Edmund Spenser
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The poet refuses the bodily medication because he knows his disease comes from his heart; cure the heart, and the body would follow. In the background is the notion, understood by the Elizabethan reader, that the heart must be governed by the mind.
Compare the discussion about Lady Macbeth between...
Long languishing in double malady,
of my harts wound and of my bodies griefe:
there came to me a leach that would apply
fit medicines for my bodies best reliefe.
Vayne man (quod I) that hast but little priefe
in deep discovery of the mynds disease,
is not the hart of all the body chiefe?
and rules the members as it selfe doth please?
Then with some cordialls seeke first to appease
the inward languour of my wounded hart,
and then my body shall have shortly ease:
but such sweet cordialls passe Physitions art.
Then my lyfes Leach doe you your skill reveale,
and with one salve both hart and body heale.