But in beginning, trust me well,
I shall make an invocation
With especial devotion
Unto the god of sleep anon,
Who dwells in a cave of stone
By a stream that comes from Lethe,
That flows out of Hell un-sweetly,
Near a folk men call Cimmerians.
There ever sleeps this god of dreams
With his thousand sleepy sons
For whom sleep ever is their wont.
And of this god whom I discuss
I pray that he’ll grant me success
My dream for to tell aright,
If over all dreams he has might.
And he that Mover is of all
That is and was and ever shall,
Grant them joy, who do this hear,
Of all that they dream this year,
And may they stand in good grace
With their loves, or in that place
Where they would most prefer to be,
Shield them from harm and poverty
And from misfortune and disease,
And send them what may them please
Who take it well and scorn it not
Nor condemn it in their thought
Through malicious inclination.
And whoever from presumption
Or hate or scorn, or out of envy,
Disdain, contempt or villainy,
Condemns it, pray I Jesus God
That – dream he barefoot, dream he shod –
Every harm that any man
Has known since the world began,
Befall him thereof, ere he end,
And grant he may the whole attend,
Lo, with such a conclusion
As he had, from his vision,
Croesus, King of Lydia, high
Who there upon a gibbet died!
This prayer shall he have of me;
For I am no better in charity!
Now hearken, as I have spoken,
To what I dreamed ere I had woken.