the diseases, and there abideth nought [unaccomplished] of thy commandment.  What wilt thou have me do now?’ Quoth she, ’Leave weaving and open thyself a physician’s shop.’  But he answered, ’The people of my city know me and this affair will not profit me, save in a land of strangerhood; so come, let us go out from this city and get us to a strange land and [there] live.’  And she said, ‘Do as thou wilt.’

So he arose and taking his weaving gear, sold it and bought with the price drugs and simples and wrought himself a carpet, with which they set out and journeyed to a certain village, where they took up their abode.  Then the man donned a physician’s habit and fell to going round about the hamlets and villages and country parts; and he began to earn his living and make gain.  Their affairs prospered and their case was bettered; wherefore they praised God for their present ease and the village became to them a home.

[On this wise he abode a pretty while] and the days ceased not and the nights to transport him from country to country, till he came to the land of the Greeks and lighted down in a city of the cities thereof, wherein was Galen the Sage; but the weaver knew him not, nor was he ware who he was.  So he went forth, according to his wont, in quest of a place where the folk might assemble together, and hired Galen’s courtyard.[FN#20] There he spread his carpet and setting out thereon his drugs and instruments of medicine, praised himself and his skill and vaunted himself of understanding such as none but he might claim.

Galen heard that which he avouched of his understanding and it was certified unto him and established in his mind that the man was a skilled physician of the physicians of the Persians and [he said in himself], ’Except he had confidence in his knowledge and were minded to confront me and contend with me, he had not sought the door of my house neither spoken that which he hath spoken.’  And concern gat hold upon Galen and doubt.  Then he looked out upon[FN#21] the weaver and addressed himself to see what he should do, whilst the folk began to flock to him and set out to him their ailments, and he would answer them thereof [and prescribe for them], hitting the mark one while and missing it another, so that there appeared unto Galen of his fashion nothing whereby his mind might be assured that he had formed a just opinion of his skill.

Presently, up came a woman with a phial of urine, and when the [mock] physician saw the phial afar off, he said to her, ’This is the urine of a man, a stranger.’  ‘Yes,’ answered she; and he continued, ‘Is he not a Jew and is not his ailment indigestion?’ ‘Yes,’ replied the woman, and the folk marvelled at this; wherefore the man was magnified in Galen’s eyes, for that he heard speech such as was not of the usage of physicians, seeing that they know not urine but by shaking it and looking into it anear neither know they a man’s water from a woman’s water, nor a stranger’s [from a countryman’s], nor a Jew’s from a Sherifs.[FN#22] Then said the woman, ‘What is the remedy?’ Quoth the weaver, ‘Pay down the fee.’  So she paid him a dirhem and he gave her medicines contrary to that ailment and such as would aggravate the patient’s malady.