^C-NRLP 
 
 III 
 
 ^ 4 031 65^ 
 
Columfjfa Winl\ittsHtp 
 
 STUDIES IN CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY 
 
 THE DREAM 
 
 IN 
 
 HOMER AND GREEK TRAGEDY 
 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 SALES AGENTS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 LEMCKE & BUECHNER 
 30-32 West 27th Street 
 
 LONDON 
 
 HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 Amen Corner, E. C. 
 
 shanghai 
 
 EDWARD EVANS & SONS, Ltd. 
 
 30 North Szechuen Road 
 
THE DREAM 
 
 IN 
 
 HOMER AND GREEK TRAGEDY 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM STUART MESSER 
 
 INSTRUCTOR IN CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY, BARNARD COLLEGE 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 
 Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements 
 
 FOR THE Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the 
 
 Faculty of Philosophy, Columbia University 
 
 > , ' J ' ) J . . > » ' > > > •> > > >• » • 
 
 COLUMBIA UKIVERSITY PRESS 
 1918 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
Mi- 
 
 
 Copyright, 1918 
 By Columbia University Press 
 
 Printed from type, April, 1918 
 
NOTE 
 
 This monograph has been approved by the Department of 
 Classical Philology of Columbia University as a contribution to 
 knowledge worthy of publication, 
 
 Clarence H. Young, 
 Chairman. 
 
 ^ Q *> .-> r 7 
 
 /t/ 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This treatise is part of a broader investigation of the dream 
 in all its aspects, literary and non-literary, to which I have 
 devoted the spare hours of the last seven years. My primary 
 interest in this investigation has been in the dream and its ways 
 in Latin literature. A study published in Mnemosyne, 45, 78- 
 92, in which I suggested a possible source for one feature of a 
 certain type of Roman dream, may be taken as defining to some 
 extent my interest in the dream from the literary standpoint 
 as well as presenting my conclusions with respect to the 
 problems involved in the particular dream considered in that 
 study. But to treat adequately the dream in Latin literature 
 presupposes a knowledge of its ancestor and prototype in Greek 
 literature, and so the present introductory monograph embodies 
 one phase of my researches in the earlier field. It discusses 
 some aspects of the dream in a portion of that field — Homer, 
 Hesiod and Greek Tragedy. It concerns itself with the dream as 
 an originating cause or directing principle of the action in poem 
 or play, a moving force in the evolution of narrative or plot and 
 in the introduction of smaller incidents and episodes. An 
 American scholar^ has recently complained of the lack of a 
 proper study of the matter of motivation in Greek and Latin 
 tragedy and comedy. This essay touches upon a limited portion 
 of that larger investigation. From another point of view it 
 deals, within the limits of each dream picture, with the amplifica- 
 tion of the dream, its increasing complexity, its growth and 
 refinement, or its decay, as an artistic literary device. I hope 
 at no far distant date to publish further studies in other aspects 
 of the dream. 
 
 iH. W. Prescott, Classical Philology, 11, 136; 141. 
 
VIII Preface 
 
 I believe that few of the discussions of the dream, generally 
 accessible, have escaped my examination. Furthermore, I have 
 made a collection of the passages in Greek and Latin literature in 
 which dreams are related in full or in which reference is made to 
 dreams, scarcely short of entire completeness, down through 
 the first quarter of the second century, so that on any point 
 the guiding principle of a knowledge of how the dream has been 
 treated elsewhere has always been available. On the basis of 
 this reading I have, in the footnotes, defended positions taken 
 in the text and discussed allied aspects of the dream, contenting 
 myself, however, with the citation of authorities and parallel 
 passages which may be looked upon as illustrative rather than 
 as exhaustive. 
 
 The study of the art and the structure of poetry concerns 
 itself with a great nimiber of smaller problems of technique, of 
 which that involved in the use of the dream is one. The solu- 
 tion of the problems of the technique of the dream, then, will to 
 some extent throw light upon that larger field. 
 
 William Stuart Messer. 
 
 Barnard College, Coltimbia University. 
 June 4, 1917. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Homer 1-52 
 
 The Iliad 1 
 
 The Odyssey 24 
 
 Summary for the Homeric Poems 47 
 
 Hesiod 53 
 
 Tragedy 56-102 
 
 Aeschylus 60 
 
 The Persae 60 
 
 The Prometheus Vinctus 66 
 
 The Choephori 70 
 
 The Eumenides 74 
 
 Minor References 77 
 
 Sophocles 79 
 
 The Electra 79 
 
 Euripides 85 
 
 The Hecuba 85 
 
 The Iphigenia Taurica 91 
 
 The Rhesus 97 
 
 Minor References 100 
 
 List of Abbreviations: Bibliography 103 
 
THE DREAM IN HOMER AND 
 GREEK TRAGEDY 
 
 HOMER 
 
 THE ILIADi 
 
 The early conception of the dream was, as is shown by the 
 language, extremely simple. Homeric vocabulary gives no hint 
 of an elaborate classification, under the general term 'dream', of 
 many types of experiences, all closely related to the experiences 
 of the dream and yet differing from one another, such as gradually 
 took shape and, at a later period, was widely known.^/^This 
 classification appears in Artemidorus, Macrobius, loannes 
 Saresberiensis, who all drew from a common source, and in 
 
 ^For greater clearness in reference I have relegated to a List of Abbrevia- 
 tions, arranged alphabetically (pages 103-105), the titles of works cited two 
 or more times. In all other cases the necessary identification will be found 
 in the footnotes. 
 
 / ^The ancient classical writers on dreams and dream interpretation were \ 
 legion. The chief sources for a list of them are Cicero, De Divinatione; I 
 Artemidorus, Onirocritica; TertuUian, De Anima (the earliest treatise \ 
 on Christian psychology). Biichsenschutz, 47-52, gives a list of those who 
 followed the classical period, with a short summary of the contributions ' 
 of each: Antiphon, an Athenian of the time of Alexander; Straton, a / 
 pupil of Theophrastus; Demetrius of Phalerum; Aristandrus and Apollo- / 
 dorus of Telmessus; Philochorus, the historian; Chrysippus; Antipatrus j 
 of Tarsus; Dionysius of Rhodes; Cratippus, the Peripatetic; Alexander I 
 of Myndus; Hermippus of Berytus; ApoUonius of Attaleia; Artemon / 
 of Miletus; Geminus of Tyre; Nicostratus of Ephesus; Phoebus of Anti- / 
 och; Serapion of Ascalon./From these and all other sources, Artemidorus 
 felt himself called upon by Apollo, so he declares, 2, 70, to collect material 
 for the compilation of a comprehensive treatise, a definitive account of the 
 dream and its interpretation. The subject-matter and the theoretical, 
 beliefs of his predecessors are very largely preserved in his five books. 
 
 1 
 
 
2 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 Nicephorus Gregoras and Pseudo-Augustinus,^ who find their 
 archetype in the writings of Macrobius.^ Macrobius' discus- 
 sion is the most famous. He gives the Hst as follows {S omnium 
 Scipionis, 1, 3, 2) : aut enim est ovstpoq secundiim Graecos quod 
 Latini somnium vocant, aut est opa^.a quod visio recte appellatur, 
 aut est xp"ntJt.aTiJtAo<; qu-od oraculum nuncupatur, aut est ivuxvtov 
 quod insomnium dicitur, aut est (JxzvTaJtxa quod Cicero, quotiens 
 opus hoc nomine fuit, visum vocavit. Plainly, all these concep- 
 tions, once fairly distinct, had by the time of Macrobius been 
 merged in the general idea of dream. But in Homer, three oi 
 these words, opa[xa, x9W^'^^'^V'^^i (jx^vTaa^ia, nowhere occur. 
 ^v6'rcvtov is found in Iliad, 2, 56 (repeated in Odyssey, 14, 495, a 
 line interpolated from the IZiOG^) : xXuts, ^'Ckrn' Geloq ^oi ivuiuviov 
 •^XOsv "Ovetpoq, but as an adverb^ rather than as a substantive. 
 The fifth word, Svscpoc; (and its variant, 6vap ), is the regular 
 Homeric term for the general conception of dream. 
 
 Iliad, 2, 1 ff. 
 
 The first dream of importance in the earlier work comes in 
 2, 1 ff. Zeus, anxious to do honor to Achilles for the wrong 
 which the latter has suffered at the hands of the ruler of the 
 Greeks, ponders how he may beguile Agamemnon and kill many 
 of the Achaeans; so he plans the sending of a dream. He 
 addresses at once a dream, stationed always near at hand, it 
 would seem from the story, to receive his commands, and bids it 
 deliver his behests to Agamemnon. The dream flies swiftly 
 to the Greek fleet and, likening itself to Nestor, communicates 
 the heaven-sent injunction to Agamemnon, bidding him call 
 
 'Artemidoms, Onirocritica, 1, 2; Macrobius, Somn. Scip, 1, 3, 2 (ed. 
 Eyssenhardt, Leipzig, 1893); Joannes Saresberiensis, Polycraticus, 2, 15 
 (Migne, P. L. 199, 429); Nicephorus Gregoras, Scholia in Synesium De 
 Insomniis (Migne, P. G. 149, 608A); Pseudo-Augustinus, De Spiritu et 
 Anima, 25 (Migne, P. L. 40, 798). 
 
 *See, for the stemma showing their relation to a common source and to 
 one another, Deubner, 4. 
 'Cf. the like use, iv^vviov iffTKifitSa^ Aristophanes, Vesp, 1218. 
 
The Iliad 3 
 
 to battle the Greeks to take the Trojan city, for the gods of 
 Olympus are no longer divided in counsel, but will deliver Troy 
 into the hands of the Greeks. / The king, at dawn, assembles the 
 leaders and delivers to them the exact message of the dream. 
 On the strength of this message he announces that he will, after 
 testing the spirit of his warriors, attack and take the city. His 
 oldest counselor, Nestor, also takes for granted that the orders 
 of the dream must be fulfilled.^ 
 
 / In this familiar account, note the entire externality, the 
 complete objectivity, of the dream.^ The dream is an entity.^ 
 There is no statement that Agamemnon dreamed that Nestor 
 appeared, or that he beheld him in sleep. And Zeus, too, 
 accosts the dream as he might accost a person. So strongly is 
 this artistic personification felt thaf'Ovetpoq becomes almost a 
 proper name./ The editors, indeed, — Monro and Allen, Christ, 
 
 '2, 79-83. According to these lines the medium through which a dream 
 is reported is of no small consequence. The scholiast of Venetus A (Din- 
 dorf, Homeri Bias, Scholia, 1, 76) declares the whole passage, 76-83 > 
 spurious. He was without doubt following Aristarchus. This is of 
 interest. Aristarchus (220-145 B. C.) was a contemporary of Polybius (205- 
 123 B.C.) The latter, writing a scientific, rationalistic, pragmatic history, 
 declares that dreams are of natural origin and without divine genesis 
 or prophetic force (cf., e.g., 10, 4-5; 18, 15, 13). The scepticism of the 
 period may have influenced the mind of the scientific textual critic and 
 have suggested his emendation. 
 
 ^The following passages stress the objectivity of the dream in Homer: 
 Iliad, 2, 6; 2, 8; 2, 16-17; 2, 35; 2, 56; 2, 59; 2, 71; 23, 65; 23, 68; 
 23,97-101; 23,106; Od. 4, 799; 4,802; 4,838; 4,841; 6,20; 6,41; 
 20, 87. Cf. also Hey, 10. The assumption of an 'exoteric' (the term is 
 Hey's) dream for the earlier portions of 'Homer', I am, on the whole, 
 incHned to accept. The lack of agreement, however, on the part of the editors 
 as to just what constitutes the original poems renders assurance about 
 any particular passage well-nigh impossible. See also footnotes 18 and 
 67. 
 
 ' ^Ghosts and the persons of dreams behave alike/ cf. Iliad, 2, 20 and 
 23, 68; the ghost of Odysseus' mother in Hades i/ likened 'to a shadow 
 or a dream', Od. 10, 207, for Sleep and Death are twin brothers (see infra, 
 40). Iliad, 16, 672. Cf. Seymour, 524-525. 
 
4 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 Cauer, Pierron^ and others — ^write it with a capital initial. Of 
 course this does not mean that Homer believed in a God of 
 Dreams. ^° All the later literary references militate against 
 such an interpretation. Nowhere, in the field covered by my 
 investigations, is a dream demanded from a dream divinity or 
 from a king of dreams.^^ Even in so late a passage as Ovid, 
 Metamorphoses, 11, 585 ff.,^^ it is from Somnus that Iris requests a 
 dream, not from a dream divinity. •» The Homeric poet here 
 distinctly says that the dream comes from Zeus,^^ who has the 
 dream daimon at hand to do his bidding.' The nearest approach 
 to a dream divinity in the Homeric poems is Hermes. He 
 shows traces of a connection with sleep and the dream in the 
 Odyssey}^ But he is not portrayed as a god of dreams and 
 6vsipoxo(jLx6<; as an epithet of Hermes is not ante-Alexandrian. 
 Not before the time of the late Magic Papyri is "Ovstpoc; looked 
 
 ^See their texts: D. B. Monro and T. W. Allen, Homeri Opera (Oxford, 
 1908); A. Pierron, Vlliade d'Homere (Paris, 1883). For Christ and 
 Cauer see List of Abbreviations. 
 
 ^°Nor does the reference in Pausanias, 2, 10, 2, to an &ya\fxa 'Ovelpov 
 which stood in the temple of Asklepios in Sicyon, indicate a belief in an 
 actual divinity,''Oj'ctpos. The statue was the sculptor's plastic representa- 
 tion of the poet's conception, without relation to cult. Nagelsbach, 
 Homer. Theol. 182, says: "einen solchen <i.e. Traumgott> kennt liber- 
 haupt die griechische Mythologie nicht". Cf. also ibid., 184; Nagelsbach, 
 Nachhom. Theol. 173; Dieterich, 410. 
 
 i^My collection of dream references goes down into the second century 
 A.D. See Preface, page viii. 
 
 ^^See infra, page 43; n. 185. 
 
 ^miad, 1, 63; 2, 1-7. 
 
 ^*See Od. 7, 1 37-138 and the scholiast there, iirel dveipoiroixirbi Kal virvod6T7]t, 
 and on 23, 198: Eustathius, 1574, 40; Heliodorus, Aethiopica, 3, 5. 
 From Hermes dveipoirofiirbs to Hermes x^o^'^os and KaraxQ^viOi the 
 step was short, and then to call upon him in prayer, as upon other chthonic 
 divinities, became natural. Cf. Dieterich, P. M. 802, 5, 8 (see Hey, 38), 
 and the chapter entitled, Hermes als See lenf iihrer, Schlaf- und Traumgott, 
 in Roscher, 66-71. 
 
The Iliad 5 
 
 upon as a sender of dreams.^^ We may then deny a god of 
 dreams for this early poem. 
 
 But the strongly external origin of the dream is emphasized 
 by the vivid personification which the poet uses here, and this 
 personification the adjective oSXo?^^ helps. It is found in only 
 five places in the Iliad: twice in our passage (6; 8), descriptive 
 of "Ovstpoq; twice as an epithet of Ares, 5, 461; 717; and once 
 as an epithet of Achilles, 21, 536. In the Iliad, then, through 
 the connecting link of this adjective, "Ovstpoq keeps virile, 
 objective company— the god of war and tLe Greek hero. Only 
 in the second book of the Iliad is "Ovstpoq found with any limit- 
 ing adjectives. These are the above mentioned ouXo(; (6; 8), 
 and Gstoq^^ (22; 56). And so we have "Oveigoq linked with 
 oSXoq, used elsewhere in this poem of Ares and Achilles only, and 
 with Oetoq, 'having its origin from the gods', 'pertaining to the 
 gods', a connotation which, taken in connection with the other 
 factors mentioned, to some degree augments the objectivity of 
 the dream.^^ 
 
 ^^Wessely, Griechische Zauherpapyri, 113, 424 ff. =Kenyon, Greek Papyri, 
 78, 410 ff. deioi * Oveipos ijfieplvovs xPV<^f^o^^ f^f-^ vvKrephovs iiriirifiircjv, quoted 
 by Hey, 38. 
 
 i^Connected with 6\o6s, bWvfii; see Boisacq and Prellwitz, s. v. Cf. 
 also, L. Meyer, Handbuch der Griechischen Etymologie, 2, 214-215 
 (Leipzig, 1901). 
 
 "The meter will not allow dii'os in line 22; hence Christ, Leaf, and Pick 
 read oSXoi, following Nauck (Berlin, 1877), who adopts the variant reading 
 of A, Trpo(Te(f>d}veev odXoi, on the ground that the older portions of Homer 
 always show dii'os (though deios is common with doiSdi in the Odyssey). 
 Note in regard to this argument the fact that the dream's voice is spoken 
 of as det-n 6fx(t>'^ (41). If one could accept the meaning which Dieterich 
 (Archiv fiir Rel.-Wiss., 9 [1906], 148) finds in this word, 'kraus', 'lockig' 
 (he quotes the collections of passages in Deubner, 12, dealing with the 
 ideal size and beauty of figures which appear in dreams), the objectivity 
 oi''Oveipos would only be strengthened. 
 
 ^^Nowhere in the Odyssey is the personality of the word so strongly 
 stressed by its adjectives: cf. e.g. 6v€ipoi ^ti-fixo-voi, 19, 560; ifievrtvQv 
 dvdpwp, 562. The bearing of the form of dream technique upon the Homeric 
 question is obvious. Compare notes 7 and 67 . 
 
6 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 Zeus sends the dream as he or his consort Hera might send 
 forth Iris/® and the dream acts in many ways as do the gods.^'' 
 It goes swiftly (17)^^ to the Achaeans' ships and makes its way to 
 the tent of Agamemnon. It stands above Agamemnon's head 
 (20 ; 59) ,22 taking upon itself the likeness of Nestor (20-22 ; 58) , 
 *most exactly resembling him in appearance and size and form'.^^ 
 The dream then addresses the sleeping chief as the gods address 
 waking men. It declares itself a messenger from Zeus,^^ warns 
 
 ^"Compare the sending of divinities as messengers, Iliad^ 24, 143 ; 18, 166. 
 I am not in this paragraph claiming fot'Oveipos a divinity and a cult 
 which I have denied him above (page 4), but am merely calling attention 
 to the similarities of action which stress his personality. 
 
 ^''Mark the similarities of behavior in the following typical theophanies: 
 Iliad, 3, 121 ff.; 4, 73 ff.; 11, 185 ff.; 15, 157 ff.; 220 ff.; 17, 322 ff.; 
 18, 166 ff.; 24, 141 ff. Hypnos and Thanatos are also personified: in 
 Iliad, 16, 671 ff., Apollo gives Sarpedon's dead body to the twin brothers, 
 Sleep and Death, to carry to the rich land of wide Lycia. Even more 
 strongly is Hypnos personified in 14, 224 ff., where Hera intrigues with him 
 against Zeus. There, too, "Ttt vos is KatrlyvrjTos Qavdroio (231). For further 
 discussion of these personifications see pages 36 ff. 
 
 X^^In the primitive belief the dream was no mere mental hallucination, 
 but the persons who seemed to have appeared in the dream were thought 
 to have been actually present. These persons often in the short period 
 of sleep 'came from afar', as did Iphthime to Penelope, Od. 4, 787-841 
 (infra, 24-28). This necessitated the complementary supposition of 
 great speed; cf. Od. 6, 20./ 
 
 ^^This position of the ghost and of the person of the dream becomes 
 conventional. The stock phrase, 'stands above the head', 'stands at the 
 head', is common to practically all the dreams of the two early epics; 
 cf. Iliad, 10, 496; 23, 68; Od. 4, 803; 6,21; 20, 32. See also Euripides, 
 Rhesus, 780; and elsewhere passim. It persists through the middle ages 
 (cf. E. Duemmler, Poetae Latini Aevi Cawli, 2, 267 [Berlin, 1884]: adstans 
 capiti eius, of the vision of Wettin), indeed down into modern literatures 
 (cf. e.g. Milton, Par. Lost, 8, 292: "when suddenly stood at my head a 
 dream"). See infra, 90; n. 68. 
 
 23In Iliad, 16, 715, Apollo takes on the likeness of Asios, in 17, 322, of 
 Periphas. In Od. 1, 96 ff., Athene appears to Telemachus as Mentes. 
 
 2*Cf. Iliad, 1, 63: 'for the dream too (i.e. as well as other revelations; 
 I take Kal with 6uap; see Ameis-Hentze) is of Zeus'. This is important 
 
The Iliad 7 
 
 Agamemnon not to let forgetfulness possess him on awaking 
 (33-34), and departs in flight (71). In all its acts, then, the 
 dream is objective and personal. It is artistically conceived and 
 portrayed as an external entity, with power of moving, thinking 
 and speaking, like to any herald sent by the gods, a gentiine 
 
 information. The books on the dream in Greek and Roman cult are too 
 prone to neglect the earlier elements entering into the growth of incubation 
 and to emphasize the elements adopted by the priests of the Olympian 
 deities from the Egyptian cults as something entirely foreign to earlier 
 religious conceptions. The evidence of this line for the early importance 
 of the dream is explicit. Equally inescapable is the inference from the 
 phrase immediately preceding (62-63), in which Achilles links, as of equal 
 prophetic power, the ixivn^, who does his soothsaying from divine omens 
 of many kinds, the lepeis, the priest of a definite divinity, who foretells 
 the future from the victims offered by him to his god, and the <}v€tpoT6\o». 
 About the meaning of this last word, there is much dispute. Nagelsbach, 
 Horn. Theol. 172, believes that there is evidence in the two epics that 
 incubation was practiced in the Homeric period. Rohde, 1, 37, is not 
 entirely convinced, but maintains that the 6p€ipoTr6\os is not a priest 
 who lies down intentionally for mantic sleep, but rather an ivtipoKplrtft, 
 an interpreter of dreams which come unsought, a theory which postulates 
 the recognition by the poet of the allegorical dream (see infra, 33). Hey, 
 10-11, attacking the problem from another side and denying for the earlier 
 parts of Homer the conception of dream phenomena as psychic, originating 
 within the mind, concludes: "Aus eben diesem Grunde kann 6veipoTr6\o%, \ 
 Iliad, 1, 63, nicht der Traumdeuter heissen, weil dies die Auffassung der 
 Traume als seeliches Innenbild, den sog. allegorischen Traum, voraussetzen 
 wiirde. Das Wort bedeutet vielmehr 'Traumseher', zu dem der 6v€ipos 
 vorzugsweise 'kommt' l/ire\". I am on the whole inclined to agree with 
 Hey; but be that as it may, the important fact here is that the dream 
 seer is put on an equal footing, in regard to the clearness of perception 
 with which he may see what is to come, with the two great prophetic 
 priesthoods of the early Greek religion. It is no doubt true, therefore, 
 that belief in the prophetic power of the dream was native to the Greek 
 stock, as it has been found native among all primitive peoples (see Spencer, 
 Tylor, Robertson Smith, Rohde, passim) ; that the Orient, especially 
 Babylon, the home of magic (Hey, 7), may have reacted upon Greek 
 religion in prehistoric times; but that the dream oracles greatly antedated 
 the historical period (Rohde, 1, 123), as the antiquity of the Amphiaraus 
 oracle at Thebes (Pausanias, 1, 34, 5; Pindar, N. 9, 24 flf.; 10, 8 f.), 
 the Trophonius oracle at Lebadea in Boeotia (Pausanias, 9, 39, 6), the dream 
 
8 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 dream daimon.^^ No conception could be further from the 
 theories of Aristotle and Freud.^^ 
 
 The receiver of the dream is here a man, a convention which 
 is maintained throughout the Iliad}'^ The conditions inherent 
 in the tale may have determined this, for the personae of the 
 poem are almost entirely male. But whatever factors operated 
 here, there arose later a different convention, first hinted at 
 in the Odyssey, which became practically fixed for tragedy — 
 that the dream should come to a woman}^ The deity that 
 sends the dream is Zeus, the chief Greek god of the Homeric age. 
 
 The dream in Iliad 2 appears at a great crisis of the story, 
 after the provocation of the (jl-^vk; of Achilles by Agamemnon. 
 Through the dream the first step toward the atonement for the 
 wrong done to Achilles is taken. Agamemnon is influenced to 
 call a council of the elders and his own folly at this council leads 
 him to propose a plan for testing the Greeks which almost 
 results in the undoing of the expedition. Only the intervention 
 of Hera and Athene (155 ff.) averts an abortive return. The 
 evil done by the king's thoughtless test is, indeed, partially 
 repaired; but the action started by the dream leads to the many 
 
 oracle of Ge at Delphi, which was displaced by the later ApoUine mantic 
 (Euripides, Iph. Taur. 1262; Pausanias, 3, 12, 8; Rohde, 1, 133) seem to 
 indicate; that there was a new influx of incubation influences into Greece 
 from the Orient and Egypt in historic times, but that it merely developed 
 and spread practices which were already known to the Greeks before the 
 historic period. For the kernel of incubation is the belief that the dream 
 comes from heaven. 
 
 26Cf. Od. 20, 87 ff.; Rohde, 1, 7; Hey, 10. 
 
 *^Their theories would establish the basis of dream activity in memory, 
 in internal psychic processes. In this Aristotle is in remarkable accord 
 with modern thought. Cf. Aristotle, Ilepl 'Ewirvluv, 459a, 8, 17, 25; 461a, 
 14 ff.; 25; Biichsenschutz, 18-20; and Freud, 56 ff. Freud's Litera- 
 turverzeichnis, 482-498, is comprehensive and valuable for a study of the 
 psychology of the dream. 
 
 ^Uliad, 5, 150; 10, 496; 23, 62. Cft also in the early lyric, Pindar, 
 Pyth. 4, 163, and the dream of Simonides spoken of in Cicero, Div. 1, 27, 56. 
 
 "Infra. 27. 
 
The Iliad 9 
 
 battles which the poet of the Iliad details at length, battles in 
 which the death of so many Greeks expiates the contumely 
 that Achilles was forced to endure, brings the latter finally back 
 into the fray, and works the denouement of the [Lriyiq. Yet in all 
 the action which is subsequent to the appearance of the dream 
 each separate incident is directly governed by some deity, or by 
 some chance, or by some present human passion. One does not 
 realize that the dream exerts any influence upon the plot beyond 
 that shown in the immediate moves of Agamemnon. There is 
 no referring back and forth to the mandates of the dream, 
 comparable with what one finds in the Aeneid,'^^ for example, to 
 keep it ever before the mind of the reader as playing an imma- 
 nent rdle in the plot. 
 
 Iliad, 10, 496-497 
 
 A dream reference of much less moment is that in Iliad, 10, 
 496-497. The content of the vision is not related. Attention 
 is called to it here as containing a few points of artistic interest. 
 
 Hector has wrought havoc among the Greeks and has driven 
 them to their ships, far from the city of Troy. So Diomedes 
 chooses Odysseus for a foray, under cover of black night, into the 
 
 '•Compare the frequent references in the other parts of the Aeneid to 
 the dreams found in the following passages and the cross-references in 
 the dreams themselves. The two great protagonists, Carthage and Rome, 
 are brought into conflict through the action induced by dreams: Dido, 
 warned by Sychaeus {Aen. 1, 353-359), flees from Tyre and founds 
 Carthage; Aeneas, on the night of the sacking of Troy, is visited in a 
 dream by Hector (2, 270-297), who foretells the doom of Troy and the 
 greatness of Rome. The troubled ghost of Anchises visits Aeneas nightly 
 to hurry him from Carthage (4, 351 ff.); the commands of this ghost 
 Aeneas expressly tells his father, in the nekyia of the sixth book (6, 695- 
 696), he is obeying. See also 3, 147-172; 4, 554-570; 6, 695-697; 8, 26- 
 67. Silius Italicus, who adopts the whole divine machinery for his his- 
 torical epic, slavishly follows Vergil in this too; cf. 3, 139; 4, 722-738; 
 10, 337-386; 13, 56-62; 15, 1-151; 15, 546-559; 17, 158-169. Rohde, 
 1, 37, has pointed out that the souls of departed heroes never encroach 
 upon the guidance of the poetic action in Homer. 
 
10 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 lines of the Trojans, to slay them, or else to discover their secrets. 
 Odysseus urges haste, saying (252-253) : 
 
 Twv 860 {jLOtpawv, TpiTczTY] S' £Tt ^oTpa XeXsixTai. 
 
 The two, going forth, come upon Dolon, the Trojan, who has 
 left his tent to reconnoiter the position of the Greeks. They 
 kill him, and then continue on their way till they reach the 
 encampment of the Thracians, whom they find sunk in slumber. 
 In the midst of these was Rhesus; beside him were his swift 
 horses tethered with thongs to his chariot. Diomedes rushed 
 upon them, and, after slaying twelve of the king's companions, 
 put Rhesus himself to death: 'And when the son of Tydeus 
 came to the king, him, the thirteenth, he reft of delicious life, as 
 he gasped in his sleep ; for an evil dream stood over his head that 
 night, to wit, the son of Oeneus, through the crafty device of 
 Athene' (494-497) .^o 
 
 Here again appears the primitive conception; the dream is 
 external to the sleeper, personal, objective. It takes the position 
 usual to the dream in literature (496);^^ it disguises itself in 
 human form (497), OJvstSao xat?,^^ as do the gods often in their 
 
 '"Hey, 12, interprets thus: "Diomedes stand bei Rhesos als KaKbv 6yap 
 zu Haupten". Zuretti, ad loc, interprets: "OhetSao irdis, Tideo; irdi's 
 k apposizione di 6vap, e rargomento, per cosi dire, del sogno". With 
 this latter interpretation I am inclined to agree, if 497 is genuine. Cf. 
 also Ameis-Hentze, Anhang, on this line. Aristonicus (ed. Friedlander, 
 183) athetized 497: ddereTrai, 6ti xal ry <rvv64aei euTeXiJj* kuI fiij fi7]64yTos 
 8i voeirai 8ti us 6vap i<f>l<TTaTai T(p 'Pijcy 6 Aiofxi^dris. Kal t6 did. fiiJTiv'Adi^v'^s 
 \vv€i; fxaWov ydp Sid r^v AdXupos dvayyeXlav. Zuretti says, on 'Ad-^vris: 
 "era crudele; voler I'uccisione e il dolore e la quasi coscienza d'essa, 
 almeno in sogno, h crudelta raffinata", which seems nearer the mean- 
 ing of the poet here. Zuretti remarks on KetpaXijcpiv : "nella personificazione 
 del sogno esso h immaginato pendere sul capo; in altri tempi I'incubo 
 ^ creduto sul petto". 
 
 ^^Ci. Iliad, 2, 20; 2,59; supra, 6, n. 22. 
 
 "Cf. Iliad, 2, 20-22; 2, 58; supra, 6. 
 
The Iliad 11 
 
 visits to men.^* But it has no determining influence on the 
 further development of the story. It is, however, as before,^ 
 introduced at a critical point in the action, namely the entrance 
 of Rhesus. For an oracle had declared that Troy could not be 
 taken if once the horses of the Thracian king had fed upon the 
 grass of the Trojan plain and had drunk the water of the 
 Xanthus. The fulfilment of this oracle is forestalled by the 
 quick action of Diomedes; and the d5dng Thracian king takes 
 the substance of his dream to the grave with him. Hence it 
 plays no part in the structure of the plot. 
 
 The deity who sends the dream is here Athene, not Zeus, as in 
 the other passages of this earlier work;^^ and the receiver is a 
 male, as is the rule throughout the Iliad.^^ 
 
 Another point of interest in this passage is the time at which 
 the dream appeared. This we may deduce from the time at 
 which the Greeks set out upon their reconnoitering. This was 
 during the third watch of the night, according to line 253,^^ or, if, 
 as some maintain, that line is spurious, near dawn, according to 
 line 251, a line generally considered genuine. Hence the evil 
 dream came after midnight. If, now, the adjective xaxdv in verse 
 496 means 'foretelling evil fate to him', the time of the dream's 
 appearance is without significance. If on the other hand the 
 
 »3Cf. Iliad, 16, 715; 17, 322; Od. 1, 96; see also footnote 23. 
 
 s^Supra, 8; infra, n. 200. 
 
 "In the other passages in the Iliad where a sender is mentioned Zeus 
 is the responsible divinity: 1, 63; 2, 1 ff. (supra, 6). Athene's activity 
 here is an anticipation of her activity in dream sending in the Odyssey: 
 cf. infra, 24; 51. 
 
 "The 6i/etpo7r6Xos of 1, 63; Agamemnon, in 2, 1-47; Achilles, in 23. 62- 
 107; Rhesus, in 10, 496. Infra. 27. 
 
 37 This line was rejected as spurious by the Alexandrian trio, Zenodotus, 
 Aristophanes, Aristarchus. Fick, in his comments on 252-253, rejects 
 both lines, partly on linguistic and syntactical grounds, partly on the 
 authority of the above-named trio. Leaf, La Roche and others, however, 
 retain line 253 and suggest numerous explanations of the syntax and 
 interpretation. See their notes ad loc. 
 
12 
 
 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 X 
 
 adjective means rather 'deceptive', 'untrue', then the hour be- 
 comes important, for elsewhere4ll the Greek and Roman poets 
 place deceitful dreams before midnight.^Y Homer's introduc- 
 tion of a deceitful dream just before dawn would then indicate 
 that the opposing folk-belief and artistic convention were later 
 in origin than the early epic.^^ But this is pure conjecture; with 
 a restraint which he does not always feel necessary the poet has 
 refused the knowledge of Rhesus' inmost thoughts and the 
 content of the dream is not given. And without that content 
 one cannot control the meaning of the adjective xaxov or 
 determine during what portion of the night Homer would have 
 thought of deceitful dreams as sent by the gods. 
 
 Iliad, 23, 62-107 
 
 Another example of the objective dream in the Iliad is the 
 appearance of Patroclus to Achilles, in Book 23. This is the 
 starting point in European literature for the apparition of the dead 
 
 ^^Cf. Moschus, Idyll, 1, 2-5: uvKxbs dre rplraTov Xdxos laTaTaL, iyyiidi 8* 
 i^c&s, . . . e5re Kal drpeKitav iroiixalveTai idvo$ dvelpuv; Horace, Sat. 1, 10, 
 33: post mediam noctem visus, cum somnia vera; Ovid, Her. 18, 
 195-196: Namque sub aurora, iam dormitante lucerna, Somnia quo 
 cemi tempore vera solent; Tertullian, De An. 48; Philostratus, Apollo- 
 nius of Tyana, 2, 37. Vergil, Aen. 6, 898, indicates the time of 
 Aeneas' exit from the lower world by dismissing him through the 
 gate of false dreams, i.e. before midnight (this explanation of the 
 Vergilian passage was suggested by W. Everett, Class. Review, 14, 
 153 ff. It has been accepted by C. Knapp, Vergil's Aeneid [Chicago, 1901], 
 by T. E. Page, Aeneid"^ [London, 1902], and by Norden in his exhaustive 
 commentary on Aeneid 6)^Seasons also affected the reliability of dreams: 
 autumn dreams were generally considered deceitful, spring dreams most 
 probable of fulfilment/ cf . TertulHan, loc. laud. : Ex temporibus autem 
 anni vemo magis quieta, quod aestas dissolvit animas et hiems quodam- 
 modo obduret, et autumnus tentator alias valetudinem succis pomorum 
 vinosissimis diluat; Alciphron, Ep. 2, 2 (ed. Schepers, Leipzig, 1905); 
 Plutarch, Quaest. Conv. 8, 734D; Buchsenschiitz, 37-38; Granger, 32, 
 
 '9Cf. the note on Horace, Sat. 1, 10, 31-35, in Kiessling-Heinze^ and 
 the standard editions on the other passages in the preceding note. 
 
The Iliad 13 
 
 in dreams}^ The ghost appeared when deep (v^oujjloc;, 63) sleep 
 had laid hold upon Achilles.^^ The specter of Patroclus, <]^ux^, is 
 
 *°The influence of dream experiences upon the belief in immortality and 
 the conceptions of the other world is of great importance and generally 
 recognized. The body of the sleeper lay, in the eyes of his friends, un- 
 moved; but, on awaking, the sleeper told of the journeys he had made 
 and the marvels he had seen. From this primitive man postulated a 
 second self or soul, or a plurality of souls. The things which the sleeping 
 soul had seen were no less real than the sights which met the eyes of the 
 waking self, only different. Or else objects appeared before the sleeper 
 or a companion returned to him from the house of the dead to tell him 
 what his experiences had been and where he was. From this primitive 
 man assumed a Hades or an Elysium. The sights reported by the return- 
 ing soul of the ghost and the places visited by the wandering soul of the 
 dreamer became merged, and from this merging grew the picture of the 
 other world. Now the elements for that picture came from the mind of 
 the sleeper and so, as his waking life increased in complexity, his picture 
 of Hades kept pace with it. The trance and the ecstasy were physical 
 conditions the experiences of which strengthened this belief. It is an 
 antiquated anthropology which traces all of the elements of these concep- 
 tions back to dream experiences, but no school denies to dream experiences 
 the great and influential part they played. Plato's sublime myth of 
 immortality, the vision of Er {Res Publica, 614b), evolves the picture 
 of the future life from the experiences of the trance, as does Plutarch's 
 vision of Thespesius {De Sera Num. Vind. 22) ; Cicero's Somnium Scipionis 
 evolves it from the dream. The nekyia once established drew features 
 from all sides and was told in many settings. For example, in the Culex, 
 202-384, the spirit of the murdered gnat appears to its murderer in a 
 dream and gives him a description of Hades. For further theory or com- 
 ment see de Felice, 119 ff.; Gomperz, 1, 18 ff.; 25; 32; 33; Dieterich, 
 Nekyia (passim); Spencer, 1, 147 ff.; 3, 7 ff. ; 3, 22 ff.; Rohde, 2, 392-393; 
 V. G. Ettig, Acheruntica (cited by de Felice), 360. See, also, n. 102. 
 
 *^The passage has been accepted by Fick, 202, but rejected by many 
 others. The crux lies in the occurrence here of a conception which is 
 in direct opposition to. the views stated elsewhere in the Iliad, and also 
 in the Odyssey (with the exception of the Elpenor episode, Od. 11, 51 ff.), 
 the conception that the souls of the dead must await burial before entering 
 Hades. In all other portions of the poems the belief holds that the soul 
 enters Hades immediately on leaving the body, without the fulfilment of 
 any previous condition. The idea involved in the opposite belief rested 
 on the assumption that it was necessary entirely to bum the body so that 
 
14 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 the counterpart of the living Patrodus in stature, fair eyes, and 
 voice.^2 Though a <\)uxri (65), it has a body (67) ; it stands above 
 Achilles' head (68), as each of the dream forms discussed above 
 stood over the head of him to whom it had been sent (2, 20 ; 2, 59 ; 
 10, 496);'^^ it cannot enter the gates of Hades, for the other 
 souls keep it afar off (72) ;^ these souls are e'tSwXa xatxovTwv (72), 
 phantom.s, illusive images of dead men; by the action of these 
 phantoms Patroclus is not allowed to cross the river (73) f^ the 
 ghost asks for Achilles' hand. This is not the customary 
 gesture at parting, but the soul desires, in view of their separa- 
 
 the soul freed from it could come to rest. On the ground of this difference 
 Lange, Nitzsch, Kammer reject the lines which contain the conflicting 
 conception and Kiene considers the whole narrative of the appearance of 
 the ghost of Patroclus foreign to the original Iliad. (For the views of these 
 critics, see the Einleitung to Book 23 in the Anhang of Ameis-Hentze). 
 
 *2The ghosts of the dead, whether seen in the lower world or appearing 
 in dreams, retain the marks of the wounds by which they came to their 
 death or the traces of the funeral fires by which their bodies were destroyed. 
 This idea is naive and universal. It is said that the Chinese mutilate 
 their criminals so that their spirits may forever carry their disgraceful 
 wounds. Professor K. F. Smith's fine note on Tibullus, 1, 10, 37-38 (in 
 his edition of Tibullus, New York, 1913), discusses this primitive belief. 
 The idea recurs in the Oresteia fragment of Stesichorus (fr. 42, ed. Bergk), 
 where Agamemnon appears in a dream in the form of a serpent bearing 
 on its head wounds from Clytaemestra's ax. Vergil repeats it in his 
 description of Hector, Aen. 2, 270-297. See also, 6, 450; 498. The 
 elegists, perhaps under Alexandrian influence, carried further the identifi- 
 cation of corpse or ashes and surviving wraith : Tibullus, 3,2; Propertius, 
 1,19,18; 2,13,32; 58; 3,5,30; 4,5,4; 4,7,12; 94; 4,11,3; 8; 20; 
 58; Ovid, Met. 10, 49; 11, 691; Persius, 1, 38; Silius Italicus, 12, 457. 
 See also Hardie, 94-95. 
 
 43Supra, 6; 10. 
 
 *^The demand of the weary soul, that would enter Hades, for burial is 
 paralleled in the early literature by the dream of Pelias in regard to Phrixus, 
 Pindar, Pyth. 4, 163 (infra, 66). See also, for a similar conception, Euri- 
 pides, Hec. 30 (infra, 85). This idea appears innumerable times in the 
 later literature. 
 
 "Always the Styx in the Iliad; in Odyssey, 10, 513, Acheron is men- 
 tioned. 
 
The Iliad 15 
 
 tion forever, to give by this unusual form of leave-taking a more 
 powerful expression to their feeling of nearness.'*^ In making 
 this request the soul wishes something incompatible with its 
 nature (99 fif .) ; it cannot return from Hades after it has been 
 given to the fire (75-76). The soul has a wider vision than 
 Patroclus had possessed in life; it knows now that bitter fate 
 surrounded it even from birth (78-79); it prophesies that 
 Achilles, too, is doomed to die beneath the walls of Troy 
 (80-81).^^ One last request it makes, that its bones shall not 
 be buried apart from those of Achilles (83), but that a common 
 cinerary urn (91) shall contain their ashes, that in death they 
 may lie together even as in life they had been reared together. 
 Achilles thereupon asks the spirit why it has come to him with 
 such commands (94-95), promises to execute its every injunc- 
 tion (95-96), and finally entreats Patroclus' spirit to stand 
 nearer so that they may embrace each other and share their 
 grief in common (97-98). Upon stretching out his arms to 
 seize the spirit of his friend, Achilles failed in his attempt,** 
 
 ^®Cynthia's ghost, Propertius, 4, 7, 94, will rub bone on bone, mixtis 
 ossibus ossa teram. 
 
 *^Sucli prophetic power shows itself in dying heroes. In Iliad, 22, 356- 
 360, Hector, at the point of death, foretells to the exulting Achilles that 
 the latter will die at the hands of Paris and Phoebus Apollo, a more definite 
 prophecy than that here uttered by the returning wraith of Patroclus. 
 The wraith had shown this prophetic power, also, when at the point of 
 death he foretold to his foe, Hector, that he would fall at the hands of 
 Achilles: see Iliad, 16, 851 ff. Cf. Cicero, Div. 1, 30, 62-65; Diodorus 
 Siculus, 18, 1 (ed. Fischer, Leipzig, 1896). 
 
 ^^Lines 93-98 are rejected by Kammer, 505 f., as a later interpolation. 
 But this view has not found acceptance; for, if 93-98 be eliminated, then 
 it is the spirit of Patroclus which stretches out its hands, not Achilles, 
 and ypvx-fi (100) would be the subject of wp^^aro (99) and vx^^'o- But 
 it is only by stretching out his arms that Achilles can make the dis- 
 covery which he records in line 104. It is the effort to clasp the spirit 
 which wakes him. A similar physical eflfort arouses the charioteer in the 
 Rhesus, 780-788; infra, 97. 
 
16 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 for the soul, like smoke, departed beneath the earth, gibbering 
 (TSTptyuTa, 101).'*^ 
 
 So powerfully does the vision affect Achilles that he is stirred 
 from slumber (101) and cries out in the famous lines, so impor- 
 tant for a correct understanding of the Homeric theory of the 
 nature of the soul after death if they were not so baffling to 
 positive exegesis (103-104) : 
 
 fi> x6tcoi, ^ pa t(<; iczi xal s^v 'AtSao S6(JL0t(jt 
 ^iJXh '^'^^ s'iBo)Xov,iT(zp ^gheq o5x evi xa^iTcav. 
 
 The three words which cause the difficulty are t^tuxh, s'^BwXov, and 
 ^gheq. Hardly two scholars can be found in agreement con- 
 cerning the meaning of any of them.^*^ The common sense 
 
 ^^This word is used of the cracking of the backs of wrestlers, Iliad, 23, 
 714. Elsewhere in the early epic it is confined to the sounds uttered 
 by birds: in Iliad, 2, 314, it is the noise made by the young of the sparrow. 
 Ameis-Hentze, Anhang, take the word to mean in Iliad, 23, 101, "zirpend", 
 remarking : "denn auch die Stimme der Psyche ist nur ein schwaches 
 Abbildder Stimme des Lebenden". This, however, is probably not the 
 meaning. In Od. 24, 1-10, souls are likened to bats in action and utterance; 
 rpl^o) is there used of both bats and souls. Vergil, Aen.Q, 282-284, pictures 
 dreams clinging (batlike) beneath every leaf of an elm in the entrance to 
 Hades. Cf. also, Euripides, Hec. 70-71; Silius Italicus, 13, 595-600. 
 This likening of souls, dreams, and kindred conceptions to birds is an 
 ancient bit of folk-lore. Homer, in using TerpiyvTa, was writing under 
 the influence of that conception. See below, note 184, for bibliography. 
 Add Granger, 42; and 44: "There was an old belief that dreams became 
 false at the fall of the leaf". 
 
 '°The materials for a reconstruction of the Homeric view of life after 
 death and the nature of the soul are the accounts of the funerals of Patroclus 
 and of Hector, Iliad 23 and 24 respectively, the two nekyiae in the Odyssey, 
 11 and 24, and smaller references throughout. Rohde has distinguished 
 sharply two conceptions of the departed soul, which he designates as the 
 ghost faith and the shade faith, and these demand, he declares, a radically 
 different treatment of the corse. The former conception is that the 
 soul can return to its old home and haunt the living. It is capable of 
 doing immense and unearthly injury; it is a ghost which must be placated 
 by offerings of clothing and food and all the things the living man had 
 needed. Mummification was practiced to preserve for the ghost its old 
 
The Iliad 17 
 
 interpretation, however, seems to be that tj^ux^ is adequately 
 represented here by 'soul'. It, among the Greeks, as among all 
 primitive peoples, escapes out of the mouth of the dying or the 
 wound of the mortally wounded.^i With the rise of Pytha- 
 
 abode to which it might return. Ancestor worship was naturally conjoined 
 with such a behef. The 'shade faith' was based on entirely different 
 premises, to wit, that the spirit can be absolutely banished from earth 
 and shut up in Hades, whence it cannot return to help or to harm the 
 living. Starting from this conception, relatives burned the body to 
 cut the spirit off all the more from communication with the living. When 
 the body was once reduced to ashes, the soul no longer constituted a 
 menace. As a resultant there was no offering of gifts to the dead and no 
 form of ancestor worship. The first of these beliefs is primitive and 
 unreflecting; as including ancestor worship, it is the most extensively 
 held of all faiths (cf. e.g. W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of 
 Northern India, 1, 175 [London, 1896]). The part the dream has played 
 in developing such a faith Spencer has demonstrated and exaggerated 
 (see his indices). The second is the belief of a more advanced people — 
 the product of intellectual growth and reflection. These beliefs exist 
 nowhere pure, and least of all in Greece during any period which can be 
 controlled by literary evidence. In the epic the predominant belief, 
 however, was the shade faith; for this period there is little evidence for 
 the cult of ancestors, or for a belief in the power of the dead to return and 
 work vague but terrible injury. To the shade faith belongs the account 
 of the funeral of Hector, Iliad, 24, 718-804, completely. But such consis- 
 tency is not universal and there are numerous traces of the survival of the 
 older ghost belief. To it the description of the funeral of Patroclus does not 
 entirely belong, nor is this description a conscious reconcihation of the older 
 and the newer conceptions, as Lang (82-107) cleverly maintains by assigning 
 a short period during which the soul can return to earth before it is finally 
 confined to Hades — a period for giving gifts to the dead, a period, however, 
 to be made as brief as possible for the sake of the dead itself. Rather 
 is it a cento of elements from both conceptions. The burning on the 
 pyre belongs to the later shade belief; the sacrifice of horses, cattle, hunt- 
 ing dogs, Trojan captives, the offerings of two-handled jars of honey and 
 oil (23, 166-177), the promise of Achilles that he will give to Patroclus a 
 share of the ransom for the dead body of Hector (24, 592-595), are all 
 survivals of the ghost belief. A knowledge of these conflicting elements 
 is necessary for an understanding of the account of the Patroclus dream. 
 
 "Examples of this are found in //iW, 9, 409; 14,319; 16,505. 
 
18 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 goreanism it was considered the real self, the personaHty, which 
 entered into each incarnation.^^ 
 
 The£T§w>.ov, 'wraith', is the part which endures when the body- 
 disintegrates; it is, so to say, the Platonic 'idea' of the dead 
 person. It is similar to the wraith of Helen which Stesichorus^^ 
 pictured, in his recantation, to explain the Trojan war ; similar 
 to the phantom of Helen in Euripides' Helena^^ which went to 
 Troy with Paris; similar to the ghost (s't'BwXov) of the mighty 
 Heracles, which Odysseus met in Hades while the real soul of the 
 hero was away banqueting with the immortal gods;^^ similar to 
 the phantom, fashioned in the likeness of Iphthime, which 
 Athene sent to the anxious Penelope.^^ It is the same as the 
 fades of Anchises which appears to Aeneas in the fifth book of 
 the Aeneid,^"^ for this fades is not the f^uxi}, the anima, of Anchises, 
 in spite of the fact that the poet, a few lines further on,^^ makes 
 
 ^^W. R. Hardie {The Classical Quarterly, 193-195), in a discussion 
 of the dream in the proem toEnnius' Annates, 1, i, v and xi (Vahlen) , where 
 Homer appears to the Roman poet, assumes that it can only be a wraith 
 of Homer, an etdwXov, which thus appears; that the real self, the ^vx"^, 
 weqit, according to Ennius' Pythagorean tenets, into each of the successive 
 reincarnations and that it was only the etduXov of a particular reincarna- 
 tion that could appear to the dreamer. 
 
 ^I refer to the fragment from the Helena palinode, Bergk, 26. The 
 story of the et8<a\ov of Helen rested upon the conflicting legends in regard 
 to her adventures after she had been carried away from the home of 
 Menelaus. One legend, the Homeric story, took her to Troy; another, 
 of like currency, took her to Egypt. Herodotus, 2, 112-120, tells the 
 Egyptian version at considerable length and discusses Homer's reason 
 for choosing the Trojan legend. That Stesichorus made use of the legend 
 of the wraith is a conjecture of Hardie's (see n. 52). 
 
 ^*See Euripides, Helena, 582: 'EX^vi;: oi>K TjXdov is yrjv T/oyd5', dXX' eUuiXov 
 ^y. Especially pertinent are 608-615, where the messenger reports how 
 the €l8b}\ov escaped them and went to heaven, announcing that Helen 
 was guiltless and had never gone to Troy. 
 
 ^^Od. 11, 602. 
 
 ^^Od. 4, 795 ff. Compare below, 24-28. 
 
 "Vergil, Aen. 5, 722-723. 
 
 ^^Aeneid, 5, 731. 
 
The Iliad 19 
 
 the phantom speak as if it were the anima. It is the eTBwXov, 
 since it comes down from Heaven {caelo . . . delapsa, 722), 
 whereas the VergiHan Elysivim is consistently represented as 
 subterranean. It is an s'fSwXov by which Juno lures Tumus 
 from battle.^^ It is the s'l'gwXov, says Pindar, which alone 
 remains throughout all time.^° 
 
 In regard to ^ghzq the strife among scholars has been between 
 the meaning 'Lebenskraft' (Ameis-Hentze)^^ and the meaning 
 'intelligence', to 8tavoY]Ttx6v (Leaf).^^ j^ spite of the ingenuity 
 of the critics o6x evi lua^xxav seems to me to exclude the latter 
 interpretation. The ghost does give evidence of possessing 
 memory, perception, thought, if not omniscience; what it lacks 
 is shown to Achilles by his inability to grasp it. The corporeal 
 substance together with the life principle inherent therein has 
 left the ghost. 
 
 And so this dream apparition has a «];uxt), an airy soul, and a 
 shadowy wraith, or eTBwXov, but it is unsubstantial and there is 
 no life-giving principle in it. Its intelligence, if in some respects 
 greater than that of the living person, is not all-knowing : it 
 has not the full report of what has been happening on earth; 
 the ghost of Patroclus is quite unaware of the grief Achilles has 
 suffered and of the preparations which he has made fittingly to 
 celebrate the ftmeral of his comrade. This, then, is the artistic 
 
 ^^Aeneid, 10, 636 ff. See Hardie (cited in note 52), 188-195, for 
 a more detailed discussion of some of these passages. 
 
 •°Fr. 131 (ed. Schroeder): ^tjbv S' ^n Xelirerai alQvos etduXov. That 
 the distinction between ^ux^ and etduXov was not always clearly drawn 
 is shown by the words with which Plutarch {Consol. ad A poll. 35, 120) 
 introduces the above fragment: iv AXXy 5/)iJi'v, irepl ypvxv^ X^yuv. 
 Kammer, 516 f., decides that the common belief assumed no life, not 
 even dream life, after death, and so sees in this dream- vision of Achilles 
 a marked advance on the theory prevalent in the poet's day. 
 
 "Anhang: "im Gegensatz zur luftigen ^vx'^ und zum schattenhaften 
 tid<a\ov das Zwerchfell als feste Substanz und Haupttrager des physischen, 
 wie des geistigen Lebens gedacht". 
 
 «2, 621. 
 
/ 
 
 20 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 theory that hes behind the picture which the poet draws of the 
 dream ghost. 
 
 No deity sends this ghost. ^^ The dream comes of its own 
 voHtion. The cause which brings it is a personal one, a desire 
 of the restless spirit to enter the gates of Hades and be at peace 
 (71) . Perhaps this explains why this dream plays so small a part 
 in advancing the plot. The machinery of the action of the 
 Iliad is frankly controlled from Olympus. Whatever does not 
 emanate from that source may create a powerful episode or 
 adorn an attractive incident, but it does not play a large r61e 
 in shaping the outlines of the story. But, though the dream 
 under consideration does not affect the economy of the poem, it 
 is, considered by itself, a truly Homeric dream of the early, 
 objective, naive kind. The description of Achilles, as he awakes 
 and cries aloud, impresses us with this external and objective 
 origin of the dream. 
 
 Iliad, 22, 199-200 
 
 Of far different type is the dream conception in Iliad, 22, 
 199-200: 
 
 OUT* ap* 6 t6v BuvaTat 6xo(l)£uystv ou0* 6 Stwxstv*^* 
 
 ^Seldom is a deity mentioned as sender of the vision when the dead 
 appear in dreams. One is often left to infer that the dead themselves 
 are responsible for the dream- visitation ; of., for this early period, Darius 
 in Aeschylus, Pers. 176 ff. (infra, 60 ff.); Agamemnon in the Choeph. 
 526 ff. (infra, 70 ff.) and also in the Oresteia fragment of Stesichorus 
 (infra, 73 ; quoted below, 82) , Bergk, 42 ; Clytaemestra in the Eumen. 94 ff . 
 (infra, 74 ff.); Phryxus in Pindar, Pyth. 4, 163 ff.; Agamemnon in the 
 Electra of Sophocles, 417-425 (infra, 79 ff.) ; Polydorus in Euripides, Hec. 
 1-58; the dead unknown, to Simonides in the story told by Cicero, Div. 
 1, 27, 56. The instances in the later period, for both Greek and Latin 
 literature, are innumerable. The Aeneid will illustrate for the Roman 
 epic: Sychaeus in 1, 353; Hector in 2, 270-297; Dido's threat, 4, 384; 
 Anchisesin4, 351; 5,721-740; 6,695-697. 
 
 "Compare the similar conception in Aen. 12, 908-914, evidently copied 
 from this and expanded. 
 
The Iliad 21 
 
 We have here a dream reference which is very modem in its tone 
 and in the phenomenon which it notices. It is the description 
 of a dream state. That is to say, the dream in this passage has 
 lost all personality ; there is no dream phantom or dream daimon. 
 The vision-experience exists only in the mind of the sleeper. 
 Achilles is pursuing Hector under the walls of Troy and his 
 inability to overtake him is likened by the poet to the attempted 
 pursuits and escapes of our dreams. Into the psychological and 
 philosophical conception upon which this phenomenon is based 
 I have no intention, at this time, of going.^^ But from an artis- 
 
 ^^For the study atrthe science and philosophy of the dream and its 
 use in cult one may compare, on the Greek side, the following monographs: 
 B. Biichsenschutz (94 pages); F. O. Hey (40 pages); F. O. Hey, Religion 
 (60 pages). The short treatise by Biichsenschiitz is to a certain extent 
 antiquated; it antedates the vast amount of work that has been done in 
 Greek philosophy, and especially on the philosophic fragments, during 
 the last fifty years. Nevertheless it was based on a fresh examination 
 of the sources which he had before him and his work is still to be super- 
 seded. He traces the history of the scientific theory of the dream down 
 through the Ionic and Eleatic schools, Pythagoras, Democritus, Socrates, 
 Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle and the Peripatetics, the Epicureans, the 
 Stoics, early and late, the physicians (Galen, etc.). He then turns to the 
 books containing collections of dreams and their interpretations, conclud- 
 ing with a resume of Artemidorus' Onirocritica. Hey's two short mono- 
 graphs were written later; consequently he could take advantage of the 
 vast strides which had been made in the study of anthropology and com- 
 parative religion. In the first programm he studies the dream from the 
 standpoint of cult and religion as found (1) in the Homeric period, (2) on 
 the Greek mainland in the early classical period, in which there was 
 interaction of oriental and native elements, and (3) in incubation and 
 dream interpretation in its relation to medicine. In the second programm- 
 he traces the influence of the dream and dream experiences in fashioning 
 the reUgious conceptions of the Greeks. He shows, however, a Spencerian 
 overfondness for the dream in attributing to it a much greater influence in 
 the realm of religious ideas than recent scholars are willing to grant. 
 Furthermore, he is not always judicious in the distinctions which he draws 
 between the conceptions which any given author accepts for artistic 
 purposes and the scientific explanation of dream phenomena which that 
 same author may hold. Literary convention often causes the former to 
 limp behind the latter. There are accessible no corresponding mono- 
 
22 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 tic standpoint, certainly, it is unlike the other dream pictures of 
 this earlier work, which are so clearly external, originating from 
 without the sleeper. If, as Aristonicus, Leaf, Pick, Bekker, and 
 Diintzer^^ maintain, these lines are a later addition, we find in 
 them exactly what we might expect, to wit, a development from 
 the more primitive and lively conception of the personality of 
 the dream, such as we see in Iliad 2, to the belief, belonging to a 
 later, more reflective period, in a psychological dream state.^^ 
 
 graphs on the dream in Latin literature. In Harvard Studies in Classical 
 Philology, 24, 163-164, there is a summary of an unpublished Harvard 
 dissertation by S. H. Newhall, Quid De Somniis Censuerint Quoque Mode 
 Eis Usi Sint Antiqui Quaeritur. It is to be hoped that this dissertation, 
 containing valuable epigraphical material, a "complete collection of dream 
 inscriptions and dedications" {ihid. 163), may before long be made more 
 accessible (see the indicated volume of Harvard Studies for an outline of 
 Dr. Newhall's investigation). On the narrower side of incubation, there 
 are two fair-sized treatises: L. Deubner, De Incubatione Capitula Quattuor 
 (Leipzig, 1901), a painstaking, careful study. Its contents are indicated 
 by the chapter headings: (1) De Somniis Divinis, (2) De Incubandi 
 Ritibus Symbolisque, (3) De Carmine Delphico Euripideo, (4) De Incuba- 
 tione Christiana. The second treatise is that by Mary Hamilton, Incuba- 
 tion or the Cure of Disease in Pagan Temples and Christian Churches (Lon- 
 don, 1906). Pp. 223. The treatment is popular and the scope of the 
 work is correctly indicated by the subtitle. The ground is covered with 
 intelligence, but without originality, and the citation of authorities and 
 sources is totally unsatisfactory. Henri Lechat in Daremberg-Saglio, 
 Incubatio, can also be consulted with profit. In addition to these special 
 treatises there is much to be gleaned, from general works in a larger field, 
 on what may be called the non-artistic aspects of the dream, Greek and 
 Roman. Of particular value are the following: Bouch^-Leclercq, 2, 251; 
 260; 269; 301; 3, 76-77; 275; 310; 380-381; Campbell, 144; 180; 
 227; 231; 368; De Marchi, 1, 37; 238; 239; 240; 285-289; Dill, 445; 
 448-469; Dyer, 235-248 ; Gilbert, 251-252; Gomperz, 1, 18ff.; Gomperz, 
 Essays, 72-79; Granger, 28; 31-33; 35-37; 42; 44; 46; 48; Hardie, 
 Lectures, 71-84; 91; 94-95; Maury, Magie, 229-255; Maury, Histoire 
 des religions, 2, U7&.; Rohde, 1, 5; 37; 113-125; 131-134; 184; 186; 
 189; 2, 57-58; 392-393. 
 
 ^^See the List of Abbreviations for the full titles of these works. The 
 comments to which I refer will be found in notes on lines 199-200. 
 
 ^^This observation hints at the possible bearing of the artistic form in 
 which the dream is found upon the question whether a given passage 
 
The Iliad 23 
 
 These, then, are the dream references in the Iliad of sig- 
 nificance for a study of the use of the dream as a literary device.** 
 
 belongs to the original 'Homer'. Personally I believe that these verses 
 are late. For, however much the more primitive conception may appear 
 in later literature as an artistic convention or affectation, it is certain that 
 the belief in a psychological dream-state could not have been found in 
 the earliest form of the Homeric epic. See also notes 7 and 18. 
 
 68In 24, 682 ff., Hermes appears to Priam while the latter is slumbering 
 and 'stands above his head' (682), an echo of the formula used of the dream 
 (cf. n. 22). The boundary line between dreams and visions is nowhere 
 drawn with that definiteness which would make dogmatic statement pos- 
 sible. But I consider this a waking vision, not a true dream. Hermes' 
 coming seems to wake Priam, for in the lines which follow (689-^91), 
 Hermes is there in physical presence before their waking eyes to yoke 
 the mules and drive them through the camp. This then is a waking visita- 
 tion of the god. I have excluded such from comment in accord with the 
 aim of this study. Cf. n. 22. 
 
THE ODYSSEY 
 
 In the later poem, the Odyssey, the treatment of the dream in 
 some respects follows the same lines as in the Iliad. In other 
 respects, however, there are evident advances. The longer 
 passages to be taken into consideration are 4, 787-841 ; 6, 13-51 ; 
 19, 509-581. Of less import are 20, 61-90, and the still shorter 
 references, 11, 207, 222; U, 495f^ 19, 581; 21, 79 ;^o 24, 12. 
 
 Odyssey, 4, 787-841 
 
 The first dream described in the Odyssey appears to Penelope^^ 
 after the departure of Telemachus to consult with Nestor. 
 Athene fashioned a phantom, in form like Iphthime, sister of 
 Penelope, and sent it to cheer the wife of Odysseus. The 
 phantom of Iphthime, entering the chamber, carries on a long 
 dialogue with the sleeping queen. It bids her to be of good 
 courage in regard to her absent son, but refuses to tell her aught 
 of Odysseus. 
 
 In some features this dream is identical in character with the 
 naive dreams of the Iliod?'^ It comes from without the dreamer ; 
 it is objective and personal, sent by a divinity. But there are 
 differences in detail, with obvious changes, additions, improve- 
 ments, refinements, showing a more mature art, and conscious 
 reflection. Here the sender is the gleaming-eyed Athene'* 
 (795), who takes upon herself in the Odyssey the dramatic func- 
 tion performed in the Iliad by Zeus. For as Zeus is the active 
 divinity in the Iliad, so Pallas Athene is the chief agent in the 
 
 ^^This line, 14, 495 (cf. supra, 2), has, from the time of Aristarchus on, 
 generally been regarded as an interpolation from Iliad, 2, 56. 
 
 '021, 79 is identical with line 19, 581. 
 
 "^Od. 4, 787-841. 
 
 "Compare with Iliad, 2, 1-47; 10, 496-497; 23,62-107 (supra, 2-20). 
 
 ''In one passage in the Iliad, 10, 496-497, she is the responsible divinity 
 who sends the evil dream (supra, 11, n. 35). 
 
 24 
 
The Odyssey 25 
 
 restoration of the hero of the Odyssey. That which is sent is a 
 phantom (s'tBwXov, 796), which the goddess had fashioned in the 
 likeness of Penelope's sister, as in Iliad, 2, 1 ff. the dream had 
 taken upon itself the form of Nestor.^^ This phantom, Iph- 
 thime, is sent from afar (798; 811); she comes in the dead of 
 night (841) f^ her entrance and her exit are minutely described; 
 she enters by the strap of the bolt (802), and leaves by the bolt 
 that fitted into the doorpost (838) f^ she 'stands above the head' 
 (803)" of Penelope as she 'sweetly slvimbered at the gates of 
 dreams' (809) . Like the baneful dream of Iliad 2, the phantom 
 names the divinity who sent her (828-829). She comes to 
 impart one bit of encouragement and refuses to divulge any- 
 thing else, in spite of Penelope's requests: xax6v h' dvs^wXta 
 Pdc?;stv, says she (837). 
 
 The dream, as in the earlier work, appears at a time of 
 crisis,^^ at one of the dramatic turning-points of the poem, the 
 departure of Telemachus to visit Menelaus, the so-called 
 secondary plot of the action of this epic. Its influence upon the 
 economy of the narrative is implied rather than openly or 
 definitely stated by the poet. Penelope had despaired of the 
 life of her son, exposed as he was to the wrath of the suitors, and 
 had become fainthearted about the return of Odysseus. Though 
 the e'tSwXov refuses to tell Penelope whether Odysseus is alive or 
 dead (831-837), its words of comfort about the journey of Tele- 
 machus suggest an affirmative answer to the queen's query. 
 The strengthening of this hope fortifies her resolution to 
 
 74The fact that this passage is an imitation of Iliad, 2, 1 ff., Hey, 12, has 
 demonstrated (supra, 2). 
 
 751 follow the usual interpretation, which explains &no\y6s as an old 
 word for dK/j."^. 
 
 7«This description is drawn with 'Homeric' simpHcity and attention to 
 detail. It shows, however, an amount of detail which is foreign to any 
 description of a dream in the earlier work. 
 
 "Cf. Iliad, 2, 20; 59 (supra, 6); 10, 496 (supra, 10); 23, 68 (supra, 14); 
 and supra, n. 22. 
 
 "Cf. /Wad, 2, 1-47; 10,496-497; 23,62-107. See supra, 8, 11, 20. 
 
26 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 await further her wandering hero's return and to withstand the 
 importunities of the suitors. The continued opposition of the 
 queen to their assaults upon her fideHty is necessary to the story. 
 Courage in resistance, while not visibly affecting the plot, is none 
 the less essential to its being. This courage the dream secures; 
 for that it is important to the economy of the poem. Such a 
 method of motivation is less direct than that of the dream in the 
 second book of the Iliad and less direct than much that is found 
 later.^^ But in proportion to its lack of directness it gains in 
 artistic refinement. It shows a technique that indicates 
 familiarity with the medium in which the poet is working and a 
 correspondingly increased skill in execution. It indicates a 
 sophistication such as one might expect in a later poem. 
 /The structure of this dream when compared with that of the 
 dreams of the earlier work is seen to be very complex. It is 
 what we may call a dialogue dream. The germ of this type of 
 dream is found in Iliad, 23, 62-107;/ the ghost of Patroclus 
 speaks once and Achilles replies once before it vanishes. But in 
 the passage in the Odyssey the poet has accepted this model and 
 has expanded it into a dialogue of considerable proportions, in 
 which the phantom speaks three times and Penelope twice 
 addresses it in turn and questions it. This expansion into a 
 longer dialogue inevitably introduces further refinements in 
 technique. In Iliad 2, for example, Zeus gave to the baleful 
 dream a definite message for it to deliver in the exact words of 
 the sender (10) : 
 
 xavTa (xdV axpsxeax; (^yopsuijjisv (bq ixtTsXXo), 
 
 says he. A comparison of the words which the dream spoke 
 (28-32) with the phrases of the original injunction (11-15) 
 
 ■^^There is later, in many cases, an assumption of simplicity which is 
 just as artistic and quite as artificial as a natural sophistication. For 
 more direct motivation in later works of the classical period, see my 
 discussions of Aeschylus, Pers. (infra, 60-66), Prom. Vine, (infra, 66-70), 
 Eumenides (infra, 74-77), Euripides, Hec. (infra, 85-90), Iph. Taur. 
 (infra, 91-96). 
 
The Odyssey 27 
 
 indicates how literally the dream carried out the wish of Zeus. 
 In the present passage in the Odyssey the amoebaean form 
 which the poet gives to his description of the dream confines the 
 charge of Athene to general terms. The orders are not given in 
 the original words of Athene, but are reported briefly, sketched 
 only in the vaguest outline (800-801) : 
 
 rioq nTQV£X6'7ueiav 68jpo[JLiviQV, Yo6(i)aav, 
 •jca6jsis xXau8(jLOio ^6016 ts 8axpu6evTO(;. 
 
 If Athene had demanded of the dream that it should carry a 
 verbatim message to Penelope, a dialogue would have been 
 either impossible, or else so mechanical as to preclude any 
 impression of epic verisimilitude. Here the spontaneity of the 
 dialogue is preserved by controlling the form of the goddess' 
 communication. The dramatic force of the incident is greatly 
 enhanced by this innovation. In Iliad 2, one knows in advance 
 what the dream will say; but here the treatment is more subtle. 
 There is effectively introduced the element of suspense. What 
 form will the words of comfort take? What news of importance 
 to the story will the dream impart ? Will it refer only to the 
 departure of Telemachus, or will it announce that Odysseus is 
 alive and on his homeward journey? The answers to these 
 questions the reader does not know until the dialogue is ended; 
 there is no anticipatory address to Iphthime, as there is to 
 "Ov£tpo<;.^^ The word for word repetition of J/tfl^ 2, essential in 
 the ballad, but an accident in the epic and not of its essence, is 
 omitted in this later, more studied example of the employment 
 of the dream. 
 
 Another innovation is to be noticed in the change in the sex 
 of the recipient of the dream. Athene sends her phantom in 
 sleep to a woman, whereas the visions of the Iliad come to 
 males. 81 Granted that the greater r61e played by the female 
 personae in the Odyssey helps this change in convention, still 
 
 80That is in Iliad, 2, 11-15, referred to above, 26. 
 
 8IT0 Agamemnon in Iliad, 2, 1-47; to Rhesus in 10, 496-497; to Achilles 
 in 23, 62-107. 
 
28 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 that one factor alone is not serious enough wholly to condition 
 the change. Odysseus is quite as much the hero as Penelope is 
 the heroine of the tale, and there are evident in it no natural 
 difficulties to prevent the poet from sending dreams to his hero. 
 He does indeed send numerous waking visions to his male 
 characters throughout this epic.^^ The Iliad is a saga of males. 
 The female figures, Helen, Briseis, Chryseis, are assumed as a 
 necessary part of the story, form a background for the action 
 of the heroes, but never play more than a passive role. To send 
 dreams, therefore, to the male heroes is natural and largely de- 
 pendent upon the conditions imposed by the narrative. But no 
 condition such as would demand a different convention controls 
 the practice in the Odyssey. The poet's preference for sending 
 dreams to his heroines rather than to his heroes would seem to 
 be the result, then, of deliberate design. There are no data for 
 determining whether this change was original with the poet or 
 for deciding what factors influenced him in his choice. Though 
 later epic poets did not see fit to follow him, the tragic poets, at 
 any rate, found his practice congenial and sent dreams to 
 women. ^ 
 
 Odyssey, 6, 13-51 
 
 In Odyssey, 6, 13-51 is the story of Nausicaa's dream, in 
 which she is directed to go to the shore, ostensibly to wash her 
 shining raiment, but actually so that she may aid the ship- 
 
 82Athene, for example, appears in a waking vision to Odysseus, 1, 118 ff. ; 
 to Telemachus, taking on the likeness of Mentor, 2, 399 ff . ; in the guise 
 of a youthful shepherd, to Odysseus, 13, 221 ff.; in the form of a woman 
 fair and tall, to Odysseus, 16, 155 ff. 
 
 ^In the tragedy of the classical period there is just one exception to this 
 convention. In the plays which portray dreams, Aeschylus, Persae, 
 Choephori, Eumenides, Sophocles, Electra, Euripides, Hecuba, Iphigenia 
 Taurica, the woman is the recipient of the dream. As in the realm of the 
 supernatural the oracle is regularly sent to the man, so the dream is sent 
 to the woman. The one exception in regard to the dream is found in 
 the Rhesus, 780-788. There the poet, following the story of the Iliad, 
 reverts to the convention of that earlier work. See infra, 65, n. 252, 
 for further comment upon this feature. 
 
The Odyssey 29 
 
 wrecked Odysseus. Athene is again the active divinity, as in 
 4, 787-841 ; but instead of sending a phantom, as she did before, 
 she comes in person (15) . Note how much in the description — 
 in accord with the universal tendency of the epic to use formulae 
 — has become stereotyped even thus early. The goddess 
 comes quickly, even *as a breath of wind' (20);^'^ she enters 
 though the doors are shut (19) f^ she stands above the head of 
 Nausicaa (21) f^ she likens herself to the daughter of Dymas, a 
 friend of equal age with Nausicaa, dear to her heart (22-23), as 
 Iphthime was to Penelope ;^^ she directs Nausicaa what she is 
 to do (31 ff.).88 
 
 The experiences of the dream are here, as before, looked upon 
 as real occurrences, which are as actual to the mind of the prin- 
 cess as her waking visions. There is no suggestion of a dream 
 state. In this respect the dream is cut on the usual pattern of 
 the dream in the Homeric poems. It is non-allegorical ; it gives 
 its commands in a straightforward manner without need of 
 interpretation. The goddess appears to a woman ;®^ in this 
 matter the poet employs again the innovation noticed in the 
 preceding dream. But outside of that feature this dream is 
 closely akin to the primitive vision of Iliad 2. 
 
 The place of introduction of the dream is again a crisis, a 
 pivotal point in the story. For from this incident the lot of 
 Odysseus changes, his ill-luck seems at last to end. The value 
 of tlie dream, in this passage, ior the economy of the plot is 
 explicit and direct. It is in pursuance of the dream's mandate 
 that Nausicaa goes to wash her raiment and so meets Odysseus 
 on the shore. From that encounter all his blessings flow. This 
 meeting introduces the whole Phaeacian episode. Nausicaa 
 
 8*Compare Iliad, 2, 17, and supra, 6, n. 21. 
 ssCompare Od. 4, 802; 838. 
 8**Compare supra, 6, n. 2?^. 
 
 *^For other dream disguises of the early epic, cf. Iliad, 2, 21; 10, 496; 
 Od. 4, 787 ff . 
 
 "Cf. Iliad, 2, 28. 
 
 "Od. 4, 787-841; supra, 27, n. 81 ; infra, 65. 
 
30 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 guides Odysseus to her father's court, where he makes himself 
 known to the king. Alcinous feasts him and draws from him, 
 on two successive nights, ^^ the story of his ten years of adventure 
 since the fall of Troy, a narrative which Homer, true to the 
 principle which Horace later formulated for him,^^ had previously 
 omitted. He finds favor in the king's eyes and is escorted on 
 the magic ship, the speed of which excelled the hawk's, back to 
 long-sought Ithaca, ^2 where in one short week the story hastens 
 to its close. For importance to the development of the plot 
 this dream stands second to the pernicious dream of Iliad 2.*^ 
 
 Odyssey, 19, 509-581 
 
 The third dream of importance in the Odyssey is entirely 
 different in content and form from every other dream of the 
 early epic. It is Penelope's dream of the geese and the eagle, 
 which she tells to the still unrecognized Odysseus. It is a dream 
 in which appear animate objects, but no persons.®* It is an 
 allegorical _dream, a 3ream that demands Budget at the same 
 time contains its own interpretation. An eagle came from the 
 mountain and killed Penelope's twenty geese; as she lamented 
 the loss, a second time it came, and, perching upon a rafter, 
 proclaimed itself Odysseus. It then explained the first or 
 
 90The story of his wanderings, which he tells to Alcinous, comprises 
 books 7-12. 
 
 *^Epp. 2, 3, 148-149: 
 
 semper ad eventum f estinat et in medias res 
 non secus ac notas auditorem rapit . . . 
 
 '^The story of his return is told in Od. 13. 
 
 ^^Od. 15, 1-43, the appearance of Athene to Telemachus, is quite indubi- 
 tably a waking vision. It lacks entirely the elaborate framework which 
 we have found in the dreams. Furthermore the poet is explicit (7): 
 tii\4fiaxop 5' oix Ctvos Hx^ y\vKi6s . . . 
 
 **I have summarized the forms in which the Homeric dream appears, 
 infra, 51-52. See the footnotes to those pages. 
 
The Odyssey 31 
 
 (^Uegorical part of the dream: the geese were the suitors, the 
 ^agle Odysseus, arrived to bring doom upon his false friends. 
 IjThis interpretation, included within the dream itself, Odysseus 
 (will not disturb (555-557) : 
 
 w yuvat, ou x(j)? e<TTtv ixoxptvaaOoct Svstpov 
 aXX'fi c«xox.X(vavT*, ixei i] pd TOt aMq 'OBuaaeu^ 
 ']u^c[)paB* oxcix; TsXsst.^^ 
 
 "but Penelope is not yet satisfied that the dream is sure of fulfil- 
 ment. Not all dreams come to pass for mortals. For there are 
 two gates of fleeting dreams, one of horn, through which pass 
 visions that bring true messages for men, the other of ivory, 
 which gives egress to deceitful dreams. ^^ 
 
 From the standpoint of its relation to the plot this dream 
 forms the prelude to the last great act of the Odyssey, appearing 
 immediately before the trial of the bow, the slaughter of the 
 suitors, and the restoration of the long-wandering hero to his 
 home. It cannot, however, be rated with Iliad 2, 1 ff . or Odys- 
 sey, 6, 13-51^^ for its influence upon the plot, for the assistance 
 it gives in advancing the action. Penelope has already deter- 
 mined to abide the trial of the axes and to follow the lot of the 
 successful contestant. ^* The dream does not affect this decision. 
 The most that it does for the actors of the poem is to give them 
 
 '^This passage, conveying one meaning to Penelope and another quite 
 different to the audience, is an early example of that tragic irony which 
 finds its grandest example in the Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles. 
 
 ''^For the many echoes and imitations of this description of the gates of 
 dreams (quoted below, 35), compare infra, 44-46, and the footnotes there. 
 
 97Supra, 2-9; 28-30. 
 
 "Penelope expresses her fear that the dream may be deceitful, in spite 
 of the confident interpretation of the stranger (Odysseus), and tells him 
 of the contest which she has determined upon for the following day, 
 a contest in which she herself is to be the prize for the successful suitor, 
 570-581. 
 
32 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 hope in varying degrees. Odysseus is sure that the suitors will 
 perish at his hand (557-558). Penelope, who would gladly, 
 take comfort from the dream, can only wistfully express her 
 hope that it came not through the gate of ivory (568-569). 
 
 The encouragement given by the vision steadies and strength- 
 ens the action, but does not originate it or control it as the 
 dreams cited above controlled the action. ^^ But the effect at 
 this crisis on the mind of the reader is impelling. As a part of 
 the elaborate epic properties with which the stage is set for the 
 great scene of the last act, it strikes the keynote of what that 
 scene shall be. It prepares for the quick ending of the ten^ 
 years' wandering and suffering of Odysseus and for the quick 
 coming of the reward for his faithful wife. It gives an atmos- 
 phere of swift decision and rapid disaster and restitution. And 
 so, though the role which the dream plays in the structure of the 
 plot is small, it does not follow that the epic writer was toying 
 with his device, or adding it as a mere prettiness. That degra- 
 dation of the dream device was left to Euripides, ^^^ the earliest 
 of the Alexandrians.^^^ Here the part the dream plays is still 
 impressive and significant for what it adds of the intangible in 
 tone and color, suggesting an impending crisis and hinting 
 broadly at the solution of the story, though not actually guiding 
 the catastrophe. 
 
 The nature and the number of epithets applied to dreams in 
 these lines are worthy of note: dreams are aiAYj/avoi, 'inexplica- 
 ble', ixpiTojjLuGot, 'hard of interpretation' (560), a[jL£VY)vo{, 
 'fleeting', 'unreal', 'unsubstantial' (562), an adjective in these 
 early epics regularly used of ghosts or of the disembodied spirits 
 
 ^Uliad, 2, 1-47; Od. 6, 13-15. 
 
 looj refer here to the dream in the Rhesus, 780-788. For the discussion 
 of the mean r61e it plays, see below, 98-100. 
 
 i°^Euripides as the precursor of Alexandrianism is a commonplace of the 
 handbooks. Cf. especially, Couat, vi, and 59. 
 
The Odyssey 33 
 
 of the dead;^^2 they deceive, iX£(j)acpovTat/°^ and bring words 
 which are unfulfilled, exe' dxpdavTa ^i^ovzeq (565), or, on the other 
 hand, they bring things to pass in reality: qX p* sTu^xa xpaCvouat 
 (567). The writer has gone far from the o5Xo<; "Ovetpoq ^^ of 
 the earlier work. 
 
 The most remarkable difference, however, is the changed 
 
 conception of the dream. The first portion of it is allegorical : 
 
 dXk* aye [xot t6v oveipov ux6xptvai xai axou(7ov(535). It requires 
 
 nterpretation. This is a new departure for the epic and a 
 
 nodel for the allegorical dreams of tragedy.^°^ To be sure 
 
 i°2This connotation emphasizes the partial dependence of the eschatology 
 of all peoples upon dream experiences; see the discussion and bibliography 
 in note 40, above, and add the following references for comment on 
 additional features: Frazer, Belief in Immortality, 1, 27 ff.; 136; 139; 
 141; 193; 321; Golden Bough, Index, s. v. Dreams; Hardie, Lectures^ 
 91 ff.; Granger, 33; 42; Tylor, 1, 430; 440 ff. The close relationship 
 between the descriptions of the dream and of the ghost, in similarity of 
 action, of imagery, and of vocabulary, in Greek or Roman epic, appears in 
 the following passages: Iliad, 23, 72; 97-98; 100; 104; Od. 4, 824; 835 
 11, 83; 206-207; 211-213; 222; 476; 20, 355; Aeneid, 1, 353; 2, 772; 773 
 793; 4, 353; 554-572; 5, 636; 736; 6, 390; 480; 894; 10, 519; 636 
 641-642. 
 
 ^^^ Iliad, 1, 63 and 5, 149-150 admit inferentially that dreams may need 
 interpretation, that is, may be allegorical and capable of misconstruc- 
 tions, unless we reject, with Hey, 11 (see above, n. 24), the equation 
 dvetpoTrdXoj = * interpreter of dreams'. If dvetpoirbXoi were used in the 
 passage in the text, it would certainly mean 'interpreter of dreams', as 
 it surely does in Herodotus, 5, 56 and probably in 1, 128 also. Of. also 
 Buchholz, 2, 33 ff., the chapter entitled, Die Seher. 
 
 ^o^Iliad, 2, 1-47 (supra, 2-9). Hey, 16, insists that the nature and the 
 number of epithets support the theory of a later interpolation. 
 
 lo^The allegorical dream is the usual form of the dream in tragedy; 
 it is more congenial to the nature of that literary genre, as indicated mfra, 
 56-59. The allegorical dreams in classical Greek tragedy are: Aeschylus. 
 Pers., infra, 64; Prom. Vine, infra, 69; Choe., infra,71; Sophocles, £/ecfra, 
 infra, 84; Euripides, Iph. Taur., infra, 91 ff.; Rhesus, infra, 97. The 
 non-allegorical dreams are in the Eumenides, infra, 77; and in the Hecuba, 
 that part of the queen's dreams which has to do with Polyxena: that 
 which is concerned with Polydorus is portrayed as external in origin; 
 infra, 90. 
 
34 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 there is one hint, possibly two, in the earlier work, of a 
 knowledge of the nature of the dream, that the vision may exist 
 only in the mind of the dreamer and correspond to no external 
 objective thing. These are the assvimptions of Iliad, 22, 199- 
 200,^^^ and also of the reference to 6v£ipox6Xo<; in Iliad, 1, 63 
 and 5,149, if this word does not mean rather *one to whom 
 dreams come'.^^^ But this dream of Penelope is the first alle- 
 gorical dream in extant Greek literature. Dreams which pre- 
 sumably demanded interpretation must, from the physical 
 nature of dreams, have been frequent in the everyday life of 
 mankind from most primitive times. Hence it is difficult 
 fully to realize how slow and halting is the process of trans- 
 ferring such experiences to the realms of literature. One has 
 only to recall, however, the resistance which the different de- 
 partments of modem literature, for example the novel, have 
 offered to the adoption of changes, obvious enough after their 
 incorporation, to appreciate fully the advance which the account 
 of Penelope's dream marks. When the mould was once cast, 
 other poets could imitate and refine the technique. 
 
 The lack of familiarity on the part of the poet with his new 
 dream form leads him into a strange contaminatio in this passage. 
 The second part of the dream, in which the eagle returned and 
 announced itself to be Odysseus and interpreted the first or 
 allegorical part of the dream, shows that the poet felt uneasy in 
 connection with a vision which is not direct, — a vision, that is, 
 the symbols of which must be translated if its meaning is really 
 to be grasped. And so the poet adds a second part in the 
 manner of the older type, the objective dream, which was 
 direct and told its own story, that his hearers or readers might 
 not be confused by the novelty which he had introduced. 
 Later writers handle the interpretation of the allegorical dream 
 
 ^''^Aristarchus athetized lines 199-201, which contain the offending 
 conception, and some modem editors have followed him. Ameis-Hentze, 
 Anhang, ad loc, give the evidence and the bibliography. 
 
 lo^See Rohde, 1, 37; Nagelsbach, Nachhom. TheoL 172; supra, 6, n. 24, 
 and 33. n. 103. 
 
The Odyssey 35 
 
 with the greater skill which comes of practice. But there is 
 much charm in the rough pioneer work displayed in the economy 
 of this Homeric dream and there is no lack of artifice and polish 
 in its details. 
 
 Among these highly sophisticated details is Penelope's 
 statement about the two gates of dreams (562-567) : 
 
 Botal ydg ts -luuXat djxsvYjvwv ehh dvetpwv' 
 
 (xl [kh Y<^P xepdceaat TSTe^xaTai, at B' ili^ayzC 
 
 Twv 0? (xev X,* eXOwjt Btd: xpiaToO iki^ayzoq, 
 
 oX p' iXs([)afpovTat, ixs' axpdavTa ^epovxe?* 
 
 0'^ Zk Stds ^saTwv xspdtov IXSoxjt Gupal^e, 
 
 oi; p' hu[L(X xpalvoujt, gpOTWv ots xev Tt? 'tSiQTat. 
 
 The conscious artifice in these lines is shown in the play^®^ upon 
 the similarity of sound in i\i^(xyi:i, ^Xec[)atpovTcci, and xepaeaat, 
 Ttpafvoujt — a play which can hardly be accidental. The epic 
 masterpiece is always the product of an advanced art, and so 
 this intermixture of art with artlessness, the ingenious with the 
 ingenuous, the embellished with the unembellished, does not of 
 itself argue a date of the time of Hesiod, or later, for this passage 
 on the gates of dreams.^®^ To be sure, the predominant note in 
 the Homeric dream, as the discussion hitherto has shown, is, 
 artistically, the rudimentary, the early, the primitive. But the 
 acknowledgment of this feature does not exclude the recogni- 
 tion of the presence of later, less rudimentary elements. A com- 
 bination of the old and the new, such as exists in the descriptions 
 of the dream and in about the same proportions, can be illus- 
 trated in conjunction with a survey of the companion and 
 allied conceptions, sleep, death, the land of dreams. 
 
 ^"^This word-play was noticed as early as the scholiast; cf. his com- 
 ment on line 562. 
 
 I'^'Hey, 15, discussing the dream from the philosophic side, excludes 
 everything from the 'original' Homer which does not conform to his theory 
 of the "exoteric" dream. He says of the word-play under discussion: 
 "Solche Wortspiel verbricht kein homerischer Dichter, sondem h6chstens 
 ein vemiinftelnder Katalogiseur hesiodischer Schule". 
 
36 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 In the portrayal of sleep, for example, in the Iliad and the 
 Odyssey, we find the same duality of artistic theory — the naive 
 picture of external, objective sleep, existing side by side with 
 descriptions containing such adjectival and verbal adjuncts as 
 seem to indicate a more advanced psychology and so sound 
 quite natural to a modem ear. What proportion of this objec- 
 tivity is a survival of an earlier belief and what proportion can 
 be ascribed to conscious artifice there is no means of determining. 
 In a given passage sleep may be at the same time a personal 
 deity and a substance that can be poured upon mortals by that 
 deity; and at once the two conceptions may be linked with 
 such verbs for 'sleep' as suBw or dwTsw, words which seem to 
 contain essentially the modern idea. The noun for 'sleep' is 
 found with many epithets which are figurative in origin, how- 
 ever much consciousness of the figure may have been lost. 
 
 Some epithets of sleep are common to both poems. Thus, 
 sleep is sweet, yXuxu?,^^^ tjBu?,^" yXuvLegoq;^^^ deep, vt)Bu^O!;;^^^ it is 
 soft, like the fresh-plowed fallow, or the grassy meadow, or the 
 unshorn sheep, piaXaxoc; ;^^^ it is the all-subduer, the all-tamer, 
 xavBa^aTwp.^^^ In the Odyssey, especially, — an indication per- 
 haps of a later technique — several of these adjectives show a 
 slightly greater tendency to become stereotyped, as the approxi- 
 mate count of my footnotes shows. 
 
 The Iliad further calls sleep ambrosial, d\x^g6<^ioq,^^^ an epithet 
 used of night and things pertaining to the gods, their hair, their 
 sandals, their anointing oil; like wine, it is sweet to the mind, 
 tJL£X(4)pwv;^^'' it is gentle and balmy, like a warm wind, axifjtJLwv 
 Y.(xl Xtap6q;^^^ 4^^^ ^^ "^^^ ^ brazen sleep, xcxXxzoq uicvo*;.^^^ 
 
 The later poet adds some touches of his own to the picture. 
 With him sleep is also, on occasion, merciless, cruel, like an 
 Achilles, a Patroclus, or a Zeus, (j^i'^'kioq','^^^ it is pitiless, 
 
 ^^miad, 3 times; Od., 11 times. "«2, 19. 
 
 ^^^Iliad, once; Od., 5 times. ^^"^2, 34. 
 
 ^^Uliad, 3 times; Od., 4 times. "n4, 164. 
 
 ^^Uliad, 7 times; Od., 5 times. "ni, 241. 
 
 ^^^Iliad, twice; Od., once. 120IO, 69. 
 "6//iac;, 24, 5; Orf. 9, 373. 
 
The Odyssey 
 
 37 
 
 relentless, like the sword of steel or the day of death, v7)Xt)?;*** 
 it relaxes the limbs, Xufft^jLeXifjg/^z as does love in Hesiod^^a qj. 
 Sappho/24 death in Euripides/^s wine in the Anthology, ^"^^ or the 
 Furies in the Orphic Hymn;'^^'^ it has its gifts, of which man par- 
 takes, uTuvou Swpov eXovTo ;^^^ or it is merely boundless, deep, and 
 honey-sweet, ixeipwv,^^® VY]ypeTo<;,^^^ tJ-sXtY^Brjc;.^^^ 
 
 In the use of verbs with the noun for sleep as subject the 
 variety is equally great in the two epic poems. Each shows ap- 
 proximately a score^^^ of different verbs so used; the total 
 number of occurrences is greater in the Odyssey in proportion as 
 the theme of sleep plays a more important r61e. In the Iliad 
 sleep comes, Ixdvw/^^ sits upon the eyelids, ^([)ii;av(o,^^^ holds, £xw»^*^ 
 catches, (jLapxTO),^^^ lays, 'keyoi,^^'^ seizes, alpsw,^^^ overpowers, 
 h(X[Ld'(,b),^^^ rushes violently at, like a hound that rushes upon a 
 wounded fawn, ixopouo);^^*^ or it lets go, av^Y)(JLi,^^^ frees from 
 anxiety, Xdctiy (jLsXsBYjjiaTa 6u^ou;^^^ it perishes, axoXXu^ii;"^ or it 
 is pictured as a liquid and is poured upon mortals as Zeus pours 
 rain, x£w.^^ 
 
 Of these verbs the Odyssey repeats many : l^w , ^^^ X£t*> » ^^^ (iv (tq ^i t , '*^ 
 Ixavw/^^ atpio)/'^ i%opo(i(^,^^n(X[L(iW^'- txapxTto,^^' X6g).^^^ It shows 
 
 12112, 372. 
 
 
 
 1374, 131. 
 
 12220, 57; 23, 343. 
 
 
 
 1383 times. 
 
 ^Theog. 911. 
 
 
 
 1393 times. 
 
 i24Fr. 43. 
 
 
 
 14023, 232. 
 
 ^^^Supp. 46. 
 
 
 
 i«2, 34; 71. 
 
 ^^^Anth. Pal. 11, 414. 
 
 
 
 14223, 62. 
 
 12769, 9. 
 
 
 
 143 10, 186; 187 (intr.). 
 
 i287Zmrf,7,482; 9,713; 
 
 ; Od. 
 
 16, 
 
 1442,19; 23,62; 14,165; 24,445. 
 
 481; 19,427. 
 
 
 
 14515, 7. 
 
 i290(/. 7, 286. 
 
 
 
 1468 times. 
 
 130OJ. 13, 80. 
 
 
 
 1474 times. 
 
 1310^. 19, 551. 
 
 
 
 1489,333; 19,49. 
 
 i32Approximately 16 and 18 for 
 
 1499,373; 19,511; 20,52. 
 
 Iliad and Odyssey re 
 
 jspectively. 
 
 16023, 343. 
 
 1331,610; 10,96. 
 
 
 
 1517, 318; 13, 119; 15, 6. 
 
 13*10,26; 91. 
 
 
 
 16220, 56. 
 
 1352,2; 10,4. 
 
 
 
 16323, 342. 
 
 i»823,62; 24,679. 
 
 
 
 
38 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 a particular fondness, as a glance will indicate, for ^Iw, d^iri[Hy 
 atpio), ^(X[Ld'C,id,^^ and in the case of the others it often imitates 
 passages from the earlier poem.^^^ It also adds several, some 
 colorless, some highly figurative. Sleep is used with the wonted 
 verb of motion, sp^otxat ;^^^ or it falls upon mortals, x(xto),^^^ or it 
 speeds away, Ixaeuo^jiat;^^^ Athene throws it upon the eyelids, 
 PdXXw;^^^ it joins with the evil companions of Odysseus to 
 infatuate him, aaaav (Ji' lTapo( iz xaxoi izghq to tat t£ utcvo?,^^*^ by it 
 are men sated, dSsw,^^^ or worn out, dpdw,^^^ or caused to forget, 
 
 After a survey such as this from the Index Homericus one gets 
 no nearer, perhaps, to the poet's explanation of the psychic 
 processes of sleep, if he had any such explanation. Further- 
 more, many of the ideas can be exactly paralleled in modern 
 poetry in the works of authors to whom the scientific phenomena 
 of sleep are no closed book. It is not a question, then, of the 
 epic poet's psychological or philosophical theories as to the 
 nature of sleep, but a question of what his prevailing artistic 
 conception was. Viewing the Homeric treatment from this 
 latter standpoint, we may say that the omiulative evidence of so 
 many touches leaves an undoubted impression of sleep as some- 
 thing external, objective, corporeal. Whether the portrayal is 
 in accord with the writer's scientific belief, or is only his poetic 
 fancy, sleep nevertheless appears as something material, 
 physical, existing outside the sleeper. 
 
 When one has accustomed oneself to this recurrent and 
 artistically primitive giving of substance to sleep, one is pre- 
 pared to accept without surprise the detailed pictures of sleep 
 as a personality and a god. Hence, in spite of the elusive 
 dualism, the occasional combination of a primitive psychology 
 
 "^8, 4, 3, 3 times respectively. ^^n, 363; 16, 450. 
 
 iB6Cf. Iliad, 23, 62; 24, 679; Od. 20, i^oio, 68. 
 
 56; 23,342; etc. i6il2, 281. 
 
 1565 times. ^^m, 2. 
 
 1574 times. i«320, 85. 
 "812, 366. 
 
The Odyssey 39 
 
 with intimations of a more enlightened view of ^leep and dream 
 experiences, the picture of Sleep in Iliad 14 and 16 does not 
 strike one with that high degree of artificiality and unreality 
 which attends the personification of those pale abstractions 
 which we find so freely introduced by a Silius Italicus^^^ or a 
 Valerius Flaccus.^^^ This full-length portrayal of Sleep in Iliad 
 14 and 16 does not suggest, in the same way, the study and the 
 lamp. To be sure the naivete of Homeric epic is an artistic 
 naivete.^^^ Yet one must admit that the picture of Sleep, thus 
 personified, glides into the mind of the reader here without any 
 lack of verisimilitude. Sleep is here as truly a god as Zeus or 
 Aphrodite, if on a lower plane. 
 
 In Book 14, 225 ff. Hera speeds to Lemnos, city of divine 
 Thoas, to petition "Yxvo^; to put Zeus to sleep. The meeting 
 and the conversation are most natural and vivid. No divinity 
 could be more completely equipt with all the attributes of per- 
 sonality than Hypnos is in these verses. Hera in return for this 
 favor will give him a fair golden throne, imperishable forever, 
 with a footstool for him to put his gleaming feet upon (238-241). 
 But Sleep is cautious of granting her request. His previous plot 
 against Zeus, when the latter, after awakening, tossed the gods 
 in anger about the Olympian mansion and forced Hypnos to flee 
 for refuge to Nu$, of whom even Zeus stood in awe, had fallen 
 too little short of disaster. So Hera is forced to offer him one 
 of her XaptT£<;, an offer which never failed to win assent from 
 male divinity. Hypnos puts her to a solemn oath, invoking all 
 the gods by name, then promises to do her bidding. He accom- 
 
 i<^Cf. 2, 548-552; 4,89; 7,204; 10,345; 13,560; and passim. 
 
 "6Cf. 1, 796; 8, 70. The personifications of Sleep, Death, and similar 
 conceptions in the Latin poets are of a purely literary character; cf. 
 the passages referred to under the words, Somnus, Mors in J. B. Carter, 
 Epitheta Deorum (Leipzig, 1902). 
 
 i«6We must remember what Professor K. F. Smith so judiciously says, 
 Elegies of Tihullus, page 68 (New York, 1913): "No competent critic 
 in these days, certainly no classical scholar worthy of the name, needs 
 to be reminded that in a literary masterpiece simplicity is always deliberate 
 and naivete always artistic". 
 
40 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 panies her to Mt. Ida and, taking on the Ukeness of a bird,^^^ 
 nestles in the highest tree (286 ff.), waiting to do his part. At 
 the right moment he puts sleep as a cloak around Zeus (359), 
 and dashes off to Poseidon to deliver the injunctions of Hera. A 
 short passage here, 352-360, combines all the different concep- 
 tions with delightful inconsistency — eSBs xaTYjp (352), utcvco . . . 
 8a^£:q (353), {xaXaxov luepl y.C)[l ixdXu^a, the material in the hands 
 of Hypnos (359) — without detracting in the slightest degree 
 from the personality and verisimilitude of Sleep. 
 
 In Iliad 16, too, we find a personal Hypnos linked with a 
 personal Thanatos. The body of Sarpedon is given to the *swift 
 conveyors', the twins Sleep and Death (454; 681-682), who 
 carry it quickly to Lycia.^®^ 
 
 Death and Sleep are joined as brothers in these two passages 
 {Iliad, 16, 454, and 682). In later literature the idea is wide- 
 spread. Hesiod, who elaborates still further the relationship 
 between Sleep and Death, calls them children of Nu?.^®^ One of 
 the scenes on the chest of C)rpselus, as described by Pausanias,^'^'' 
 
 i67Pqj- ^ j^Qj-g Qj^ dreams and the comparison of them to bats, etc. see 
 below, 43; n. l&l. The conception of sleep as winged does not occur until 
 the Alexandrian period. Callimachus, Hymn to Apollo, 234, supplies 
 the earliest extant reference to the wings of Sleep. This may be a develop- 
 ment of the hint given in this Homeric passage. After the Alexandrian 
 age the conception is frequently met; cf. Tibullus, 2, 1, 89; Nonnus 5, 
 411; 31, 175 (ed. Ludwich, Leipzig, 1909); Fronto, De Feriis Alsiensihus, 
 229 (ed. Naber); Claudius, In Rufinum, 2, 325 (ed. J. Koch, Leipzig, 
 1893). 
 
 ^''^Sleep and Death, carrying off a long-haired hero, either Memnon or 
 Sarpedon, have been portrayed on Greek vases. Cf. for the illustration, 
 Baumeister, 1, 727, fig. 781; and for the discussion and literature, 2, 922; 
 and Preller-Robert, 1, 844-845. 
 
 ^^^Theog. 212; 756-759. Sleep is child of Night also in Euripides, 
 Cyclops, 601; Nonnus, 31, 117; etc. Dreams are the children of Night in 
 Hesiod, Theog. 212; Euripides, ^gc. 70; Ovid, Fasti, 4, 662; and they 
 accompany Sleep in Ovid, Met. 11, 613 and Statins, Theh. 10, 112, while 
 Sleep is king of Lucian's Isle of Dreams, Ver. Hist. 2, 32 ff. 
 
 i^°Pausanias, 5, 18, 1; cf. Frazer, Pausanias, ad loc. and on 2, 10, 2. 
 Here Sleep is represented passively, as slumbering; compare the citation 
 below, n. 181, where Sleep is active, lulling to rest a lion. 
 
The Odyssey 41 
 
 represented Sleep and Death reposing in the hands of Night. 
 Sleep was clad in white and slumbered in the right hand of 
 Night; Death was clad in black and sltimbered in her left. 
 Though this particular composition is not fully paralleled on the 
 extant vases, Sleep and Death do appear together on the vases. 
 Attic lekythoi portray them so."^ Plutarch, Cleoni. 9,"^ says 
 that there was in Sparta a shrine to Death. Sisyphus tricked 
 and bound Death, a theme used by Aeschylus for a satyr 
 drama."^ Euripides boldly portrayed Death upon the stage, 
 with lowering mien, black wings, and a knife with which to cut 
 from the dying a lock of hair.^^^ This gloomy conception of 
 Death was not, however, universal. Where the similarity of 
 Death to Sleep was realized on its beneficent side a milder 
 conception of Death was the rule. Thus Sophocles^^^ called 
 Death a?£vuxvo(;; in the fourth century he was conceived as a 
 young man, until finally he was likened to an Eros, winged or 
 unwinged, usually sleeping. Then entered the euphemistic use 
 of Sleep for his brother Death.^^^ 
 
 But let us return to the matter more immediately in hand. 
 This very live and vivid picture of Sleep and the portrayal of a 
 
 ^^^Cf. Robert, Taf. 2, p. 20. For numerous representations of Death 
 on Athenian lekythoi, cf. Dumont et Chaplain, Les cSr antiques de la 
 Grece propre, par. 1, pi. 27-28 (Paris, 1888-1890); Baumeister, 3, 1729. 
 
 i72Cf. also Pausanias, 3, 18, 1. See Preller-Robert, 1, 843 for bibli- 
 ography. 
 
 i^^See Preller-Robert, loc. laud., footnote 5. 
 
 ^^^Alcestis, 25; 261; 843; 1140. Robert, 34 ff. discusses this portrayal 
 at length. 
 
 ^■^^Oed. Col. 1578. 
 
 i^^A very valuable presentation of the conception of Death which was held 
 by the Greeks of the Classical period can be found in A. de Ridder, De 
 Videe de la mort en Grece cL Vepoque classique (Paris, 1896). See also A. 
 Maury, Du personnage de la mort et de ses representations dans VantiquitS 
 (in Rev. Arch. 1847-1848); Robert, Thanatos. Robert, 36 ff., finds no 
 popular cult of Death corresponding to the plastic and pictorial repre- 
 sentations. 
 
42 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 likewise personal Death must be kept in mind in studying the 
 poet's conception of the dream, because of the close inter- 
 dependence of these three conceptions. For, to the two 
 brothers. Sleep and Death, Dream, or the race of dreams, was 
 related.^^^ In the Hesiodic passage cited above, ^^^ Night was 
 their mother as she was of Sleep and Death. Euripides calls 
 them black-winged children of Earth ;i^^ Sophocles^^^ makes 
 Death the son of Earth. Again, the statues of Sleep and Dream 
 in the inner chamber of the enclosure of Asklepios at Sicyon^^^ 
 repeat the family connection of the dream with Sleep and Death. 
 
 Since, then, Homeric epic connected the dream with these 
 predominantly external and personal daimons, the additional 
 picture of a country and dwelling-place of dreams, hri\Loq 
 dvetpwv, was a natural extension. This home of dreams is 
 situated beyond the streams of Oceanus and the White Rock, 
 beyond the gates of the sun, near the asphodel mead which the 
 shades of heroes haunted, Odyssey, 24, 11-14. By comparing 
 this passage with Odyssey, 11, 14, we see that the region is 
 further defined as the land of the Cimmerians. 
 
 The interest which these descriptions of the country of dreams 
 aroused is shown by the wide-spread imitation of them. Vergil 
 follows Homer^82 {^ speaking of a home of dreams ; he places the 
 home of vain dreams primis in faucibus Orel, and represents 
 
 ^"For the representation of the family relationships supplied by art. 
 see note 174 above. 
 
 ^''^Theog. 212. Cf. n. 169. 
 
 ^''mec. 70-71. Compare this passage with Iph. Taur. 1262-1263. 
 
 ^^^Oed. Col. 1574. 
 
 ^s^Pausanias, 2, 10, 2. In the outer chamber of the sacred enclosure was 
 the head of a statue of Sleep; in the colonnade a statue of Sleep and a 
 statue of Dream. In this representation Sleep is active, putting a lion 
 to sleep; cf. G. Kruger, Hermes und Hypnos, (in Fleckeisens Jahrhucher, 9, 
 288-301) , and other bibliographical references in Frazer's Pausanias, ad loc. 
 
 ^^^It must always be remembered, however, that the Vergilian Hades is 
 subterranean, while the Homeric Odysseus does not find the shades beneath 
 the earth at all. 
 
The Odyssey 43 
 
 such dreams as clinging beneath all the leaves of a huge black 
 elm (Aeneid, 6, 273, 282-284). The source of this dream-ehn is 
 undetermined.183 xhe continual likening of the soul to the 
 dream-image suggests that, as souls are compared to bats 
 {Od. 24, 6 f.), Vergil is here transferring to the companion con- 
 ception of dreams the bat-Hke habits of the souls of the suitors 
 which Hermes was conducting to the mead of asphodel.i84 
 
 Ovid, Met. 11, 592-593, places his home of Sleep and its 
 creatures, dreams, near the Cimmerians : 
 
 est prope Cimmerios longo spelunca recessu, 
 mons cavus, ignavi domus et penetralia Somni.^s^ 
 
 Apuleius, Met. 6, 21, has Psyche bring up her box of infernus 
 somnus ac vere Stygius from the home of Proserpina. Lucian, 
 Vera Hist. 2, 32, has an island of dreams. The late writer 
 Nonnus, 31, 112, speaks of ^axepto? lo^oq ''Txvou. 
 
 These are literary, artistic extensions of what their authors 
 found in their predecessors, with no relation to contemporaneous 
 
 is'See Hey, 17. 
 
 ^8*This picture of the dream-elm in the entrance of Hades contradicts 
 the later passage, 6, 893 ff., in the opinion of Norden, 47 (he quotes in 
 support A. Gercke, Neue Jahrbiicher f. d. klass. Alt. 1901, 110 f.). Norden, 
 216, cites parallels: the tree of the Hesperides, the golden apples of 
 which Heracles had to pick before he could receive immortality, a myth 
 of chthonic character, in which the Hesperides were originally pictured 
 as birds; Lucian, Ver. Hist. 2, 33, the Island of Dreams with the wood in 
 which the bats nested. Souls, which by a process of idealizing personifica- 
 tion were later looked upon as 'winged', were originally conceived as birds. 
 Vergil, who here evidently pictures dream-beings under the form of soul- 
 beings, reverts to that primitive conception. 
 
 ^^The whole of the long passage should be read in this connection. A 
 comparison of the Hypnos of the earlier poet with the Somnus of Ovid 
 here, or the pale Somnus-Sopor of Silius Italicus, 10, 340 ff., will give a 
 clear insight into the difference in treatment between the old classic 
 picture of Sleep and the later imitation. In the O vidian reference an 
 intermediate Greek source — 'Alexandrian' shall we say? — seems to be 
 indicated by the Greek names of three of the thousand sons of Somnus, 
 Morpheus (635), Icelos-Phobetor (640), and Phantasos (642). 
 
44 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 folk-beliefs or philosophical theories. Their sources are entirely 
 bookish. When one gets back to Homer, however, that assump- 
 tion cannot be so confidently made. Homeric epic was much 
 nearer the soil and the incorporation therein of such portrayals 
 as that of the country of dreams may represent current folk- 
 beliefs. 
 
 To the country of dreams gates are given in two places in the 
 Odyssey — in 4, 809, where the phantom Iphthime, sent by the 
 gleaming-eyed Athene, finds Penelope 'very sweetly slumbering 
 at the gates of dreams', and in the longer passage, 19, 562-567.^^^ 
 The allusions to these lines and the imitations of them are numer- 
 ous in both Greek and Latin literatures: Plato, Charm. 173a: 
 axous Syj, £(j)Y]v, TO i[Lby ovap, eiie Bta xspdcTwv ekz Bi' IXec|)avTog iXi]- 
 XuOev; Sophocles, Elect. 645, perhaps (one may see a hint of it in 
 Biacjwv 6v£(po)v); Anth. Pal. 7, 42:1^7 ^ (xsya BccTTtdSao [i. e. Cal- 
 limachus] ao(t)ou xsptxujTov ovstap, r] p' lTe6v xspawv ouB' iXi^ayzoq 
 £TQ<; ; Horace,Carm. 3, 27, 41 : luditimago vana quae porta fugiens 
 ebuma somnium ducit ? ; Propertius, 5, 7, 87 ; Statius, Silv. 5, 3, 
 287; Lucian, Ver. Hist. 2,32; Somn. 6; Macrobius, Somn. Scip. 
 1,3,20; Tertullian ,De An.AQ] Philostratus (Maior) , Imagines , 
 333, 1-3 (Benndorf and Schenkel, Leipzig, 1893); Babrius, 
 Fabulae, 30, 8 (Schneidewin, Leipzig, 1880); Julian, Epistolae, 
 17 (Hertlein, Leipzig, 1875); Nonnus, Dion. 34, 90; 44, 53; 
 and Coluthus, Raptus Helenae, 367 (Abel, Berlin, 1880). But 
 the most famous of all the imitations is the account of the twin 
 
 is^The lines are quoted in full above, 35. 
 
 i^^For a discussion of this poem from the Anthology and the light which 
 it throws upon the 'Alexandrianism' of Ennius see Messer, 78-92. This 
 discussion, indeed, is, in addition to being an independent study in the 
 dream technique of the classical Greek period and to that extent an end in 
 itself, a preliminary survey of the pre- Alexandrian elements. My final 
 aim is to sift and classify the elements — in whatever sphere they lie — 
 which went into the make-up of the description of dreams in Latin litera- 
 ture : to determine which of these elements are native, which Alexandrine, 
 which go back to the classical Greek period. 
 
The Odyssey 45 
 
 gates of Sleepiss in Vergil {Aeneid, 6, 893-898), i8» in which the 
 Roman poet uses the old conception to indicate the time at 
 
 i88]\jorden says on line 893: "'Tore der Traume' {Somni portae, da 
 oblique Casus von somnium unbrauchbar waren, vgl. Conington)". The 
 editors have as a rule followed him. There is no inherent impossibility 
 in such an interpretation: the poetical singular for the metrically incon- 
 venient plural is no rare phenomenon (Norden's typography, however, 
 is not in accord with his note; for he capitalizes the initial 5 {Somni]^ 
 which is surely impossible with his interpretation) . Ribbeck (bracketing 
 the whole passage) writes Somni. That can only mean — if referred to 
 somnium at all — the personification of the true singular of ^omnium, which 
 is inconsistent with all the other passages in Vergil, where the poet regularly 
 conceives of many dreams, not one; so, e.g. in Aen. 6, 282-284, the dreams 
 clustering beneath the elm are legion ; furthermore umhris (894) and insom- 
 nia (896) would be very harsh in such close connection with Somni. To 
 consider Somni the singular of the personified Somnus, Sleep, is simpler 
 and open to no serious objection. Vergil, though admittedly writing 
 under the influence of the Homeric tradition, nowhere held himself rigidly 
 to one source (on the philosophic side, for example, cf. the numerous 
 sources which he laid under contribution, cited by Norden in his introduc- 
 tory excursus, Die Quellenfrage, 20 ff.). Somnus as the marshaler of 
 dreams, in Latin as in Greek literature, is a familiar figure. Ovid, Met. 11, 
 585, gives the most elaborate picture, where Somnus is the father of a 
 thousand dreams. The conception is Vergilian also: in Aen. 5, 835 ff., 
 Somnus comes in person to Palinurus 'bringing dreams of bale', somnia 
 ■ tristia portans (840). The passage as a whole (quoted below, footnote 189) 
 has been the subject of much exegesis. Ribbeck, finding it inconsistent 
 with 6, 282-284, where dreams hang bat-like beneath the leaves of an elm, 
 secludes 893-896 (this inconsistency Ettig, Acheruntica, 354, 4 [cited by 
 Hey, 16], denies) and changes eburna to Averna. The Heyne- Wagner 
 excursus xv to Book 6, Norden's notes on 893-89G and his Einleitung, 
 47 f., and Hey, 16, give the important literature and the plausible explana- 
 tions. 
 
 ^^^Aeneid, 6, 893-898: 
 
 Sunt geminae Somni portae; quarum altera fertur 
 cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris; 
 altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto, 
 sed falsa ad caelum mittunt insomnia manes. 
 His ubi turn natum Anchises unaque Sibyllam 
 prosequitur dictis, portaque emittit ebuma. . . . 
 
46 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 which Aeneas and the guiding Sibyl left the underworld, i. e. 
 before midnight. ^^° 
 
 The importance of all these to our study of the Homeric 
 dream consists in the general acceptance of a country of dreams 
 with a definite poetical situation and poetico-physical doors. 
 By their imitations other poets bear witness to the vivid objec- 
 tivity and personality with which Homer, to their minds, had 
 portrayed the dream. This picture, once fastened upon poetry 
 by its great originator (or adapter), maintained its commanding 
 position and forced its conceptions upon poets who had long 
 outgrown any naive belief in the source of dreams. 
 
 The few remaining passages in the Odyssey in which the dream 
 is mentioned are of little importance, but are included here for 
 completeness. In 20, 61-90 Penelope prays to Artemis to slay 
 her. She complains that even the dreams which the gods send 
 are evil (87) , for that very night one like to Odysseus seemed to 
 lie by her side, and she rejoiced, thinking it not a dream, ovap, 
 but a real vision, uxap (90).^^^ A woman here, as is the rule in 
 the Odyssey, beholds the vision, but what specific god sends the 
 likeness we do not learn. In 11, 207 Odysseus likens the spirit 
 (^ux*^) oi his mother to a shadow (axtfj)^^^ or even a dream 
 (6ve(p({)); in 222 the mother's ghost tells him that the human 
 
 ^^°Cf. supra, n. 38; but for other theories, stretching back to Macrobius, 
 see the bibliography referred to in note 188, and add Granger, 44. 
 
 i^i^Trap, derived from virb, 'what is beneath', as e.g. t4 virdpyvpa XP^<^^°; 
 counterfeit gold coins, i.e. what is in reality silver (beneath), designates 
 the real essence in contrast to the accidental, the transitory, perishable 
 appearance or dream. 6vap, 6v€ipos, are derived from dvk, 'oben auf, 'on 
 the surface*, 'apparent'. See Prellwitz. Boisacq does not accept posi- 
 tively the suggested derivations of Prellwitz, though he refers to his 
 theory of the derivation of iirap. See E. W. Fay, The Classical Quarterly, 
 11, 212, for a different view. 
 
 i^^Frazer, Belief in Immortality, 207, states that at Wagawaga, among the 
 Massim in British New Guinea, the name for the spirit or soul of the dead 
 person is arugo, the word used for a man's shadow or reflection in a glass 
 or in water. This simile is an anthropological commonplace : see Spencer* 
 Tylor, Rohde, for abundant references. 
 
The Odyssey 47 
 
 spirit i^uxi]) flies away like a dream from the charred body.*** 
 In 19, 581 past joys are to be remembered in dreamsP^ 
 
 These shorter references are of little moment for the study of 
 the economy of the plot or of the internal development of the 
 dream device, but they throw light on the confusion which I 
 have emphasized (supra, 35 ff.) as existing between the artis- 
 tically primitive descriptions and the more advanced portrayals. 
 
 Summary for the Homeric Poems 
 
 In a rapid review of these passages, we find the poet of the 
 Iliad experimenting in the use of the dream as a means of advan- 
 cing the plot. He has no great familiarity with this device; 
 hence he employs it only once.^^^ In addition, the loose structure 
 of the Iliad demanded such frequent divine intervention for the 
 practically independent incidents that the poet was forced back 
 upon artifices with which, we may suppose, the poetry of the 
 day was better acquainted, — waking visions, the physical ap- 
 pearing of present, living deities, and other divine machinery, 
 frankly employed. Consequently the dream in this early form 
 shows no complexity as a factor in advancing the narrative. It 
 is elemental, straightforward, and directly applied. It does not 
 work on the plot through an intangible emotion, as in the 
 
 i93See Granger, 42. For the influence of the dream-image upon primi- 
 tive and more advanced eschatology, see above, note 40. Add Spencer 
 (1906), 1, 185; 784; A. Lang, Book of Dreams and Ghosts, 109 (London, 
 1897) ; F. B. Jevons, An Introduction to the History of Religion, 43 (London, 
 1896). 
 
 i^^The idea here expressed closely approximates two modem conceptions 
 of the dream: first, that which finds its psychical basis largely in mem- 
 ory (this theory is by no means new. Aristotle had formulated it: cf. 
 Tlepl '^vvirvLuv, S458-462, and Hepi t^s Ka^' "tirvov Ma^rtK^s, S462-464; 
 Buchsenchiitz, 17 ff.); secondly, the theory of Freud that the dream is 
 the fulfilment of a (suppressed) desire: see his third chapter, Der Traum 
 ist eine Wunscherfiillung, 94-102. A closer approximation to the latter 
 is found in Euripides, Iph. Taur. 44-46; see below, 95, n. 369. For Od, 
 24, 12 see supra, 42. 
 
 ^^Hliad, 2, 1 ff . ; supra, 2-9. 
 
48 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 encouragement of Penelope in Odyssey, 4, 787-841, or prepare us 
 for the developments of the plot by creating an atmosphere, as 
 in Odyssey, 19, 509-581.196 
 
 With the Odyssey it is different. While the plot of the Iliad 
 seems to be staged on Olympus, the plot of the Odyssey rests 
 more largely on earth. And so it is easier, in the former, to 
 show the gods acting; in the latter, it is easier to portray the 
 means, less patently supernatural, through which the gods act. 
 The dream is suited to fill this want and so the poet of the later 
 work, accepts the dream and develops it to meet this need. In 
 the first place the dream is more frequently used to forward the 
 action and with a quite noticeable advance upon the ruder 
 pioneer work of the earlier poet. In the Odyssey the influence of 
 the dream on the plot is, at times, more indirect and subtle; 
 for example, in 4, 787-841 the dream affects the action of the plot 
 through the encouragement of Penelope.^^^ Or the influence 
 may extend to a greater number of links in the chain of incidents 
 which form the story, as in 6, 13-51, where the whole Phaeacian 
 episode is made possible by Nausicaa's nocturnal vision.^^^ Or, 
 again, it may simply strike the keynote^ giyejthe atmosphere, 
 add a color-effect to prepare for what is to come, uses to which 
 the earlier poet had not learned to put it.^^^ 
 
 In both poems the attitude of the poet toward the dream is 
 one of respect and honor. He never debases it by employing 
 it merely to add a petty prettiness, but always introduces it at 
 a crisis.200 '~' ' ' 
 
 i^^Supra, 26 and 32, respectively. 
 
 la^Supra, 25-26. 
 
 i98Supra, 29-30. 
 
 i990i. 19. 509-581; supra. 31-32. 
 
 2ooSupra, 8; 11; 25; 29; 31. The mention of dream phenomena des- 
 cribed on page 20 is an exception to this statement. This debasing was 
 left for Euripides; at least we must so conclude from the evidence sup- 
 plied by the extant literature. The introduction of a dream at the 
 crisis became an unfailing convention for many non-Alexandrian writ- 
 ers, so that the turning point of an action was almost invariably 
 
The Odyssey ' 49 
 
 In the Iliad Zeus is usually the divinity that sends the dream 
 and he is generally regarded as its source by the persons of the 
 
 attended by the relation of a pertinent dream. Especially is this 
 true of the writers of romantic (as opposed to pragmatic) history. 
 Consider the following examples (from three writers of this class, a 
 Greek, a Roman, and a Greco-Roman) of dreams at or preceding 
 the crisis in personal or national fortunes: Herodotus, 1, 33-45, the 
 dream of Croesus bereft of his son Atys; 107 ff., the dream of Astyages 
 concerning Mandane; 209, of Cyrus immediately after crossing the Araxes, 
 before his defeat and death at the hands of the Massagetae; 2, 139, 152, 
 the dream of Sabaco, king of the Ethiopians, which led to his withdrawal 
 from Egypt; 2, 141, the dream of Sethon before the successful battle with 
 Sanacharibus, king of the Arabians and Assyrians; 3, 30, 65, the dream 
 of Cambyses before he slew his brother Smerdis; 3, 124, the dream of the 
 daughter of the Samian tyrant Polycrates before his departure for Magnesia 
 and his death there; 5, 55, 56, 62, the dream in which Hipparchus was 
 warned of his death at the hands of Harmodius and Aristogeiton; 6, 107, 
 Hippias' dream before the battle of Marathon; 6, 131, the dream of 
 Agarista, wife of Xanthippus, a few days before she gave birth to Pericles; 
 
 7, 12-19, 48, the famous dream which, appearing to Xerxes and Artabanus, 
 forced the momentous decision to invade Hellas (two other dreams are 
 introduced, also, fittingly to mark this mighty crisis); 8, 54, Xerxes, at 
 the height of his success, after the sacking of Athens and just before 
 Salamis, repents of his sacrilege and sends the exiles back to the Acropolis 
 to sacrifice as was their wont. Herodotus suspects that his action may 
 have been prompted by a dream. Livy, 2, 36, dream of Titus Latinius; 
 
 8, 6, 9-10, dream of the consuls, Titus Manlius and Decius Mus, before 
 the battle of Mount Vesuvius; 21, 22, Hannibal's encouraging dream 
 before he crossed the Ebro ; 25, 38, dream of Lucius Marcius which inspired 
 him to save the armies after the defeat of the leaders, Publius and Cornelius 
 Scipio; 26, 17, Scipio Africanus Maior, on setting out to retrieve the pro- 
 vince of Spain, declares that his dreams portend success (feigning dreams 
 for his guidance at important crises was one of Scipio 's strongest holds 
 upon the imagination of the people: 26, 19). Plutarch, Agesilaus, 6, 
 dream of A. before his ill-fated expedition into Asia; Alcibiades, 39, 
 dream of A. just before his tragic death; Alexander, 2, dream of 
 Olympias, wife of Philip, before Alexander's birth; 18, of Darius 
 before he set out from Susa to meet Alexander; 24, at siege of Tyre, 
 Alexander and the Tyrians dream pertinent dreams; 26, a dream 
 directs Alexander to the site on which he was to build Alexandria; 41, 
 dream of A. at a time of critical illness to his friend, Krateros; 50, dream 
 of A. about Kleitos before A. ran him through the body in a brawl; Anto- 
 
50 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 story.201 Still, there is one case in which the dream is credited 
 to Athene,2°2 and another in which the dream comes without 
 reference being made to any deity who may be considered as 
 
 nius, 22, warned by a friend's dream, Octavius escapes from death at 
 Philippi (cf. also, Brutus, 41; Dio Cass. 47, 41); Aristides, 11, in a 
 dream Zeus points out the field at Plataea on which the battle should be 
 fought; 19, death of Mardonius at Plataea foretold by a dream; Brutus, 
 20, Cinna's dream before he was torn to pieces by the angered mob; 
 41 (cf . Ant. 22, above) ; Caesar, 32, allegorical, sexual dream before C. 
 crossed the Rubicon (according to Suetonius, Caes. 7 and Dio Cass. 
 41, 24, this dream came to Caesar at Gades); 42, dream of Pompeius 
 before Pharsalus (cf. Pomp. 68); 63, very elaborate tale of Calpurnia's 
 dreams before the murder of Caesar; 68, Cinna's dream (cf. above, 
 Brutus, 20); Cimon, 18, C.'s dream when all was ready for the expedition 
 against Cyprus and Egypt during which he met his death; Cicero, 44, 
 dream which attached C. to Octavianus (cf. Dio Cass. 45, 2, for a dif- 
 ferent version of the same dream; also, Suetonius, Aug. 94); Cleomenes, 7, 
 C.'s dream before he abolished the ephors; Coriolanus, 24, dream of Titus 
 Latinus (Livy, 2, 36, reads Latinius) when Rome was threatened by the 
 Volscians; Crassus, 12, Onatius Aurelius' dream brings about the reconci- 
 liation of Crassus and Pompey (cf. Pompey, 23); Demetrius, 19, dream 
 of Medius before the disaster which befell Antigonus; 29, dream of 
 Demetrius before his defeat in battle; C. Gracchus, 1, dream of G. which 
 forced him from retirement into public life and to his death (cf. Cicero, 
 Div. 1, 26); Demosthenes, 29, dream of D., just before his death, about 
 the tragic actor Archias; Eumenes, 6, E.'s dream before his decisive 
 victory over Krateros (cf. also 13); Lucullus, 10, dream of Aristagoras 
 when Cyzicus was in straits from the siege by Mithridates; 12, dream of 
 Lucullus before his naval victory; Pelopidas, 20-22, dream of the leader 
 of the Sacred Band of Thebans before the battle of Leuktra; Pericles, 3, 
 dream of Agariste before the birth of her son Pericles; Pompeius, 23 (cf. 
 above, Crassus, 12) ; 68, P.'s dream before Pharsalus; 73, dream of Peticius, 
 shipmaster, before he received Pompey in distress; Pyrrhus, 11, dream of 
 P. before capture of Beroea; 29, dream of P. before his failure at Sparta; 
 Themistocles, 26, T.'s dream before his successful flight to Xerxes; 30, 
 a dream gives T. a warning which is responsible for his escape from assas- 
 sination; Sulla, 9, S.'s dream when he was about to attack Rome, which 
 was in the hands of the Marians; 28, S.'s prophetic dream the night before 
 a victorious contest with the Marians. 
 
 ^°Uliad, 1, 63; 2, 26. 
 
 ^^Iliad, 10, 496. 
 
The Odyssey 51 
 
 having sent it.^^ But in the Odyssey, where the supreme divine 
 direction of the plot (which in the Iliad is in the hands of Zeus) 
 falls to the lot of Athene, this goddess is responsible for the 
 majority of the dreams,^^^ although there is a very elaborate 
 dream^os which is not ascribed to any particular divinity. The 
 receiver of the dream in the Iliad is in each case a male;^^ in the 
 Odyssey it is a woman.^o^ The latter conception becomes the 
 usual convention for tragedy, though other departments of 
 poetry show eclecticism.^^^ 
 
 The two poems show five forms in which the dream appears. 
 Of these, two are peculiar to the Iliad, two are restricted to the 
 Odyssey, and one is common to both poems. Peculiar to the 
 Iliad are (a) "Qyetgoq or a dream daimon which the gods send to 
 the sleeper,2o^ and (b) the ghost of the dead which appears in a 
 dream.210 in the form common to both poems (c) an unsub- 
 
 ^^^Iliad, 23, 62-107. This sending of dreams by the dead is characteristic 
 of the only dream which is common to the three writers of tragedy, Aeschy- 
 lus, Choe.b2Q?i. (infra, 70-74); Sophocles, Electra, 417 ff. (infra, 79-84) ; 
 Euripides, Orest. 616 ff. (infra, 102). The ghosts of the dead return to 
 haunt or send dreams to plague those who have done them ill, even 
 though the wrong was unintentional. Cf. the following references: 
 Vergil, Aen. 4, 385; Horace, Epod. 5, 91; Tibullus, 1, 5, 51; 2, 6, 37; 
 Propertius, 4, 7, 89; Ovid, Fasti, 3, 639; Ibis, 141; Plutarch, De Sera 
 Num. Vind. 5QQc', Valerius Flaccus, 3, 384; Statius, TAcfr. 3, 74; Diogenes 
 Laertius, 8, 32; Ammianus Marcellinus, 14, 11, 17. 
 
 ^^Od. 4, 7S7-S41; 6, 13-51. 
 
 206Od. 19, 535-581. 
 
 ^^miad, 2, 1-47; 10, 496; 23, 62-107. 
 
 207OJ. 4, 787-841; 6, 13-51; 19, 535-581; 20, 87-90. 
 
 "8The sending of the dream to the woman is, with one exception, the 
 unbroken rule in tragedy wherever the dream is related in extenso. See 
 my discussion, infra, 65, and except the charioteer's dream in the Rhesus. 
 
 ^^Uliad, 2, 6-82, supra, 2-3; but cf. Od. 20, 87-90; Rohde, 1, 7; and Hey, 
 10. 
 
 ^^miad, 23, 62-107; supra, 12-20. I distinguish, for this classification, 
 the etSuXov of the dead from the phantom of a living person or of an im- 
 mortal god such as I meffition in (c). 
 
52 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 stantial wraith, phantom, sTBwXov, appears.^i^ The two concep- 
 tions restricted to the Odyssey are (d) the dream in which the 
 divinity in person comes to the sleeper in whom the god is 
 interested,^^^ and (e) the dream in which neither men nor gods 
 appear, but only things, and that too in an allegorical relation.^i® 
 
 The external origin and the objectivity of the major dreams in 
 both poems I have frequently commented upon.^^^ The. first 
 allegorical dream appears in the Odyssey, the evident product 
 of a later technique. Yet even in this case the poet's lack of 
 familiarity in the handling of the allegorical dream forces him to 
 couple the interpretation with the allegory to soften the inno- 
 vation.2^^ 
 
 There are other evidences in the Odyssey of increased study 
 and improved form. For example, in the conversation of 
 Achilles with Patroclus' ghost, Iliad, 23, 62-107, there is the 
 germ of a dialogue-dream; this germ a dream in the Odyssey 
 presents in a later and more highly developed form in the longer 
 dialogue of Penelope and Iphthime, 4, 787-841. This growing 
 elaboration in the Odyssey affords striking confirmation of the 
 later date commonly accepted for this poem. ^ ^ 
 
 A glance thus in review shows the dream-device in the making 
 and indicates the wide range, in embryo at least, of the employ- 
 ment and the technique of the dream from which later writers 
 could choose. 
 
 ^^miad, 10, 496-497, supra, 9-12; Od. 4, 787-841, supra, 24-27. 
 
 2i20d. 6, 13-51, Athene. 
 
 8130^. 19, 535-581, supra, 30-34. 
 
 2i4Supra, 3, 10, 12, 22, 29. 
 
 2i6Supra, 34. 
 
HESIOD 
 
 / ( Though much is said of sleep in Hesiod's poems, one would 
 'expect, a priori, from their undramatic nature, little resort to 
 the dream-device.216 That expectation is confirmed; there is 
 only one passage which is pertinent to a study of the dream. 
 This passage is the prologue to the later poem, the Theogony}^J/ 
 The discussion as to whether the appearance of the Muses here 
 is a waking vision or a dream is as old as the day of the Emperor 
 Marcus Aurelius and Fronto.^^s into that, however, we need 
 not go. Suffice it to say that the Muses (whatever may be our 
 decision as to the exact force of the tenses of ixsppwaavTo [8] and 
 <jTeixov [10], whether they are habitual or specific in reference)*^* 
 do visit Hesiod by night ( ivvu^tat, 10), as the gods are wont to 
 
 ^"Hesiod really lies outside the scope of this present narrowly cir- 
 cumscribed study. I include him roughly among the writers of epic in 
 accord with the definition of Aristotle. In my discussion of Hesiod I 
 cite from the edition of Rzach, Leipzig, 1902. In the Theogony, 211-212, 
 Night is the mother of Death, Sleep and the tribe of Dreams, <t>v\ov 'Ovetpwv; 
 in 756, Hypnos and Thanatos are brothers, and in 758, the sons of black 
 Night; in 762-766, the two brothers are contrasted, the one gentle to 
 mortals, the other with a heart of bronze; in fr. 121 (157) we have /toXa«cdf 
 ijiTPOi; in fr. 188, 3-4, sleep 'falls upon the eyelids'. These descriptions 
 may be compared with my discussion of the same conceptions in Homer, 
 supra, 36-42. 
 
 "^For this decision about the chronology, compare the following note 
 from Messer, 79: "Horum duorum carminum recentius esse Theogoniam 
 inter omnes constat: cf. Dimitrijevid, Studia Hesiodea, 5-10; A. Meyer, 
 De compositione Theogoniae Hesiodeae, Berol. 1887, 83; E. Lisco, Quaes- 
 Hones Hesiodeae, Goett., 1903, 4-6; Rzach, Pauly-Wissowa,S (1913), 1178". 
 
 *^8Fronto, 1, 2. See Messer, 80. For this confusion of dream, vision 
 and real appearance, cf. Vergil, Aen. 4, 222-278 and 4, 554-570, 7, 341 ff. 
 and 7, 413-480; Plutarch, Brut. 36-37 and Valerius Maximus, 1, 7; 
 Ovid, Met. 8, 453 and Diodorus Siculus, 4, 34, 6; Hey, 14. 
 
 *i^See the editors on iireppdtravTo (8) and ffreixov (10), and add F. G, 
 Welcker, Die Hesiodische Theogonie, 59 ff. (Elberfeld, 1865). 
 
 63 
 
M- 
 
 54 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 visit bards f^^ they commune with him, and inspire him to song. 
 But dream or waking vision, this passage is of supreme impor- 
 tance as the ancestor of many dream-prologues in ancient and 
 mediaeval literature.^^^ 
 
 The Muses have been dancing on Helicon (9) ; thence they 
 make their way by night to the poet, who is 'tending his flock 
 beneath divine Helicon' (23). They order him to compose a 
 song and they give to him a branch of the bay tree, sacred to 
 Apollo, as a S)nnbol of his profession as a bard. 
 
 The Muses come to him of their own volition. The nearest 
 approach here to the idea of a guiding divinity is in the presenta- 
 tion of a staff of Apollo's bay tree, but that gift would be a 
 conventional gift from Apollo's choir to a poet, for the poet was 
 under Apollo's protection. 
 
 This method of indicating the source of the poet's inspiration 
 is a distinct advance upon the Homeric appeal to the Muses. 
 The Homeric form of address is found in lines 104-115 of the 
 Theogony. And so the prologue as a whole would seem to be 
 an artistic compromise between an old form such as is found in 
 Homer and a new form of the poet's own invention (or adoption) . 
 There may be many good reasons for believing this prologue 
 (1-115) a hotch potch of successive recensions and interpolations 
 by the early rhapsodists ;222 but the existing contaminatio of two 
 
 220 'Ho-tiSoi; rk diravra i^ epfivvelas Kap6\ov S^ttX, 59 (Athens, 1889), will 
 furnish parallels. 
 
 22iCallimachus, Aitia, according to Anth. Pal. 7, 42 (see Messer, 81); 
 Eratosthenes, Hermes (cf. Dilthey, De Callimachi Cydippa, Leipzig, 1863, 
 15); Alexander Aetolus, Apollo (Meineke, Analecta Alexandrina, xx, 59 
 and Dilthey, 1. c. 15, n. 4) ; Ennius, Annales, 1, iv-xi (cf. Vahlen, cxliv ff.) ; 
 Propertius, 3, 3; Ovid, Amor. 3, 1-70; Fasti, 1, 99-282; 3, 167 ff.; 4, 193 
 fl.; 6, 9; Ex Ponto, 3, 3; 4, 4. For the mediaeval visions consult M. 
 Dods, Forerunners of Dante, chap. 6, Mediaeval Legends (Edinburgh, 
 1903). The footnotes throughout this work are of exceptional value in 
 tracing the development of the dream and the vision through the post- 
 classical period and the Middle Ages, down to Dante. 
 
 2220n the composition and authorship of the prologue, see O. Gruppe, 
 Die Griech. Kulte u. Mythen, 1, 599 fl.; EUger, Die Zusatze zu dem Prooemi- 
 um der Hesiod. Theogonie (BerHn, 1883); Fick, Hesiods Gedichte (Goett., 
 1887). 
 
Hesiod 65 
 
 types of introduction is no argument in support of that theory. 
 To be sure, lines 104-115 are cast in an earlier artistic mould, 
 but the practice of combining a primitive with a later poetical 
 form found favor even as late as Ennius.^^^ If then, Ennius, a 
 writer drawing his poetic inspiration from so many literary, 
 bookish sources, could adopt and use in jiixtaposition two forms 
 for showing the divine authorization of his poem without feeling 
 that there was anything incongruous in this combination, surely 
 an equal liberty might safely be assumed for the earlier poet, 
 Hesiod. 
 
 I have had occasion to treat at length, in another connection, 
 the problems of this dream in the Theogony, tracing its line of 
 descent in the literature, by a chain of exposition frankly based 
 on mere inferences, down through the Greek and the Roman 
 poets. I refer the reader to that discussion.^^^ For the present 
 discussion the importance of this dream or vision is, not that it 
 guides and controls the action — action the didactic poem has 
 not — , but that it supplies the raison d' etre of the whole pro- 
 duction. For Homer appeals to the Muse to sing through him 
 the wrath of Achilles or the many wanderings of Odysseus, but 
 Hesiod is ordered by the Muses to sing /or them. Not only will 
 he be an inspired bard, but he will be a poet drawing his original 
 command from deity. 
 
 223^ WW. 1, i-xi (cf. Vahlen, cxlvi ff.). Cf. also the contamination of the 
 primitive, direct dream with the allegorical dream, Od. 19, 535-581, supra, 
 34. My point here is that lines 104-115 cannot be secluded as spurious 
 merely on the ground that the conception differs from that in the earlier 
 part of the prologue. 
 
 224Messer, 78-92. 
 
TKAGEDY 
 
 As we turn from one department of literature to another we 
 often find that the dream which is of the same type in essence 
 may be so disguised in its superficial aspects by the limitations 
 of the new genre that we have difficulty in identifying it in its 
 new form. In tragedy the dramatic background, the change in 
 the relations of the poet with his audience, the conventions of 
 the different field, all force modifications which make it difficult, 
 at times, to trace back to their archetype dreams having a com- 
 mon origin. In the epic we have the omnipresent, omniscient 
 narrator, who can see not only through walls and doors, but 
 through minds and hearts and motives, even those of deity and 
 fate ; he is present at and beholds every action and has entry to 
 every public council and knows every secret thought of Olympus. 
 From him the objective machinery of the dream is not concealed. 
 
 In didactic poetry the poet speaks in propria persona. He 
 may claim that" the Muses have inspired him; but after this 
 original authorization he continues his teaching as a mortal 
 having a greater or smaller measure of expert human knowledge 
 of the subject in which he professes to instruct. In this depart- 
 ment a wide play of the imagination, which is necessary for any 
 extensive employment of so highly artificial a device as the 
 dream, is lacking. This lack leads to an almost total absence 
 of the dream. 
 
 In the department of tragedy the-omniscient narrator and the 
 didactic poet cannot appear as. the jreportersgf the plot, and the 
 story must be told and the action furthered by the living people 
 involved in the toils of the plot. They cannot have the insight 
 of the epic poet, who knows all happenings and all thoughts in 
 heaven and among men. They cannot have the privilege of 
 explaining to their audience the cause or the background of the 
 story, as can the poet who speaks in his own person. The 
 extent of the knowledge of each dramatis persona is limited, as 
 
 56 
 
Tragedy 57 
 
 is the knowledge of persons in real life, to the bounds demanded 
 by verisimilitude. 
 
 The dream as it passes through the different departments of 
 literature naturally assumes different accidental shapes. A 
 dream daimon sent by Zeus will not often appear upon the 
 stage. The objectivity, the personality of the dream must usu- 
 ally correspond to the experiences and the knowledge of the 
 person represented by the actor on the stage. Deities will 
 rarely be found telling the audience of their plans in respect to 
 sending dream daimons, or intangible wraiths, or of coming 
 themselves to appear to mortals. The dramatic poet must get 
 his effects through a different mediimi, and this mediimi will 
 govern and change the form of dreams in tragedy which are in 
 essence the same as their prototypes in some other department. 
 I desire to stress this point, for I am fully convinced that the 
 different types of dreams employed in tragedy find their being in 
 an imitation, more or less direct, of the dreams used by Homer. 
 Freely as the dramatic poets handled the dream and much as 
 they developed its content and its technique, the embryo of all 
 the various forms is extant in the early epic. 
 
 Tragedy took over numerous motifs which already existed 
 in the epos — anagnorisis,^^^ the deus ex machina, and a host of 
 others. Among these were mantic and the dream. The dream 
 exists in many cases in the jjlu0o<; which the epic tells, and so, 
 when the narrative is dramatized, the tragic poet often adopts 
 it. Or else the dream is imported by the tragic poet into the 
 tale, which did not originally contain it, on the model of the 
 dream in the epic. The point to be remembered is that the 
 immediate source of the dream in tragedy is to be found not in 
 religion and cult, but in the literature, that is, the source of the 
 
 225The origin of the anagnorisis of tragedy, P. Hoffmann, De Anagnorismo, 
 61-69 (Diss. Vrat. 1910): Unde Anagnorisis in Dramata Pervenerit, 
 traces back through the lyric and the epic to the original mythos. Cf . also 
 Staehlin, 35; 212-213. Much that Staehlin says here about mantic is 
 equally applicable to the dream. 
 
58 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 dream in tragedy is a bookish, artistic source.^^sa 'pj^jg (Jistinc- 
 tion holds throughout for Greek and Latin belles-lettres. For 
 there is a gulf fixed — Aristophanes and the comedy in general 
 form an exception^^^ — between the dream gods of the literature 
 and the dream gods of the people, which is never spanned till 
 the popularity of the dream cult forced the adoption of that cult 
 by the priests of all the Ol3rmpian deities. The interaction 
 between the two conceptions before that adoption seems to be 
 practically negligible.^^? 
 
 225apQj. ii^Q defense of this statement, see infra, n. 227. 
 
 226Comedy busied itself with a satire of contemporaneous beliefs and 
 contemporaneous practices. Its function was to lampoon and correct 
 the life which the audience knew. It could not limp behind that life. 
 So one does not wonder that the popular equivalent of the dream which 
 the tragic poets used for purposes of motivation, to wit, incubation, was 
 ridiculed in comedy. The scene in the Plutus, 659 ff., in which this 
 practice is so uproariously burlesqued should occasion no surprise. 
 
 227Incubation, Tempelschlaf , is the popular form in every day life of the 
 literary motif which is here discussed. The works on incubation (i.e. 
 the non-literary form of the divinely sent and the divinely acting dream) 
 agree in holding that widespread practice of incubation was confined to 
 the worship of Asclepius and of the allied Amphiaraus, Trophonius, 
 Faunus, Podalirius, Calchas, Isis, Sarapis, and, in general, the chthonic 
 divinities. Cf. Deubner and Hamilton, passim; Biichsenschutz, 35-37; 
 Campbell, 227; 231; 368; Bouche-Leclercq, 2, 251; 269; 301; 3, 76; 
 275; 310; 380-381; Friedlander, SittengescUchte Roms\ 3, 440 ff.; De 
 Marchi, 1, 238-239; Dill, 459-460; Maury, Magi^, 231; 237-240; Dyer, 
 235-236; 242; 248; Gilbert, 251; Gomperz, Essays, 72. The artistic 
 literature of the Greeks and the Romans shows no such preference. To 
 the Greek examples which I cite in the text of this discussion, add the 
 following divinities which appear in dreams or send dreams in Latin 
 literature: Plautus, Jupiter, Aesculapius; Vergil, Great Mother, Apollo, 
 Mercury, Jupiter, Somnus, Juno; Horace, Quirinus; Livy, Jupiter; 
 TibuUus, Apollo; Propertius, Apollo; Ovid, Cupid, Venus, Jupiter, Pan, 
 Faunus, Ceres, Somnus, Isis, Aesculapius; the Octavia, the gods above 
 {super os), 756; Petronius, Priapus, Neptune; Statius, Jupiter, Apollo, 
 Mercury, Juno, Venus, Somnus; Valerius Flaccus, Jupiter, Somnus; 
 Silius Italicus, Juno, Mercury, Somnus, Minerva, and the deified Vir- 
 tus, Voluptas, Oenotria Tellus. My collections show indubitably that 
 the belletristic dream divinities and those of the popular cult remained 
 
Tragedy 59 
 
 The dream is often unnecessary to_the myth and hence the 
 tragic writers, who handled the myths^ so freely, could have 
 suppressed it had they so desired. But they found in it an 
 artistic medium through which they could secure definite literary 
 effects and not only adopted it when treating the epic legends in 
 which it already existed, but often added it to those that did not 
 contain it. For example, in the Persae, the story, though it has 
 a historical background, pretends to no authenticity in its 
 details. The dream was probably incorporated of choice by the 
 author.228 
 
 Divination played in the tragedies the principal r61e, and was 
 the main guide of the plot ; the r61e of the dream was admittedly 
 secondary. But the importance of the latter should not be 
 underrated and is more often neglected and overlooked than too 
 greatly emphasized. 
 
 almost entirely distinct. There is this reservation to be made, however: 
 a time came when coincidence — even without interaction — could not be 
 avoided. The divinities of the Roman Olympus of the decadence were 
 so little differentiated theologically, their powers and their hierarchy so 
 confused, that it is incredible that there corresponded to the invoked deity 
 any precise conception of the activity which he was able to exercise. 
 When, therefore, the popularity of the dream cult spread, the priests 
 of all these divinities adopted dream-sending as a further activity of their 
 gods./ Under these conditions all gods, even the exclusive circle of Olym- 
 pus, became incubation gods. For this adoption of dream-sending by 
 all the Olympian gods, cf. De Marchi, 1, 242; 285-289, and the following 
 inscriptions quoted by him; C/L, 6, 520, where Mercury is called Sotnnio- 
 rum lovis Nuntius; 8, 2632, Liber; 8, 4468, Saturn; 6, 663, Silvanus; 
 14, 2, Ceres and the Nymphs; 6, 288, Silvanus; 6, 367, luppiter Doliche- 
 nus; 3, 1962, Venus; 10, 1575-1576, lupiter O. M. Dolichenus; 2, 5521, 
 Mater Deum. 
 
 ■2280. F. Gruppe, Ariadne, Die Tragische Kunst der Griechen, 623 (Berlin, 
 1834): ". . . -dann aber kann Phrynichus <i.e. in his Phoenissae> 
 auch den Traum der Konigin nicht gehabt haben, dieser aber scheint 
 doch iiberhaupt das Vorkommen des Schattens erst zu motiviren. . ." 
 
AESCHYLUS 
 
 .,i;:;Aeschylus, whose innovations in tragedy are well recognized, 
 was probably the first dramatist successfully to employ the 
 dream./ Through its use he secures some of his most effective 
 situations. /He recognized, to some extent at least, as did 
 Homer,229 the psychologic aspects of the dream./ When, in Ag. 
 420-426, he speaks of the dreams aroused by Menelaus' long- 
 ing for Helen, we must assume a knowledge on his part of 
 the physical source of the dream that goes beyond the earlier 
 explanation which bases the phenomena of the dream upon mere 
 mental receptivity, passivity.^^o But even here the terms are 
 the terms used for the external dream (S6?at, o^iq^ as the lexicon 
 shows). Still his artistic belief is, in general, pledged to that 
 conception of the dream which represents its origin as from with- 
 out, external to the mind of the dreamer. This artistic faith 
 he accepted from the epic story together with the myths which 
 he dramatized, 'slices from the great banquet of Homer', as he 
 says in the account of Athenaeus.^^i 
 
 The Persae 
 
 In the extant plays of Aeschylus there are no indications of 
 the growth of the dream from a less to a more artistic device. 
 
 229See the discussion of Iliad, 22, 199 and Od. 19, 535-581, supra, 20-22 
 and 30-35, respectively. 
 
 230The primitive view is that the phenomena actually appear, and are 
 not merely present to the mind of the dreamer. The persons whom he 
 has beheld in sleep have stood in very truth before him. Such a theory- 
 presupposes no more mental activity than is required by the receptive 
 function which it exercises for the sights and sounds which meet the 
 waking mind. 
 
 23iAthenaeus, 8, 347a (see Christ, 1, 303 ff. for interpretation). The 
 reader need not be reminded that I refer here not only to our extant 
 epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, but to the supplementary epics of the 
 Trojan Cycle, to the epics of Thebes, and to the epics of Argos. Cf. 
 Croiset, 185. 
 
 60 
 
Aeschylus 61 
 
 In one of his earliest and most original dramas ,^^2 the Persae (472 
 B.C.), he bursts upon us wit what I consider the most impres- 
 sive dream known to Hterature, the dream of Atossa, mother of 
 Xerxes (176 ff.). The play deals with what raany regard as the 
 most important episode in the history of the ancient world, the 
 contest of Oriental despotism with Greek freedom, and the 
 victory of the latter in the defeat of Xerxes. On this crisis in 
 the life of the civilized world, Aeschylus, who had fought at 
 Marathon and in all probability had seen the rout at Salamis, 
 composes a drama and elects to guide the action of the plot by 
 the introduction of a dream. The effect upon the audience of 
 this dream, appearing, as it did, in a play which portrayed that 
 great conflict, must have been stupendous. 
 
 The situation leading up to the episode of the dream and the 
 story of the vision are as follows: Atossa (176 ff.)has been 
 haunted by troublesome dreams ever since her son's departure 
 forGree.ce. But in the night before the opening of the play a 
 dream comes to her which excelled all the others in vividness. 
 She tells it to the chorus. 'There seemed to appear before my 
 sight two women, one in Persian, the other in Dorian attire, in 
 size surpassing mortal women. Though sisters, they lived 
 apart, one in Greece, the other in barbarian lands.^^' They fell 
 into a quarrel, whereupon Xerxes yoked them to his chariot. 
 
 252The Persae is the only tragedy upon a historical subject which has 
 come down to us from the classical Greek period. In this, according to 
 the notice of the ancient argument to the play, attributed to the gram- 
 marian Glaucus, Aeschylus was following the Phoenissae of Phrynichus 
 (see Richter, 81). However, as Ribbeck {Uber einige historische Dramen 
 der Griechen, Rheinisches Museum, 30, 145) points out, no definite dividing 
 line was drawn between myth and history, and the tendency was to look 
 upon the tales which formed the subject of tragedy as historical, even if 
 only remotely so. Cf. further M. Patin, 210 f. 
 
 233The aim of the poet was to bring to the minds of his auditors in the 
 most impressive manner the political and historical significance of the 
 struggle which had, temporarily at least, ended in the great national 
 victories. The Persae was the second of a trilogy dealing with this mighty 
 national conflict; cf. Christ, 1, 290. 
 
62 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 The Persian willingly bent to her task, but the Dorian plunged 
 and broke the harness, dragged the chariot madly along, 
 splintered the yoke, and threw Xerxes to the ground. As he 
 fell, the figure of his dead father, Darius, stood beside him, 
 commiserating him. On seeing Darius, Xerxes rent his 
 clothes' .234 
 
 The queen mother's presaging fears of disaster to her absent 
 son are increased, in the morning, as she is offering the custom- 
 ary sacrifices to the gods who avert the evils of the night,^^^ by 
 the confirming omen of the attack of the hawk upon the eagle 
 which flew for refuge to the altar of Apollo.^^^ The forebodings 
 of ill from this omen prepare the minds of Atossa and the chorus 
 
 ^^^Persae, 176-199. 
 
 235201-204. Purification after evil dreams or other horrors of the night 
 is a practice to which one finds constantly recurrent reference in both 
 Greek and Latin literatures. The person thus visited by the chthonic 
 divinities had suffered pollution by that contact (for, as I have stated 
 frequently, the dream was looked upon as an objective thing). Certain 
 rites of purification were to be performed in the bright light of day, cor- 
 responding to those which followed any sorrow, ill news or sickness. These 
 rites took three forms: washing in nmning water, offering sacrifices to 
 the deities who avert evil {atrbTpotroi dalfwves), or crying one's sorrows 
 or visions to the sun; cf. the following passages: Sophocles, EL 86, 401, 420, 
 424, 427, 637 ff., 645; Euripides, El. 59; Iph. Taur. 42, 43; Med. 5Q 
 (compare the parody by Philemon, Athenaeus, 7, 288d); Aristophanes, 
 Frogs, 1338 and scholium; Theophrastus, Char. 16, 11; ApoUonius 
 Rhodius, 4, 660-662; 668-669; Plautus, Mil. Glor. 394; Merc. 3-5; 
 Ennius, Med., in Cicero, Tusc. Disp. 3, 26, 63; Vergil, Culex, 380; Aen. 
 3, 147 ff.; 8, 68-69; Propertius, 3, 8, 11; 3, 10, 13; 4, 4, 24; Plutarch, 
 De Super St. 166a; Persius, 2, 15-16; Statius, Theh. 9, 573; 601; Juvenal, 
 6, 522; Martial, 11, 50; Valerius Flaccus, 5, 332; the scholiast on Soph. 
 £/ec. 424: see infra, 80; 91. 
 
 23^205-214. The use of the eagle and the hawk here may find its source 
 in Penelope's dream about the eagle and the geese, Od. 19, 535-581, or 
 in the dove and the hawk portent of Od. 15, 525 ff . In Od. 19 the allegori- 
 cal, obscure part of the dream is interpreted by the eagle, which declared 
 itself Odysseus (supra, 30 ff.); here the obscure visions of the night are 
 confirmed by the omen. 
 
Aeschylus 63 
 
 for the messenger of disaster who enters at line 249^37 and tells 
 the famous tale of Salamis and Xerxes' retreat.^^^ But the 
 future is on the knees of the gods, and, since Darius appeared in 
 the dream commiserating his son, his spirit may yet turn ill to 
 good. So the chorus calls upon his soul to arise, and in answer 
 to its libations and prayers the ghost of Darius appears (681 ff.). 
 With warnings and explanations Darius bids Atossa prepare for 
 the immediate return of Xerxes, and then descends beneath the 
 earth (842). Xerxes enters at 907 and the play ends with an 
 amoebaeaa. lament between the Great King and the chorus 
 over the disaster which has befallen the barbarian arms. 
 
 The importance of this dream for the unfolding of the story 
 can be seen from this outline. As has been pointed out by the 
 editors,239 it dominates the economy of the tragedy. It may not 
 be the most beautiful dream in Greek literature,^'^® but certainly 
 it is the most impelling. The artistic portrayal of the supreme 
 crisis of classical history finds the chief source of its action in 
 a dream. This is the more notable and the more important 
 from the standpoint of technique when one recalls that the 
 Persae is the earliest Greek tragedy which we can exactly 
 date (472 B. C.),^*^ that it is the only extant Greek tragedy 
 on a historical subject,^^^ ^nd that the introduction of the 
 dream motif was probably optional with the author.^ Such 
 
 2"In lines 518-519 the queen expresses her realization of the fact that 
 the dreax.. Lad foretold the news of the messenger. 
 
 *38353-471. The dream also motivates the appearance of Darius, 
 a scene which that discriminating critic Richter, 99, has rated so highly 
 for dramatic effectiveness. 
 
 «"Cf. Richter, 89. See Wilamowitz's statement of the importance of 
 this dream. Die Perser des Aischylos, Hermes, 32, 386. 
 
 *"That palm goes to the dream in the Iph. Taur. ; see infra, 91-96. 
 
 "iChrist, 1, 290. ^*^Ci. supra, 61, n. 232. 
 
 ««W. Nestle, Die Weltanschauung des Aischylos, Neue JahrbUcher fUr 
 d. k. Alt. 19, 331, suggests that Aeschylus may have based his Persian 
 material upon Dionysius of Miletus, one of the early logographers, who 
 wrote UepffiKd in the Ionic dialect (Christ, 1, 453). There are only two 
 short fragments of this work of Dionysius, however; so the evidence 
 either way is unsatisfactory, as Nestle frankly admits. 
 
64 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 is the importance of the dream in its larger literary historical 
 aspects. 
 
 For its influence on the plot of the Persae it finds its model in 
 the dreams of Iliad 2,^^^* and Odyssey 6.^^^ But the importance 
 of the dream in the Persae as an essential element of the plot, 
 the directing principle of the action, is much greater than in 
 either of the two epics. The growth is natural enough. In the 
 drama more than in any other literary genre all that is intro- 
 duced must contribute to the plot ; and so this epic germ it was 
 the pleasure of tragedy to develop and to augment and to pass on 
 to literary successors, until in the poems of a later period we often 
 find the whole plot closely knit together by means of cross- 
 references, backward and forward, to the dream.^"*^ 
 
 The dream in the Persae belongs to the allegorical type, in 
 this feature following Penelope's dream about the geese.^^^ But 
 the symbolism is so patent as to be easily understood by the 
 chorus of graybeards and by Atossa.^^^ It requires no Joseph.^^^ 
 At the same time, it shows an advance in technique on the 
 Homeric form of allegorical dream. It will be recalled that the 
 epic poet, alarmed, perhaps, at the boldness of his innovation, 
 enclosed within the limits of the allegorical dream its own 
 interpretation. 2^° Aeschylus does not follow so primitive a 
 plan, but he does make his figurative language so plain as to be 
 unmistakable to an audience unfamiliar, we may assume, with 
 
 2*4Supra, 2-9. 
 
 2«Supra, 28-30. 
 
 2«Compare, e.g., Vergil, Aen. 2, 270-297; 2, 771-794; 3, 147-172; 
 4, 351ff.; 4,554-572; 5,721-740; 6,695-697; 7, 85ff.; 8,26-65. 
 
 2«0rf. 19, 535-581; infra, 30-46. 
 2«215_231. 
 
 **'Artemidorus, Onir. (ed. Hercher), 3, 18, has a ready explanation for 
 such dreams, probably drawn from this passage; it is well known that 
 Artemidorus was an admirer of Aeschylus. They indicate, he says, 
 slavery, trouble and sickness, particularly if the dreamer is famous or of 
 gentle breeding! 
 
 «°Supra, 30. 
 
Aeschylus 65 
 
 the allegorical dream in tragedy. For though the poet's 
 representation of Europe and Asia under the form of women^" 
 is the earHest use of this personification with which the extant 
 literature acquaints us, nevertheless no one of the audience 
 could fail to grasp the import of the figure. By this device 
 Aeschylus wished to put vividly before the Athenians the 
 magnitude and meaning of the struggle with the Persian. He 
 could not afford to leave his meaning obscured. The content of 
 the dream, hereafter, is for tragedy usually allegorical. ^^^ 
 
 The vision is sent to a woman, a practice already followed in 
 the Odyssey and later conventionalized in Greek tragedy.^^' 
 It persisted long, appearing in numerous plays of the Renais- 
 sance. The sender of the dream is not mentioned, but the con- 
 nection of the anxious ghost of Darius with the message of the 
 dream may be noted. ^^ This appearance of the dead king in a 
 dream also has its prototype in Homer. The starting point, as 
 I have said above,^^^ for the appearance of the dead in dreams in 
 European literature is the scene in Iliad 23,^^^ in which the ghost 
 of Patroclus appears to Achilles. But the situations are essen- 
 tially different. Patroclus' ghost came to demand burial.^ 
 
 2"See the scholiast's comment on line 184 (O. Dahnhardt, Scholia in 
 Aeschyli Persas, Leipzig, 1894). 
 
 262In Choe. 525-550, Clytaemestra dreams that she was delivered of a 
 serpent; in Sophocles, Elect. 417 J0f., she dreams that Agamemnon returns 
 to earth and snatches from the hand of Aegisthus his scepter, which there- 
 upon grows till the whole land of Mycenae is overshadowed; in Euripides, 
 Iph. Taur. 42 ff., Iphigenia dreams of an earthquake that leaves standing 
 but one pillar of her ancestral mansion, a pillar that symbolizes Orestes; 
 in Hec. 90 fl., Hecuba dreams of the hind torn by the wolf; in Rhesus, 
 780-788, we have the charioteer's dream of the wolves and the horses of 
 Rhesus. 
 
 *wFor the practice in the Odyssey, see pp. 27 ff.; for the convention in 
 tragedy, cf. Staehlin, 171, n. 1; 215 and 215, n. 3. 
 
 2M184 ff . 
 
 »«aPages 12-13. 
 
 2»23, 62-107. 
 
 »«Cf. line 71. See infra, 75. 
 
66 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 Darius was in need of no such rites. Hence the parallel be- 
 tween the two dreams lies entirely in the idea of the dead ap- 
 pearing in a dream. A much closer approximation to the Ho- 
 meric situation is found in Pindar, Pyth. 4, 163, where Phrixus 
 appears to Pelias and requests an dvaxXr^ctq, the 'laying' of 
 his soul,^^^ a request differing little from that of Patroclus. 
 
 The Prometheus Vinctus 
 
 In the Prometheus Vinctus the dream plays a secondary, but 
 still highly important part in the economy of the tragedy by 
 aiding in the motivation of the meeting of the hero and lo. A 
 low estimate has been put upon this incident by some scholars,^^ 
 but such an estimate misses the whole point of the structure of 
 the play and is based upon a wrong conception of Aeschylus' 
 dramatic technique. He was, as Croiset well says,^^^ prone to 
 introduce into his plays rdles of the second or even of the third 
 order, not only to assist in the evolution of the plot, but also to 
 emphasize the principal r61e and to aid in developing and in 
 refining it. Particularly is this true in the Prometheus of the 
 rdles of Hephaestus, Oceanus, the Oceanides, and lo. The 
 incidents connected with these characters emphasize the r61e of 
 Prometheus, and help us better to understand him. In the 
 long lo episode, covering over 400 lines,^®'^ the attitude of 
 Prometheus to the immortals, the mainspring of the legend, and 
 the indomitable will of this benefactor of mankind are depicted 
 by the conversation of Prometheus and lo. In proportion as a 
 
 257As I have noted above (notes 63 and 203; see the references there), 
 the connection of the dead with the sending of dreams, spooks, spirits, 
 is primitive and widespread. To these dead, as to the chthonic divinities 
 in general, gifts were offered, to appease them, for the activities of the 
 dead were universally looked upon as harmful, not as beneficent. The 
 offerings were the toll of fear and not the promptings of affection. 
 
 2"Richter, 56 ff., belittles it; Christ, 1, 295, misunderstands it; Weil, 
 33 ff ., rescues it — and similar scenes — from the strictures of Richter. 
 
 "B193. 
 
 '«°More than one third of the entire play. 
 
Aeschylus 67 
 
 knowledge of these factors is necessary to the working out of the 
 play, so indispensable will the device appear which brings this 
 knowledge before the audience. 
 
 I give now a synopsis of the passage, to show the connection 
 of the dream with the plot . lo, when driven forth by her father, 
 Inachus, meets Prometheus (669 ff.)- Her oft-repeated dreams 
 (645 ff.) moved her father to consult Pytho and Dodona and it 
 was in obedience to an oracle of Loxias that the saddened Inachus 
 forced his daughter from her home. In the wanderings conse- 
 quent upon the warnings of dream and oracle lo meets Prome- 
 theus, and the conversation which ensues reveals, more than 
 any other single factor in the play, the character of Prometheus 
 and his feelings toward his arch-enemy Zeus.^^^ 
 
 The indefiniteness of dream messages and the uncertainties 
 of dream interpretation contrasted with the comparatively 
 greater clarity and definiteness of the oracle prevent the former 
 from attaining an equal significance with the latter in relation 
 to the plot. But one of its most frequently recurring functions 
 is, as in Atossa's dream in the Persae^^^ or in lo's dream here, to 
 prepare-the-:wayior an omen or an oracle upon which the action 
 may be saf elyjbase J This~conlbinatioirc)f 'dream and omen or 
 of dream and oracle is found nowhere in the Iliad or the Odyssey. 
 Aeschylus, or whatever writers preceded him,^^ has to this 
 
 2«Weil, 33-35. 
 
 ^^^Persae, 176 ff.; supra, 60-66. In the Persae the portent has at least 
 as great a degree of certainty as is usually predicated of the ambiguous 
 oracle. 
 
 2831 am convinced of some partial interdependence, at least, between the 
 dreams in the Prom. Vine, the Persae, and Pindar, Pyth. 4, 163. The 
 chronological relations of Aeschylus and Pindar are hard to establish. 
 There is much in the literary activity of the one which parallels the literary 
 activity of the other. Their paths in life would appear to have crossed 
 frequently. The question is one of the priority of the Prometheus or of 
 the fourth Pythian. Each shows a development and refinement of the 
 type of dream found in the Persae. The question is: Was the dream of 
 the P. V. modeled on that of the fourth Pythian, or did the latter appear 
 first? I have devoted some time to these interrelations, but have not yet 
 reached any conclusions which seem to me wholly convincing. 
 
68 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 extent improved and added to the dream device. This change 
 may have been brought about, partially at least, to conform to a 
 more sophisticated view of the nature of the psychic processes 
 involved ;^^^ but, as I shall have occasion frequently to repeat, 
 this factor is of small moment. The determining consideration 
 was the developing and refining of literary devices which were 
 already in use in other poetry. This change is natural in view 
 of the different conditions in the dramatic vehicle. In the epic 
 the god can be pictured fashioning and sending a dream phan- 
 tom, a being whose message will compel immediate credence 
 because its source is visibly shown to the reader. One can 
 hardly expect a like method in tragedy. The story of the dream 
 can come only from the lips of the dreamer,264a and this fact 
 introduces that element of uncertainty about the vision (an 
 uncertainty lacking in the epic) which must be confirmed by the 
 direct omen. This latter has much of the immediate connection 
 with deity which can be expressed in the body of the dream 
 itself in the epic. 
 
 lo does not name the sender of the dreams nor does she tell 
 the form in which the speaker addressed her. The reader might 
 infer that Zeus, as the divinity interested, sent the visions of the 
 night; but this is nowhere stated.^^^ lo merely tells us that 
 dreams by night announce that Zeus desires her as a mistress 
 
 26*Cf. P. F. 448-449; 485-486; ^g. 274; 491; 980-981. These refer- 
 ences recur frequently. Where the poet was talking out of his rdle, 
 that is, where he was not composing an artistic dream (for the models 
 of such a dream he would be dependent upon literary sources) , but talking 
 off-hand and permitting an unimportant side glance at the phenomena 
 of the dream to creep in by way of illustration, he shows us that he had 
 made fairly accurate observations of the apparent phenomena of dreams. 
 To no such extent is a similar knowledge shown in the epic. The great 
 defect in the work of Hey and others lies in the assumption that the poet's 
 scientific explanations of dream phenomena in real life do not go beyond 
 the evident theory of the dreams, which he employs for literary ends. 
 
 264apQj. a, more elaborate device see infra, 74 ff . and the notes there. 
 
 2^*The speaking oaks of Dodona address her as the bride of Zeus, 829- 
 836. 
 
Aeschylus 69 
 
 and demand that she comply with the god's wishes (645 ff.)- 
 Harassed by their repeated visits she finally informs her sire 
 about them, and he sends frequent messengers to Pytho and 
 Dodona. But of the two it is the oracle of Loxias (669) which 
 clearly interprets the dream, charging Inachus to thrust his 
 daughter from her home and country, under threat of destruc- 
 tion to his whole family by the thunderbolt of Zeus if he does 
 not obey .2^^ Hence one cannot assert from any information given 
 in the text that Zeus sends the dream, since he permits the 
 oracle of Apollo to interpret the vision, while Dodona refuses to 
 divulge any information. 
 
 The epic dream is, as a rule, definitely assigned to some 
 divinity, but it will be remembered that the single allegorical 
 dream of Penelope was not, nor was the appearance of the ghost 
 of Patroclus.26^ Definite information as to the source of the 
 dream in the tragedy will generally be lacking, a situation arising 
 from the limitations of this department of literature, to which 
 attention has been called above.^^^ 
 
 The dream in the Prometheus is conceived in the epic form to 
 the extent of being represented as external in origin, but it is 
 not further personified. For in just what outward appearance 
 the 'visions of the night' (645) visit lo she does not declare. But 
 the message which they speak in lines 647-654 is such an address 
 as would come from the Hps of a daimon or a god or some e'^BwXov 
 that heaven might fashion. It will be noticed that the dream 
 is not allegorical in the sense that Penelope's dream about the 
 geese is.^^a There the prophecy of the future is told in symbols. 
 Here the desire of Zeus and his orders to lo are explicit and are 
 expressed without the use of tropes. The need of explanation 
 
 «6For the account of the dreams and the questioning of the oracle, 
 Acusilaus (a logographer of Argos [see Christ, 1, 453]) might have been 
 used; cf. Nestle, 331. 
 
 2«7For the power of the dead to send up dreams, see supra, nn. 62,203, 
 and 257. 
 
 "»0J. 535-581 ; supra, 30 J^ 
 
70 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 arises from two sources: first, the characters of the play are 
 unable to believe the divine communication though it is of itself 
 unambiguous ; secondly, even if this credence were gained, the 
 action ensuing upon it would not find favor with an unprepared 
 audience. The poet must satisfy by some dramaturgic device 
 familiar to his hearers the need for an explanation felt by the 
 persons of the play or by his audience. The demand for oracular 
 confirmation, then, comes from the source I have indicated, to 
 wit, the department of literature in which the poet is writing. 
 The consultation of the oracles and the reply of Apollo act as 
 the dramaturgic substitute for the divine machinery which the 
 epic poet is permitted to show to his hearers or readers. The 
 epic poet can gain belief for his dream by portraying Zeus in the 
 act of sending "Ovstpoq to Agamemnon, 2"^° Athene dispatching 
 Iphthime to Penelope, ^^^ or going in person (though disguised as 
 the daughter of Dymas) to Nausicaa.^^^ To the dramatic poet 
 this door is barred. He must gain entrance to his hearers* 
 belief through some equivalent for the Homeric machinery with 
 which they are familiar. This he finds in the confirming oracle 
 or omen. We shall see Aeschylus solving this problem in dif- 
 ferent ways in other plays. 
 
 The Choephori 
 
 The Libation Bearers come to Agamemnon's tomb, sent to 
 expiate a dream-terror ^73 which had visited Clytaemestra. 
 Aeschylus' description in verses 32-36 gives unearthly weirdness 
 
 ^^^Iliad, 2, 1-47. ^"^^Od. 4, 787-841. '"'^^Od. 6, 13-51. 
 
 "'Line 32. If one reads <5/9^6^pi^ 06j3os /crX.; see Weil's Praefatio, LIII. 
 If one reads 4>o?/3os with M, which Wecklein (ed. Berlin, 1885) adopts, 
 Apollo, instead of the murdered king, is the sender of the dream; but cf. 
 929. The reading 06j3os seems to be supported by the interpretation 
 of the Kpiral, 38-41; see infra, 71. A. W. Verrall, The Choephori 
 (London, 1893), reads 0o?/3os and interprets it as a generic term, 'an 
 inspiring power', suggesting that the 0ot/3os of Delphi, the inspiring 
 power of Delphi, was later identified with Apollo. Cf. Verrall's note on 
 this passage and Appendix, 1,2. 
 
Aeschylus 71 
 
 to this dream-terror as it shrieks aloud in the depths of night 
 from the women's quarters. In this description the poet would 
 seem to wish to emphasize the external source of the dream, 
 though the dream required interpretation. He shows us both 
 sides of the shield: in these lines, 32-36, the features of the 
 dream as it affects others appear; in lines 526 ff. we have the 
 dream pictiire as Clytaemestra saw it. The arrival of the 
 maidens at the tomb causes the discovery of the lock of hair and 
 the footprints and the restdtant recognition scene between 
 Electra and Orestes. Orestes announces that he has come to 
 avenge his father in answer to an oracle of Apollo. When he 
 expresses his desire to know why the offerings are being sent to 
 Agamemnon's tomb, Orestes learns the story of Clytae- 
 mestra's dream (526 ff.) : she had dreamt that she was delivered 
 of a serpent; when she gave it the breast, it drew in blood with 
 her milk; thereupon Clytaemestra awoke from sleep, screaming. 
 The xptTaf ts twvS' dvetpaxwv (37) interpret the dream bitterly 
 enough for the guilty woman, 'that the dead beneath the earth 
 were complaining against the slayers' (38-4 1),^^^ but they keep 
 the interpretation to general terms and make no reference to 
 Orestes as avenger.^^^ The queen sends gifts to pacify the angry 
 spirit of Agamemnon. When the chorus has finished the telling, 
 Orestes immediately prays to earth and to his father's grave 
 that the dream may be fulfilled in him. He then interprets the 
 dream and applies it to himself: he is the serpent which Clytae- 
 mestra has suckled (540-549). He declares that he will be 
 the slayer of his mother (549-550) : 
 
 ixSpaxovTa)6el<; S' iftii 
 XTSVW viv, ^q Touvetpov ^vv^xet T6Se. 
 
 "^That is, from the standpoint of the interpreters the dream was sent 
 not by a god but by the murdered husband. Cf. supra, 70, n. 273. 
 
 ""Aeschylus may have intentionally suspended any more definite 
 interpretation of the dream at this point so as not to weaken by anticipa- 
 tion the very artistic and highly effective passage where Orestes identifies 
 himself with the serpent, 542-550. 
 
72 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 The chorus accepts his interpretation and promises him its aid 
 (551 ff .) . Clytaemestra also, when she finds her son determined 
 upon her destruction, reaUzes that Orestes is the serpent of 
 whom she had dreamed (928), and he confirms her fears. 
 
 The oracle of Loxias is the source of the main outline of the 
 plot throughout the trilogy to which the Choephori belongs, and 
 especially in this play^^^ maintains that headship as conductor of 
 the action to which I have called attention above as one of the 
 principal functions of the oracle in tragedy.^^^ The dream, 
 here again, is less ambitious, but of closely secondary impor- 
 tance, as the foregoing synopsis shows. It sends forth the 
 Libation Bearers to the tomb, causing the meeting of Electra 
 and her brother and bringing about the famous anagnorisis, 
 and in addition it strengthens Orestes in his determination to 
 kill his mother. 
 
 f^ This dream is very effectively employed to produce suspense. 
 
 ' It is first mentioned in line 32, but it is not told in detail till line 
 526. Its shadow is over the whole play. It enters among the 
 earliest lines and is the last word on Clytaemestra's lips as her 
 son takes her within to slay her (928). It blocks the tender 
 appeal which the queen makes to the day when, a toothless 
 child, Orestes was nursed at her breast (896 ff.). It gives an 
 atmosphere of foreboding and foreshadowed disaster. In such 
 
 ^auxiliary functions the dream is very significant. 
 
 In technique, this dream too is in the class with Penelope's 
 dream in that it is allegorical and so requires interpretation to 
 make its import clear to the audience. In the Persae the poet 
 uses symbolism so patent as to require no Oedipus and, to guard 
 further against misinterpretation, confirms its meaning by the 
 omen of the hawk and the eagle. ^^^ In the Prometheus the clear 
 injunction of the oracle makes it impossible to apprehend 
 wrongly the essence of the dream.^^* Here the poet handles the 
 interpretation with increased dexterity : first, the errand of the 
 
 '"Cf. the references to the sources of the action in the oracle, 558-560, 
 900, 940, 953, 1029. 
 
 2«asupra, 59. "Tgupra, 62. ^^^Supra, 67. 
 
Aeschylus 73 
 
 chorus to the tomb suggests the intent of the dream; then the 
 * interpreters of dreams ' hint broadly, but in general terms, that 
 those beneath the earth (i. e. Agamemnon) are complaining 
 (37 ff.); Orestes gives a full and confident interpretation 
 (540 ff.); the chorus accepts his reading of the dream and 
 piously prays that it may come to pass.^'^ The climax in this 
 confirmation is reached when the queen realizes that Orestes 
 has come as the serpent to slay her (928) : oT ' yd) Tsxouaa i:6vS' 8<j)iv 
 ^0pe(|;i(jLYjv, and the son replies (929-930) : 
 
 •^ xapTa [kdyztq o6? dvsipaxwv ^6^oq. 
 Ixavsq ov oO xpriVy xai t6 [lAi xP^^v xa0e. 
 
 This handling of the interpretation far surpasses in refinement of 
 workmanship that of any other dream in Aeschylus. 
 
 The introduction of the serpent is noteworthy. Stesichorus, 
 according to a fragment of his Oresteia, preserved by Plutarch,**® 
 had already introduced a serpent in a dream, but he had identi- 
 fied the serpent with the dead Agamemnon instead of with 
 Orestes. In this version of Stesichorus we see the older concep- 
 tion that the serpent is the soul of the dead man.^^^ Staehlin^^ 
 thinks that Aeschylus has contaminated two primitive ideas: 
 according to a widespread belief serpents drank milk and would 
 draw nourishment even from the himian breast j^^ to this 
 
 "•rcpacTK^TTOj 5^ ruvdi <r' alpovfiai iripi^ yivoiro 5' oCtwj (551-552). 
 
 "ODe Sera Num. Vind. 10 (Bergk, 42). For the Greek of the Stesichorus 
 fragment see infra, 83. 
 
 "iSee Frazer, Adonis, Attis, and Osiris, 153 (London, 1907); Frazer, 
 Pausanias, 3, 65 ff.; 5, 44-45; Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy (London, 
 1910), Index, s. v. Snake; Frazer, Golden Bough, Index, s. v. Snakes; 
 Rohde, 1, 133; 1, 196; Jane E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of 
 Greek Religion, 217, 233, 301, 306, 326, 392, 418, 535 (London, 1903). 
 and Journal of Hellenic Studies, 19, 204; 223; J. B. Deane, Worship of 
 the Serpent, 245 ff. (London, 1830). 
 
 »8236-37. 
 
 «83He cites Olbrich, Mitteilungen der Schlesischen Gesellschaft fur Volks- 
 kunde, 3, 41 ff.; 4, 67 ff.; Usener, Milch und Honig, Rhein. Mus. 57, 177 ff. 
 
74 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 Aeschylus adds a vampire belief, already current in Eastern 
 Europe, a belief in the existence of a being, generally supposed to 
 be the soul of a dead man, which sucks by night the blood of 
 living persons.^^ In the Eumenides Apollo distinctly speaks of 
 the vampire-like qualities of the Furies.^^^ 
 
 The sender to whom we are to ascribe the dream in the 
 Choephori is not mentioned specifically (unless we follow Weck- 
 lein and read, with the Codex Mediceus, ^ol^oq, in 32), but the 
 inference is that the soul of the dead sent up the dreamr;::::the 
 ancient view.^^^ ' ^ ^ ''~'^'' 
 
 The Eumenides 
 
 The boldest use of the dream device is in the Eumenides .^^"^ 
 There Aeschylus out-Homers Homer in emphasizing the 
 objectivity of the dream. The Furies are disclosed asleep upon 
 the stage and dreaming. Aeschylus has a living actor portray 
 their dream.^^^ This actor enters in the role of the ghost of 
 Clytaemestra and for forty-five lines^^^ addresses a rebuke to the 
 sleeping Furies because they have allowed their ardor in the 
 pursuit of Orestes to abate. This rebuke is the dream. The 
 theatrical effectiveness of such a visual representation is self- 
 evident. The extent to which this scene has been imitated 
 confirms this feeling. It was copied by Euripides in his 
 
 '"The belief in vampires is, at the present time, largely confined to 
 Slavonic countries and those lands in which the Slav has settled — Russia, 
 Poland, Servia, Albania, Greece and Slavonic Austria. The vampire is 
 generally supposed to be the soul of a witch, or of a suicide, or of someone 
 who has met a violent death (in this case the murdered Agamemnon). 
 
 385183-184. 
 
 386Sophocles, in the Electra, who borrows the dream from the Choephori, 
 makes Electra declare pointedly that the dead Agamemnon sent the dream, 
 459-460; cf. also nn. 63, 203, 257 and 323. 
 
 "^94 ff. 
 
 288Cf. 116, tvap yoLp v/xdi vvv EXvTain'^ffTpa koXQ; i.e. "Als Traumbild 
 mahne ich euch, ich, Klytamnestra", Richter, 222. 
 28994-139. 
 
Aeschylus 75 
 
 Hecuha,'^^^ axid in the tragedy Octavia^^^ written in the early Em- 
 pire; on the contemporary stage it has had immense vogue.*** 
 Its effectiveness on the stage explains sufficiently why Aeschylus 
 chose to cast the dream in the external, objective form. One 
 attempts, of course, to draw no conclusions from the type of 
 dream here employed as to the poet's philosophic beliefs con- 
 cerning the origin of dream phenomena. 
 
 In regard to artistic philosophical background the dream in 
 the Eumenides belongs with the dream in which Patroclus 
 appeared to Achilles '?^ the return of the ghost of Clytaemestra 
 to demand vengeance is of a type with the return of the soul of 
 Patroclus, to demand burial. Both conceptions find their 
 basis in folk-beliefs,^^* but the artistic prototype of the dream 
 in the Eumenides is the description of the return of Patroclus in 
 the epic. 
 
 As a factor in outlining the plot of the Eumenides the dream 
 assumes considerable importance. It is the propelling force 
 behind the action of the Furies. While they sleep, they have 
 let their prey escape them, spirited off by Apollo. The dream 
 awakes them and sends them out again to overtake the matri- 
 cide. One of the Sisters plainly states (155-161) that it is the 
 ghost of Clytaemestra which arouses them again to pursue 
 Orestes. 
 
 The necessity for this pursuit and the consequent importance 
 of the dream which motivates it, Wilamowitz has shown.^*^ He 
 
 "053; 69-89. 
 
 "^Incerti Octavia, 593-645 (ed. Peiper and Richter, Leipzig, 1902), 
 the ghost of Agrippina appears to Poppaea, and this appearance the latter 
 relates as her evil dream in lines 721-734. 
 
 292Sheridan's The Critic, Shaw's Fanny's First Play, the play within a 
 play, are all essentially descendents, however remote, of this idea. 
 
 *^Uliad, 23, 62-107; supra, 12-20. 
 
 '"This conception pictured the Ara^ot, Awpot, /Siato^dvarot, as wandering 
 restlessly about this side of the Styx; cf. e.g. Rohde, 2, 411 ff.; Norden, 
 in his Einleitung, 10-20. See also above nn. 44 and 50. 
 
 ^^^Ubersetzung der Eumeniden, 37 (in Staehlin, 39). 
 
76 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 finds in the Eumenides the union of two originally distinct 
 legends : first, the purification of Orestes at Delphi through the 
 medium of Apollo, and, secondly, the trial and judgment of 
 Orestes at Athens. The value of the dream for the economy of 
 the plot lies in the fact that it helps to explain the merging of 
 these legends and the change of location of the ending of the 
 play from Delphi to Athens. To Athens Apollo sends Orestes 
 (79-84) : 
 
 . . {ioX(ji)v 8s IlaXXdSoc; xotI xt6Xiv 
 
 XC,ou xaXat6v ayxaOev Xa^wv PpeTaq. 
 
 xaxeT Bixa^Taq twvSs v.(x.\ GsXxTiQpiouq 
 
 (x66ou<; Ix^'^'zz^ (XTQ^avag supYjffotAev, 
 
 ci)(jT* iq t6 xav as twvS' dxaXXd^ai x6v(i)V. 
 
 Thither in pursuit of him the Furies are sent by the dream, 
 the ghost of Clytaemestra which will not let them rest at 
 Delphi. 
 
 Here again a dead person appears in the dream. Indeed the 
 connection of the dead with dreams throughout Aeschylus is 
 noteworthy : compare the connection of Agamemnon with the 
 dream in the Choephori,^^^ of Darius with the dream in the 
 Persae,^^'' echoes, it seems, of the appearance of Patroclus in the 
 Iliad, the earliest appearance, in the extant literature, of the 
 dead in dreams. Clytaemestra also declares herself forced 
 by the other dead to wander (95 ff.), as was Patroclus ;2^^ as the 
 ghost of Patroclus was the counterpart of the living hero,^*' 
 so she appears — calling attention to her wounds (102) — ^in form 
 such as was hers when she lay dead at Orestes' feet. Unlike 
 Patroclus, who did not know of the elaborate preparations to 
 celebrate his funeral, she has knowledge of what has happened 
 since her death, for, as she calls upon the Furies, while they 
 groan and talk in their sleep ('like a dog dreaming of the 
 
 296526 ff.; supra, 70-74. 297175 g. supra, 60-66. 
 
 ^^miad, 23, 72-73 ; supra, 14. 299Supra, 13 f . Consult especially n. 42. 
 
Aeschylus 77 
 
 chase', says Clytaemestra [130 ff.]),3oo she tells them that Orestes 
 has escaped and fled (111; 118-119)., 
 
 Two concluding observations must be made. First, the 
 dream is an exception to the allegorical type usual in tragedy;'*'* 
 its message is direct and the Eumenides accept its rebtike (155). 
 This fact takes it out of the category of Penelope's dream about 
 the geese.302 Secondly, the dream is received by women, the 
 feminine deities of revenge.^®^ 
 
 Minor References 
 
 The shorter references in Aeschylus to dreams are, on the 
 whole, unimportant, though some of them are picturesque and 
 happy. 
 
 In the Septem, Eteocles the scoffer grants a late credence to 
 the dreams which confirmed the curses of Oedipus (710-711): 
 dcyav B'aXTr]0£T(; ^vuxviwv cjxzvTaatAaTwv o^ziq. 
 
 In the SuppUces, when the herald attempts to carry off the 
 maiden to the ship, she calls the outrage (888) : ovap 8vap jiiXav. 
 \ In the Prometheus, the hero declares that men, before his 
 civilizing benefactions, having eyes saw not, having ears heard 
 not, but were (448^49) dvetpaTwv dXiyy.toi [Log^atai. He admits 
 the need of interpreting dreams, and boasts himself the pioneer 
 teacher of the art (485-486): x(3cxptva xpa)To<; i^ dvstpaxwv S X9'h 
 uxap Yevi(y0at. The Oceanides liken feeble weakness to a dream 
 (547-548): 6XiYoBpav(av axtxuv, bovstpov. 
 
 In the Agamemnon, the watchman speaks of his couch during 
 the king's absence as 'unvisited by dreams', eOvif)v dvefpoi? o6x 
 ^xtaxoTcoufiivYjv (13). The explanation of the strange ineptitude 
 of the chorus to act at the crisis in 1343-1371 is foreshadowed by 
 
 »ooCf. Lucretius, 4, 972 ff. (ed. Brieger): 
 
 venantumque canes in moUi saepe quiete 
 
 iactant crura tamen subito vocisque repente 
 
 mittunt et crebro redducunt naribus auras, 
 
 ut vestigia si teneant inventa ferarum, etc. 
 'oiSee above, 33, n. 105. ^"^Od. 19, 535-581. 
 
 'o^Supra, 65, n. 253. 
 
78 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 the author early in the play : old age is as helpless as a child^ 
 as unreal as a dream, a 'dream appearing by day', ovap iQ(JLep6(t)avT0V 
 (82). In 179-180 there is indubitable reference to a dream 
 state, as opposed to the treatment of the dream as external in 
 origin: crrdct^et h* iv O'uxvfp xp6 xapSiaq (jlvt)jixt){jlg)vx6vo(;. Thedream 
 is a type of the illusory (274) : x6Tepa B'dvs^pwv (j)aj(JLaT* e6xt0^ aegsiq ; 
 asks the chorus of Clytaemestra as she announces the fall of 
 Troy. The queen accepts this description in her answer (275) : 
 oO 86?av av Xd^ot^i ^giW(jriq ^gey6q. The semblances which 
 appear in dreams are fleeting, evanescent, bringing only a vain 
 joy (420 ff.). The dream is used as the equivalent of 'untruth* 
 (491): eW o5v d\y]Mq eW dvetpaxwv Mxyjv. In 891 ff. Clytae- 
 mestra, in her talk to Agamemnon, strikes a modern note. She 
 recognizes that the common dream experiences cannot occur in 
 the short time devoted to sleep. In 980-981, 'dark dreams' are 
 easily effaced: o6S* ixoxxOaaq 8(xav Sujxpftwv dvetpdtTwv. Cas- 
 sandra in her vision of horrors (1214 ff.) sees the children of 
 Thyestes dvecpwv xpO(7<|)epsT<; ^opcjxotiLaacv (1218). 
 
SOPHOCLES 
 
 / Sophocles employs the dream device sparingly. There are 
 in his extant plays but two lesser references to dreams and but 
 one fully related dream. One of these smaller references is in 
 the Oedipus Tyrannus, 980-982: to Jocasta the dream can at 
 times be a satisfactory fulfilment of an unpleasant oracle. 
 She comforts Oedipus with words to that tenor: ait B's^q xd 
 [LTi'zgbq [L^i <[)o^oO vu(X([)e6(jLaTa* %oXkol ydp tjByj xdv 6ve(paatv ^poxdiv 
 {jLTQTpl $uveuvdc(j0iQaav.^^ The second is in the Acrisius (Camp- 
 bell, 62) where fears are likened to winds which in the night 
 the dreamer fancies he hears rising boisterously, but which he 
 finds less violent at the break of day: Gapaet, yuvat* xd xoXXi 
 xwv Setvwv, 8vap xvs6(7avxa vuxx6q, "^^.^pa? iiaXdcjaexai. 
 
 The Electra 
 
 ^^"Tliis failure of Sophocles to use the dream device extensively 
 could not have been other than deliberate.'' For with the 
 example of Aeschylus before him he might well have felt that a 
 free handling of the m5rths would have permitted the introduc- 
 tion of the dream. /' There is only one important dream, how- 
 ever, in Sophocles* extant dramas. That is Clytaemestra's 
 dream in the Electra.^W In introducing this motif Sophocles was, 
 without doubt, following the lead of Stesichorus in the Oresteia 
 fragment^^ and that of Aeschylus in the Choephori}^ It is 
 
 304PQJ. examples of the type of dream to which Jocasta refers, cf. the 
 dream of Hippias, Herodotus, 6, 17; the dream of Caesar when he was 
 quaestor in Spain, Suetonius, Div. lul. 7; Plutarch, Caes, 32; Die Cass. 
 37,52; 41,24. 
 
 306417 ff., 480, 501, 644, 1390. 
 
 '°«Bergk, 42. See 73 and 83, n. 280. For comment on the Oresteia of 
 Stesichorus, cf. A. Muller, Aesthetischer Kommentar zu den Tragodien des 
 Sophokles, 151 ff. (Paderbom, 1913). In this fragment the serpent is 
 pictured as approaching with blood upon its hea.d,p€ppoTu/xhos (Clytaemes- 
 tra had killed the king with an ax), and then being transformed into Aga- 
 memnon. 
 
 »o7Supra, 70-74. 
 
 79 
 
80 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 noteworthy that he introduces an entirely new version of the 
 dream. In the Choephori Clytaemestra suckled a serpent which 
 drew blood from her breast .^^^ In Sophocles' Electra the staff 
 of Agamemnon sprouts and overshadows the whole of 
 Mycenae.^^^ 
 
 In the Electra Chrysothemis interrupts a dialogue about 
 Orestes' return by entering with sepulchral offerings for Agamem- 
 non, which her mother had sent her to make at his tomb (406). 
 Clytaemestra has not told her the reason for the sending, but 
 Chrysothemis thinks the cause 'an object of horror appearing by 
 night' (410). As Electra presses her for a fuller explanation she 
 gives the story of the dream, which someone had overheard as 
 the queen related her dream to the sun (417-425).^^^ 
 
 If one compares this dream in its effect on the plot with the 
 dream in the Choephori, he will find a notable difference. The 
 latter was of great importance for the action of the play. In the 
 Electra, on the other hand, the plot is independent of the dream. 
 The vision brings Chrysothemis to the tomb, but she does not 
 meet Orestes and the tokens which she has discovered there of 
 his return are soon made to seem false when Electra maintains 
 that he is dead (924-926). The dream produces no further 
 effect on the progress of this episode than this bringing of 
 Chrysothemis to the tomb. ^ It plays, then, an entirely different 
 r61e from that played by the Aeschylean dream. It is not 
 surprising that this should be so : all the external machinery of 
 
 388533. 309419-423. Cf. infra, 83 and n. 318. 
 
 310'pjjg scholiast says here: rots 7A/9 TraXaioiS idos ^v AiroTpoiria^ofidvovs 
 ('by way of expiation') T(p ijXlip dirjyeiadai ra dvelpara. For comment 
 upon this and other customs usual after such a visitation of nocturnal 
 spooks or dreams, see supra, 62, n. 235. Jebb, ad loc, suggests 
 the following reasons for the address to the sun. Helios (1) is god of 
 light and purity, ayvbs 6e6s (Pindar, Olymp. 7, 60), who dispels the 
 terrors of darkness; (2) he is the all-seeing god, iravbirr-qs, especially 
 the detecter of guilt (cf. Od. 8, 270-271), and so able to reveal the lurking 
 wrong which an evil dream might foreshadow; (3) generally he is a saving 
 power, <T(aT'f}p (Pausanias, 8, 31, 7; and cf. Sophocles, El. 637 ff., where 
 Helios and Apollo are identified). 
 
Sophocles 81 
 
 gods and oracles, the mechanism, in fine, by means of which the 
 dramas of Aeschylus move, is kept more in the background by 
 the greater craftsman, Sophocles. 
 
 What the dream does accompHsh is in the realm of the por- 
 trayal of character. ' It leads to the meeting of Chrysothemis 
 and Electra as the former sets out for the tomb. This meeting 
 gives the setting for that wonderful dialogue between the two 
 sisters (892-1057) in which Sophocles displays his supreme 
 ability to portray, with great strength and refinement, character 
 by contrast. It causes the appearance of Clytaemestra on the 
 stage at line 516.^^^ This entrance brings her face to face with 
 Electra and there ensues one of the most important scenes in the 
 play. In this scene is introduced a t5rpical dramatic debate 
 between mother and daughter, involving two long speeches, one 
 for the defense (516-551), one for the plaintiff (558-609), and 
 considerable attendant dialogue. The reader gets a more sym- 
 pathetic insight into the queen's motives for the murder of 
 Agamemnon and there is aroused that pity for her which is 
 essential to make her part dramatic. The character of Electra, 
 also, is illimiinated from another angle and a different aspect of 
 her indomitable determination is clearly portrayed. 
 
 This is exactly what one might expect. The reader feels that 
 Sophocles accepted the dream which was part of the tale as it 
 had been worked out by his two predecessors, Aeschylus and 
 Stesichorus, and, having accepted it, took from it its important 
 r61e of aiding in the development of the plot and made it per- 
 form a function more congenial to his artistic technique. We 
 can illustrate this by noticing the point in the two dramas at 
 which the dream enters. Sophocles mentions it late (417 ff.). 
 In the Choephori, on the other hand, it is mentioned on the very 
 threshold (32) and its influence is felt throughout the whole 
 
 play.^^2 
 
 The problem which this dream presents to the dramatis 
 personae is also deftly turned to the purposes of portraying 
 
 3"She gives this information later, 634-636. 
 3i2Supra, 72. 
 
82 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 character. It is an allegorical dream. The audience, familiar 
 with the main outline of the (xOBoq, finds no difficulty with the 
 meaning and interpretation of the dream. But the personae do 
 not interpret and apply the dream with the same unerring 
 confidence. The chorus hopes that it may foreshadow good for 
 Electra and Orestes (479-481) ; indeed, the chorus is willing to 
 stake its belief in oracles and dreams upon the favorable issue 
 of this dream (499-501). But to Clytaemestra dreams are 
 'ambiguous', Siaawv 6v£(po)v (645),^^^ and Electra's hopes, which 
 are at first aroused, are abandoned on the arrival of the message 
 that Orestes is dead (673-674). The argument from silence on 
 the part of the others indicates a like lack of any definite opinion 
 as to the meaning of the dream. But some potency in its 
 undoubted portent is realized throughout. KaibeP^^ is cer- 
 tainly sound in his contention that Sophocles needed such an 
 ambiguous dream to make possible the fine characterization of 
 Clytaemestra in lines 634-659. 
 
 In massiveness the rugged, unambiguous dream of Aeschylus 
 dwarfs this dream of Sophocles.^^^ The latter uses the dream 
 with great delicacy and skill in his portraiture of character, but 
 he does not make it play any large part in the development of 
 the plot. One can see in Aeschylus the dream as part of the 
 uncovered machinery of the plot guiding the course of the play; 
 in Sophocles these divine agencies are as certainly assumed, but 
 their mechanical operation is less patent. He accepts the epic 
 view that the vengeance is justifiable. When that is once 
 granted the plot moves on from its own internal forces. ^^* 
 
 The details of the content of the dream are of interest. In the 
 fragment from the Oresteia of Stesichorus the dragon approached 
 Cl5rtaemestra with gore upon its head (the blood which was upon 
 
 "«For this interpretation, cf. G. Kaibel, Elektra, 172 (Leipzig, 1896), 
 and R. C. Jebb, 93-94. 
 
 8"Loc. cit. 135. 
 
 816 "Dej. Traum ist dem Aischyleischen gegenuber {Choe. 526) durftig", 
 says Kaibel, 135. 
 
 8"Jebb, 32. 
 
Sophocles 83 
 
 the head of Agamemnon from Clytaemestra's ax) and then 
 was turned into Agamemnon.^^^ 
 
 T(?t Bs Spdxwv iBoxTQjs jAoXsTv xapa gs^pOTw^jilvoi; Sxpov* 
 iy. B'apa toD paatXsDq IlXstaGevfBaq i(j)dtvif3. 
 
 In Aeschylus, again a dragon appears : it draws blood from the 
 breast of Clytaemestra. The dragon here symbolizes Orestes. 
 Both these conceptions have a basis in folk-lore in the wide- 
 spread cult of the serpent, a cult which has had various ramifica- 
 tions.^^^^ Sophocles tiimed from the serpent type, which after 
 all has something of the gruesome and the abhorrent, to an 
 equally familiar folk-legend of the sprouting staff ^^® — a type of 
 legend certainly not employed for the first time in the story of 
 the rod of Aaron. Herodotus used the same t3TDe of dream: 
 Astyages dreamt that there grew from the womb of his daughter 
 Mandane a vine which overshadowed the whole of Asia.'^' 
 The vine was Cyrus. Sophocles was perhaps moved to this 
 choice by the two passages in Homer dealing with the sceptre 
 of Agamemnon, Iliad, 1, 234-239; 2, 101-108. Particularly 
 happy does this choice seem, especially to modems familiar with 
 the use to which Lessing in his Laokoon put the pertinent 
 passages.320 without doubt its connotative force would be 
 even more pregnant to the Greeks, to whom Homer was as well 
 
 3"The prototype in literature of this transformation is that of the eagle 
 into Odysseus in Penelope's dream, Od. 19, 535-581 ; supra, 30-35. For 
 further comment of. supra, 73. 
 
 "^asee supra, n. 281. 
 
 'ispor bibliography, covering a large number of monographs and refer- 
 ences which treat the different aspects of this folk-legend, see Staehlin, 
 51-53, and footnotes there. 
 
 3i9Herodotus, 1, 108. See also, for the idea of the spreading branches, 
 the dream of Xerxes, Herodotus, 7, 19. 
 
 ^^^Laokoon, xv: "Was bekiimmert sich aber Homer, wie weit er den 
 Maler hinter sich lasst? Statt einer Abbildung giebt er uns die Geschichte 
 des Scepters: erst ist es unter der Arbeit des Vulkans; nun bemerkt es 
 die Wiirde Merkurs; nun ist er der Commandostab des kriegerischen 
 Pelops". 
 
84 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 known as the King James version is to the Scottish member of a 
 free kirk.^^^ 
 
 Here, as in the earher passages in which the dead appear in 
 dreams,^22 {^ jg noticeable that there is no direct reference to any 
 deity as the sender of the dream. To a great degree the ghost 
 seems to return of its own accord (459-460).^^^ It might seem 
 that Apollo's interest in the message of the dream is indicated 
 by Electra's appeal to him *to bring its fulfilment, if good; if 
 bad, to allow it to recoil upon her foes' (644-647) . The dream is 
 half direct — ^Agamemnon appears as does Patroclus, an incident 
 which requires no interpretation; half symbolical, in the 
 sprouting staff, a wonder which is allegorical as are the geese in 
 Penelope's dream. But the importance of the dream lies in its 
 allegory, and the little of the non-symbolic which is left clinging 
 to it in the form of the ghost of Agamemnon is perhaps a sur- 
 vival from the combination of the allegorical and the direct 
 elements, which I have discussed, in the Odysseus of Penelope's 
 dream.^^^ In being allegorical it follows the usual — ^but by no 
 means unbroken — convention of tragedy, as it does also in 
 appearing to a woman.^^s 
 
 '"Kaibel, 137, thinks that the passage in the Iliad (1, 234) where Achilles 
 takes oath by his scepter which would never bloom again may have in- 
 fluenced Sophocles in the figure which he adopted. 
 
 "20rf. 19, 535-581; Stesichorus, Oresteia (Bergk, 42); Pindar, Pyth. 4, 
 163; Persae, 176 ff.; Eumenides,Mfi.. 
 
 *2»I have noted above, 20, n. 63, how the dead seem to share with the 
 chthonic divinities (and naturally so) the power of sending dreams. Cf. 
 also n. 286. 
 
 3"Supra, 34-35. 
 
 «»Supra, 28, n. 83; 51, n. 208; 61. For allegorical dreams, cf . 33, n. 105. 
 
EURIPIDES 
 
 ^■Though there are four important dreams in the tragedies of 
 Aeschylus, there is, as has been shown above (p. 79), but one in 
 the works of Sophocles. ' Euripides, who, as is well known, 
 carried on the Aeschylean tradition,326 shows two that are of 
 larger import, one of lesser, and fairly frequent references to 
 dreams or dream phenomena. 
 
 The Hecuba 
 
 In the HecuhaP^ Euripides adopts the device which Aeschylus 
 had used in the Eumenides .^"^^ The ghost of Polydorus, HoXuSwpou 
 s'ifSwXov xpoXoyt^ov, which is haimting the sleeping Hecuba, is 
 portrayed visibly on the stage before the eyes of the spectators 
 (1-58). The ghost tells the audience how he had been sent by 
 Priam to Polymestor for safe-keeping over against the fall of 
 Troy (1-20) ; he describes his treacherous murder at the hands 
 of Polymestor (21-27) : he declares that his body had been left 
 dcTa(t)0(; (30)^^^ and floating about the sea, and that at this very 
 moment he was gliding about his dear mother's head (i. e. 
 
 '26For the general question of how Euripides carried on the Aeschylean 
 tradition in vocabulary, meter, construction of plot and, in fact, in the 
 whole matter of literary technique, see the doctoral dissertations of 
 O. Krausse, De Euripide Aeschyli Instauratore (lena, 1905); H. Burk- 
 hardt, Die Archaismen des Euripides (Hannover, 1906); and the biblio- 
 graphy cited in their footnotes. A still more recent essay is that by 
 C. A. Manning, A Study of Archaism in Euripides (New York, 1916); 
 see especially pages 68-72. 
 
 "^For a recent discussion of ths technique of this prologue cf . E. Petersen, 
 Die Attische Tragodie (Bonn, 1915). 
 
 •"Supra, 74-77. 
 
 •"For the folk-belief in regard to the 4To0ot cf. Rohde, 2, 411 flf.; Nor- 
 den (Einleitung), 10-20. See also n. 294. 
 
 85 
 
86 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 he was appearing to her in a dream), ^^^ having hovered over the 
 body three days (32),^^^ while the Greek ships were delayed 
 through the appearance of the ghost of Achilles above his tomb 
 demanding Pol3^ena as a victim (35-41) i^^ he prophesies the 
 death of his sister in answer to Achilles* demand (42-44), and 
 the finding and burial of his own corpse (45-52) ; then he says 
 (52-54): . . . yspata S* ^xxoBct)v xwpTQaojxat 
 *ExdcPiQ* Tzgq: yd:p tJB' 6x6 (jxyjvyjc; x6Ba 
 *AYatJL£(jLVovo<;, cjxzvTaa^a Set^atvoua' i(Ji6v. 
 
 Finally after a few further lines of soliloquy the spectre is gone. 
 Hecuba now comes upon the scene, driven from Agamemnon's 
 tent by disquieting dreams (68-97) concerning Polydorus and 
 Polyxena. 
 
 (i) (JTSpoxa At6<;, d) axoxla vu?, 
 
 she says as she sees the starry heavens, which make the night 
 seem all the darker ;^^^ she invokes earth, the chthonic divini- 
 ties ;^^^ she calls aloud for Helenus or Cassandra to interpret the 
 dreams which she has had about her son and daughter. She 
 distinctly uses the pliiral, 6v£(pou? (89), yet in what follows she 
 narrates to the chorus but one dream, the dream of the hind and 
 the wolf (which manifestly refers to Polyxena), for the appari- 
 tion of Achilles, which she mentions (92 ff .), came not to her 
 personally, but to all the Greek host, and was not a dream, but a 
 
 »»°This is the interpretation accepted by Bemardakis, ad loc. He 
 quotes the scholiast: inr^p rijs Ke<f>a\T}s rijs firjTpds' 6 iffTiv, 6va.p avr^ <pahofiat. 
 Cf. Iliad, 2, 20; 23, 68; Od. 4, 803, etc., and Weil, Sept Trag. 219. 
 
 '^^Three days was the usual period for the soul to linger about the corpse; 
 cf. Bemardakis on this line. 
 
 332The appearance of Achilles is not a dream but a waking vision; 
 cf. infra, 87, n. 335. 
 
 333Bernardakis says in his note on this Une: 'H 'E/cd/Sr; i^ipxerai t^v viKra 
 tlvrpofios 4k t7]s ffKTivTJs, Kal iTTKpJjvei: &, iroTos dffTepotpeyyijs oipap6s, &, iroia 
 ffKoretv^ vi5|! 
 
 "*Again the interpretation of Bemardakis. 
 
Euripides 87 
 
 waking vision.^ss What then was her vision of Polydorus? 
 The answer is : the pertinent parts of the prologue which the 
 ghost of Polydorus speaks. With consummate skill Euripides 
 does not have Hecuba repeat what he has already portrayed 
 upon the stage : the dream of Hecuba about Polydorus has been 
 put before the audience by the ghost of Polydorus. Hecuba 
 tells the chorus the vision which can be appHed only to Polyxena. 
 The proof of the correctness of this interpretation we may see 
 by comparing with this dream prologue the passage (702 ff.)» 
 wherein Hecuba is shown the dead body of her son : 
 
 *Exc«pTQ. wpLot, a?ac, sVaOov evu-rcvov 6(jLfjLaia)v 
 
 ^(i<j\L<x tJLsXav6xTepov, xdv iaetSov d[L^l ci, 
 J) Tsxvov, oOxst' ovTa Atoq iv ([xzei. 
 
 X6poq. ziq yap vtv ixTstv'; oIa6' 6v£ip6<j)pa)v ^gddai; 
 
 ^Exd^Yj. i[Lbq i[Lb<; ^evoq, ©pyixtoc; l'K'K6':<xq, 
 
 W 6 yipwv xaTifjp ^0£t6 viv TLpu^aq.^^ 
 
 That the ghost which speaks the prologue is the dream has 
 not always been understood by the editors, and no less a critic 
 than Wilamowitz has gone so far as to declare lines 73-78 and 
 90-97 the work of an tinskilled interpolator.^ Nothing could 
 be further from the truth. To be sure there is not 'complete 
 coextension' between what the ghost says to the audience^* and 
 what Hecuba sees in the dream. For example, there is no need 
 for telling Hecuba the well-known tale of Polydorus' being sent 
 
 '3^In the poets the waking vision may be seen by several, as here by all 
 the Greek host, but in the dream the spirit commonly appeared to a single 
 person; cf. Hardie, Lectures, 91. 
 
 836702-720. 
 
 ^'^Hermes, 44, 446-449. He feels that this prologue is a combination 
 of many variant archetypes thrown together by the Alexandrian scholars 
 into a conglomerate mass for fear that something might be lost in the 
 attempt to excise what was not genuine. 
 
 3881-58. 
 
88 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 to Thrace. But that Euripides conceives Polydorus as appear- 
 ing to Hecuba in sleep, the words (30 f.), vOv S' uxip [Lri^gbq ^iXriq 
 *Exa^Y5<; dfaao), as the scholiast early perceived,^^^ leave indu- 
 bitable. 
 
 The situation which seems to have caused this lack of entire 
 coincidence is the following. Aeschylus in his Persae, it will 
 be recalled, had introduced the ghost of Darius,^*^ frankly, 
 admittedly a ghost, talking to the waking Persians, not a dream. 
 In his Eumenides, he portrayed the ghost of Clytaemestra on 
 the stage. The appearance and words of Clytaemestra were 
 the Eumenides' dream, for all that Clytaemestra says is 
 addressed to the sleeping Furies and is easily understood as the 
 content of their vision. There are no words intended for the 
 ear of the audience alone. Etiripides, notoriously fond of 
 Aeschylean devices,^^^ has been guilty of a contaminatio of these 
 two conceptions. He has united the idea of the ghost of the 
 dead speaking in a waking vision (from the Persae) and that of 
 the ghost of the dead appearing and speaking in a dream (from 
 the Eumenides). The situation is further complicated because 
 he brings this dream to the forefront of the drama and uses it 
 for a prologue, the earliest example of the ovstpo? TupoXoyft^wv. ^ 
 The very heavy share of the burden of advancing the plot put 
 upon the dream in this position has led to some infelicities and 
 some illogicalities, due to the fact that the author is handling an 
 unfamiliar bit of technique.^^^ Strictly, all that can be intended 
 only for the audience rather than for the worried Hecuba should 
 have been excised from this dream, as Aeschylus was careful to 
 do in the Eumenides. But in spite of these strictures, we must 
 see that the prologue remains of one texture, technically, with 
 Clytaemestra' s dream in the Eumenides. 
 
 '3®Cf . the statement of the scholiast, quoted in n. 330. 
 
 '"681 ff. Supra, 63. 3«Supra, 85, n. 326. 
 
 '^The infelicities Wilamowitz, Hermes, 44, 446 f., has, perhaps, over- 
 emphasized. 
 
Euripides 89 
 
 In regard to the economy of the play this dream has even a 
 heavier duty to perform than the usual Euripidean prologue.^ 
 The subject of the play is the psychology of Hecuba under the 
 lash of sorrow and revenge. ^^^ This psychology is depicted by 
 the joining of two incidents, which have no inner connection 
 or necessary relation, the sacrifice of Polyxena and the dis- 
 covery and punishment of the crime of Polymestor.^'^ This 
 joining is effected, so far as the incidents can be joined, by the 
 dream prologue.^^ It is emphasized again by Hecuba, at her 
 first entrance (73-76) : 
 
 d\k^\ noXu^etvYjq TS ^'Ckr\q 0UYaTp6<; IC dvstpwv 
 [sIBov yap] <l)o^£p(3:v [o^l^tv ijAaGov] iSaiQV. 
 
 and then, as if to introduce the second incident, the poet makes 
 the following the last words which pass between Polyxena and 
 her mother as the* daughter is led away for immolation (428-430) : 
 
 HoXu^ecvT). t'Iv c!)tX(xxot? €)py3?l noXuSwpo*; xaaiq. 
 ^Exa^Y). e? l^fj y'* dxiaro) B** (oSs xavxa Suaruxw. 
 
 HoXu^sfvY]. X^yi %(x\ GavoucTTjc; o^xjxa auyxXyiast t6 ff6v. 
 
 The chorus sings a lyric, after which Talthybius enters and the 
 Polydorus-Pol5rmestor episode begins. 
 
 ^^The greatest changes in the external form of the drama made by 
 Euripides were (1) in the prologue, and (2) in the use of the deus ex machina, 
 i.fe. the epilogue. Cf. P. Masqueray, Euripide et ses idSes, 39-45 (Paris, 
 1908); F. Commer, De Prologorum Euripideorum Caussa ac Ratione 
 (Diss. Bonn., 1864); also the ridicule to which Aristophanes subjects 
 them. Frogs, 1198-1247. For a defense of the deus ex machina see H. H. 
 Yeames, The Classical Weekly, 10, 202. 
 
 3<4The lines 422-423, seemingly so colorless, could really be taken as 
 the text of the play, "das ergreifende Pathos der unglucklichen Konigin", 
 says Christ2, 1, 273. 
 
 »«1_52. 
 
 »«See Wilamowitz, 1. c. 446; Staehlin, 89-90. 
 
90 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 This dream does not control any long succession of inci- 
 dents as dreams do elsewhere. It does indeed bring Hecuba 
 from the tent to cry her dreams to heaven,^^^ but beyond that 
 it does not affect the action. In this point of technique Eu- 
 ripides here differs signally from Aeschylus, who employed 
 dreams so freely as part of the machinery of the plot. The aim 
 of this play of Euripides primarily was to depict human psy- 
 chology and not to portray himian action. The function of 
 the dream lay, then, in a different dimension and in this di- 
 mension, as I have indicated in the preceding paragraph, it 
 carried successfully an important burden. 
 
 Turning now to details, we find that many of the stereotyped 
 features which I have hitherto noticed are present. The sYBwXov 
 of Polydorus takes the traditional position of the dream of 
 Homer (30), uicip [I'q'zghq ^iX-qq.^"^^ Its epic prototype is the 
 returned Patroclus of the Iliad; to this are added tragic refine- 
 ments taken from the poet's predecessors, particularly Aeschy- 
 lus. Polydorus comes, as do Patroclus^"^^ and Clytaemestra,^^° 
 because something prevents his spirit from resting in peace. 
 Like Patroclus;^^^ Polydorus has prophetic sight. ^^^ q^^e part 
 of the dream which deals with Polydorus is epically direct and 
 unallegorical.^^ The portion dealing with Polyxena is alle- 
 gorical; the symbolism, which involves a dappled hind and 
 blood-marked wolf, is drawn from the animal world (90-91). 
 Again a woman is the recipient .^^ X0 wv ^^^ is definitely mentioned 
 as the sender. Finally, as coming from the earth, dreams are 
 black winged (71; 705). ^^^ 
 
 ^*^Consult the discussion of purification after dreams, supra, 62, n. 235. 
 
 ^^Ci. Iliad, 2, 20; 10,496; 23,68; 0^.4,803; 6,21; 20,32; supra, 6, 
 n. 22. 
 
 ^*miad, 23, 71. ^^^Eumenides, 97 fif. 
 
 3"//md, 23, 80-81. 352Lines 42-52. 
 
 *^Supra, 33, n. 105. decoprffiariKol and a\\7}yopiKoi respectively, Arte- 
 midorus (1, 2, p. 4: p. 9; 4, 1, 1, p. 201) would call dreams similar to 
 these. The Polyxena section he would class with the iWriyopiKoL. 
 
 3"Supra, nn. 81. and 83. 355Cf. Iph. Taur. 1262. 
 
 356Cf. Od. 24, 12; Aeneid, 6, 283. 
 
Euripides 91 
 
 The Iphigenia Taurica 
 
 The second dream which bulks large in Euripides is in the 
 T auric Iphigenia (42 ff .) . Iphigenia dreamt that she was sleep- 
 ing once more in her native Argos when suddenly an earthquake 
 drove her in terror from the house. Stopping without she looked 
 back and beheld the palace thrown down in ruins, so that but one 
 pillar was left standing. This pillar received the golden"^ 
 locks and voice of a mortal. She, weeping, sprinkled this mortal 
 as a victim for slaughter. 
 
 In this play, as elsewhere in tragedy ,^^^ the oracle of Phoebus 
 is the mainspring of the action (77 ff .) . But Euripides, probably 
 writing tinder an evergrowing Aeschylean influence,^^* promotes 
 the dream to the Aeschylean r61e of aiding in situation and 
 incident. Recognizing, then, that the oracle is the foimdation 
 of the action, we must nevertheless notice that the dream lends 
 no meager assistance to the progression of the plot. Iphigenia, 
 brought upon the stage by it to tell her vision to the sky,'*^ 
 sketches the historical background and setting of the play 
 (1-41) .3^1 She then tells her dream and fastens upon it a 
 wholly unnecessary and, as the sequel shows, o. false interpreta- 
 tion.362 'Orestes is dead' (55-58) : 
 
 '"Euripides is careful to help to the understanding of his allegory by 
 hints: fai'^As is a word that he generally uses to describe the hair of 
 the members of the house of Atreus. 
 
 '68Cf . supra, 59. 
 
 w'Supra, 88, and nn. 326 and 341. 
 
 *^^\4^(o wpbs aie4p\ 4cS. Supra, 62, and n. 235; 80, and n. 310. 
 
 '"Verses 1^1 comprise the usual Euripidean narrative prologue. Our 
 author use^ such prologues to all his plays except the Iphigenia in Aulis 
 and the Rhesus. The lines following verse 42, where the real dream begins, 
 form an integral part of the action. Iphigenia with the telling of her 
 dream enters for the first time into her dramatic r61e. 
 
 362This employment of a false interpretation of a dream to advance the 
 action is, for the extant literature, an invention of Euripides. The source 
 of the suggestion is conjectural. In Iliad, 2, 1 ff., the message of the 
 dream is direct, without need of interpretation, and its essential falseness 
 
92 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 . . . Touvap h' cSSs (JutA&aXXd) T68e* 
 tISviqx* ^OpeaTYjq, o5 xaTiQp^afjLYjv iyw. 
 (jTuXot yocp o'i?xo)V xaTSi(; sbtv apasvsi;' 
 
 Her misinterpretation gives an atmosphere of somberness and 
 foreboding to the play. This conclusion, previously reached, 
 had moved her to summon her Greek fellow-captives and atten- 
 dants of Artemis to aid in performing rites to the brother who, 
 she is sure, is dead (63 ; 138) . Their delay in coming (64-66) 
 clears the stage for the short scene between Orestes and Pylades 
 (67-122). Finally they enter in answer to her call (123) and 
 ask the reason for the summons (137-142). Iphigenia breaks 
 forth into lamentations : 'what a dream have I seen in the night 
 of which the darkness has departed' (150-152). The chorus is 
 asked to join her dirge for the dead, for that Orestes is no more 
 she can entertain no doubts: compare her positive words 
 (156-158; 230-231) :363 
 
 Pl6vov oq (xe xaatyvifjTOV <ju\q:q 
 'A(8(5t %i[Lt^aq, . . . 
 
 t6v 8' "Apyei B^jiaSlvTa xXa((i) 
 CTuyyovov, . . . 
 
 The chorus in joining in the dirge for the brother supposedly 
 dead draws in still darker hues the tragedy of the house of 
 Atreus (179-202). 
 
 (not a misinterpretation of it) causes many woes to the Greeks. So 
 also the dream which the wily Pelias reports to Jason, Pindar, Pyth. 4, 
 163 ff., may have been looked upon by Euripides as an invention of the 
 faithless monarch, that is, as a fictitious dream. Either of these dreams 
 may have suggested the Euripidean conception of the false interpretation 
 of a true dream. Or the hint may have been transferred from the realm 
 of oracular responses, traditionally ambiguous, notoriously susceptible of 
 conflicting interpretations. 
 
 '"Cf . also 373-374, 378-379. 
 
Euripides 93 
 
 This device of misinterpretation leads to a truly tragic sittia- 
 tion; Iphigenia hardens her heart against the entrance of any 
 human kindness when the capture of the stranger Greeks, 
 Orestes and Pylades, is announced: as the result of the dream 
 she will show no pity (348-350) : 
 
 vOv S' i^ 6v£(p(ov olaiv -^YpKopLeGa, 
 SoxoOa' 'OpsjTYjv (XTQxse' rfkiov ^Xixeiv, 
 Suavouv tJLS XTQ(]^£a0', oiTivlq xoS* ijxeTe.^^ 
 
 When the unrecognized Orestes tells her that her brother is not 
 dead, she does not reinterpret the dream, but immediately 
 declares it false (569) : 
 
 tI;£uS6T(; ovstpoi, xafpex" oOB^v -^t* apa. 
 
 And Orestes, who has made all his moves under the influence of 
 Apollo's oracle, in reply declares that Apollo is falser than 
 winged dreams (570-571) : 
 
 06B* ot ao<|)ot ye h(xi[Loyeq xexXTQ[xivot 
 
 Here the two leading forces in the development of the action of 
 the play up to this point, the dream, sent, as usual, to a woman, 
 and the oracle delivered, as usual, to a man, are brought into 
 contact, and both woman and man repudiate their former 
 belief s.^^^ At this place all influence of the dream on the action 
 ceases.^^^ The remainder of the plot, till the entrance of the 
 
 ^^*See the entire speech beginning line 342. 
 
 ^^^Correctly interpreted, both dream and oracle are fulfilled. One may 
 compare the similar fulfilment of the oracle in the Oedipus TyrannuSf 
 980-982, at which Jocasta scoffs. 
 
 366Staehlin's statement, p. 113, "Hatte Iphigeneia den Traum recht 
 gedeutet, so dass sie in ihm nur eine Lebensgefahr fur Orestes, nicht 
 seinen schon erfolgten Tod gelesen hatte, so musste sie wohl ohne weiteres 
 in einem der beiden Griechen ihren Bruder erkennen", is without justifica- 
 tion. The anagnorisis is not hastened by her early recognition that the 
 dream has deceived her. The utmost effect of the misinterpretation is 
 as I have stated it. 
 
94 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 0e6(; d%b tAY)xav"^<;, develops naturally from two factors: first, the 
 interplay of character and situation, which turns the thoughts 
 of the priestess toward home, and, secondly, the oracle of 
 Loxias, which demands that the image of Artemis be carried to 
 Athens.367 
 
 ^^T^vrevdev aiSijv rpirroSos 4k xP^^ov Xaxdyy 
 
 &ya\fi' ^Adrjv&y t' iyKadtSpv(rai x^ovi (976-978). 
 
 Those who, on the basis of the words of the chorus (1262 ff.), pronounce 
 Ge the sender of the dream (see Paley's note ad loc. and the editors quoted 
 there) unmistakably err. This chorus (1234 ff.) is connected with the rest of 
 the play by a very slender thread, as is so common in Euripides. The oracle 
 from Delphi which brought Orestes among the savage Taurians and exposed 
 him to death — the oracle which he has thrice reproached as false (77, 570- 
 571, 711 ff.) — not only has saved him when at the point of death, but has 
 discovered for him a sister who, he thought, had been sacrificed. Hence 
 the moment is well chosen to chant the glory of Apollo and his oracle 
 (see Weil, Sept Trag., on this line). The chorus makes the subject of 
 its lyric the fable of how the clear, bright divination of Apollo replaced 
 the earlier chthonic incubation cult which had its seat at Delphi. The 
 chorus tells the story of the strife. When Apollo had dispossessed Themis* 
 the ancient prophetic goddess of Delphi, Earth, Vaia, sent up to mortals 
 prophetic dreams to rival the oracle of Apollo. Apollo appealed to Zeus 
 and the latter deprived Gaia of this competing power (1262-1283). The 
 import of this passage as symbolic of the triumph of a later over an 
 earlier religion has been everywhere recognized (cf. Rohde, 2, 58: "Einst 
 hatte zu Pytho, liber dem Felsspalt, aus dem der erregende Erddunst 
 aufstieg, ein Orakel der Gaia bestanden, in dem vermutlich die Rath- 
 suchenden durch nachtliche Wahrtraume belehrt wurden [Eurip. Iph. 
 Taur. 1230 ff.]. ApoU setzte sich an die Stelle der Erdgottin, hier wie an 
 anderen Orakelstatte" ; Hey, 22). But the factors which those who 
 apply this story to the dream of Iphigenia have not recognized are two: 
 (1) the strife is looked upon as in the past, so far in the past that the 
 long-exiled chorus chants it as one of the famous legends of Apollo; hence 
 the dream of the night preceding cannot be referred to this rivalry; (2) the 
 dream of Iphigenia is not unfulfilled, only her misinterpretation of it is found 
 to be incorrect. Hence Earth does not on this occasion send up a lying 
 dream to balk Apollo. Indeed, Apollo took over, at least partially, the 
 ancient practice of sending dreams till Asclepius assumed the incubation 
 function. We can only say, then, that Euripides chose to leave the 
 sender of the dream indeterminate. Apollo had replaced Gaia and it 
 
Euripides 95 
 
 / When we look at this dream as a dream, the first thing that 
 strikes us is its elaboration; it is the most intricately and 
 artistically fashioned of the dreams yet discussed. It may be 
 divided into four episodes. First, there is the picture of 
 Iphigenia, removed from the barbaric land of the Tauri and 
 again restored to her native Argos, slumbering in the chamber*** 
 in which she slept as a child (44-46).^^® The second picture 
 disturbs this idyllic scene with the panic and desolation of the 
 earthquake. When the earth is shaken, Iphigenia rushes forth 
 and turns to see the house falling, stone after stone, until but 
 one pillar is left standing (46-51) . The third episode introduces 
 the element of the weird and the supernatural: the pillar is 
 made man with yellow locks and hirnian voice (51-52). In the 
 fourth picture the stem reality of the horrid office of her waking 
 hours breaks even into her slumbers. With tears she performs 
 her priestly function, anointing the htmian victim for immola- 
 tion.^o 
 
 may be that he here sent the dream, also, which cooperated so well with 
 his oracle to advance the action. This discussion is, of course, far more 
 important from a philosophical, psychological standpoint; but it is also 
 not without meaning in a survey of the elements entering into the use of a 
 literary device which showed such a strong tendency to become stereo- 
 typed. 
 
 '^^I read irapdevQa-i 5' iv fxiffois ; see Weil's note in his critical appendix. 
 
 "•The basic theory of the famous Viennese psychologist. Professor 
 Sigmund Freud, is that the dream always represents the fulfilment of a 
 wish. The conscious wish becomes a dream inciter only when it succeeds 
 in arousing a similar unconscious one. In his view the wish as represented 
 in the dream must, as a rule, be an infantile one. Iphigenia's dream of 
 slumbering in the chamber where she slept as a child closely fulfils the 
 terms of this formula. Cf. also supra, 47, n. 194. 
 
 '^<»It should be noted here that Iphigenia never performed the actual 
 slaying of the human victims: Kardpxofiai fUp, aipdyca d'AWourip /ifKtt 
 AppriT i<T<ad€v T(av8' dvaKrSpojv Seas (40-41). But, as that killing im- 
 mediately followed her consecration of the victims, her misinterpretation 
 of the dream was natural enough. Her impiety lay in declaring the dream 
 false on the basis of this wholly unnecessary interpretation. 
 
96 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 £ This brief description shows how the internal technique of the 
 dream is developing toward a greater complexity. The dream 
 under discussion marks an advance toward the long and elabor- 
 ate dreams which the later literatures developed. There is a 
 romantic, a sentimental note, so beloved by the Alexandrians,^^^ 
 in the picture of Iphigenia's sleeping again in the maiden quar- 
 ters of her old home, a note which tends to arouse the pity and 
 the sympathy of the audience. It is nearly related to the 
 emotion aroused by the feeling of desertion and bewilderment 
 which Ilia expresses in the Annates of Ennius.^^^ Euripidean 
 technique wielded a strong influence among the Alexandrians^^^ 
 and this highly complex and romantic dream was the forerunner 
 of similar elements in the dreams of that later period. Other 
 dreams were awe-inspiring or pity-arousing, perhaps, but only 
 for their influence upon the rest of the story, externally so. 
 Here the dream seems to acquire a personality of its own. It 
 has a value and beauty independent of its connection with the 
 story and of its meaning to the play. It differs from earlier 
 dreams as a finished building differs from, the architect's plan 
 or a painting from a blocked-in sketch. It approximates the 
 perfected and highly-chiselled miniatures in which the Alexan- 
 drian period delights.^^* Tendencies are of long growth and 
 obscure origin. One need not end his search for the supsTYjg of 
 this type of Alexandrian love of intricate detail at Euripides. 
 It is worth while, however, to call attention to its existence here 
 in a dream for the first time in the extant poetry. 
 
 "iCf. Couat, 80 ff.; Ellis, xxxvii. 
 
 "^Cicero, Div. 1, 20, 40; Vergil repeats the note in Dido's dreams, Aen. 4, 
 465 ff. The dependence of Ennius upon the Alexandrians in respect of 
 at least one type of dream I have attempted to demonstrate in another 
 place; see above, n. 224. 
 
 373Cf. Couat, vi; 59; Ellis, xxxv; 278-279. 
 
 374Ellis, xxxvi ff.; Couat, 517 ff.; and the various Einleitungen and 
 Schlussbemerkungen to the accounts of the different literary genres in the 
 Inhalt of Susemihl. 
 
Euripides 97 
 
 The Rhesus 
 
 The dream mentioned above"^ as of lesser import, yet related 
 in full, is found in the Rhesus (780-788). Homer had suggested 
 it. Diomedes, he said, slew Rhesus 
 
 (^CT0{jia(vovTa* xax^v yd^p (5vap xs<|)aXii<|)iv ixlaTtj.^* 
 
 The Rhesus is the one extant tragedy the plot of which parallels 
 an incident from the Iliad. Euripides assigns the dream to the 
 charioteer — a change prompted, presumably, by the depart- 
 ment of literature in which the poet is composing, since, other- 
 wise, some such elaborate device as that found in the Hecuba 
 would have been necessary to make the content of the dream 
 known — and relates it in full."^ The charioteer had discovered 
 two men prowling about the camp. Thinking them petty 
 plunderers he frightened them away and then lay down again 
 and slept. In his sleep a vision stood at his side (780).^^^ He 
 beheld two wolves mounted upon the backs of the mares of 
 Rhesus, where the driver usually sits. With their tails they 
 lashed the horses till the steeds plunged and reared. The 
 charioteer attempted to drive off the wolves, but the activity 
 involved in the attempt and his fright aroused him from slumber. 
 
 This dream is interesting from many points of view. The 
 Rhesus has been the subject of endless controversy. By some 
 
 «6Supra, 85. 
 
 ^"^^Iliad, 10, 496. See the discussion of the technique of this dream 
 supra, 9-12. 
 
 '"On this point cf . my words supra, 56-59, in regard to the changes in 
 technique which the same dream may experience in its progress through 
 the different literary types. In the story of the Iliad, Rhesus carried the 
 subject-matter of the dream with him to the grave. Of course one predi- 
 cates his statement of these changes on the basis of the extant literature. 
 We are always at a disadvantage in discussing the source of a supposedly 
 Homeric suggestion. In this case, for example, Euripides may be follow- 
 ing some current Doloneia differing from Iliad 10, and perhaps even older 
 than the version there given. 
 
 "8See above, 6, n. 22. 
 
98 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 its authenticity has been assailed. By others, who have 
 accepted the Rhesus as genuine, it has been assigned to various 
 dates. Those critics who have discussed the play recently 
 admit it, as a rule, to the Euripidean canon and consider it 
 among the earliest of the plays of Euripides. ^^^^ With this 
 decision the writer is inclined to agree. The older view tended 
 to place the play late. The form of dream employed indicates 
 either an early date for the Rhesus or else a conscious return to 
 an earlier manner. For we find in the description of the dream 
 many details which are reminiscent of the epic treatment. The 
 position of the dream is given as in the earlier Homeric dreams 
 (luaptaTaTat, 780). It appears to a male, as the dreams in the 
 IliadF^ appear to males, whereas the conventional recipient of 
 the dream in tragedy is a woman.^^^ It contains a simple 
 allegory, as simple as the allegory of the geese and the eagle 
 of Penelope's dream — the wolves which leap upon the backs of 
 the mares are Odysseus and Diomedes of the Homeric story .^^^ 
 The charioteer's efforts to save the horses wake him as do 
 Achilles' attempts to throw his arms about the phantom of 
 Patroclus.^^2 Finally, in its general lack of complexity the 
 description in the Rhesus approximates the epic norm. 
 
 In relation to any furthering of the plot, on the other hand, its 
 kinship with the Homeric type of dream is very distant.^^ 
 The dream is added to the tale rather as an embellishment than 
 
 378aw, N. Bates, Transactions of the American Philological Assoc, 47, 5, 
 footnotes 1-3, gives the bibliographical clues to the older and the more 
 recent views. ^ 
 
 «795, 150; 10, 496; 23, 62. ^sosupra, 65, n. 253. 
 
 ^^^Iliad, 10, 498-514. It will be recalled that Athene warned the heroes 
 to leave before seciiring the chariot. 
 
 ^^Uliad, 23, 99-102. 
 
 383Care must be taken here to note that I am comparing the Homeric 
 dream such as is related in full with the dream in the Rhesus similarly 
 related in full. It is not my intent to compare the dream of the charioteer 
 with the epic poet's mention, in passing, in one line, of the dream of Rhesus, 
 Iliad, 10. 496. 
 
Euripides 99 
 
 as an integral and necessary part of the story. For it is narrated 
 well along toward the end of the play (at line 780; the play 
 contains 996 lines) and even there is unimportant. It plays no 
 rdle in influencing the action: dream and fulfilment are told 
 within twenty lines (780-797). In the large it gives nothing to 
 the play in the way of atmosphere, as do the dreams in the 
 Choephori, the Persae, the Electra of Sophocles, and the Tauric 
 Iphigenia. The suspense which the dramatic recital of the 
 dream causes is too momentary to affect the play as a whole. 
 The full function and purpose of this dream seem to be the 
 minute elaboration and adornment of a detail. 
 
 All this is not without explanation. Rationalistic Euripides ^ 
 scarcely believed in the divine origin of dreams.^** He accepted <^ 
 the dream as a valuable artistic device. He was not averse, as a 
 craftsman, to giving it a position of the utmost importance in 
 advancing the plot. The Tauric Iphigenia illustrates this state- 
 ment. But the dream had lost for him all that religious and 
 artistic awe and sanctity which it had held for Aeschylus. It 
 was to him an instrument to be used for any purpose which 
 would serve artistic ends as he conceived them. Any idea of 
 'remembering the dream to keep it holy' was as foreign to his 
 dramatic practice as to his philosophy. Euripides wanted an 
 episode to give vividness and distinction to the narration of 
 the messenger (for that is what the charioteer really is). This 
 little prettiness could have been secured by other devices, of 
 course, but the epic story suggested a dream. Our author, 
 therefore, pitched upon a fairly simple epic type, the artlessly 
 
 38<Hey, 22, who cites Hec. 69-70, Iph. Taur. 1262-1266, and Aristophanes. 
 Frogs, 1331 (which levels ridicule, evidently at the head of Euripides, 
 for over-doing the dream of horror), says: "Auch Euripides also ist wie 
 Sokrates trotz seiner aufklartiiden Tendenz als traumglaubig zu betrachten 
 (wenigstens in seinen Dramen), wenn wir auch bei ihm das spielerische 
 Moment, das zum Teil eben in der Ubertreibung liegt, nicht verkennen 
 woUen". The truth lies in his protasis rather than in his apodosis; see 
 Staehlin, 217-218; P. Decharme, Euripide et V esprit de son tUatre, 96 ff. 
 (Paris, 1893). 
 
100 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 allegorical, and used it in quite Alexandrian fashion for local 
 adornment. 
 
 That the dream is effective in this small way no one can deny. 
 But, however forcible it is in the context, this use of the dream 
 to produce a momentary effect is a debasing of it frojn the high 
 office which it filled in Euripides' fellow-poets. . The over- 
 elaboration of details which came so much into vogue among 
 Hellenistic writers had caught the dream too in its net. Euripi- 
 des, so eminently the first of the Alexandrians in other respects, 
 was here also the precursor of those who used the dream for 
 small ends or unimportant prettinesses. / 
 
 Minor References 
 
 The smaller references in Euripides to the dream are of 
 natural frequency. I shall follow roughly the chronological 
 order of the plays in noticing them. 
 
 Silenus, in the Cyclops, after boasting of his prowess in 
 Bacchus* cause, in fear of disbelief, says (8) : ^ip' lfB(o, tout' (Btbv 
 ovap Xeyo) ; Here dream experiences are looked upon as merely 
 fanciful, existing only in the imagination. 
 
 In the Alcestis, Admetus, in his touching leave-taking from 
 his wife, hopes that in dreams she may appear to him and cheer 
 him (354-355): iy B' 6vetpaat cjjotTwad [i e()^gaiyoiq av. The same 
 idea occurs in the Hercules Furens. Megara calls upon her 
 husband to appear to her if only as a shade (494). She adds 
 (495): cxltq yap iXGwv xav ovap yevoto au. A fragment from 
 the Alope (Nauck 108) exhibits a like idea.^^^ In the T auric 
 Iphigenia the chorus of captive Greek women pray that they 
 may see their native land and homes again if only in dreams 
 (452-455). And Orestes in the same tone wishes that he had 
 never known Troy, not even in a dream (518) . 
 
 In the Hercules Furens, the Theban ancients declare them- 
 selves, in view of their age, to be 'mere words, the gloomy- 
 visaged fancy of midnight dreams' (111-112): sxea [xovov xai 
 B6xY)[jLa vuxTep(i)x6v Ivvu^wv dvscpwv. This figure (i. e. the likening 
 
 '^VXiJcraj 5^ v7]Si>v o^5' 6vap kolt'' €V(pp6vr]v tplXois edei^ev aitrbv. 
 
Euripides 101 
 
 of the feebleness and helplessness of old age to a dream) is used by 
 the chorus to excuse its inability, though loyal, to aid Megara 
 and her children. It falls far short, however, of the beauty 
 and startling unexpectedness of the phrase employed by the 
 aged chorus of the Agamemnon (82) for a like purpose, ovap 
 f)^sp6<l)avTov.^^® In two other places the dream is a synonym 
 for the feebleness of age. Antigone, in the Phoenissae, leads 
 forth her aged father, who calls himself a grey, unsubstantial 
 wraith, *a winged dream' (1545). This description the daughter 
 recurs to when she calls him to her, 'like a dream in respect to 
 strength' (1720-1722) : iq.^z T(?8e ^aOf [loi, T(?c8eTqt8sx65aTieeC(;, wot' 
 ovstpov (ffX'JV. In the Aeolus (fr. 25, Nauck)'®^ the old men say: 
 6ve(p(i)v §' Ipxo^ev (jn[jLY){xaTa. When Hercules, who was reported 
 dead, suddenly appears, Megara is at first amazed, but, when 
 immediately afterward she is convinced that Hercules is really 
 come, she has recourse to the figure of the dream to express her 
 conviction (516-519): 
 
 8B' icxb 8v YYJq vlp6ev slaYjxouopiev, 
 
 e! [JLT) y' ovetpov iy (])aet ti Xeuaaofxsv. 
 
 xi <l)Tf)|J.(; xol* ovetpa xif)pa(voua' ipw; 
 
 o6x saG' U' aXXoq avxl aoO -KOciUq, ylpov.'^ 
 
 Tjmdarus in the Orestes (615 ff.) turns his anger against 
 Electra also, saying that she has incited Orestes by telling him 
 the dreams sent up from beneath the earth by Agamemnon. 
 This is a reference to the dream of Clytaemestra which had by 
 this time become famous because it had been recounted by 
 Aeschylus in his Choephori and, in modified form, by Sophocles 
 in his Electra. Both these plays were produced long before the 
 
 "«Supra, 78. 
 
 '"Nauck. fr. 25, 3 (Leipzig, 1891). 
 
 388Paley's assignment of 517 to Amphritryon and his explanation of this 
 passage are entirely indefensible. Heracles is not looked upon by Megara 
 as appearing in a dream. After her first ejaculation of amazement, 514, 
 she is aware that he has really returned in the flesh unless the impossible 
 is true, as 517-518 mean 'How could I dream in broad daylight, especially 
 anxious as I am?' 
 
102 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 Orestes. ^^^ Euripides then in the Orestes makes a single reference 
 in passing, as it were, to a well-known tale.^^° 
 
 In the Helena, Theoclymenus asks Helen whether she is 
 groaning because of dreams she has seen by night (1190-1191) : 
 xoTspov evvuxotc; xsTTStapLevT] jT^vett; 6v£fpotq. . . ; 
 
 One more passage completes the list. In the Meleager (fr. 
 537, Nauck) the idea of Alcestis 692 if., that life though short is 
 sweet and death long and dreary, is repeated in the declaration 
 that it is unpleasant for mortals even to dream of the darkness 
 of Hades. 
 
 389The Choephori was produced 458 B. C, the Sophoclean Electra some 
 time between 429 and 412, and the Orestes, 408 (see Christ, 1, 297, 331, 
 and 354 respectively). 
 
 3^°Staehlin, 131, thinks that the dream referred to here must be different* 
 asserting that not Clytaemestra, but Electra dreams. This inference is 
 not necessary. Electra arouses her brother by interpreting to him her 
 mother's evil dream. 
 
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS^ 
 
 Ameis-Hentze = Ameis-Hentze. Homers Ilias^ (Leipzig, 1894- 
 
 1906). 
 
 Anhang zu Homers Ilia^* (Leipzig, 
 
 1882-1900). 
 Homers Odyssee^^^ (Leipzig und 
 
 Berlin, 1895-1901). 
 Anhang zu Homers Odyssee^iLdp- 
 zig, 1889-1900). 
 
 Aust = E. Aust. Die Religion der Romer (Munster i. W., 1899). 
 
 Baumeister = A. Baumeister. Denkmdler des klassischen Altertums 
 (Munchen und Leipzig, 1885-1888). 
 
 Bekker = I. Bekker. Carmina Homerica (Bonn, 1858). 
 
 Bergk = T. Bergk. Poetae Lyrici Graeci'^ (Leipzig, 1878-1882). 
 
 Bemardakis = EipnrlSov Spd/nara i^ ip/irivelas ^tfti-qxplov N. BepwpSdKi/ 
 (Athens, 1894). 
 
 Boisacq = E. Boisacq. Dictionnaire Stymologique de la langue grecque 
 (Heidelberg and Paris, 1916). 
 
 Boissier = G. Boissier. La religion romaine d' Auguste aux Antonins 
 (Paris, 1874). 
 
 Bouch6-Leclercq=A. Bouch^-Leclercq. Histoire de la divination dans 
 Vantiquite (Paris, 1879). 
 
 Buchholz = E. Buchholz . Die Homerischen ReaUen (Leipzig, 1881). 
 
 Buchsenschutz = B. Buchsenschutz. Traum und Traumdeutung im 
 Alterthume (Berlin, 1868). 
 
 Campbell = L. Campbell. Religion in Greek Literature (London and 
 New York, 1898). 
 
 Cauer, Bias = P. Cauer. Homeri lUas (Leipzig, 1890-1891). 
 
 Christ = W. Christ. Geschichte der Griechischen Literatur^-* (Munchen, 
 1911-1913). 
 
 Christ, Bias = W. Christ. Homeri Iliadis Carmina (Leipzig, 1884). 
 
 Couat = A. Couat. La poisie alexandrine (Paris, 1882). 
 
 Croi^t = A. and M. Croiset. An Abridged History of Greek Literature 
 (English translation by G. Heffelbower, New York, 1904). 
 
 Cumont = F. Cumont. Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism (English 
 translation, Chicago, 1911). 
 
 De Marchi = A. De Marchi. // culto privato di Roma antica (Milan, 
 1896). 
 
 iWhere one abbreviation covers two or more works (e. g. Ameis-Hentze), the partjctxlar 
 work to which reference is made in any citation will be clear from the context. Except 
 where otherwise indicated, I have used for Homer and Euripides the Oxford texts, tor 
 Aeschylus the Teubner text of Weil, and for Sophocles the text of Campbell. 
 
 103 
 
104 The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy 
 
 Deubner = L. Deubner. De Incubatione Capita Quattuor (Leipzig, 1900). 
 
 Dieterich = A. Dieterich. Kleine Schriften (Leipzig, 1911). 
 
 Dieterich, Nekyia = A. Dieterich. Nekyia. Beitrdge zur Erkldrung 
 der neuentdeckten Petrusapokalypse^ (Leipzig, 1913). 
 
 Dill = S. Dill. Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (London, 
 1905). 
 
 Duntzer = H. Diintzer. Homers Ilias (Paderbom, 1866). 
 
 Dyer = L. Dyer. Studies of the Gods in Greece (London, 1891). 
 
 Ellis = R. Ellis. A Commentary on Catullus'^ (Oxford, 1889). 
 
 Eustathius = Eustathius. Commentarii ad Homeri Iliadem (ed. J. G. 
 
 Stallbaum, Leipzig, 1827-1829). 
 Commentarii ad Homeri Odysseam (ed. J. G. 
 Stallbaum, Leipzig, 1825-1826). 
 
 de Felice = P. de Felice. V autre monde (Paris, 1906). 
 
 Fick = A. Fick. Die Homerische Ilias (Gottingen, 1886). 
 
 Frazer, Belief in Immortality = J. G. Frazer. The Belief in Immortality 
 (London, 1913). 
 
 Frazer, Golden Bough = J. G. Frazer. The Golden Boug¥ (London, 
 1911-1915). 
 
 Frazer, Pausanias = J. G. Frazer. Pausanias' Description of Greece^ 
 (London, 1913). 
 
 Freud = S. Freud. Die Traumdeutung'^ (Leipzig und Wien, 1914). 
 
 Gilbert = O. Gilbert. Griechische Gotterlehre (Leipzig, 1898). 
 
 Gomperz, Greek Thinkers = T. Gomperz. Greek Thinkers (English 
 translation by L. Magnus and G. G. Berry, New York, 1901-1911). 
 
 Gomperz, Essays = T. Gomperz. Essays und Erinnerungen (Stutt- 
 gart, 1905). 
 
 Granger = F. S. Granger. The Worship of the Romans (London, 1895). 
 
 Hamilton = Mary Hamilton. Incubation (London, 1906). 
 
 Hardie = W. R. Hardie. Lectures on Classical Subjects (London, 1903). 
 
 - Hey = F. O. Hey. Der Traumglaube der Antike (Programm des kgl. 
 Realgymnasiums Miinchen, 1907-1908 [Munchen, 1908]). 
 
 - Hey, Religion = F. O. Hey. Die Wurzeln der Griechischen Religion, in 
 besonderem Zusammenhang mit dem Traumglauben (Programm des kgl. 
 Gymnasiums in Neuburg, 1909-1910 [Neuburg a. D., 1910]). 
 
 Jebb = R. C. Jebb. The Electra of Sophocles (Cambridge, 1904). 
 
 Kaibel = G. Kaibel. Sophokles Elektra (Leipzig, 1896). 
 
 Kammer = E. Kammer. Die Einheit der Odyssee (Leipzig, 1873). 
 
 Kiessling-Heinze = A. Kiessling — R. Heinze. Q. Horatius Flaccus. 
 
 tiren* (Berlin, 1910). 
 
 Lang = A. Lang. Homer and his Age (London, 1906). 
 
 La Roche = J. La Roche. Homeri Ilias (Leipzig, 1873). 
 
 Leaf = W. Leaf. The Iliad^ (London, 1900-1902). 
 
List of Abbreviations 105 
 
 Maury, Magie = L. F. A. Maury. La magie et Vastrologie dans VanU- 
 quite et au moyen dge (Paris, 1860). 
 
 Messer = W. S. Messer. Ad. Cic. Tusc. Disp. 3, 19, 45 (in Mnemosyne, 
 N. S. 45, 78-92). 
 
 Migne, P. G. = J. P. Migne. Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series 
 Graeca (Paris, 1854-1866). 
 
 Migne, P. L. = J. P. Migne. Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series 
 Latina (Paris, 1844-1880). 
 
 Nagelsbach, Ilias — K. F. Nagelsbach. Anmerkungen zur Ilias* 
 (Niimberg, 1864). 
 
 Nagelsbach, Horn. Theol. — K. F. Nagelsbach. Homerische Theologies 
 (Niimberg, 1861). 
 
 Nagelsbach, Nachhom. Theol. = K. F. Nagelsbach. Die Nachhomerische 
 Theologie des Griechischen Volksglauben bis auf Alexander (Niimberg, 1857). 
 
 Nestle = W. Nestle. Die Weltanschauung ' des Aischylos (in Neue 
 Jahrbiicher fur d. kl. Altertums, 19). 
 
 Norden = E. Norden. Aeneis, Book vi^ (Leipzig, 1916). 
 
 Patin = M. Patin. Etudes sur les tragiques grecs. EschyW (Paris, 
 1890). 
 
 Preller-Robert = L. Preller — C. Robert. Griechische Mythologie* (Ber- 
 lin, 1894). 
 
 Prellwitz = W. Prellwitz. Etymologisches Worterbuch der Griechischen 
 Sprache (Gottingen, 1905). 
 
 Richter = P. Richter. Zur Dramaturgie des Aschylus (Leipzig, 1892). 
 
 Robert = C. Robert. Thanatos. (Berlin, 1879). 
 
 Rohde = E. Rohde. Psyche^ (Tiibigen, 1907). 
 
 Roscher = W. H. Roscher. Hermes der Windgott (Leipzig, 1878). 
 
 Seymour = T. D. Seymour. Life in the Homeric Age (New York, 1907). 
 
 Spencer = H. Spencer. The Principles of Sociology^ (New York 1899- 
 1900). 
 
 Staehlin = R. Staehlin. Das Motiv der Mantik im Antiken Drama 
 (Giessen, 1912). 
 
 Susemihl = F. Susemihl. Geschichte der Griechischen Litteratur in der 
 Alexandrinerzeit (Leipzig, 1892). 
 
 Tylor = E. B. Tylor. Primitive Culture^ (London, 1903). 
 
 Vahlen «= J. Vahlen. Ennianae Poesis Reliquiae^ (Leipzig, 1903). 
 
 Weil = H. Weil. Etude sur le drame antique (Paris, 1897). 
 
 Weil, Sept Trag. = H. Weil. Sept tragSdies d'EuripideS (Paris, 1905). 
 
 Zuretti = C. O. Zuretti. Omero. VTliade (Torino, 1896-1905). 
 
VITA 
 
 William Stuart Messer, the writer of this dissertation, was 
 born in Washington, District of Columbia, August 19, 1882. 
 He was graduated from Columbia University with the degree of 
 Bachelor of Arts in 1905. From the same institution he received 
 the degree of Master of Arts in the year 1909. With the excep- 
 tion of a short residence at Yale University, his graduate work 
 has been done entirely at his Alma Mater, where in 1909-1910 
 he was University Fellow in Classical Philology and in 1910- 
 1911 Gottsberger Fellow in Classical Philology. In 1905-1909 
 he taught Latin and Greek in Barnard School, New York City. 
 Since 1911 he has been Instructor in Classical Philology in 
 Columbia University. 
 
 He has taken courses at Columbia University with Professors 
 James C. Egbert, Roscoe Guernsey, Charles Knapp, Gonzalez 
 Lodge, Nelson G. McCrea, George N. Olcott, Harry Thurston 
 Peck, Edward D. Perry, James R. Wheeler, Clarence H. 
 Young, and also with two distinguished visitors who conducted 
 seminars or courses during his residence. Professors James S. 
 Reid and Christian Huelsen. To all of these preceptors, and 
 especially to those whom he met and under whose influence he 
 fell during his undergraduate days, he owes no small measure of 
 gratitude for their unfailing kindness and inspiration. To 
 Professor Knapp, who has subjected this dissertation to his 
 usual careful and judicious criticism, he can only tender his 
 heartiest thanks, thereby adding himself to the ever increasing 
 number of those who have given similar testimony in so many 
 recent American text-books and dissertations in the field of 
 Classical Philology. 
 
REtURN EDUCATION-PSYCHOLOGY LIBRARVq q 
 
 6424209 ^5 
 
 TOi 
 
 2600Tolman Hall 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 
 SEMESTER 
 
 SEMESTER LOAN 
 NO TELEPHOMP 
 
 fitMEWAj 
 
 % 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 2-hour books must be renewed in person 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 MAY 2 9 2006 
 
 FACULTY LOAN DJE 
 
 MAY 1 5 198^ 
 
 SUBJECT TO REC/LL 
 
 rtLu l> m- 
 
 m> M 
 
 »-»-M ^ . 
 
 Jk^ 
 
 mmva^ 
 
 ' \V 
 
 ... MAYl,;,pOrW 
 
 SEMtOfflLL 
 
 AU6 2 7 m\ 
 
 U^CggRKFiEY 
 
 FORM NO. DDIO 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALi, 
 
 BERKELEY, CA V- 
 
U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 illllillliiillllllliililllll illlilill lliilll 
 
 CD3Db7557fi