Chaunticleer and Pertelote Debate on the Significance on Dreams

Once upon a time, there lived a widow and his two daughters in a small cottage near a meadow. Among their possessions was a cock named Chaunticleer and seven hens. The loveliest of the hens was called Pertelote. She held the heart of Chaunticleer.

It so happened that in one spring dawn, Chaunticleer suddenly began to groom. When Pertelote asked him. “O herte dere, what eyleth you, to groan in this manere?” Chaunticleer then recounted a terrible dream he had of a kind of beast roaming in the yard. The beast resembled a fox and it was crying to seize him.

Pertelote did not give any importance to the words of Chaunticleer. She scolded him for his cowardice. She advised him; “there is nothing, God knows except folly in a dream.” She told Chaunticleer that he had dreamt because he ate too much. She added that he might have dreamt because of the great superfluity of red bile in him. She quotes ancient author Cato who remarked

“Attach no importance to dreams”

Then Pertelote suggested Chaunticleer that he should take a laxative, of laurel, centaury, fumitory or of hellebore or black them berries or of ivy.

Chaunticleer graciously thanked Pertelote but he quoted a few authors who maintained that dreams have a very definite meaning. He recalled a story of two pilgrims who reached a small town but did not find a single cottage in which thy both might be lodged. One of them was lodged with oxen in a stall but the other was lodged well enough and dreamt his fined saying that he would be murdered. He was also crying for help. The man took no heed of this and thought that his dream was just a fancy. Then in a second dream the companion appeared again and said that he had already been murdered and the murderer hid his body in a cast full of dung. He also told his friend every detail of how he had been slain. The next morning, the friend searched for his companion and found his dead body in a dung-cast. Thus he found his dream to be absolutely true.

Then Chaunticleer began another story to prove the significance of dreams. Two men were to set sail the next day but one of them dreamt that somebody warned him that if he started the next day he would be drowned he advised his companion to postpone their voyage, But the other man declared that he did not care a straw for his dreamings. Then he started his journey but accidentally the button of his ship split and the ship sank. This story teaches us that dreams should not be ignored.

Chaunticleer also requested Pertelote to read about Daniel’s and Joseph’s interpretation of dreams. He also reminded her of Andromache’s dream. This Greek lady dreamt that Hector, her husband would lose her life if that day he west to the battlefield. She warned Hector but he did not pay heed to him. He went out to fight and he was slain by Achilles.

Chaunticleer concluded his long speech by saying that he would suffer adversity in accordance with the dream he had dreamt. Finally he informed Pertelote that he would never take laxatives because he defied them.