Page:The Canterbury tales of Geoffrey Chaucer.djvu/109

 dream, so holy was his heart. By God's truth, I would give my shirt that ye had read his legend as I have.

"Dame Pertelote, I tell you truly, Macrobeus, that wrote the vision of the noble Scipio in Africa, affirmeth dreams, and saith that they be warnings of things that men see afterwards. And furthermore, I pray you look well in the Old Testament, whether Daniel held dreams to be any vanity. Read eke of Joseph, and there shall ye see whether dreams be not sometime (I say not alway) warnings of things that shall befall afterward. Look at Dan Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, his baker and eke his butler, whether they felt no significance in dreams. Whosoever will search the chronicles of sundry kingdoms may read about dreams many a wondrous thing. Lo! Crœsus, that was king of Lydia, dreamt he not that he sat upon a tree, which signified that he should be hanged. Lo! Andromache, the wife of Hector, she dreamed on the very night before, how the life of Hector should be lost, if he went into battle on that day. She warned him, but it might not avail; he went none the less to fight. But he was slain anon by Achilles.

"But that tale is all too long to tell, and eke it is nigh day; I may not dally. In short, I say that I shall have adversity from this vision, and further I say that I set no store by laxatives, for I wot well they be venomous. I defy them; I love them never a whit. Let us stint all this now and speak of mirth. Madame Pertelote, in one thing hath God given me largely of his blessing, for when I look upon the beauty of your face, ye be so scarlet-red about the eyes, that it maketh all my dread for to cease. For as sure as in principio 'Mulier est hominis confusio'—my lady, this is the meaning of the Latin: 'Woman is man's joy and all his delight.' For at night on our narrow