46. _One fire_, etc. Alluding to the old proverb that "fire drives out fire." Cf. _J.C._ iii. 1. 171: "As fire drives out fire, so pity pity;" _Cor._ iv. 7. 54: "One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail," etc.
48. _Holp._ Used by S. oftener than _helped_, for both the past tense and the participle.
49. _Cures with._ Is cured by. S. does not elsewhere use _cure_ intransitively. _Languish_ occurs again as a noun in _A. and C._ v. 2. 42: "That rids our dogs of languish." On the passage cf. Brooke:--
"Ere long the townishe dames together will resort: Some one of bewty, favour, shape, and of so lovely porte: With so fast fixed eye, perhaps thou mayst beholde: That thou shalt quite forget thy loue, and passions past of olde.
The proverbe saith vnminded oft are they that are vnseene. And as out of a planke a nayle a nayle doth drive: So novell love out of the minde the auncient loue doth rive."
52. _Your plantain-leaf._ The common plantain (_Plantago major_), which still holds a place in the domestic _materia medica_. For its use in healing bruises, cf. _L. L. L._ iii. 1. 74:--
"_Moth._ A wonder, master! here's a costard broken in a shin.
_Costard._ O sir, plantain, a plain plantain! ... no salve, sir, but a plantain!"
Steevens quotes _Albumazar_: "Bring a fresh plantain leaf, I've broke my shin." _A broken shin_, like a _broken head_ (_M.W._ i. 125, _T.N._ v. 1. 178, etc.) is one that is bruised, so that the blood runs, not one that is fractured. The plantain was supposed to have other virtues. Halliwell-Phillipps quotes Withals, _Little Dictionarie for Children_, 1586: "The tode being smitten of the spyder in fighte, and made to swell with hir poyson, recovereth himselfe with plantaine."
55. _Not mad, but bound_, etc. An allusion to the old-time treatment of the insane. Cf. _C. of E._ iv. 4. 97: "They must be bound and laid in some dark room;" and _A.Y.L._ iii. 2. 420: "Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do."
57. _Good-den._ Printed "godden" and "gooden" in the early eds., and a corruption of _good e'en_, or _good evening_. _God gi' good-den_ in the next line is printed "Godgigoden" in the quartos and first three folios, "God gi' Good-e'en" in the 4th folio. This salutation was used as soon as noon was past. See on i. 1. 157 above, and cf. ii. 4. 105 fol. below.
