When mother Hecuba was great with child,
She dreamed that she brought forth a flaming torch.
Alarmed at this, with sighing cares possessed,
The king and father, Priam, to the gods
Did make a sacrifice of bleating lambs.
He, seeking peace and answer to the dream,
[p. 273] Implored Apollo's aid to understand
What great events the vision did foretell.
Apollo's oracle, with voice divine,
Then gave this explanation of the dream:
“Thy next-born son forbear to rear, for he
Will be the death of Pergamos and Troy.
”
[42]
21. "This dream, I admit, is the fiction of a
poet's brain, yet it is not contrary to our experience
with real dreams. It may well be that the following
story of the dream which greatly disturbed Priam's
peace of mind is fiction too:1
1 The author of this quotation is not known.
Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.
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