134 THEOCRITUS—GREEK EPIGRAMMATISTS 
The threshold had never a door, nor a watch-dog ; all things, 
all to them seemed superfluity, for poverty was their sentinel. 
They had no neighbour by them, but ever against their cabin 
floated up the sea. 
“The chariot of the moon had not yet reached the mid- 
point of her course, but their familiar toil awakened the fisher- 
men; from their eyelids they cast out slumber, and roused 
their souls with speech.” 
Asphalion, after complaining that even the nights in 
summer are too long—for “‘ already have I seen ten thousand 
dreams, and the dawn is not yet ”—is somewhat comforted by 
the thought that thus “ we have time to idle in, for what could 
a man find to do lying on a leafy bed beside the waves and 
slumbering not? Nay, the ass is among the thorns, the 
lantern in the town hall, for they say it is always sleepless.” 1 
Then he begs his friend to interpret to him the dream he 
has just dreamt. 
“ As I was sleeping late, amid the labours of the salt sea, 
(and truly not too full fed, for we supped early, if thou dost 
remember, and did not overtax our bellies), I saw myself busy 
on a rock, and there I sat and watched the fishes and kept 
spinning the bait with the rods. 
** And one of the fishes nibbled, a fat one; for, in sleep, 
dogs dream of bread, and of fish dream I.2 Well, he was 
tightly hooked, and the blood was running, and the rod I 
grasped was bent with his struggle. 
1 The meaning is as follows: Asphalion is complaining of wakefulness, and 
he compares his condition to two things; to a donkey in a furze-bush (as we 
might say), and to the light of the town-hall, whose sacred flame was perpetual 
Snow). 
: 2 Mr. Lang adopts the reading &proy, bread; Ahrens substitutes &prrov, 
bear, which seems to fit the context far better, as it keeps up the whole spirit of, 
‘‘ T dreamed of large-sized fish, and a lively fight, just as a sleeping dog dreams 
of chasing bears.’’ Cf. Tennyson’s Locksley Hall— 
“‘ Like a dog he hunts in dreams,” 
and his Lucretius— 
“ As the dog 
With inward yelp and restless forefoot plies 
His function of the woodland,” 
passages alike inspired by the lines in which Lucretius (iv. 991 f.) proves that 
waking instincts are reflected in dreams— 
‘* venantumque canes in molli sepe quiete 
jactant crura tamen subito.” 
