"And all this I tell thee," said he further, "that thou mayest not hold it for an impossible thing that a man's memory should be excellently strengthened and maintained, even as it may, on the other hand, be in many ways weakened and even altogether destroyed. For in man there is no faculty so fleeting as that of memory: for by reason of sickness, terror, fear, or trouble and grief, it either vanisheth away or loseth a great part of its virtue. So do we read of a learned man at Athens that after a stone had fallen on his head he forgot all he had ever learned, even to his alphabet. So too another, by reason of sickness, came to this, that he forgot his own servant's name: and Messala Corvinus knew not his own name, though aforetime he had a good memory. And a priest who had sucked blood from his own veins thereupon forgot how to read and write, yet otherwise kept his memory, and when after a year's time he had again drunken of the same blood at the same place and the same time, could again write and read. So if a man eat bear's brains, 'tis said he will fall into such a craze and strong delusion as if he himself were turned into a bear; as is shewn by the example of a Spanish nobleman who, having eaten of it, ran wild in the woods and could believe nought else but that he was a bear. My good Simplicissimus, had thy master but known this art, thou mightest well have been changed into a bear like Callisto, rather than into a bull like Jupiter." The pastor told me much more of the same sort, gave me more of his medicament, and instructed me as to my carriage for the time to come. So with that I betook myself home again, and with me more than one hundred boys, which all ran after me and again cried after me like calves: insomuch that my master, who was now risen, ran to the window, and when he saw so many fools all at once, was so gracious as to laugh heartily thereat. _Chap. ix._: CROOKED PRAISE OF A PROPER LADY Now no sooner was I come into the house but I must forthwith to the parlour, for there were noble ladies with my lord which desired much to see and to hear his new fool. There I appeared and stood a-gaping like a dummy: whereupon she whom I had before caught at the dance took occasion to say she had been told this calf could speak, but now she did plainly perceive 'twas not true. Whereto I made answer I had also heard apes could not speak, but now could plainly hear 'twas not so. "What;" says my lord, "opinest thou, then, that these ladies be apes?" So I answered, "Be they not so already, yet they soon will be: for who knoweth how things will go; Yea, I myself had never expected to become a calf; and yet am I that same." Then my lord would ask me whereby I could tell that these ladies should become apes: so I answered him, "Our ape here carrieth his hinder parts naked, but these ladies do so carry their bosom: which other maidens be wont to cover."