I don’t believe it.  The Form.

Ch. What a Story you tell?  ’Tis incredible.  What you say is not very likely.  You tell me a Fiction.  I don’t think ’tis true.  You tell me a monstrous Story.  Are you not asham’d to be guilty of so wicked a Lye?  This is a Fable fit to be put among Lucian’s Legends.

Pe. Nay, I tell you what is related by Authors of Credit, unless you think Aulus Gellius is not an Author of approv’d Credit.

Ch. Nay, whatsoever he has written are Oracles to me.

Pe. Do you think that a Divine dream’d so many Years?  For it is storied that he was a Divine.

Ch. I am with Child to hear.

The Answer.

Pe. What is it more than what Scotus and the School-men did afterwards?  But Epimenides, he came off pretty well, he came to himself again at last; but a great many Divines never wake out of their Dreams.

Ch. Well go on, you do like a Poet; But go on with your Lye.

Pe. Epimenides waking out of his Sleep, goes out of his Cave, and looks about him, and sees all Things chang’d, the Woods, the Banks, the Rivers, the Trees, the Fields; and, in short, there was nothing but was new:  He goes to the City, and enquires; he stays there a little While, but knows no Body, nor did any Body know him:  the Men were dress’d after another Fashion, than what they were before; they had not the same Countenances; their Speech was alter’d, and their Manners quite different:  Nor do I wonder it was so with Epimenides, after so many Years, when it was almost so with me, when I had been absent but a few Years.

Ch. But how do your Father and Mother do?  Are they living?

Pe. They are both alive and well; but pretty much worn out with old Age, Diseases, and lastly, with the Calamities of War.

Ch. This is the Comedy of human Life.  This is the inevitable Law of Destiny.

* * * * *

Words, Names of Affinity.

Pe. Will you sup at Home to Day?

Ch. I am to sup abroad:  I must go out to Supper.

Pe. With whom?

Ch. With my Father in Law; with my Son in Law; at my Daughter’s in Law; with my Kinsman.  They are call’d, Affines, Kinsmen, who are ally’d not by Blood, but Marriage.

Pe. What are the usual Names of Affinity?

Ch. A Husband and Wife are noted Names. Socer, Is my Wife’s Father. Gener, My Daughter’s Husband. Socrus, My Wife’s Mother. Nurus, My Son’s Wife. Levir, A Husband’s Brother. Levir is call’d by the Wife, as Helen calls Hector, Levir, because she was married to Paris. Fratria, My Brother’s Wife. Glos, A Husband’s Sister. Vitricus, My Mother’s Husband. Noverca, My Father’s Wife. Privignus, The Son of my Wife or Husband. Privigna, The Daughter of either of them. Rivalis, He that loves the same Woman another does. Pellex, She that loves the same Man another does; as Thraso is the Rival of Phroedria, and Europa the Pellex of Juno.