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I'll prove to you out of Rudow's 'Theory of Sleep, and explain to you, what sleep really is, and that people can sleep without dreaming at all; and as for what dreaming is, you will know as well as I do, if you will read the 'Somnium Scipionis, and Artimidorus's great work on Dreams, and the Frankfort Dreambook; but, you see, you never read anything and that's why you are always making such a hash of everything you have to do with."
The Somnium Scipionis was an inspiration, written under the influence of Plato at one of those emotional moments of Cicero's life which make it possible to say of him that there was a religious element in his mind. Some years later the poignancy of his grief at the death of his daughter Tullia had the effect of putting him again in a strong emotional mood.
Music, in the Middle Ages, was, for dialectical purposes, treated in accordance with the Pythagorean theory as interpreted by Cicero in his Somnium Scipionis, who represented the eight revolving spheres of heaven the Earth being fixed as forming a complete musical octave. Such celestial music forms the subject of the argument in Roswitha’s play, the music of Earth being merely touched upon.
But the king, who loved a joke, demanded something sharp and stinging, and Buchanan obeyed by writing, but not publishing, "The Franciscans," a long satire, compared to which the "Somnium" was bland and merciful. The storm rose.
He had added a symphony which bore the bombastic title of the Basle Boecklin, "The Dream of Life," and the motto: "Vita somnium breve." A song-cycle completed the programme, with a few classical works, and a Festmarsch by Ochs, which Christophe had kindly offered to include in his concert, though he knew it to be mediocre. Nothing much happened during the rehearsals.
The debts Milton owed to the Somnium of Puteanus, to Peele's Old Wives' Tale and to Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess, are now all more or less recognized. From the first he probably borrowed the name and character of Comus himself, as well as a few incidental expressions.
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