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“There is no tongue that moves”
3
“The method of the science of medicine is, I
suppose, the same as that of the science of
rhetoric.” (Plato,
Phaedrus, as cited in
Entralgo,
1970: 123)
“Women . . . were central to health and healing
before 1800.” (Fissell, 2008: 1)
The first half of Shakespeare’s
The Winter’s Tale
1
tells a
tragic tale, one which begins with a predicament involving two
kings who are old friends: the first, King Leontes of Sicily, fails
to persuade his friend to alter his intention to depart, while the
latter, King Polixenes of Bohemia, gains support from the
words of King Leontes’s wife, Hermione. During their
argument, Polixenes exclaims to his friend and host, King
Leontes: “There is no tongue that
moves
, none, none I’ th’
world / So soon as yours could win me” (1.2.20-21,
my
emphasis
), yet in the end of their conversation, ironically, it is
the queen, Hermione, whose tongue wins over and thus,
moves
Polixenes eventually. Here, Hermione’s rhetoric success, rather
than being celebrated, is stigmatized, for her husband later
falsely accuses her of having committed adultery with
Polixenes. Similarly, in the world of early modern European
medicine, the positive influence of female healers is for the
most part unrecognized, even if it is powerfully present in
Hermione’s act of “healing.”
These mute, early modern female medical practitioners,
as we see in the case of Hermione, can be not only silenced,
but jailed, for their magical and benevolent medicine. Attacked
by Leontes’s violent and tyrannical speech, a privileged
discourse given the gender and authoritative status of the
speaker, Hermione responds: “Sir, / You speak a language that
1
All textual citations taken from
The Winter’s Tale
are based on the Bedford
Shakespeare series, ed. Mario Digangi (Shakespeare, 2008).