Chrysippus holds dogs are logicians,
In that, by study and by canvassing,
They can distinguish 'twixt three several things:
As when he cometh where three broad ways meet,
And of those three hath stay'd at two of them,
By which he guesseth that the game went not,
Without more pause he runneth on the third;
Which, as Chrysippus saith, insinuates
As if he reason'd thus within himself:
Either he went this, that, or yonder way,
But neither that nor yonder, therefore this.
But whether they logicians be or no,
Cynics they are, for they will snarl and bite;
Right courtiers to flatter and to fawn;
Valiant to set upon the[ir] enemies;
Most faithful and most constant to their friends.
Nay, they are wise, as Homer witnesseth
Who, talking of Ulysses' coming home,
Saith all his household but Argus his dog
Had quite forgot him: ay, his deep insight[65]
Nor Pallas' art in altering his shape,
Nor his base weeds, nor absence twenty years,
Could go beyond or any way delude.
That dogs physicians are, thus I infer;
They are ne'er sick, but they know their disease,
And find out means to ease them of their grief;
Special good surgeons to cure dangerous wounds:
For, stricken with a stake into the flesh,
This policy they use to get it out:
They trail one of their feet upon the ground,
And gnaw the flesh about where the wound is
Till it be clean drawn out: and then, because
Ulcers and sores kept foul are hardly cur'd,
They lick and purify it with their tongue,
And well observe Hippocrates' old rule,
The only medicine for the foot is rest:
For if they have the least hurt in their feet,
They bear them up and look they be not stirr'd.
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