ON THE DREAM OF SCIPIO

...the highest office had fallen to him: indeed when, as he says himself, he was still considered almost a common soldier. For they say that dreams regarding the state of the city should not be held as true unless its ruler or a magistrate has seen them; or if not one, but many of the common people, have dreamed similar things. Therefore in Homer, when Agamemnon made public in the council of the Greeks the dream he had seen concerning the marshalling of the battle, Nestor—who himself helped the army no less with his wisdom than all the youth did with their strength—secured belief for the report. Nestor said: "Concerning the public state, we must believe a kingly dream; but if another had seen it, we would reject it as futile." This refers to a scene in the Iliad, Book 2, where Nestor validates Agamemnon’s dream because of his status as king.

But it was not without reason that Scipio—even if he had not yet attained the consulship, nor was yet the commander of the army—should dream of the destruction of Carthage, of which he was to be the author. It was fitting that he should hear that victory would be made public through his service, and that he should even see the secrets of nature, being a man excelling no less in philosophy than in virtue.

These things having been asserted—since earlier, citing Virgil as a witness to the falsity of certain dreams, we mentioned his verse drawn original: eruti from the description of the twin gates of sleep—if any should perchance wish to ask why the gate of ivory is assigned to false things and the gate of horn to true things, he will be instructed by the author Porphyry Porphyry of Tyre (c. 234–305 AD) was a Neoplatonist philosopher whose interpretations Macrobius frequently uses.. In his commentaries, Porphyry says the following regarding this passage, which was first described by Homer under the same division: "All truth," he says, "lies hidden. Yet the soul, when it is somewhat free from the duties of the body during sleep, sometimes catches sight of it; sometimes it extends its vision, yet does not reach it."

*direct

And even when the soul does look, it does not see with a free and direct original: directo light, but with a veil cast between, which the connection of our darkening nature draws over it. Virgil asserts that this same condition exists in nature, saying:

The Aeneid, Book 2

"Look, for I will snatch away every cloud which, drawn across you as you watch, now dulls your mortal sight and mists damply around you." In this passage from the Aeneid, the goddess Venus removes the veil from Aeneas's eyes so he can see the gods destroying Troy.

This veil, when in the quiet of sleep it leads the vision of the one looking inward original: introspicientis all the way to the truth...