Dreams

GENESIS 37-50 reveals Joseph, empowered by God to do so, could accurately interpret dreams, first of Pharaoh’s butler and baker and then those of Pharaoh himself.  The Pharaoh had dreamed first of seven “fine looking and fat cows” eaten up by seven “ugly and gaunt cows” and then of seven withered and blighted ears of corn that “devoured” seven good and plump ears of corn. Joseph, in turn, rightly interprets his dream to mean that “seven years of great plenty will come throughout all the land of Egypt; but after them seven years of famine will arise…”  Chanticleer attempts to persuade his wife, Pertelote, that some of his dreams envelop prophetic truth, just like Joseph’s did: “Reed eek of Joseph, and ther shul ye see / Wher dremes be somtyme—I sey nat alle— / Warnynge of thynges that shul after falle. / Looke of Egipte the kyng, daun Pharao, / His bakere and his butiller also, / Where they ne felte noon effect in dremes.”