‘Oh God in heaven, You are just and true. See how You have revealed the truth. “Murder will out.” That is the saying. Murder is so abominable a crime that God will not allow it to be concealed. It may take a year, or two, or three, but eventually it will be revealed and seen for what it is. The authorities took the carter and tortured him until he confessed; then he was hanged and his corpse cut down from the scaffold.
‘So you see, dear Pertelote, the real meaning of dreams. In the same book – in the very next chapter – there was another true story. Two men were about to pass over the ocean to a distant country, but the wind was against them. So they decided to stay in the city beside the harbour. Then, on the following day, in the evening, the wind had become favourable. The two men went to their beds in good spirits, in full expectation of being able to sail the next day.
‘But listen. One of these men had a strange dream. He thought he saw a man standing beside his bed, telling him to stay behind and not to sail. “If you leave tomorrow,” he said, “you will be drowned. There is no more to say.” The man woke and, rousing his companion, told him what he had seen and heard. He begged him to postpone the journey. But the fellow laughed and made fun of him. “I will never allow a dream,” he said, “to dictate my life. You must be joking. Dreams mean nothing at all. Men may dream of owls and apes and monstrous things. Men dream of events that have never been and never will be. But since I can see that you are determined to stay here and lose the tide, I must leave you. God knows I will miss your company, but so it must be. Farewell.”
‘So he took his leave, and went his way. Then it happened. I do not know how or why. Midway across the ocean the ship’s hull was breached, the crew and passengers drowned. There were other ships sailing with them, having left on the same tide, but they were undamaged. Therefore Pertelote, dear chick, from such examples you may learn that there is truth in dreams. I advise you not to ignore them. You do so at your peril.
‘I was reading the life of Saint Kenelm the other day. He was the son of Kenelphus, the king of Mercia in times gone by. Shortly before he was murdered Kenelm dreamed that he was about to be killed. He told his nurse about the dream, and she advised him to be careful and to watch out for traitors. But he was only seven years old; he was too young and too innocent to pay much regard to his dreams. But all came to pass. He was murdered by his own sister. It is a most terrible story, which I advise you to read.
‘Dame Pertelote my love, listen to what I have to say. The honourable Macrobius wrote a commentary on Cicero ’s Dream of Scipio, in which he declared that dreams can foretell the future. Not all of them – I grant you that – but some of them. Then, if you wish, dip into the Old Testament and see what is written in the Book of Daniel about the subject. You can read about Joseph, and about his dreams of the sheaves and of the sun. What about the pharaoh of Egypt? Ask his butler and his cook whether dreams mean anything. They were rightly interpreted by Joseph, for good or ill. Wherever there are true histories of mankind, there are reports of dreams and omens. Remember the king of Lydia, Croesus, who dreamed that he was sitting in a tree. Of course he was soon hanging on a gallows. And there was Andromache, the wife of Hector, who dreamed that on the following day her husband would be slain in battle. She tried to persuade him to avoid the field, but of course the dream came true. Hector was slain by Achilles outside the walls of Troy. It is a long story. It is almost dawn. I will say only this. I know from my dream that I will suffer some kind of misfortune. In any case, I do not need laxatives. I hate them. I distrust them. They are poison.
‘So, my dear, let us speak of merry things. God has given me one great blessing. It is you, my chick. Whenever I see your lovely face, with your beautiful red eyes and your gorgeous beak, I am happy. My fears dissolve. I know it has been written that woman is man’s ruin, but I prefer the other saying. “Woman is man’s delight and bliss.” When I feel your soft feathers at night – I can’t fuck you, of course, because our perch is too narrow – I feel safe and relaxed. I am so full of joy that I defy all the dreams in the world.’
And, with that, he flew down from his perch into the yard. It was dawn. With a crow and a cluck he woke up all of his wives, to feast on the corn scattered on the ground. He was manly. He was king of the yard. He put his wings around Pertelote, and fucked her, at least twenty times before the sun had risen much higher. He looked as strong as a lion. He did not strut in the yard like a common bird. He walked on tiptoe, as if he were about to rise in the air. Whenever he spied some more corn he clucked some more, and all his wives came running over. I will leave you with this picture of Chanticleer, monarch of all he surveys, and carry on with the story.
It was the beginning of May – 3 May, to be exact. Chanticleer was strutting up and down the yard, with his seven wives by his side. He glanced up at the sky, and saw that the sun had entered the sign of the bull; by instinct, and nothing else, he realized that it was coming up to nine o’clock. So he crowed his heart out. ‘The sun,’ he said to Pertelote, ‘has climbed forty degrees by my reckoning. No. I tell a lie. Forty-one degrees. My dear chick, listen to the singing of your sister birds. Just look at the bright flowers bursting into bloom. My heart is full!’ Yet in a moment ill fortune would befall him. The end of joy is always woe. God knows that happiness in this world is fleeting. If there was a proper poet to hand, he could write all this down in a book as a sovereign truth. But you must listen to me and learn. I swear to you that this story is as true as the adventures of Sir Lancelot, fervently believed by all good women. I will continue.
There was a fox, tipped with black from head to toe, who was a very model of slyness and iniquity. He had dwelled in a forest, near the old woman’s cottage, for three years. The previous night, as high fortune had dictated, the fox burst through the hedge that protected the yard where Chanticleer and his wives were accustomed to take the air. He lay concealed in a bed of cabbages until the following morning, ready to seize the proud cock at the first opportunity. That is what assassins do, when they are waiting for their prey. They hide, and they plot. Oh false murderer, lying among the cabbages! You are no better than Judas Iscariot. You are worse than Genylon, who betrayed brave Roland. You false traitor. You are another Synon, who caused the wooden horse to be brought into Troy. Oh Chanticleer you will curse the morning when you flew down from your perch. You were forewarned in your dreams that this day would be hurtful to you, but you spread your wings none the less. Well, as some wise clerks say, what will be will be. God has made it so. There is much debate and argument on the point, among the schoolmen. Thousands of them have disputed on the claims of free will and necessity. I really don’t have the wit to solve the conundrum. Augustine has tried. Boethius has tried. Thomas Bradwardyn has tried. Remember him? There are those who believe that all is predestined and prejudged in the fathomless mind of God. But there are others who distinguish between providence and destiny. It is not necessary that things happen because they have been ordained but, rather, things that do happen have indeed been ordained. It is too much for me. I am telling a tale of a cock and a fox. That is all. I am relating the sad story of a bird that was persuaded by his wife to ignore his dream and to strut around the farmyard.