Gold Not Gold

To the most esteemed man Matthew Gwynne, by John

Hammond, Physician to the King, and to Henry,

Prince of Wales.

Who among men, and from where? Since among the children of physicians
There was no one who discovered golden medicines, until now.
Not Chiron, even if the Gods nurtured him like a sprout,
Nor was Asclepius there to ward off death and the Fates,
Divine Hippocrates, or the holy strength of Pergamon?
But the soul of Paracelsus wanders in the wilderness,
Mixed with Vulcan in hollow stones.
Oh, the drinks, the antidote of the beast and of Mithridates,
The immortal ambrosia lies in the food of mortals.
And the casting of false-drinking gold in honor.
But these are easily refuted by Gwynne,
Always excelling and standing out above many others.

By the same, to the same.

Those who scorn the Muses are not Physicians; relying on a name,
They snatch away the rewards, rights, and honor from the learned.
They are fools who scorn Pergamon, and they disfigure the divinity of Epidaurus,
Nor do they honor the aid of the Coan referring to Hippocrates, who was born on the island of Kos.
There are those whose mind is in vice; Paracelsus, the quack,
I puff him up with delights, and the chorus of Mulciber another name for Vulcan, the god of fire/metalworking.
Nor are the wretches missing, who boast of "Potable Gold"
As a panchreston a cure-all for all evils, and as Ambrosia.
He who proposes such things should be sent to the Anticyras islands where hellebore, a purgative for madness, was found,
So that he may learn, healthier, what Medicine should provide.
But, to prove it with strong arguments, as is right,
This is the work of your genius, candid Gwynne.