“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,