“But before I fall to pieces again, as you saw me e’en now (for better so than worse) I beseech ye, one word more, and it shall be my last. Who’s King of Spain now?” “You know,” said I, “that Philip the 3rd is dead.” “Right,” quoth he, “a prince of incomparable piety, and virtue (or my stars deceive me).” “After him,” said I, “came Philip the 4th.” “If it be so,” quoth he, “break, break my bottle immediately, and help me out; for I am resolved to try my fortune in the world once again, under the reign of that glorious prince.” And with that word, he dashed the glass to pieces against a rock, crept out of his case and away he ran. I had a good mind to have kept him company; but as I was just about to start, “Let him go, let him go,” cried one of the dead, and laid hold of my arm. “He has devilish heels, and you’ll never overtake him.”
So I stayed, and what should I see next but a wondrous old man, whose name might have been Bucephalus by his head; and the hair on his face might very well have stuffed a couple of cushions: take him together, and you’ll find his picture in the map, among the savages. I need not tell ye that I stared upon him sufficiently; and he taking notice of it, came to me, and told me: “Friend,” says he, “my spirit tells me that you are now in pain to know who I am; understand that my name is Nostradamus.” “Are you the author, then,” quoth I, “of that gallimaufry of prophecies that’s published in your name?” “Gallimaufry say’st thou? Impudent and barbarous rascal that thou art; to despise mysteries that are above thy reach, and to revile the secretary of the stars, and the interpreter of the destinies; who is so brutal as to doubt the meaning of these lines?
“From second causes, this I gather,
Nought shall befall us, good, or ill,
Either upon the land or water,
But what the Great Disposer will.
“Reprobated and besotted villains that ye are! what greater blessing could betide the world than the accomplishment of this prophecy? would it not establish justice and holiness, and suppress all the vile suggestions and motions of the devil? Men would not then any longer set their hearts upon avarice, cozening, and extortion; and make money their god, that vagabond money, that’s perpetually trotting up and down like a wandering whore, and takes up most commonly with the unworthy, leaving the philosophers and prophets, which are the very oracles of the heavens (such as Nostradamus) to go barefoot. But let’s go on with our prophecies, and see if they be so frivolous and dark, as the world reports them.
“When the married shall marry,
Then the jealous will be sorry;
And though fools will be talking,
To keep their tongues walking;
No man runs well I find,
But with’s elbows behind.”
This gave me such a fit of laughing that it made me cast my nose up into the air, like a stone-horse that hath got a mare in the wind: which put the astrologer out of all patience. “Buffoon, and dog-whelp, as ye are,” quoth he, “there’s a bone for you to pick; you must be snarling and snapping at everything. Will your teeth serve ye now to fetch out the marrow of this prophecy? Hear then in the devil’s name, and be mannerly. Hear, and learn I say, and let’s have no more of that grinning, unless ye have a mind to leave your beard behind ye. Do you imagine that all that are married marry? No, not the one half of them. When you are married, the priest has done his part; but after that, to marry, is to do the duty of a husband. Alack! how many married men live as if they were single; and how many bachelors on the other side, as if they were married! after the mode of the times. And wedlock to divers couples is no other than a more sociable state of virginity. Here’s one half of my prophecy expounded already, now for the rest. Let me see you run a little for experiment, and try if you carry your elbows before, or behind. You’ll tell me perhaps, that this is ridiculous, because everybody knows it. A pleasant shift: as if truth were the worse for being plain. The things indeed that you deliver for truths are for the most part mere fooleries and mistakes; and it were a hard matter to put truth in such a dress as would please ye. What have ye to say now, either against my prophecy or my argument? not a syllable I warrant ye, and yet somewhat there is to be said, for there’s no rule without an exception. Does not the physician carry his elbow before him, when he puts back his hand to take his patient’s money? And away he’s gone in a trice, so soon as he has made his purchase. But to proceed, here’s another of my prophecies for ye,
“Many women shall be mothers,
And their babbies,
Their n’own daddies.
“What say ye to this now? are there not many husbands do ye think (if the truth were known) that father more children than their own? Believe me, friend, a man had need have good security upon a woman’s belly, for children are commonly made in the dark, and ’tis no easy matter to know the workman, especially having nothing but the woman’s bare word for’t. This is meant of the court of assistance; and whoever interprets my prophecies to the prejudice of any person of honour, abuses me. You little think what a world of our gay folks in their coaches and six, with lackeys at their heels by the dozens, will be found at the last day, to be only the bastards of some pages, gentlemen-ushers, or valets de chambre of the family; nay perchance the physician may have had his hand in the wrong box, and in case of a necessity, good use has been made of a lusty coachman. Little do you think (I say) how many noble families upon that grand discovery, will be found extinct for want of issue.”
“I am now convinced,” said I to the mathematician, “of the excellency of your predictions; and I perceive (since you have been pleased to be your own interpreter) that they have more weight in them than we were aware of.” “Ye shall have one more,” quoth he, “and I have done.
“This year, if I’ve any skill i’ th’ weather,
Shall many a one take wing with a feather.