This is the interpretation of the dream; the three baskets be three days yet to come, after which Pharaoh shall smite off thy head and shall hang thee on the cross, and the birds shall tear thy flesh.  And the third day after this Pharaoh made a great feast unto his children, and remembered him, among the meals, on the master butler and the master baker.  He restored his butler unto his office, and to serve him of the cup, and that other was hanged, that the truth of the interpreter was believed and proved.  Notwithstanding the master butler in his wealth forgat Joseph his interpreter.

Two years after Pharaoh saw in his sleep a dream.  Him thought he stood upon the river, from which he saw seven oxen ascend to the land which were fair and right fat, and were fed in a fat pasture; he saw other seven come out of the river, poor and lean, and were fed in places plenteous and burgeoning.  These devoured the other that were so fat and fair.  Herewith he started out of his sleep, and after slept again, and saw another dream.  He saw seven ears of corn standing on one stalk, full and fair of corns, and as many other ears void and smitten with drought, which devoured the beauty of the first seven.  In the morning Pharaoh awoke and was greatly afeard of these dreams, and sent for all conjectors and diviners of Egypt, and wise men; and when they were gathered he told to them his dream, and there was none that could interpret it.  Then at last the master butler, remembering Joseph, said:  I knowledge my sin, on a time the king being wroth with his servants, sent me and the master of the bakers into prison, where we in one night dreamed both prodigies of things coming.  And there was a child of the Hebrews, servant to the jailer, to whom we told our dreams and he expounded them to us and said what should happen; I am restored to mine office and that other is hanged on the cross.

Anon, by the king’s commandment, Joseph was taken out of prison and shaved, bathed, and changed his clothes, and brought tofore Pharaoh, to whom he said:  I saw a dream which I have showed unto wise men, and there is none that can tell me the interpretation thereof.  To whom Joseph answered:  God shall answer by me things prosperous to Pharaoh.  Then Pharaoh told to him his dreams, like as is tofore written, of the seven fat oxen and seven lean, and how the lean devoured the fat, and in likewise of the ears.  Joseph answered:  The king’s dreams are one thing which God hath showed to Pharaoh.  The seven fat oxen and the seven ears full, betoken seven years to come of great plenty and commodious, and the seven lean oxen, and the seven void ears smitten with drought, betoken seven years after them of great hunger and scarcity.  Lo! there shall come first seven years of great fertility and plenty in all the land of Egypt, after whom shall follow other seven years of so great sterility, barrenness, and scarcity, that the abundance of the first shall be all forgotten.  The great