A Visit to the Island of Dreams

LUCIAN (ca. 115–120 CE to ca. 180 CE) was an author born at Samosata in Syria, then under the rule of the Roman Empire, who wrote in Greek and pursued a successful career as a traveling practitioner of rhetoric in various parts of the ancient world. None of his contemporaries mentions him, and the circumstances of his life are only suggested in what appear to be fragments of autobiography (for example, his account of his apprenticeship in sculpture, which lasted one day) and in allusions to certain places and events made in passing in his other writings. Within our own frame of reference, many of these writings seem more or less uncategorizable, but a satirical intent is often evident, and he himself judged his most original contribution to literature to be a fusion of philosophical dialogue (of the Platonic variety) with comedy to produce texts meant to be read and not performed. The model of satire that influenced him most deeply was that of Menippus—a freewheeling combination of prose and verse in which the objects of ridicule were often not identified conclusively, leaving readers uncertain about exactly when it might be appropriate to laugh. To this general model Lucian added a high degree of fantasy, and among the chief subjects identified for satirical treatment were the tales told by travelers, including those of Odysseus; such elaborate imaginings presented as fact make up the Verae Historiae (True History), a portion of which appears in a loose English translation here. This work later comes to figure significantly in the writings of Rabelais and Jonathan Swift; and readers of NER may well ask if it has anything to do with Zana Previti’s story entitled “The Letters of Odysseus to Kalypso,” which appeared in our issue 32.4 (2012).

A[lfred] J[ohn] CHURCH (1829–1912), the translator of the pages that follow, was a British classical scholar who over the course of his career held a variety of appointments, as a clergyman, schoolmaster, and university professor. Educated at Oxford at Wadham College and then Lincoln College, he took his degree in 1851; among his examiners in Classics was the renowned and widely published translator Benjamin Jowett. With his cousin William Jackson Brodribb, Church undertook the translation of the works of Tacitus and subsequently the letters of Pliny, and in 1880 he was appointed Professor of Latin at University College, London, where he remained for almost a decade. His writings include numerous books and essays on a variety of topics, as well as stories and poems, but he is now best known as the author of a highly popular series of English renderings of classical works for young readers, among them The Story of the Iliad and The Story of the Odyssey. The chapter of Lucian’s True History presented here is taken from Church’s The Greek Gulliver, Stories from Lucian, published by Macmillan & Co. in New York in 1891.

—SD

In a short space of time after we had set sail we espied the Island of Dreams close to us. But the place seemed to be very like to that which men see in their dreams upon the Earth; for it appeared to fly before us as we went forward, and to grow more distant. But at the last we came up with it, and sailing into a certain harbour which they call Sleep Haven, so disembarked. Close to the place where we landed was an Ivory Gate, and a temple that was said to be the Temple of the Cock.

The time of our coming, I remember, was late in the afternoon. As soon as we had passed through the Gate into the city, we saw a great multitude of all manner of dreams. But before I speak of these, I would first say something of the city, about which no man, as far as I know, has written anything, excepting Homer only, who has erred in more than one matter, and neglected to tell, or it may be knew not, others.

About the city...