his weakness, and his pains; These first induce him the vile trash to try, Then lend his name, that other men may buy.

He is not valiant that dares die, but he that boldly bears calamity.

Be wise; soar not too high to fall; but stoop to rise.