The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter/Chapter 104

by Petronius Arbiter

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CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTH. “Priapus appeared to me in a dream and seemed to say—Know that Encolpius, whom you seek, has, by me, been led aboard your ship!” Tryphæna trembled violently, “You would think we had slept together,” she cried, “for a bust of Neptune, which I saw in the gallery at Baiæ, said to me, in my dream—you will find Giton aboard Lycas’ ship!” “From which you can see that Epicurus was a man inspired,” remarked Eumolpus; “he passed sentence upon mocking phantasms of that kind in a very witty manner.

Dreams that delude the mind with flitting shadesBy neither powers of air nor gods, are sent:Each makes his own! And when relaxed in sleepThe members lie, the mind, without restraintCan flit, and re-enact by night, the deedsThat occupied the day. The warrior fierce,Who cities shakes and towns destroys by fireManeuvering armies sees, and javelins,And funerals of kings and bloody fields.The cringing lawyer dreams of courts and trials,The miser hides his hoard, new treasures finds:The hunter’s horn and hounds the forests wake,The shipwrecked sailor from his hulk is sweptOr, washed aboard, just misses perishing. Adultresses will bribe, and harlots writeTo lovers: dogs, in dreams their hare still course;And old wounds ache most poignantly in dreams?”

“Still, what’s to prevent our searching the ship?” said Lycas, after he had expiated Tryphæna’s dream, “so that we will not be guilty of neglecting the revelations of Providence?” “And who were the rascals who were being shaved last night by the light of the moon?” chimed in Hesus, unexpectedly, for that was the name of the fellow who had caught us at our furtive transformation in the night. “A rotten thing to do, I swear! From what I hear, it’s unlawful for any living man aboard ship to shed hair or nails, unless the wind has kicked up a heavy sea.”