ereth not her voice in the terms of
any Christian language. O look, I pray you, how she seemeth unto me to be
by three full spans higher than she was when she began to hood herself with
her apron. What meaneth this restless wagging of her slouchy chaps? What
can be the signification of the uneven shrugging of her hulchy shoulders?
To what end doth she quaver with her lips, like a monkey in the
dismembering of a lobster? My ears through horror glow; ah! how they
tingle! I think I hear the shrieking of Proserpina; the devils are
breaking loose to be all here. O the foul, ugly, and deformed beasts! Let
us run away! By the hook of God, I am like to die for fear! I do not love
the devils; they vex me, and are unpleasant fellows. Now let us fly, and
betake us to our heels. Farewell, gammer; thanks and gramercy for your
goods! I will not marry; no, believe me, I will not. I fairly quit my
interest therein, and totally abandon and renounce it from this time
forward, even as much as at present. With this, as he endeavoured to make
an escape out of the room, the old crone did anticipate his flight and make
him stop. The way how she prevented him was this: whilst in her hand she
held the spindle, she flung out to a back-yard close by her lodge, where,
after she had peeled off the barks of an old sycamore three several times,
she very summarily, upon eight leaves which dropped from thence, wrote with
the spindle-point some curt and briefly-couched verses, which she threw
into the air, then said unto them, Search after them if you will; find them
if you can; the fatal destinies of your marriage are written in them.

No sooner had she done thus speaking than she did withdraw herself unto her
lurking-hole, where on the upper seat of the porch she tucked up her gown,
her coats, and smock, as high as her armpits, and gave them a full
inspection of the nockandroe; which being perceived by Panurge, he said to
Epistemon, God's bodikins, I see the sibyl's hole! She suddenly then
bolted the gate behind her, and was never since seen any more. They
jointly ran in haste after the fallen and dispersed leaves, and gathered
them at last, though not without great labour and toil, for the wind had
scattered them amongst the thorn-bushes of the valley. When they had
ranged them each after other in their due places, they found out their
sentence, as it is metrified in this octastich:

Thy fame upheld
(Properly, as corrected by O