the
sleeper's rest and ease disturbed and broken, whereof the first feeling and
stinging smart admonisheth that he must patiently endure great pain and
trouble, and thereunto provide some remedy; as when we say proverbially, to
incense hornets, to move a stinking puddle, and to awake a sleeping lion,
instead of these more usual expressions, and of a more familiar and plain
meaning, to provoke angry persons, to make a thing the worse by meddling
with it, and to irritate a testy choleric man when he is at quiet. On the
other part, to presage or foretell an evil, especially in what concerneth
the exploits of the soul in matter of somnial divinations, is as much to
say as that it giveth us to understand that some dismal fortune or
mischance is destinated and prepared for us, which shortly will not fail to
come to pass. A clear and evident example hereof is to be found in the
dream and dreadful awaking of Hecuba, as likewise in that of Eurydice, the
wife of Orpheus, neither of which was (no) sooner finished, saith Ennius,
but that incontinently thereafter they 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 unt