For such a dream I had of dire portent,
That much I fear my body will be shent;
It bodes I shall have wars and woful strife,
Or in a loathsome dungeon end my life.

Know, dame, I dreamt within my troubled breast
That in our yard I saw a murderous beast,
That on my body would have made arrest.
With waking eyes I ne'er beheld his fellow,
His colour was betwixt a red and yellow :
Tipp'd was his tail, and both his pricking ears,
With black, and much unlike his other hairs:
The rest, in shape a beagle's whelp throughout,
With broader forehead, and a sharper snout:
Deep in his front were sunk his glowing eyes ;
That yet methinks I see him with surprise.
Reach out your hand; I drop with clammy sweat;
And lay it to my heart, and feel it beat.' [above,
'Now, fie for shame!' quoth she, by heaven
Thou hast for ever lost thy lady's love;
No woman can endure a recreant knight;
He must be bold by day and free by night.
Our sex desires a husband, or a friend,
Who can our honour and his own defend;
Wise, hardy, secret, liberal of his purse:
A fool is nauseous, but a coward worse:
No bragging coxcomb, yet no baffled knight.-
How darest thou talk of love, and darest not fight?
How darest thou tell thy dame thou art afeard?
Hast thou no manly heart, and hast a beard?

"If aught from fearful dreams may be divined,
They signify a cock of dunghill-kind.
All dreams, as in old Galen I have read,
Are from repletion and complexion bred;

From rising fumes of indigested food,
And noxious humours that infect the blood:

And sure, my lord, if I can read aright,
These foolish fancies you have had to-night
Are certain symptoms (in the canting style)
Of boiling choler and abounding bile :
This yellow gall that in your stomach floats
Engenders all these visionary thoughts.
When choler overflows, then dreams are bred
Of flames, and all the family of red:

Red dragons and red beasts in sleep we view;
For humours are distinguish'd by their hue.
From hence we dream of wars and warlike things,
And wasps and hornets with their double wings.
Choler adust congeals our blood with fear;
Then black bulls toss us, and black devils tear.
In sanguine airy dreams aloft we bound;
With rheums oppress'd, we sink in rivers drown'd.
'More I could say, but thus conclude my theme:
The dominating humour makes the dream.
Cato was in his time accounted wise,
And he condemns them all for empty lies.
Take my advice, and, when we fly to ground,
With laxatives preserve your body sound,
And purge the peccant humours that abound.
I should be loth to lay you on a bier;
And, though there lives no 'pothecary near,
I dare for once prescribe for your disease,
And save long bills and a damn'd doctor's fees.
"Two sovereign herbs, which I by practice know,
And both at hand (for in our yard they grow),
On peril of my soul shall rid you wholly
Of yellow choler and of melancholy :

You must both purge and vomit; but obey,
And for the love of heaven make no delay.
Since hot and dry in your complexion join,
Beware the sun when in a vernal sign;
For when he mounts exalted in the ram,
If then he finds your body in a flame,
Replete with choler-I dare lay a groat,
A tertian ague is at least your lot:
Perhaps a fever (which the gods forefend!)
May bring your youth to some untimely end.
And therefore, sir, as you desire to live,
A day or two before your laxative,

Take just three worms, nor under nor above,
Because the gods unequal numbers love.
These digestives prepare you for your purge,
Of fumatory, centaury, and spurge;
And of ground-ivy add a leaf or two,
All which within our yard or garden grow:
Eat these, and be, my lord, of better cheer:
Your father's son was never born to fear.'

6 Madam,' quoth he, gramercy for your care; But Cato, whom you quoted, you may spare. "Tis true, a wise and worthy man he seems, And, as you say, gave no belief to dreams: But other men of more authority,

And, by the immortal powers! as wise as he, Maintain, with sounder sense, that dreams forebode;

For Homer plainly says they come from God.
Nor Cato said it; but some modern fool
Imposed in Cato's name on boys at school.

'Believe me, madam, morning dreams foreshow The events of things, and future weal or woe:

Some truths are not by reason to be tried,
But we have sure experience for our guide.
An ancient author,' equal with the best,
Relates this tale of dreams among the rest:-

'Two friends, or brothers, with devout intent, On some far pilgrimage together went.

It happen'd so, that when the sun was down,
They just arrived by twilight at a town:
That day had been the baiting of a bull;
'Twas at a feast, and every inn so full,
That no void room in chamber, or no ground,
And but one sorry bed was to be found;
And that so little it would hold but one,
Though till this hour they never lay alone,

'So were they forced to part; one stay'd be

hind,

His fellow sought what lodging he could find:
At last he found a stall where oxen stood,
And that he rather chose than lie abroad.
'Twas in a farther yard without a door;
But, for his ease, well litter'd was the floor.
"His fellow, who the narrow bed had kept,
Was weary, and without a rocker slept:
Supine he snored; but in the dead of night
He dreamt his friend appear'd before his sight,
Who with a ghastly look and doleful cry
Said, "Help me, brother, or this night I die!
Arise, and help, before all help be vain,
Or in an ox's stall I shall be slain!"

'Roused from his rest, he waken'd in a start, Shivering with horror, and with aching heart;

1 Cicero, in his treatise De Divinatione.

At length to cure himself by reason tries: "Twas but a dream, and what are dreams but lies? So thinking, changed his side, and closed his eyes. His dream returns; his friend appears again, "The murderers come: now help, or I am slain!" 'Twas but a vision still, and visions are but vain. He dreamt the third: but now his friend appear'd Pale, naked, pierced with wounds, with blood besmear'd:

"Thrice warn'd, awake!" said he, "relief is late, The deed is done; but thou revenge my fate! Tardy of aid, unseal thy heavy eyes;

Awake, and with the dawning day arise:
Take to the western gate thy ready way,
For by that passage they my corpse convey.
My corpse is in a tumbrel laid, among
The filth and ordure, and enclosed with dung.
That cart arrest, and raise a common cry;
For sacred hunger of my gold I die!"

Then show'd his grisly wound; and last he drew
A piteous sigh, and took a long adieu !

"The frighted friend arose by break of day, And found the stall where late his fellow lay. Then, of his impious host inquiring more, Was answer'd that his guest was gone before: "Muttering he went," said he, " by morning light, And much complain'd of his ill rest by night." This raised suspicion in the pilgrim's mind; Because all hosts are of an evil kind,

And oft, to share the spoil, with robbers join'd. 'His dream confirm'd his thought: with troubled look

Straight to the western gate his way he took;