The Cock (6-10)

Micyllus Ah, cock, cock, I shall never forget it. That dream has left its honeyed spell on my eyelids; ’tis all I can do to open them; they would fain close once more in sleep. As a feather tickles the ear, so did that vision tickle my imagination.

Cock Bless me, you seem to be very hard hit. Dreams are winged, so they say, and their flight circumscribed by sleep: this one seems to have broken bounds, and taken up its abode in wakeful eyes, transferring thither its honeyed spell, its lifelike presence, Tell me this dream of your desire.

Micyllus With all my heart; it is a joy to remember it, and to speak of it. But what about your transformations?

Cock They must wait till you have done dreaming, and wiped the honey from your eyelids. So you begin: I want to see which gates the dream came through, the ivory or the horn.

Micyllus Through neither.

Cock Well, but these are the only two that Homer mentions.

Micyllus Homer may go hang: what does a babbling poet know about dreams? Pauper dreams may come through those gates, for all I know; that was the kind that Homer saw, and not over clearly at that, as he was blind. But my beauty came through golden gates, golden himself and clothed i in gold and bringing gold.

Cock Enough of gold, most gentle Midas; for to a Midasptayer it is that I trace your vision; you must have dreamt whole minefuls.

Cock Too well do I know it, after starving all day long. It was quite late before you came home—half-seas over—and

Micyllus Well, so when I got back, and had given is the beans, I went to sleep, and Through the ambrosial night a dream divine— ah, divine indeed!—

Cock Wait: let us have Eucrates first. What sort of a dinner wasit? Tell me all about it. Seize the opportunity: dine once more in waking dream; chew the cud of prandial reminiscence.

Micyllus I thought all that would bore you; however, if you are curious, all right. I had never dined at a great house in my life before, when yesterday, in a lucky hour for me, I fell in with Eucrates. After saluting him respectfully as usual, I was making off—not to bring discredit on him by walking at his side in my shabby clothes—when he spoke to me: ‘Micyllus,’ he said, ‘it is my daughter’s birthday to-day, and I have invited a number of friends to celebrate it. One of them, I hear, is indisposed, and will not be able to come; you can take his place, always provided that I do not hear from him, for at present I do not know whether to expect him or not.’ I made my bow, and departed, praying that ague, pleurisy, and gout might light upon the invalid whose appetite I had the honour to represent. I thought bath-time would never come; I could not keep my eyes off the dial: where was the shadow now? could I go yet? At last it really was time: I scraped the dirt off, and made myself smart, turning my cloak inside out, so that the clean side might be uppermost.

Among the numerous guests assembled at the door, whom should I see but the very man whose understudy I was to be, the invalid, in a litter! He was evidently in a sad way; groaning and coughing and spitting in the most alarmingly emphatic manner; ghostly pale,