_Cock_. Ah, you don’t understand, Micyllus. There is a reason for these things: different diets suit different creatures. I was a philosopher in those days: accordingly I abstained from beans. Now, on the contrary, I propose to eat beans; they are an unexceptionable diet for birds. And now if you like I will tell you how from being Pythagoras I have come to be—what you see me; and all about the other lives I have lived, and what were the good points of each. _Mi_. Tell on; there is nothing I should like better. Indeed, if I were given my choice between hearing your story, and having my late dream of riches over again, I don’t know which I should decide on. ’Twas a sweet vision, of joys above all price: yet not above the tale of my cock’s adventures. _Cock_. What, still puzzling over the import of a dream? Still busy with vain phantoms, chasing a visionary happiness through your head, that ‘fleeting’ joy, as the poet calls it? _Mi_. Ah, cock, cock, I shall never forget it. That dream has left its honeyed spell on my eyelids; ’tis all I can do to open them; they would fain close once more in sleep. As a feather tickles the ear, so did that vision tickle my imagination. _Cock_. Bless me, you seem to be very hard hit. Dreams are winged, so they say, and their flight circumscribed by sleep: this one seems to have broken bounds, and taken up its abode in wakeful eyes, transferring thither its honeyed spell, its lifelike presence. Tell me this dream of your desire. _Mi_. With all my heart; it is a joy to remember it, and to speak of it. But what about your transformations? _Cock_. They must wait till you have done dreaming, and wiped the honey from your eyelids. So you begin: I want to see which gates the dream came through, the ivory or the horn. _Mi_. Through neither. _Cock_. Well, but these are the only two that Homer mentions. _Mi_. Homer may go hang: what does a babbling poet know about dreams? Pauper dreams may come through those gates, for all I know; that was the kind that Homer saw, and not over clearly at that, as he was blind. But _my_ beauty came through golden gates, golden himself and clothed in gold and bringing gold. _Cock_. Enough of gold, most gentle Midas; for to a Midas- prayer it is that I trace your vision; you must have dreamt whole minefuls. _Mi_. Gold upon gold was there; picture if you can that glorious lightning-flash! What is it that Pindar says about gold? Can you help me to it? He says water is best, and then very properly proceeds to sing the praises of gold; it comes at the beginning of the book, and a beautiful ode it is. _Cock_. What about this? Chiefest of all good we hold Water: even so doth gold, Like a fire that flameth through the night, Shine mid lordly wealth most lordly bright.