we want only
a hatchet and a jet-stone to be laid together upon a quick fire of hot
embers. O how bravely Homer was versed in the practice hereof towards
Penelope's suitors! By onymancy; for that we have oil and wax. By
tephromancy. Thou wilt see the ashes thus aloft dispersed exhibiting thy
wife in a fine posture. By botanomancy; for the nonce I have some few
leaves in reserve. By sicomancy; O divine art in fig-tree leaves! By
icthiomancy, in ancient times so celebrated, and put in use by Tiresias and
Polydamas, with the like certainty of event as was tried of old at the
Dina-ditch within that grove consecrated to Apollo which is in the
territory of the Lycians. By choiromancy; let us have a great many hogs,
and thou shalt have the bladder of one of them. By cheromancy, as the bean
is found in the cake at the Epiphany vigil. By anthropomancy, practised by
the Roman Emperor Heliogabalus. It is somewhat irksome, but thou wilt
endure it well enough, seeing thou art destinated to be a cuckold. By a
sibylline stichomancy. By onomatomancy. How do they call thee?
Chaw-turd, quoth Panurge. Or yet by alectryomancy. If I should here with
a compass draw a round, and in looking upon thee, and considering thy lot,
divide the circumference thereof into four-and-twenty equal parts, then
form a several letter of the alphabet upon every one of them; and, lastly,
posit a barleycorn or two upon each of these so disposed letters, I durst
promise upon my faith and honesty that, if a young virgin cock be permitted
to range alongst and athwart them, he should only eat the grains which are
set and placed upon these letters, A. C.U.C.K.O.L.D. T.H.O.U. S.H.A.L.T.
B.E. And that as fatidically as, under the Emperor Valens, most
perplexedly desirous to know the name of him who should be his successor to
the empire, the cock vacticinating and alectryomantic ate up the pickles
that were posited on the letters T.H.E.O.D. Or, for the more certainty,
will you have a trial of your fortune by the art of aruspiciny, by augury,
or by extispiciny? By turdispiciny, quoth Panurge. Or yet by the mystery
of necromancy? I will, if you please, suddenly set up again and revive
someone lately deceased, as Apollonius of Tyane did to Achilles, and the
Pythoness in the presence of Saul; which body, so raised up and
requickened, will tell us the sum of all you shall require of him: no more
nor less than, at the invocation of Erictho, a certain defun