The laughable stories collected by Mâr Gregory John Bar Hebræ

STORIES OF DREAMS AND DIVINATIONS.
IO3
"Dormiens favum edere ad focum visus
sum et postea
"mel quod e favo effluxerat." Cui responsum est,
"Deorum igitur iram pertimesce et coire desine cum
"ista quae te lactavit."
CCCCX. A certain woman said to one of the wise
men, "I saw in my dream that a black cat went
"into my husband's belly, and that it brought forth
"something therefrom which it ate." He said to her,
"If thy dream be really thus, in the coming night a
"certain black thief will break into thy husband's shop
"and will steal therefrom a hundred and fifteen zuze"-'.'
And when that day was passed and the night had
come, the man's shop was broken into, and that exact
sum of money was found to have been stolen. And
when the man who heated the bath had captured the
black man and beaten him, he confessed that it was
he who had broken into the shop. And when the
people asked the interpreter of dreams, saying, "How
"couldst thou [find] out these things by divination.-*"
he said, "The interpretation of cat is a thief, and the
"blackness thereof was an indication of the colour of
"the thief; the belly indicated a storehouse, and the
"number of the zuze was indicated by the numerical
"values of the letters which form the word 'cat'^"
CCCCXI. Dixit alius quidam somniorum interpret!,
"Dormienti mihi vestes sanguine perfundi visi sunt
"quem cum in puteal expresseram, iterum perfun-
"debantur." Cui responsum est, "Nefasto cum quadam
"coitu diu fruitus es at nondum tui poenitult."
^ /. e., about £2.17.6 of our money.
^
The Syriac word is