The Dream, or the Cock (4-6)

That is what they say, Micyllus, I grant you; but my own experience has been quite different, and it is only just lately that I changed into a cock.

How? That is what I want to know above all else.

Have you ever heard of a man named Pythagoras, the son of Mnesarchus, of Samos?

You mean the sophist, the quack, who made laws against tasting meat and eating beans, banishing from the table the food that I for my part like best of all, and then trying to persuade people that before he became Pythagoras he was Euphorbus (Well-

I am that very Pythagoras, Micyllus, so stop abusing me, my good friend, especially as you do not know what sort of man I really was.

Now this is far more miraculous than the other thing! A philosopher cock! Tell me, though, son of Mnesarchus, how you became a cock instead of a man and a Tanagriote instead of a Samian.[*] This story is not plausible nor quite easy to believe, for I think Ihave observed two things in you that are quite foreign to Pythagoras.

What are they?

One thing is that you are very noisy and loudvoiced, whereas he recommended silence for five whole years, I believe. The other is actually quite illegal; I came home yesterday, as you know, with nothing but beans to throw you, and you picked them up without even hesitating. So it must be either that you have told a lie and are someone else, or, if you are Pythagoras, you have broken the law and committed as great an impiety in eating beans as if you had eaten your father’s head.[*]

Why, Micyllus, you don’t know what the reason for these rules is, and what is good for particular modes of existence. Formerly I did not eat beans because I was a philosopher, but now I can eat them because they are fit food for a bird and are not forbidden to us. But listen if you like, and I'll tell you how from Pythagoras I became what I am, and what existences I formerly led, and what I profited by each change.

Do tell me, for I should be more than delighted to hear it. Indeed, if anyone were to let me choose whether I preferred to hear you tell a story like that or to have once more that blissful dream I had a little while ago, I don’t know which would be my choice; for in my estimation what you say is close akin to the most delightful of visions, and I hold you both in equal esteem, you and my priceless dream.

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?

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.

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”[*] 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.

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?

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.

Not through either of them, Pythagoras.

Well, Homer mentions only those two.[*]

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

Stop babbling of gold, most noble Midas. Really your dream was just like Midas’ prayer, and you appear to me to have slept yourself into whole goldmines.