Tales of Mysterious Dreams

Two Dream Tales from Cicero

Excerpt from On Divination, Book I

And who, pray, can make light of the two following dreams which are so often recounted by Stoic writers? The first one is about Simonides, who once saw the dead body of some unknown man lying exposed and buried it. Later, when he had it in mind to go on board a ship he was warned in a vision by the person to whom he had given burial not to do so and that if he did he would perish in a shipwreck. Therefore he turned back and all the others who sailed were lost.

The second dream is very well known and is to this effect: Two friends from Arcadia who were taking a journey together came to Megara, and one traveller put up at an inn and the second went to the home of a friend. After they had eaten supper and retired, the second traveller, in the dead of the night, dreamed that his companion was imploring him to come to his aid, as the innkeeper was planning to kill him. Greatly frightened at first by the dream he arose, and later, regaining his composure, decided that there was nothing to worry about and went back to bed.

When he had gone to sleep the same person appeared to him and said: ‘Since you would not help me when I was alive, I beg that you will not allow my dead body to remain unburied. I have been killed by the innkeeper, who has thrown my body into a cart and covered it with dung. I pray you to be at the city gate in the morning before the cart leaves the town,’ Thoroughly convinced by the second dream he met the cart-driver at the gate in the morning, and, when he asked what he had in the cart, the driver fled in terror. The Arcadian then removed his friend’s dead body from the cart, made complaint of the crime to the authorities, and the innkeeper was punished. What stronger proof of a divinely inspired dream than this can be given?

A Similar Tale, from Aelian

When good people die, God sets his providence and concern, and takes vengeance for those who have been killed unjustly. Indeed Chrysippus says that someone went down to Megara carrying a belt full of gold. Then, the innkeeper who had welcomed him when he arrived late, after casting longing glances at the gold, killed [the visitor]. And then the innkeeper was about to take him out on the wagon carrying the ordure, having hidden the murdered man in it. Then the soul of the dead appeared to a Megarian man and told him not only what had happened to him, but also who was responsible for it and how he was carried out and through which gates. The Megarian man, however, did not hear the [dead man’s] words with equanimity, but rose early in the morning and, on his guard, took hold of the yoke [of oxen] and tracked the corpse. And then the assassinated had his burial, and the murderer his punishment.

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Cicero excerpt from On Divination, Book 1, Verse 27. Published in the Loeb Classical Library, 1923; translated by William Armistead Falconer. Reparagraphed for legibility.

Aelian excerpt is Fragment 81 as numbered in Rudolf Hercher’s 1864 edition of Aelian’s works. It is from the Suda. Translated by Marcelo Boeri in 2003 for the Suda Online under a Creative Commons license.

A Virtuoso’s Collection

A Virtuoso’s Collection
by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1842)
Annotated

The other day, having a leisure hour at my disposal, I stepped into a new museum, to which my notice was casually drawn by a small and unobtrusive sign: “To Be Seen Here, A Virtuoso’s Collection.” Such was the simple yet not altogether unpromising announcement that turned my steps aside for a little while from the sunny sidewalk of our principal thoroughfare. Mounting a sombre staircase, I pushed open a door at its summit, and found myself in the presence of a person, who mentioned the moderate sum that would entitle me to admittance.

“Three shillings, Massachusetts tenor,” said he. “No, I mean half a dollar, as you reckon in these days.”

While searching my pocket for the coin I glanced at the doorkeeper, the marked character and individuality of whose aspect encouraged me to expect something not quite in the ordinary way. He wore an old-fashioned great-coat, much faded, within which his meagre person was so completely enveloped that the rest of his attire was undistinguishable. But his visage was remarkably wind-flushed, sunburnt, and weather-worn, and had a most, unquiet, nervous, and apprehensive expression. It seemed as if this man had some all-important object in view, some point of deepest interest to be decided, some momentous question to ask, might he but hope for a reply. As it was evident, however, that I could have nothing to do with his private affairs, I passed through an open doorway, which admitted me into the extensive hall of the museum.

The Dead Princess and the Seven Knights

The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights
by Aleksandr Pushkin (1833)
Translation by Peter Tempest (1973)

With his suite the Tsar departed.
The Tsaritsa tender-hearted
At the window sat alone,
Wishing he would hurry home.
All day every day she waited,
Gazing till her dedicated
Eyes grew weak from overstrain,
Gazing at the empty plain,
Not a sign of her beloved!
Nothing but the snowflakes hurried
Heaping drifts upon the lea.
Earth was white as white could be.
Nine long months she sat and waited,
Kept her vigil unabated.
Then from God on Christmas Eve
She a daughter did receive.
Next day early in the morning,
Love and loyalty rewarding,
Home again from travel far
Came at last the father-Tsar.
One fond glance at him she darted,
Gasped for joy with thin lips parted,
Then fell back upon her bed
And by prayer-time was dead.

Lucian’s “Sorcerer’s Apprentice”

Excerpt from Philopseudes (Lover of Lies)

[Eucrates said] ‘When I was a young man, I passed some time in Egypt, my father having sent me to that country for my education. I took it into my head to sail up the Nile to Coptus, and thence pay a visit to the statue of Memnon, and hear the curious sound that proceeds from it at sunrise. In this respect, I was more fortunate than most people, who hear nothing but an indistinct voice: Memnon actually opened his lips, and delivered me an oracle in seven hexameters; it is foreign to my present purpose, or I would quote you the very lines.

‘Well now, one of my fellow passengers on the way up was a scribe of Memphis, an extraordinarily able man, versed in all the lore of the Egyptians. He was said to have passed twenty-three years of his life underground in the tombs, studying occult sciences under the instruction of Isis herself.’

Some Ghost Stories by Pliny the Younger

Excerpts from Pliny’s Letter to Sura

A Haunted House

There stood at Athens a spacious and roomy house, but it had an evil reputation of being fatal to those who lived in it. In the silence of the night the clank of iron and, if you listened with closer attention, the rattle of chains were heard, the sound coming first from a distance and afterwards quite close at hand. Then appeared the ghostly form of an old man, emaciated, filthy, decrepit, with a flowing beard and hair on end, with fetters round his legs and chains on his hands, which he kept shaking. The terrified inmates passed sleepless nights of fearful terror, and following upon their sleeplessness came disease and then death as their fears increased. For every now and again, though the ghost had vanished, memory conjured up the vision before their eyes, and their fright remained longer than the apparition which had caused it. Then the house was deserted and condemned to stand empty, and was wholly abandoned to the spectre, while the authorities forbade that it should be sold or let to anyone wishing to take it, not knowing under what a curse it lay.

The Story of Kritákrita

The Story of Kritákrita
by Francis William Bain

Transcriber’s Note: Taken from Day 19 of F. W. Bain’s Arabian Nights-style story cycle, A Digit of the Moon (1898). I’ve removed the continuity passages and left just the standalone story. All footnotes are by Bain, except those marked [NZ], which are by me. I’ve also re-paragraphed the story, for legibility.

There was once a Brahman named Kritákrita, who neglected the study of the Wédas, and walked in the black path, abandoning all his duties, and associating with gamblers, harlots, and outcasts. And he frequented the cemeteries at night, and became familiar with ghosts and vampires and dead bodies, and impure and unholy rites and incantations.

And one night, amid the flaming of funeral pyres and the reek of burning corpses, a certain Vampire of his acquaintance said to him: I am hungry: bring me fresh meat to devour, or I will tear you in pieces.

Die and You’ll See

Die and You’ll See
(Muérete y verás)
by Pedro Escamilla

I

What in this world can be more terrible than doubt? What crueler torment could be invented to slowly destroy humanity?

I don’t know how the multitudes endorse so many facts in spite of the evidence that seems to destroy them.

This is about the testimony of a physician and a priest, of those who in such extreme and solemn circumstances should not—I will say more—cannot lie. This is about destroying an absurdity, a thing implausibly implausible, if you will allow me to use this phrase. This is, finally, about the most momentous event in the history of a mortal.

A man can live without virtue and without shoes, without a cloak in the winter and almost without a shirt.

But to live without life!

In what tolerably organized society do they admit a fact of nature so strange? What philosophical system admits the material existence of a dead person? Because now it’s not a question of the soul, of the spirit; it is no longer about the uncreated part, of the moral entity.

No.

It’s a much more intricate and arduous question…Damn it!

For at the end of the day I can’t find words to express this absurdity.

Read on, and judge.

Exculpation

Exculpation
(Eximente)
by Emilia Pardo Bazán

Federico Molina’s suicide was one no one could explain. Hypotheses were advanced, taking into account the usual causes of these sorts of acts, so tragically frequent that they have their own section in the Press. People spoke, as they always speak, of green baize, dark eyes, incurable disease, money lost and unrecovered; in short, of all the usual things. But no one could settle on any of these reasons, and Federico took his secret to the forgotten niche in which his remains rest, while his poor soul….

Don’t you think about the destiny of souls after they emerge from their clay, like an electric spark from coal? Do you truly never think about what is never spoken of? Do you believe so firmly, like Espronceda, in the peace of the grave?

Prince Hamlet didn’t believe, and so preferred to suffer the evils that surrounded him, rather than seek out unknown ones in the undiscovered country from which no traveler returns.

Perhaps Federico Molina didn’t consider this serious drawback of his somber decision. We don’t know, we will never know, what Federico believed–not even what he doubted–because Hamlet, traumatized by the apparition of that vengeful shade, wasn’t saved from taking his own life by his faith, but by his doubt: the possibility of “perchance to dream”….

A coincidence of the kind that seems contrived, but couldn’t be made up, brought into my hands something resembling a journal: notes jotted down by Federico, bearing on the first page the date of a year just before the drama. The key to his misfortune was enclosed in an elegant album bound in Russian leather, with the intertwined initials F. M. in gold. It was sold to an antiques dealer at auction, then acquired by a bookbinding enthusiast, who carefully tears out the written or printed contents of his acquisitions and keeps only the covers, having amassed a superb–shall I say library?–of book bindings, and whom I have begged to give me what was inside, since he values only the outside—and perhaps he’s a wise man. Thus, I was able to penetrate into the psyche of the suicide, and I don’t believe anyone can interpret the evidence that I have uncovered and compiled any differently than I have.

The Devil’s Catch

The Devil’s Catch
(La pesca del diablo)
by Pedro Escamilla

I

Gil was rightly considered one of the unluckiest fishermen on the entire Cantibrian coast. No one knew the cause of the misfortune that kept him imprisoned in its nets, since he was quite able to discern and appreciate the difference between an oyster and a turbot.

The silvery scales of the sardines, the speckled trout, the barbel and the slender elusive eels fled from his tasty bait and well constructed nets, only to break the nets of his companions with their weight. Gil gave himself over to all the devils known in the incantations of the Church, on seeing that while the novice fishermen were flush with money and enjoying themselves in the taverns of the port, he had hardly enough to buy the brown and bitter bread of the desperate, and to repair all the damage to his boat, which was always one of those that suffered the most in every storm.

It’s true that he had never once drowned, which perhaps would have been a blessing that would have saved him much sorrow.

This situation had a deplorable effect on his self-esteem: namely, that having reached the age of thirty there wasn’t a single young woman in the village who would accept his affection under such conditions, because then, as now, a fisherman was only worth as much as the fish that he caught.

Lucifer

Lucifer
by Pedro Escamilla

I

There was in the village of … a poor young man named Antero, who was about to wed Marcelina, one of the comeliest girls in the region.

The event–I speak of the marriage–was taking place against the wishes of Auntie Ursula, a sort of village witch; for until quite recently all remote villages and sparsely inhabited neighborhoods enjoyed the odd privilege of a resident witch.

Auntie Ursula didn’t tell fortunes, or predict the future, or even give the evil eye. Yet she was considered a witch; everyone in the village thought so, because (and this is serious) she couldn’t remain in the church “while the missal was open,” an ailment peculiar to those caught in the flagrant offense of witchcraft.

Why did Marcelina and Antero’s wedding displease the good old woman? Who knows?

“Look,” Auntie Ursula would say when speaking to anyone about the matter, “that marriage, which seems so auspicious, will bring unhappiness to both parties. Marcelina, who is blonde, has a mole with black hair on the upper part of her throat; this is a contradiction, for in general the color of a person’s mole tends to match their hair color. And besides, Antero was promised to Lucifer by his mother; I know for a fact that she made this desperate vow so she could have a son. A marriage that takes place under such strange circumstances can’t have anything but a disastrous end.”

The vow by Antero’s mother was hypothetical; nobody except Auntie Ursula knew a word about it. As for the mole, that was true, but until then no one had ever noticed that blondes with black moles were doomed to misfortune.