The third book of the works of Mr. Francis Rabelais, Doctor in Physick containing the heroick deeds of Pantagruel the son of Gargantua / now faithfully translated into English by the unimitable pen of Sir Thomas Urwhart.

CHAP. XIV. Panurge's Dream, with the Interpreta∣tion thereof. (Book 14)

AT Seven a Clock of the next follow∣ing Morning, Panurge did not fail to present himself before Pantagruel, in whose Chamber were at that time Episte∣mon, Fryar Iohn of the Funnels, Ponocrates, Eudemon, Carpalin, and others, to whom, at the entry of Panurge, Pantagruel said, Lo, here cometh our Dreamer. That word (quoth Epistemon) in ancient times cost very much, and was dearly sold to the Children of Iacob. Then, said Panurge, I have been plunged into my dumps so deeply, as if I had been lodged with Gaf∣fer Noddy cap: dreamed indeed I have, and that right lustily; but I could take a long with me no more thereof, that I did goodly understand, save only, that I in my Vision had a pretty, fair, young, gal∣lant, handsome Woman, who no less lo∣vingly and kindly treated and entertained me, hugg'd, cherish'd, cocker'd, dandled,

and made much of me, as if I had been a∣nother neat dillidarling Minion, like Ado∣nis: never was Man more glad then I was then, my joy at that time was incompera∣ble; she flattred me, tickled me, stroaked me, groped me, frizled me, curled me, kissed me, embraced me, laid her Hands about my Neck, and now and then made jestingly, pretty little Horns above my Forehead: I told her in the like disport, as I did play the Fool with her, that she should rather place and fix them in a little below mine Eyes, that I might see the better what I should stick at, with them: for being so situated, Momus then would find no fault therewith, as he did once with the position of the Horns of Bulls. The wanton, toying Girl, notwithstand∣ing any remonstrance of mine to the con∣trary, did always drive and thrust them further in: yet thereby (which to me seemed wonderful) she did not do me a∣ny hurt at all. A little after, though I know not how, I thought I was trans∣form'd into a Tabor, and she into a Chough.

My sleeping there being interrupted, I awaked in a start, angry, displeased, per∣plexed, chasing, and very wroth. There have you a large Platter-full of Dreams, make thereupon good Chear, and, if you

please, spare not to interpret them accord∣ing to the Understanding which you may have in them. Come Carpalin, let us to Breakfast. To my sence and meaning, (quoth Pantagruel) if I have skill or know∣ledge in the Art of Divination by Dreams, your Wife will not really, and to the out∣ward appearance of the World, plant, or set Horns, and stick them fast in your Forehead, after a visible manner, as Sa∣tyrs use to wear and carry them; but she will be so far from preserving herself Loy∣al in the discharge and observance of a Conjugal Duty, that on the contrary she will violate her plighted Faith, break her Marriage-Oath, infringe all Matrimonial Tyes, prostitute her Body to the Dalliance of other Men, and so make you a Cuckold. This point is clearly and manifestly ex∣plained and expounded by Artemidorus, just as I have related it. Nor will there be any metamorphosis, or transmutation made of you into a Drum, or Tabor, but you will surely be as soundly beaten as e're was Ta∣bor at a merry Wedding: nor yet will she be changed into a Chough, but will steal from you, chiefly in the Night, as is the nature of that thievish Bird. Hereby may you perceive your Dreams to be in every jot conform and agreeable to the Virgilian Lots: A Cuckold you will be, beaten

and robbed. Then cryed out Father Iohn with a loud Voice: He tells the truth; upon my Conscience, thou wilt be a Cu••∣kold, an honest one, I warrant thee; O the brave Horns that will be born by thee▪ Ha, ha, ha. Our good Master De Corni∣lius, God save thee, and shield thee; Wilt thou be pleased to preach but two words of a Sermon to us, and I will go through the Parish-Church to gather up Alms for the poor.

You are (quoth Panurge) very far mi∣staken in your Interpretation; for the mat∣ter is quite contrary to your sence thereof; my Dream presageth, that I shall by Mar∣riage be stored with plenty of all manner of Goods, the hornifying of me shewing, that I will possess a Cornucopia, that Amal∣thaean Horn, which is called, The Horn of Abundance, whereof the fruition did still portend the Wealth of the Enjoyer. You possibly will say, that they are rather like to be Satyrs Horns; for you of these did make some mention. Amen, Amen, Fiat siat, ad differentiam papae. Thus shall I have my Touch-her-home still ready; my Staff of Love sempiternally in a good case, will, Satyr-like, be never toyled out; a thing which all Men wish for, and send up their Prayers to that purpose, but such a thing as nevertheless is granted but to a few; hence

doth it follow by a consequence as clear as the Sun-beams, that I will never be in the danger of being made a Cuckold, for the defect hereof is, Causa sine qua non; yea, the sole cause (as many think) of making Husbands Cuckolds. What makes poor scoundrel Rogues to beg (I pray you)? Is it not because they have not enough at home, wherewith to fill their Bellies, and their Poaks. What is it makes the Wolves to leave the Woods? Is it not the want of Flesh Meat. What maketh Women Whores? you understand me well enough. And herein may I very well submit my Opinion to the Judgment of learned Law∣yers, Presidents, Counsellors, Advocates, Procurers, Attorneys, and other Glossers and Commentators on the venerable Ru∣brick, De Frigidis, & maleficiatis. You are in truth, Sir, as it seems to me (ex∣cuse my boldness if I have transgressed) in a most palpable and absurd Error, to attribute my Horns to Cuckoldry: Diana wears them on her Head after the manner of a Cressant, is she a Cucquean for that? How the Devil can she be cuckolded, who never yet was married? Speak some∣what more correctly, I beseech you, least she being offended, furnish you with a pair of Horns, shapen by the Pattern of those which she made for Actaeon. The

goodly Bacchus also carries Horns; Pan, Iupiter Hammon, with a great many o∣thers, are they all Cuckolds? If Iove be a Cuckold, Iuno is a Whore: this follows by the Figure Metalepsis. As to call a Child in the presence of his Father and Mother, a Bastard, or Whore's Son, is tacitly and under-board, no less than if he had said openly, the Father is a Cuc∣kold, and his Wife a Punk. Let our Di∣scourse come nearer to the purpose: The Horns that my Wife did make me are Horns of Abundance, planted and grafted in my Head for the increase and shooting up of all good things: this will I affirm for truth, upon my Word, and pawn my Faith and Credit both upon it; as for the rest, I will be no less joyful, frolick, glad, cheerful, merry, jolly, and gamesome then a well-bended Tabor in the Hands of a good Drummer, at a Nuptial Feast, still making a noise, still rowling, still buzzing and cracking. Believe me, Sir, in that consisteth none of my least good Fortunes▪ And my Wife will be jocund, fea••s, comp••, neat, quaint, dainty, trim, trick'd up, brisk, smirk and smug, even as a pretty little Cornish Chough: who will not believe this, let Hell or the Gallows be the Burden of his Christmas Carol.

I remark (quoth Pantagruel) the last point or particle which you did speak of, and having seriously conferred it with the first, find that at the beginning you were delighted with the sweetness of your Dream; but in the end and final closure of it, you startingly awaked, and on a sud∣den were forthwith vexed in Choler, and annoyed. Yea, (quoth Panurge) the rea∣son of that was, because I had fasted too long. Flatter not your self (quoth Panta∣gruel) all will go to ruine: know for a certain truth, that every Sleep that end∣eth with a starting, and leaves the Person irksome, grieved, and fretting, doth either signifie a present evil, or otherways pre∣sageth, and portendeth a future imminent mishap. To signifie an Evil, that is to say, to shew some Sickness hardly cura∣ble, a kind of pestilentious, or malignant Bile, Botch, or Sore, lying and lurking, hid, occult, and latent within the very Center of the Body, which many times doth by the means of Sleep (whose nature is to reinforce, and strengthen the Facul∣ty and Vertue of Concoction) begin ac∣cording to the Theorems of Physick to declare itself, and moves toward the out∣ward Superficies. At this sad stirring is the Sleeper's rest and ease disturbed and broken, whereof the first feeling and

stinging smart admonisheth, that he must patiently endure great pain and trouble, and thereunto provide some remedy: as when we say proverbially to incense Hor∣nets, to move a stinking Puddle, and to a∣wake a sleeping Lyon, instead of these more usual expressions, and of a more fa∣miliar and plain meaning, to provoke an∣gry Persons, to make a thing the worse by medling with it, and to irritate a testy cholerick Man when he is at quiet. On the other part, to presage or fore-tell an Evil, especially in what concerneth the Exploits of the Soul, in matter of Somnial Divinations, is as much to say, as that it giveth us to understand, that some dismal Fortune or Mischance is destinated and prepared for us, which shortly will not fail to come to pass. A clear and evident Ex∣ample hereof is to be found in the Dream, and dreadful awaking of Hecuba, as like∣wise in that of Euridice, the Wife of Or∣pheus, (neither of which was sooner finish∣ed, saith Cunius) but that incontinently thereafter they awaked in a start, and were affrighted horribly; thereupon these Accidents ensued, Hecuba had her Husband Priamus, together with her Children, slain before her eyes, and saw then the Destru∣ction of her Country; and Euridice died speedily thereafter, in a most miserable

manner. Aeneas dreaming that he spoke to Hector a little after his Decease, did on a sudden in a great start awake, and was a∣fraid: now hereupon did follow this event; Troy that same Night was spoil'd, sack'd, and burnt. At another time the same Aeneas, dreaming that he saw his familiar Geniuses and Penates, in a ghastly fright and astonish∣ment awaked, of which terrour and amaze∣ment the issue was, that the very next day subsequent, by a most horrible Tempest on the Sea, he was like to have perished, and been cast-away. Moreover, Turnus being prompted, instigated, and stirred up, by the fantastick Vision of an infernal Fury, to enter into a bloody War against Aeneas, awaked in a start much troubled and disquieted in Spirit, in sequel whereof, after many notable and famous Routs, De∣feats and Discomfitures in open Field, he came at last to be killed in a single Com∣bat, by the said Aeneas. A thousand other instances I could afford, if it were needful, of this matter. Whilst I relate these Sto∣ries of Aeneas, remark the saying of Fa∣bius Pictor, who faithfully averred, That nothing had at any time befallen unto, was done, or enterprized by him, where∣of he preallably had not Notice, and before∣hand fore seen it to the full, by sure Pre∣dictions, altogether founded on the Ora∣cles

of Somnial Divination. To this there is no want of pregnant Reasons, no more then of Examples: for if Repose and Rest in Sleeping be a special Gift and Favour of the Gods, as is maintained by the Phi∣losophers, and by the Poet attested in these Lines:

Then Sleep, that heavenly Gift, came to re∣fresh, Of humane Labourers, the wearied Flesh.

Such a Gift or Benefit can never finish or terminate in wrath and indignation, with∣out portending some unlucky Fate, and most disastrous Fortune to ensue; other∣ways it were a Molestation, and not an Ease; a Scourge and not a Gift, at least, proceeding from the Gods above, but from the infernal Devils our Enemies, according to the common vulgar Saying.

Suppose the Lord, Father, or Master of a Family, sitting at a very sumptuous Din∣ner, furnished with all manner of good Cheer, and having at his entry to the Ta∣ble his Appetite sharp set upon his Victu∣als, whereof there was great plenty, should be seen rise in a start, and on a sudden fling out of his Chair, abandoning his Meat, frighted, appalled, and in a horrid terrour, who should not know the cause

hereof would wonder, and be astonished exceedingly: But what? he heard his Male Servants cry, Fire, fire, fire, fire; his Serving Maids and Woman yell, Stop Thief, stop Thief; and all his Children shout as loud as ever they could, Murther, O Murther, Murther. Then was it not high time for him to leave his Banquet∣ting, for application of a Remedy in hast, and to give speedy Order for succouring of his distressed Houshold. Truly, I remem∣ber, that the Cabalists and Massorats, Inter∣preters of the Sacred Scriptures, in treat∣ing how with verity one might judge of Evangelical Apparitions (because often∣times the Angel of Satan is disguized and transfigured into an Angel of Light) said; That the difference of these two mainly did consist in this: the favourable and comforting Angel useth in his appearing unto Man at first to terrifie and hugely affright him; but in the end he bringeth Consolation, leaveth the Person who hath seen him, joyful, well▪pleased, fully con∣tent, and satisfied: on the other side, the An∣gel of Perdition, that wicked, devilish, and malignant Spirit, at his appearance unto any Person, in the beginning cheareth up the Heart of his Beholder, but at last for∣sakes him, and leaves him troubled, angry, and perplexed.