By no means, Sir, quoth Sidrophel,
The stars your coming did foretell; 550
I did expect you here, and knew,
Before you spake,[1] your business too.
Quoth Hudibras, Make that appear,
And I shall credit whatsoe'er
You tell me after, on your word, 555
Howe'er unlikely, or absurd.
You are in love, Sir, with a widow,
Quoth he, that does not greatly heed you,
And for three years has rid your wit
And passion, without drawing bit; 560
And now your business is to know
If you shall carry her or no.
Quoth Hudibras, You're in the right,
But how the devil you come by't
I can't imagine; for the stars, 565
I'm sure, can tell no more than a horse:
Nor can their aspects, tho' you pore
Your eyes out on 'em, tell you more
Than th' oracle of sieve and sheers,[2]
That turns as certain as the spheres; 570
But if the Devil's of your counsel,
Much may be done, my noble donzel;[3]
- ↑ Var. "Know before you speak," edit. of 1689.
- ↑ Scot thus describes this practice, which he calls Coscinomancy. "Put a paire of sheeres in the rim of a sieve, and let two persons set the tip of each of their forefingers upon the upper part of the sheers, holding it with the sieve up from the ground steadily, and ask St Peter and St Paul whether A. B. or C. hath stolen the thing lost, and at the nomination of the guilty person the sieve will turne round." Discovery of Witchcraft, book xii. ch. xvii. 262. The Coskinomant, or diviner by a sieve, is mentioned by Theocritus, Idyll ii. 31 (Bohn's transl. p. 19). The Greek practice differed very little from that which has been stated above. They tied a thread to the sieve, or fixed it to a pair of shears, which they held between two fingers. After addressing themselves to the gods, they repeated the names of the suspected persons; and he, at whose name the sieve turned round, was adjudged guilty. This mode of divination was popular iu rural districts to a very late period, and is not yet entirely exploded. See Brand's Popular Antiquities (Bohn's edit.), vol. iii. p. 351.
- ↑ Butler says, in his character of a Squire of Dames (Remains, vol. ii. p. 39), "he is donzel to the damzels, and gentleman usher daily waiter on the ladies, and rubs out his time in making legs and love to them." The word is likewise used in Ben Jonson's Alchemist. Donzel, a diminutive
