De Josepho

For he thought that seven oxen were coming slowly up out of the river, fat and very well fleshed, beautiful to look upon, and that they began to feed by the river; after which seven others, equal in number, destitute of flesh in a strange degree, and very lean, came up, exceedingly ill-favoured, and

and when he had awakened and gone to sleep a second time, he had a second vision appear to him; for he thought that seven ears of wheat sprang up from one root, equal in magnitude, and that they grew and flourished, and rose up to a height with great vigour; and then that seven other ears, thin and weak, grew up near them, and the root with good ears was devoured by the weak ears when they too had grown up.

Seeing this sight he remained sleepless all the rest of the night, for cares stinging and wounding him kept him awake, and at dawn he sent for the sophists and related his dream;

and as none of them was able, by any probable conjectures, to trace out the truth, the chief butler came forward and said, "O master, there is a hope that you may find the man whom you are seeking; for when I and the chief baker had done evil against you you ordered us to be committed to prison; and in that prison there was a servant of the chief cook, a Hebrew, to whom both the chief baker and I related some dreams which had appeared to us, and he answered them with such felicity and accuracy of interpretation, that all that he foretold to either of us came to pass, the punishment to the chief baker, which was appointed to him, and I found you favourable and merciful to me."

Therefore the king hearing these things, orders men to go in haste and summon the young man before him; but they having cut his hair, for the hair, both of his head and of his beard, had grown very long while he was kept in prison, and having given him a splendid garment instead of a sordid one, and having adorned him in other ways, led him before the king;

who, perceiving from his appearance that he was a free-born and noble man (for there are certain outward characteristics which are stamped upon the persons of some people whom one sees, which are not visible to all, but only to such as have very clear-sighted eyes in their mind), said, "My soul forebodes that my dreams will not be altogether permanently hidden in uncertainty; for this young man exhibits an appearance of wisdom, by which he

But Joseph, without being at all dismayed at the rank and majesty of the speaker, conversed with him rather as a king with a subject than like a subject with a king, using freedom of speech, though mingled with respect, and he said: "God has shown you before what he is about to do in your country. Do not imagine that the two visions which have appeared to thee are two different dreams; they are but one and the reduplication of them is not superfluous, but is intended to produce the conviction of a firmer belief;

for the seven fat oxen, and the seven flourishing and vigorous ears of corn, show seven years of great fertility and plenty; and the seven lean and ill-favoured oxen which came up after the fat ones, and the seven withered and shrivelled - ears of corn, denote seven other years of famine;

therefore the first period of seven years thus denoted will arrive first, having great and abundant fertility of crops, in which the river will every year overflow all the land of Egypt with inundations, and all the plains, as if they had never been irrigated or fertilised before.

And after these years there will come a period of seven years entirely contrary to them bringing with it a terrible want and scarcity of necessary things, during which time the river will not overflow, nor will the earth be fertilised, so that it will forget its former prosperity, and so that all that was left from the former abundance of the crops will be consumed.

"This then is the interpretation of the dreams which have appeared to you. But there is something divine which prompts me and communicates some suggestions to me which may be salutary in this disease; and the most terrible disease of all cities and countries is famine, which must be checked or mitigated to some degree that it may not be so exceedingly strong as to devour the inhabitants;