By ceromancy, where, by the means of wax dissolved
into water, thou shalt see the figure, portrait, and
lively representation of thy future wife, and of her
fredin fredaliatory belly-thumping blades. By
capnomancy. O the gallantest and most excellent
of all secrets! By axionomancy; we want only
a hatchet and a jet-stone to be laid together upon
a quick fire of hot embers. O how bravely Homer
was versed in the practice hereof towards Penelope’s
suitors! By onymancy; for that we have oil and
wax. By tephromancy. Thou wilt see the
ashes thus aloft dispersed exhibiting thy wife in
a fine posture. By botanomancy; for the nonce
I have some few leaves in reserve. By sicomancy;
O divine art in fig-tree leaves! By icthiomancy,
in ancient times so celebrated, and put in use by Tiresias
and Polydamas, with the like certainty of event as
was tried of old at the Dina-ditch within that grove
consecrated to Apollo which is in the territory of
the Lycians. By choiromancy; let us have a great
many hogs, and thou shalt have the bladder of one
of them. By cheromancy, as the bean is found
in the cake at the Epiphany vigil. By anthropomancy,
practised by the Roman Emperor Heliogabalus.
It is somewhat irksome, but thou wilt endure it well
enough, seeing thou art destinated to be a cuckold.
By a sibylline stichomancy. By onomatomancy.
How do they call thee? Chaw-turd, quoth Panurge.
Or yet by alectryomancy. If I should here with
a compass draw a round, and in looking upon thee, and
considering thy lot, divide the circumference thereof
into four-and-twenty equal parts, then form a several
letter of the alphabet upon every one of them; and,
lastly, posit a barleycorn or two upon each of these
so disposed letters, I durst promise upon my faith
and honesty that, if a young virgin cock be permitted
to range alongst and athwart them, he should only eat
the grains which are set and placed upon these letters,
A. C.U.C.K.O.L.D. T.H.O.U. S.H.A.L.T.
B.E. And that as fatidically as, under the Emperor
Valens, most perplexedly desirous to know the name
of him who should be his successor to the empire,
the cock vacticinating and alectryomantic ate up the
pickles that were posited on the letters T.H.E.O.D.
Or, for the more certainty, will you have a trial
of your fortune by the art of aruspiciny, by augury,
or by extispiciny? By turdispiciny, quoth Panurge.
Or yet by the mystery of necromancy? I will,
if you please, suddenly set up again and revive someone
lately deceased, as Apollonius of Tyane did to Achilles,
and the Pythoness in the presence of Saul; which body,
so raised up and requickened, will tell us the sum
of all you shall require of him: no more nor
less than, at the invocation of Erictho, a certain
defunct person foretold to Pompey the whole progress
and issue of the fatal battle fought in the Pharsalian
fields. Or, if you be afraid of the dead, as
commonly all cuckolds are, I will make use of the
faculty of sciomancy.