Talk:Gates of horn and ivory
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I undid this version because, as a whole, I did not find it to be an improvement over the previous one. While the current revision contains much new and useful information, it also contains at least one inaccuracy: the opening paragraph asserts that the gates were invented by the author of the Odyssey. While there may have been a poet called Homer who wrote the Odyssey, his existence is not universally accepted in the literary community and it is widely speculated that he may not have existed at all.
Further, the Odyssey as written emerged from an oral history, so the story was known before it was ever committed to parchment (of whatever it was first penned on) so to say the Odyssey's author invented the gates is, most likely, just plain wrong.
I would have changed what I knew to be wrong, but the current revision contains information that I'm unfamiliar with. So, could someone recheck it to insure its accuracy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Troyvarsity (talk • contribs)
- Homer may not have existed at all, but "the author of the Odyssey" (whatever his name) certainly did, and what he wrote is the earliest known instance of the use of the image of the gates of horn and ivory through which dreams, true and false, come. The image was evidently invented as a play on words. Greek words. And so it certainly didn't come from the Latin poet Vergil, who here and throughout the Aeneid was imitating the Odyssey and the Iliad.
- Virgil did not write of "the Gods of the Dead" in connection with the two gates. He wrote of the Manes. In any case, I don't see why the gods of the dead should be considered to be "Oneiroi", a word that means "dreams", rather than Hades/Pluto/Orcus/Dis and Persephone/Proserpina, both of whom Virgil does mention several times (4 times and 3, respectively) in this book of the Aeneid. Lima (talk) 15:52, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
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- To write that Homer invented the image is just plain wrong. You cannot just credit that author because his mention is the earliest reference known to you. And to say the gates are "in origin an image concerning the provenance of true and false dreams" doesn't make it so. You don't know the origin. It is as likely as not that came to represent the "provenance of true and false dreams." Troyvarsity (talk) 18:39, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
- "Virgil did not write of 'the Gods of the Dead' in connection with the two gates". Fine. But what's with the block quote, then? ". . .the other gleams with the whiteness of polished ivory, but through it the Gods of the Dead send false dreams". Troyvarsity (talk) 18:53, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
- If you want yet another English verse translation of that passage of the Aeneid, here is Dryden's:
- 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.
- Dryden wrote neither of "the Gods of the Dead" nor of the "Manes". But neither Dryden nor Kline wrote the Aeneid. Its author was Virgil. Lima (talk) 19:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
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- Lines 899-900 are:
- ille viam secat ad navis sociosque revisit.
- Tum se ad Caietae recto fert limite portum.
- Dryden's translation is:
- Straight to the ships Aeneas his way,
- Embark'd his men, and skimm'd along the sea,
- Still coasting, till he gain'd Cajeta's bay.
- Tony Kline translated the two lines as:
- Aeneas makes his way to the ships and rejoins his friends:
- then coasts straight to Caieta’s harbour along the shore.
- I don't think these two lines, 899-900, are relevant to the question of the gates. Lima (talk) 04:16, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
- Lines 899-900 are:
