is divulged abroad unto the hearing of others. Whereupon the
owner of that soul deserveth to be termed a vaticinator, or prophet.
Nevertheless, the truth is, that the soul is seldom able to report those
things in such sincerity as it hath seen them, by reason of the
imperfection and frailty of the corporeal senses, which obstruct the
effectuating of that office; even as the moon doth not communicate unto
this earth of ours that light which she receiveth from the sun with so much
splendour, heat, vigour, purity, and liveliness as it was given her. Hence
it is requisite for the better reading, explaining, and unfolding of these
somniatory vaticinations and predictions of that nature, that a dexterous,
learned, skilful, wise, industrious, expert, rational, and peremptory
expounder or interpreter be pitched upon, such a one as by the Greeks is
called onirocrit, or oniropolist. For this cause Heraclitus was wont to
say that nothing is by dreams revealed to us, that nothing is by dreams
concealed from us, and that only we thereby have a mystical signification
and secret evidence of things to come, either for our own prosperous or
unlucky fortune, or for the favourable or disastrous success of another.
The sacred Scriptures testify no less, and profane histories assure us of
it, in both which are exposed to our view a thousand several kinds of
strange adventures, which have befallen pat according to the nature of the
dream, and that as well to the party dreamer as to others. The Atlantic
people, and those that inhabit the (is)land of Thasos, one of the Cyclades,
are of this grand commodity deprived; for in their countries none yet ever
dreamed. Of this sort (were) Cleon of Daulia, Thrasymedes, and in our days
the learned Frenchman Villanovanus, neither of all which knew what dreaming
was.

Fail not therefore to-morrow, when the jolly and fair Aurora with her rosy
fingers draweth aside the curtains of the night to drive away the sable
shades of darkness, to bend your spirits wholly to the task of sleeping
sound, and thereto apply yourself. In the meanwhile you must denude your
mind of every human passion or affection, such as are love and hatred, fear
and hope, for as of old the great vaticinator, most famous and renowned
prophet Proteus, was not able in his disguise or transformation into fire,
water, a tiger, a dragon, and other such like uncouth shapes and visors, to
presage anything that was to come till he was restored