He'll "drink up eisel" :)

It’s dark now, but it’s still not that cold  J  Today’s second sonnet:

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CXI

  O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide,

  The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,

  That did not better for my life provide

  Than public means which public manners breeds.

  Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,

  And almost thence my nature is subdu'd

  To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:

  Pity me, then, and wish I were renew'd;

  Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink,

  Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection;

  No bitterness that I will bitter think,

  Nor double penance, to correct correction.

    Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,

    Even that your pity is enough to cure me.

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Eisel’s vinegar, but it must have been a powerful word as far as Shakespeare was concerned.  For example, it shows up in Hamlet’s rant from Act V, Scene 1:

'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do:

Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?

Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?

I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?

To outface me with leaping in her grave?

Be buried quick with her, and so will I:

And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw

Millions of acres on us, till our ground,

Singeing his pate against the burning zone,

Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,

I'll rant as well as thou.

The volta’s again a late one:  It’s the even that at the beginning of the final line.  More tomorrow—