Chapter Chapter 106 · Panurge’s dream, with the in

Chapter 3.XIV.

Panurge’s dream, with the interpretation thereof.

At seven o’clock of the next following morning Panurge did not fail to

present himself before Pantagruel, in whose chamber were at that time

Epistemon, Friar John 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 Jacob. Then said Panurge, I have

been plunged into my dumps so deeply, as if I had been lodged with Gaffer

Noddy-cap. Dreamed indeed I have, and that right lustily; but I could take

along with me no more thereof that I did goodly understand save only that I

in my vision had a pretty, fair, young, gallant, handsome woman, who no

less lovingly and kindly treated and entertained me, hugged, cherished,

cockered, dandled, and made much of me, as if I had been another neat

dilly-darling minion, like Adonis. Never was man more glad than I was

then; my joy at that time was incomparable. She flattered me, tickled me,

stroked me, groped me, frizzled 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,

notwithstanding any remonstrance of mine to the contrary, did always drive

and thrust them further in; yet thereby, which to me seemed wonderful, she

did not do me any hurt at all. A little after, though I know not how, I

thought I was transformed into a tabor, and she into a chough.

My sleeping there being interrupted, I awaked in a start, angry,

displeased, perplexed, chafing, and very wroth. There have you a large

platterful of dreams, make thereupon good cheer, and, if you please, spare

not to interpret them according to the understanding which you may have in

them. Come, Carpalin, let us to breakfast. To my sense and meaning, quoth

Pantagruel, if I have skill or knowledge in the art of divination by

dreams, your wife will not really, and to the outward appearance of the

world, plant or set horns, and stick them fast in your forehead, after a

visible manner, as satyrs use to wear and carry them; but she will be so

far from preserving herself loyal 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 ties, prostitute her body

to the dalliance of other men, and so make you a cuckold. This point is

clearly and manifestly explained 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

ever was tabor 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 cried out Father John with a loud voice, He tells the

truth; upon my conscience, thou wilt be a cuckold--an honest one, I warrant

thee. O the brave horns that will be borne by thee! Ha, ha, ha! Our good

Master de Cornibus. 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 mistaken in your interpretation; for the

matter is quite contrary to your sense thereof. My dream presageth that I

shall by marriage be stored with plenty of all manner of goods--the

hornifying of me showing that I will possess a cornucopia, that Amalthaean

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 satyr’s horns; for you of these did make some mention.

Amen, Amen, Fiat, fiatur, 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 toiled 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 sunbeams 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 pokes? 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 lawyers, presidents,

counsellors, advocates, procurers, attorneys, and other glossers and

commentators on the venerable rubric, De frigidis et maleficiatis. You

are, in truth, sir, as it seems to me (excuse 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 crescent.

Is she a cucquean for that? How the devil can she be cuckolded who never

yet was married? Speak somewhat more correctly, I beseech you, lest 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, Jupiter Ammon, with a great many others. Are they all cuckolds? If

Jove be a cuckold, Juno 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 underboard no less than if he had said openly

the father is a cuckold and his wife a punk. Let our discourse 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, frolic,

glad, cheerful, merry, jolly, and gamesome, than a well-bended tabor in the

hands of a good drummer at a nuptial feast, still making a noise, still

rolling, still buzzing and cracking. Believe me, sir, in that consisteth

none of my least good fortunes. And my wife will be jocund, feat, compt,

neat, quaint, dainty, trim, tricked 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 sudden were

forthwith vexed in choler and annoyed. Yea, quoth Panurge, the reason of

that was because I had fasted too long. Flatter not yourself, quoth

Pantagruel; all will go to ruin. Know for a certain truth, that every

sleep that endeth with a starting, and leaves the person irksome, grieved,

and fretting, doth either signify a present evil, or otherwise presageth

and portendeth a future imminent mishap. To signify an evil, that is to

say, to show some sickness hardly curable, a kind of pestilentious or

malignant boil, botch, or sore, lying and lurking hid, occult, and latent

within the very centre of the body, which many times doth by the means of

sleep, whose nature is to reinforce and strengthen the faculty and virtue

of concoction, being according to the theorems of physic to declare itself,

and moves toward the outward 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 hornets, to move a stinking puddle, and to awake a sleeping lion,

instead of these more usual expressions, and of a more familiar and plain

meaning, to provoke angry persons, to make a thing the worse by meddling

with it, and to irritate a testy choleric man when he is at quiet. On the

other part, to presage or foretell 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 example hereof is to be found in the

dream and dreadful awaking of Hecuba, as likewise in that of Eurydice, the

wife of Orpheus, neither of which was (no) sooner finished, saith Ennius,

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 destruction of her country; and Eurydice 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

afraid. Now hereupon did follow this event: Troy that same night was

spoiled, sacked, and burnt. At another time the same Aeneas dreaming that

he saw his familiar geniuses and penates, in a ghastly fright and

astonishment awaked, of which terror and amazement 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 fantastic 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, defeats, and discomfitures in open field, he came at last to be

killed in a single combat by the said Aeneas. A thousand other instances I

could afford, if it were needful, of this matter. Whilst I relate these

stories of Aeneas, remark the saying of Fabius Pictor, who faithfully

averred that nothing had at any time befallen unto, was done, or

enterprised by him, whereof he preallably had not notice, and beforehand

foreseen it to the full, by sure predictions altogether founded on the

oracles of somnial divination. To this there is no want of pregnant

reasons, no more than of examples. For if repose and rest in sleeping be a

special gift and favour of the gods, as is maintained by the philosophers,

and by the poet attested in these lines,

Then sleep, that heavenly gift, came to refresh

Of human labourers the wearied flesh;

such a gift or benefit can never finish or terminate in wrath and

indignation without portending some unlucky fate and most disastrous

fortune to ensue. Otherwise it were a molestation, and not an ease; a

scourge, and not a gift; at least, (not) 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 dinner, furnished with all manner of good cheer, and having at

his entry to the table his appetite sharp set upon his victuals, 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 terror, 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 women yell, Stop thief, stop thief!

and all his children shout as loud as ever they could, Murder, O murder,

murder! Then was it not high time for him to leave his banqueting, for

application of a remedy in haste, and to give speedy order for succouring

of his distressed household? Truly I remember that the Cabalists and

Massorets, interpreters of the sacred Scriptures, in treating how with

verity one might judge of evangelical apparitions (because oftentimes the

angel of Satan is disguised 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

terrify and hugely affright him, but in the end he bringeth consolation,

leaveth the person who hath seen him joyful, well-pleased, fully content,

and satisfied; on the other side, the angel of perdition, that wicked,

devilish, and malignant spirit, at his appearance unto any person in the

beginning cheereth up the heart of his beholder, but at last forsakes him,

and leaves him troubled, angry, and perplexed.