36 JEROME CARDAN 



if this affair should come to the issue I most desire, I 

 must needs fly the place/ From that same hour these 

 thoughts and others akin to them possessed my brain, 

 which was only too ready to harbour them, and I felt 

 it would be better to die than to live on in such per- 

 plexity. Thenceforth I was as one love-possessed, or 

 even burnt up with passion, and I understood what 

 meaning I might gather from the reading of my dream. 

 Moreover I was by this time freed from the chain 

 which had held me back from marriage. Thus I, a 

 willing bridegroom, took a willing bride, her kinsfolk 

 questioning us how this thing had been brought about, 

 and offering us any help which might be of service ; 

 which help indeed proved of very substantial benefit. 



" But the interpretation of my dreams did not work 

 itself out entirely in the after life of my wife ; it made 

 itself felt likewise in the lives of my children. My wife 

 lived with me fifteen years, and alas ! this ill-advised 

 marriage was the cause of all the misfortunes which 

 subsequently happened to me. These must have come 

 about either by the working of the divine will, or as 

 the recompense due for some ill deeds wrought by 

 myself or by my forefathers." l 



The dream aforesaid was not the only portent having 

 reference to his marriage. After describing shakings 

 and tremblings of his bed, for which indeed a natural 

 cause was not far to seek, he tells how in 1531 a certain 

 dog, of gentle temper as a rule, and quiet, kept up a 

 persistent howling for a long time ; how some ravens 

 perched on the house-top and began croaking in an 

 unusual manner ; and how, when his servant was 

 breaking up a faggot, some sparks of fire flew out of the 

 same ; whereupon, " by an unlooked-for step I married 

 1 De Vita Propria, ch. xxvi. p. 68 ; Opera, torn. i. p. 97. 



