A post in two parts.
On How to Dream of a Lady Whom you Loved yet never Possessed
Avail yourself of and give heartfelt praise to your solitude, since the fleshliness of your dreams seeks the solitary and ethereal. Prepare your couch upon an open veranda, facing south, that you may clearly survey all the constellations in the firmament, the commonplace Pleiades together with the radiant Alektor. Betake yourself to bed at the eleventh hour or thereabouts, having previously sprinkled your pillow with five or six droplets of aromatic liquid known as the tears of Christ (lacrimae Christi), for He too loved yet possessed not. Whereupon, see to it that you sleep undisturbed and soundly for at least four hours.
When four hours have thus passed, move slightly and assume the position of the embryo in the belly, viz. place your right hand as your pillow and draw up your legs like wings enfolded. Thereafter, reflect, though sleeping still, on all that you possessed and lost, all you possess and are losing, not so to grieve, but on the vanity of it. Whereupon, once you feel a rush of tears sweeping you out to sea, take from within you a musical instrument, no matter whether lute, mandolin or drum, and strike up most passionately and rhythmically as in a dream. And set the melodious paths of the verses that become you all around indiscriminately as garlands to safeguard you, yet neglect not the melodious path of Lethe and play this unfailingly twice and thrice. Whereat, shining before you will appear trails of dreams, some black as pitch, some of reddish hue and others the colour of saffron. WIthout more ado yet with no little awe, take the one dream path that leads you to your heart's desire and follow it with utmost care for at least fifty miles. For here is the place that deep in the night you will find her sitting all alone upon a rock, or in her master's dwelling, or wedded to another and busy with her household and content.
Then come up to her most softly that she may not awaken and be alarmed and call to her within you, as only you know, O Irene, O Lucy, O Elspeth, O Christina. And, if she still hearkens and feels for you, she will turn towards you, as in dreaming, and you will say to her in the Romaic tongue, "Regard how because of you I am alone and my tears rejoice in you, for you have gladdened me this night, my Sweetest." Say to her no more than this since it is not expedient, given that time is pressing, but turn back once more and make your return. Yet should she not hearken to you when you address her and no longer feel for you on account of the length apart, do not be embittered or grieve overly much, for you were worthy of her shade and image. Whereupon, collect yourself and seek another more amenable.
If you would employ dreams in such a manner, take care not to exceed two or three each year. The most propitious time is August, on the sixth day, the feast of the first fruits and our Saviour's Transfiguration, or on the morrow of the Assumption, feast of the Holy Shroud, unless, that is, this falls on a Sunday. Otherwise, do this in August, on the twenty-ninth day, fest of the Precursor's Beheading.
Part two is located infra.
On How to Possess a Woman in Dream
If you are oft visited by the dream of a woman who is at once hazy and insubstantial and who at times flutters around you like a creature of the air and at others swims around you like one of the sea so that you are unable to grasp her, know that this is because your desire for her is likewise hazy and insubstantial. Wherefore, should you wish to savour her in flesh and wholly naked, meditate upon either the lone hunter or the sleepless fisherman and catch her as follows. First instruct yourself in the path of her habits and follow her in dream for no less than thirty days in succession and let neither the stream of her air nor the wisp of her fragrance escape you. When you are fully versed in all her currents and the secret pathways to which her limbs turn to find sustenance and her thoughts to find refreshment, choose a night most dark and give yourself to slumber for three hours of the clock.
When this fanciful creature comes to you in dream and you espy your reverie approaching you as a bird flittering all about you in the hills of fantasy, take the dregs of aged wine and mix these well with wheat or other cereals and scatter this same over the place where she is wont to walk. Thereafter, betake yourself to the same place and when you see her eating of the grains and becomine inebriate, speak to her as you wish and say to her "O the one vision of my life, nocturnal and hapless. Regard how I sit at your marble window that I may gaze upon you, my Jewel and my Gem, who ever fades and vanishes before me so that my arms are left ever clutching at the darkness. Come, my Truest, disperse my dream's haze and discard your flimsiness." Straightway, she will unfold her wings and fly to you in her inebriety, yet also in her amoursness. Whereupon, reach out through the dream's window and grasp her most gently by her plumage and draw her within to where you are sitting and gazing and put her to your breast that she may take heart.
When, anon, four hours have elapsed and the cockerels of the earth awaken you, you will see her in all truth sitting upon your couch in her fleshliness and nakedness. Whereupon, she now being the possession and discovery of your dreams, nuzzle her most diligently and lubricate her feathers, beaks and tongues and rummage her in the way and the magnificence of the swan that mounts and closes with a woman.
If again she comes to you in dream and you see her floating on the breeze like a fish in the sea and you feel her black waters washing over and drowning you, fashion forthwith a lantern of glass or crystal, in such a way tha the water cannot enter and render its base of wood and watertight. Keep it tightly sealed and place within it a candle or wick, attaching lead that it may sink but not be snuffed. And let it have ar ing that you may tie it and lower it into the sea. Once you see a myriad of womanly forms swarming around the light, take up your net and land the one that stings you most with her scales and barbs and assails you with her tail, saying to her "O my white waters and mermaid sea. I am unable to cross you for I ever sink and swallow brine. Leave the sea's waves and the murky depths behind and I shall await you on the water's surface. For I am mortal, my Slippery one, and am drowning." Then she will arise from the see like a mysterious luminescence and thrice she will ask you the same question. And likewise you will answer thrice and awaken. And upon waking, you will see her naked and wet, writing at your side, just as a real woman. Grasp her then by the tail and open her in womanly fashion and as you stoke her, buffeted and dizzy as you are from the pounding of her waves, take hold of her breasts and her breasts' nipples and imbibe the milk of the sister of one who in olden times was called Alexander.
[being chapters 21 and 22 of the Eroticon of Yoryis Yatromanolakis, done into plain English by David Connolly.]
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