5
What, are you still brooding on that vision, whatever it was that came to you, and are you still cherishing idle delusions, hunting down in your memory a vain and (as they say in poetry) disembodied happiness?
6
Why, I shall never forget that vision, cock, you may be sure. The dream left so much honied sweetness in my eyes when it went away that I can hardly open my lids, for it drags them down in sleep again. In fact, what I saw gave me as pleasant a titillation as a feather twiddled in one’s ear.
6
Heracles! By what you say, Master Dream is an adept indeed. Rumour says that he has wings and can fly to the limit set by sleep, but now he “jumps over the pit”The metaphor comes from the proverbial jump of Phayllus. Fifty feet of ground had been broken to form a pit for the jumpers to alight in, but Phayllus, they say, came down on the solid ground, five feet beyond the pit. and lingers in eyes that are open, presenting himself in a form so honey-sweet and palpable. At all events I should be glad to hear what he is like, since you hold him so very dear.
6
I am ready to tell; in fact, it will be delightful to think and talk about it. But when are you going to tell me about your transmigrations, Pythagoras?
6
When you stop dreaming, Micyllus, and rub the honey out of your eyes. At present, you speak first, so that I may find out whether it was through the gates of ivory or the gates of horn that the dream winged its way to you.
6
Not through either of them, Pythagoras.
6
Well, Homer mentions only those two.Od. 19, 562. The truthful dreams use the gates of horn, the deceitful the gates of ivory.
6
Let that silly poet go hang! He knows nothing about dreams. Perhaps the beggarly dreams go out through those gates, dreams like those he used to see; and he couldn’t see them very plainly at that, for he was blind! But my darling dream came through gates of gold, and it was gold itself and all dressed in gold and brought heaps of gold with it.
