ey 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 h