Then she returned home, troubled and careful; and when her husband saw her on this wise, he questioned her of her case and she said to him, ’Verily, my breast is straitened by reason of thee and of the simpleness of thine intent.  Straitness liketh me not and thou in thy [present] craft gaiuest nought; so either do thou seek out a craft other than this or pay me my due[FN#17] and let me go my way.’  Her husband chid her for this and admonished her;[FN#18] but she would not be turned from her intent and said to him, ’Go forth and watch yonder physician how he doth and leam from him what he saith.’  Quoth he, ’Let not thy heart be troubled:  I will go every day to the physician’s assembly.’

So he fell to resorting daily to the physician and committing to memory his sayings and that which he spoke of jargon, till he had gotten a great matter by heart, and all this he studied throughly and digested it.  Then he returned to his wife and said to her, ’I have committed the physician’s sayings to memory and have learned his fashion of muttering and prescribing and applying remedies[FN#19] and have gotten by heart the names of the remedies and of all 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.