Gates of horn and ivory

Last updated

The gates of horn and ivory are a literary image used to distinguish true dreams (corresponding to factual occurrences) from false. The phrase originated in the Greek language, in which the word for "horn" is similar to that for "fulfill" and the word for "ivory" is similar to that for "deceive". On the basis of that play on words, true dreams are spoken of as coming through the gates of horn, false dreams as coming through those of ivory. [1]

Contents

The Odyssey

The earliest appearance of the image is in the Odyssey , book 19, lines 560–569. There Penelope, who has had a dream that seems to signify that her husband Odysseus is about to return, expresses by a play on words her conviction that the dream is false. She says:

Stranger, dreams verily are baffling and unclear of meaning, and in no wise do they find fulfillment in all things for men. For two are the gates of shadowy dreams, and one is fashioned of horn and one of ivory. Those dreams that pass through the gate of sawn ivory deceive men, bringing words that find no fulfillment. But those that come forth through the gate of polished horn bring true issues to pass, when any mortal sees them. But in my case it was not from thence, methinks, that my strange dream came. [2]

Arthur T. Murray, [3] translator of the original Loeb Classical Library edition of the Odyssey, commented:

The play upon the words κέρας, "horn", and κραίνω, "fulfill", and upon ἐλέφας, "ivory", and ἐλεφαίρομαι, "deceive", cannot be preserved in English. [1]

Echoes in later Greek literature

Homer greatly influenced Greek literature as a whole. [4] Plato refers to the two gates in his dialogue Charmides :

Socrates: "Listen then," I said, "to my dream, to see whether it comes through horn or through ivory." [5]

A reference to the Odyssean image also appears in the late (c. AD 400) epic poet Nonnus:

As Morrheus slept, the vision of a dream cajoled him,
beguiling his mind after flitting through the gates of ivory. [6]

The Aeneid

Virgil borrowed the image of the two gates in lines 893–898 of Book 6 of his Aeneid , describing that of horn as the passageway for true shadows [7] and that of ivory as that through which the Manes in the underworld send false dreams up to the living. [8] Through the latter gate Virgil makes his hero Aeneas, accompanied by the Cumaean Sibyl, return from his visit to the underworld, where he has met, among others, his dead father Anchises:

Two gates the silent house of Sleep adorn;
Of polish'd ivory this, that of transparent horn:
True visions thro' transparent horn arise;
Thro' polish'd ivory pass deluding lies.
Of various things discoursing as he pass'd,
Anchises hither bends his steps at last.
Then, thro' the gate of iv'ry, he dismiss'd
His valiant offspring and divining guest. [9]

Why Virgil has Aeneas return through the ivory gate (whence pass deluding lies) [10] and not through that of horn is uncertain. One theory is that it refers to the time of night at which he returned. [11] Jorge Luis Borges accepted the view that, for Virgil, what we call reality is not in fact such; that Virgil may have considered the Platonic world of the archetypes to be the real world. [12]

Another explanation is that Virgil is thus indicating that what he has recounted is not to be taken as literal fact. In John Wesley's last sermon, preached on 17 January 1791, he spoke of how uncertain even the best conjectures about the invisible world were without revelation: "The most finished of all these accounts, is that of the great Roman poet. Where observe how warily he begins, with that apologetic preface, – Sit mihi fas audita loqui – 'May I be allowed to tell what I have heard'. And, in the conclusion, lest anyone should imagine he believed any of these accounts, he sends the relater of them out of hades by the ivory gate, through which, he had just informed us, that only dreams and shadows pass, – a very plain intimation, that all which has gone before, is to be looked upon as a dream!" [13]

Other Latin writing

In his poem Silvae, a lament for his dead father, the poet Publius Papinius Statius wishes that his father may come to him from the abode of the dead in the form of a true dream, passing therefore through the gate of horn:

Thence mayst thou pass to where the better gate of horn o'ercomes the envious ivory, and in the semblance of a dream teach me what thou wert wont to teach.(V.iii.285–290) [14]


In his "Cupid Crucified", 4th century AD Latin poet Ausonius ends the poem by saying that Cupid escapes through the gate of ivory (portaque evadit eburna), thus implying that the poem's depiction of Cupid's crucifixion was a false dream.

The 15th-century Latin poet Basinio of Parma, employed at the court of Sigismondo Malatesta in Rimini, wrote a panegyric epic poem for his prince, titled Hesperis, modelled largely on the Aeneid and the Homeric epics, in which Sigismondo, as epic hero, undertakes a journey to the underworld in order to meet his deceased father Pandolfo Malatesta. Before that he passes the temple of Fama, which has a bipartite gate — one half made of horn, one half of ivory. On the ivory half are depicted not only Sigismondo's descent but also those of Hercules, Theseus, Ulysses, and Aeneas.

Having seen that, they turn towards the astounding temple of Fame, a temple enormous and imposing in size and shape, whose door on its left side is white from ivory steps with shining horn on the other half. Disturbing nightmares are conveyed by false rumour on the vain gates of ivory, while true dreams of horn are sent by trustworthy rumours. The gate of horn shows the Spaniards defeated on the Tyrrhenian shore [i.e. Sigismondo's victory over Alfonso V's troops at Piombino in 1448]. On the ivory steps Sigismondo turns toward the sea, and is swimming after his ship is destroyed [on his way to the island where he is to undertake his trip to the underworld]. There Theseus and also Hercules made their way: there brave and victorious Ulysses went to the gloomy homes of the Cimmerians; there faithful Aeneas took to the Stygian lake Avernus. [15]

English writing

The gates of horn and ivory appear in the following notable English written works:

Music

Various metal bands have referenced the image, including in songs on No Exit, Eye of Providence, and by Jesus Piece.[ citation needed ]

Software

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aeneas</span> Trojan hero in Greco-Roman mythology

In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas was a Trojan hero, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite. His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas a second cousin to Priam's children. He is a minor character in Greek mythology and is mentioned in Homer's Iliad. Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is cast as an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome. Snorri Sturluson identifies him with the Norse god Víðarr of the Æsir.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virgil</span> 1st-century-BC Roman poet

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars consider his authorship of these poems to be dubious.

<i>Aeneid</i> Latin epic poem by Virgil

The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. Written by the Roman poet Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, the Aeneid comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elysium</span> Afterlife in Greek mythology

Elysium, otherwise known as the Elysian Fields or Elysian Plains, is a conception of the afterlife that developed over time and was maintained by some Greek religious and philosophical sects and cults. It was initially separated from the Greek underworld – the realm of Hades. Only mortals related to the gods and other heroes could be admitted past the river Styx. Later, the conception of who could enter was expanded to include those chosen by the gods, the righteous, and the heroic. They would remain at the Elysian Fields after death, to live a blessed and happy afterlife, and indulge in whatever enjoyment they had enjoyed in life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sinon</span> Mythical Greek soldier of the Trojan War

In Greek mythology, Sinon or Sinopos was a Greek warrior during the Trojan War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anchises</span> Mortal lover of the goddess Aphrodite

In Greek and Roman mythology, Anchises was a member of the royal family of Troy. He was said to have been the son of King Capys of Dardania and Themiste, daughter of Ilus, who was son of Tros. He is most famous as the father of Aeneas and for his treatment in Virgil's Aeneid. Anchises' brother was Acoetes, father of the priest Laocoön.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elpenor</span> Mythical character

In Greek mythology, Elpenor, also spelled Elpinor, was the youngest comrade of Odysseus. While on the island of Circe, he became drunk and decided to spend the night on the roof. In the morning he slipped on the ladder, fell, and broke his neck, dying instantly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Somnus</span> Roman deity, god of sleep

In Roman mythology, Somnus ("sleep") is the personification of sleep. His Greek counterpart is Hypnos. Somnus resided in the underworld. According to Virgil, Somnus was the brother of Death (Mors), and according to Ovid, Somnus had a 'thousand' sons, the Somnia, who appear in dreams 'mimicking many forms'. Ovid named three of the sons of Somnus: Morpheus, who appears in human guise, Icelos / Phobetor, who appears as beasts, and Phantasos, who appears as inanimate objects.

<i>Pharsalia</i> Roman epic poem by Lucan about Caesars Civil War

De Bello Civili, more commonly referred to as the Pharsalia, is a Roman epic poem written by the poet Lucan, detailing the civil war between Julius Caesar and the forces of the Roman Senate led by Pompey the Great. The poem's title is a reference to the Battle of Pharsalus, which occurred in 48 BC, near Pharsalus, Thessaly, in Northern Greece. Caesar decisively defeated Pompey in this battle, which occupies all of the epic's seventh book. In the early twentieth century, translator J. D. Duff, while arguing that "no reasonable judgment can rank Lucan among the world's great epic poets", notes that the work is notable for Lucan's decision to eschew divine intervention and downplay supernatural occurrences in the events of the story. Scholarly estimation of Lucan's poem and poetry has since changed, as explained by commentator Philip Hardie in 2013: "In recent decades, it has undergone a thorough critical re-evaluation, to re-emerge as a major expression of Neronian politics and aesthetics, a poem whose studied artifice enacts a complex relationship between poetic fantasy and historical reality."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katabasis</span> Journey into the underworld in literature

A katabasis or catabasis is a journey to the underworld. Its original sense is usually associated with Greek mythology and Classical mythology more broadly, where the protagonist visits the Greek underworld, also known as Hades. The term is also used in a broad sense of any journey to the realm of the dead in other mythological and religious traditions. A katabasis is similar to a nekyia or necromancy, where one experiences a vision of the underworld or its inhabitants; a nekyia does not generally involve a physical visit, however. One of the most famous examples is that of Odysseus, who performs something on the border of a nekyia and a katabasis in book 11 of The Odyssey; he visits the border of the realms before calling the dead to him using a blood rite, with it being disputed whether he was at the highest realm of the underworld or the lowest edge of the living world where he performed this.

The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream, sometimes subtitled as A Vision instead of a dream, is an epic poem written by the English Romantic John Keats. Although written right after Hyperion, it was published posthumously in 1856. Keats composed The Fall of Hyperion by reworking, expanding, and personally narrating lines from his earlier fragmented epic poem Hyperion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tiberinus (god)</span>

Tiberinus is a figure in Roman mythology. He was the god of the Tiber River. He was added to the 3,000 rivers, as the genius of the Tiber.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nisus and Euryalus</span> Pair of lovers in Vergils Aeneid

In Greek and Roman mythology, Nisus and Euryalus are a pair of friends serving under Aeneas in the Aeneid, the Augustan epic by Virgil. Their foray among the enemy, narrated in book nine, demonstrates their stealth and prowess as warriors, but ends as a tragedy: the loot Euryalus acquires attracts attention, and the two die together. Virgil presents their deaths as a loss of admirable loyalty and valor. They also appear in Book 5, during the funeral games of Anchises, where Virgil takes note of their amor pius, a love that exhibits the pietas that is Aeneas's own distinguishing virtue.

Pergamea is a fictional settlement in the Aeneid, the epic poem written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC.

In Greek and Roman mythology, Salius is an Acarnanian who in one alternative tradition was the legendary founder of the ancient Roman priesthood of the Salii.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Golden Bough (mythology)</span> Episodic tale within Aeneid

The Golden Bough is one of the episodic tales written in the epic Aeneid, book VI, by the Roman poet Virgil, which narrates the adventures of the Trojan hero Aeneas after the Trojan War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palinurus</span> Mythical coxwain of Aeneas ship

Palinurus (Palinūrus), in Roman mythology and especially Virgil's Aeneid, is the coxswain of Aeneas' ship. Later authors used him as a general type of navigator or guide. Palinurus is an example of human sacrifice; his life is the price for the Trojans landing in Italy.

The Aeneid has been analyzed by scholars of several different generations and schools of thought to try to determine the political commentary that Virgil had hoped to portray. The major schools of thought include the overarching idea that Virgil had written a story that parallels Roman history at the time it was written as well as messages both in support of and against the rule of Augustus Caesar. Finally, it has been argued that Virgil had a stance on geopolitics which he conveys in the actions of Aeneas and his crew.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Creusa (wife of Aeneas)</span> In Greek mythology, daughter of Priam

In Greek and Roman mythology, Creusa is the wife of Aeneas, and the mother of Ascanius. According to Apollodorus, she is the daughter of Priam and Hecuba. A number of sources describe her presence during the sack of Troy, with her often fleeing the city alongside her husband. In Virgil's Aeneid, Creusa is lost in the confusion while their family is trying to escape, leading Aeneas to turn back to look for her; there he is met with her shade, which foretells of his future journey to Hesperia, where he is told he will marry a different woman.

Eneide is a seven-episode 1971–1972 Italian television drama, adapted by Franco Rossi from Virgil's epic poem the Aeneid. It stars Giulio Brogi as Aeneas and Olga Karlatos as Dido, and also stars Alessandro Haber, Andrea Giordana and Marilù Tolo. RAI originally broadcast the hour-long episodes from 19 December 1971 to 30 January 1972. A shorter theatrical version was released in 1974 as Le avventure di Enea.

References

  1. 1 2 Homer: The Odyssey, II (The Loeb Classical Library. First printed 1919; Reprinted 1925, 1928, 1931, 1940, 1942, 1946, 1953, 1960, 1966, 1975, 1980; American ISBN   0-674-99117-6; British ISBN   0-434-99105-8), p. 269
  2. ↑ Translation from the Loeb Classical Library edition. The original text is:
    Ξεῖν’, ἦ τοι μὲν ὄνειροι ἀμήχανοι ἀκριτόμυθοι
    γίγνοντ’, οὐδέ τι πάντα τελείεται ἀνθρώποισι.
    δοιαὶ γάρ τε πύλαι ἀμενηνῶν εἰσὶν ὀνείρων·
    αἱ μὲν γὰρ κεράεσσι τετεύχαται, αἱ δ' ἐλέφαντι,
    τῶν οἳ μέν κ’ ἔλθωσι διὰ πριστοῦ ἐλέφαντος,
    οἵ ῥ’ ἐλεφαίρονται, ἔπε’ ἀκράαντα φέροντες·
    οἱ δὲ διὰ ξεστῶν κεράων ἔλθωσι θύραζε,
    οἵ ῥ’ ἔτυμα κραίνουσι, βροτῶν ὅτε κέν τις ἴδηται.
    ἀλλ’ ἐμοὶ οὐκ ἐντεῦθεν ὀΐομαι αἰνὸν ὄνειρον
    ἐλθέμεν·
  3. ↑ Text (without footnotes) of the 1919 Loeb translation
  4. ↑ Sir Richard C. Jebb and A.T. Sinclair in Whibley (1905),A Companion to Greek Studies, p. 120:
    Homeric influence is not only all-pervading in Greek literature, but enters also into every part of Greek life.
  5. ↑ Charmides 173a:
    ἄκουε δή, ἔφην, τὸ ἐμὸν ὄναρ, εἴτε διὰ κεράτων εἴτε δι᾽ ἐλέφαντος ἐλήλυθεν.
  6. ↑ Dionysiaca, 34:89-90 Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
    Μοῤῥέα δ' ὑπνώοντα παρήφανεν ὄψις ὀνείρου,
    κλεψινόων ἐλέφαντος ἀναΐξασα πυλάων.
  7. ↑ In the original, "veris umbris", but translated by Dryden as "true visions."
  8. ↑ altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto / sed falsa ad caelum mittunt insomnia Manes.
  9. ↑ The translation given here is by John Dryden (cf. Wikisource). The original text is:
    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 tum natum Anchises unaque Sibyllam
    prosequitur dictis portaque emittit eburna ...
  10. ↑ "falsa insomnia" (literally, false dreams)
  11. ↑ Nicholas Reed, The Gates of Sleep in Aeneid 6 , The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Nov., 1973), pp. 311-315
  12. ↑ Borges made this remark in a lecture that he gave in Buenos Aires in the mid-1970s on the subject of nightmares. The transcription of the lecture is included in English translation in Jorge Luis Borges, Seven Nights (see pp. 30-31) and in Jorge Luis Borges, Everything and Nothing (see p. 83).
  13. ↑ John Wesley, Sermon 122, On Faith
  14. ↑ English translation by J. H. Mozley - Loeb Classic Library (Harvard University Press). Statius's words are:
    inde tamen venias, melior qua porta malignum
    cornea vincit ebur, somnique in imagine monstra,
    quae solitus.
  15. ↑ Basinio's Latin text is as follows:
    Haec ubi visa, petunt famae mirabile templum,
    templum augustum immane horrens, cui limen eburnis
    canebat gradibus laeva de parte ; nitebant
    parte alia cornu solido loca. Falsa elephanti
    fama refert vanis insomnia turbida portis,
    somnia vera ferunt non vanae cornua famae.
    Cornea dejectos Tyrrheno in litore Iberos
    porta docet templi. Gradibus Sismundus eburnis
    tendit ad Oceanum, et fracta natat alta carina.
    Hac iter Aegides, nec non Tyrinthius heros
    Taenarias legere vias: hac durus Ulysses
    Cimmerium obscuras victor concessit ad Arces ;
    hac pius Aeneas Stygio se immisit Averno. (Hesperis, XIII 205–217)
  16. ↑ Harvey, Elizabeth D., "Pleasure's oblivion: Displacements of generation in Spenser's Faerie Queene", Forgetting in Early Modern English Literature and Culture, doi:10.4324/9780203417089-9 , retrieved 2022-10-17, ... guarded by its porter, Genius, who presides over the double gates. These twinned portals recall the gates of ivory and horn in the Aeneid (itself an allusion to the Odyssey), which are described just after Anchises presents his prophetic genealogical vision to Aeneas, and it is through the ivory gate that Aeneas reascends to the upper world (Virgil 1965: 6.893–901).
  17. ↑ "The Worm Ouroboros: II. The Wrastling for Demonland".
  18. ↑ Dan Norton and Peters Rushton. Classical Myths in English Literature, 183-84 (1952).
  19. ↑ ""Celephais" by H. P. Lovecraft". www.hplovecraft.com. Retrieved 2021-09-27.
  20. ↑ Turner, Joseph (8 November 2012). "Le Guin, Dragons, and Gates" . Retrieved 2022-10-16.
  21. ↑ Mahon, Derek. The Snow Party. London: Oxford University Press, 1975. "Homage to Malcolm Lowry" is the 3rd poem in the book.
  22. ↑ McDiarmid, Lucy S. (1971). "Auden and the Redeemed City: Three Allusions". Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts. 13 (4): 340. ProQuest   1311733188 . Retrieved 2022-10-18– via ProQuest. There are two references to the Aeneid in "Prime". ... In line six the "gates of the mind," the super-ego shutting out subconscious desires which were at liberty during sleep, are called "the horn gate and the ivory gate."
  23. ↑ "Keras documentation: About Keras". keras.io. Retrieved 2022-10-16. Keras (κέρας) means horn in Greek. It is a reference to a literary image from ancient Greek and Latin literature, first found in the Odyssey, where dream spirits (Oneiroi, singular Oneiros) are divided between those who deceive dreamers with false visions, who arrive to Earth through a gate of ivory, and those who announce a future that will come to pass, who arrive through a gate of horn.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.