The Byzantine Oracle of Dreams and Fate

About this book

In Byzantium a dream was not a chance picture of the night. It was a message, a sign to be read, telling what tomorrow would bring: gain or loss, honour or shame, love or parting. This book gathers three old Byzantine keys to the future, translated in full from the Greek.

The Dream Book of Nikephoros, attributed to the Patriarch of Constantinople, gives 131 dreams, each in a single line of verse: the image and its meaning, in the order of the Greek alphabet, so you can use it like a pocket dictionary. “If you see an eagle, know it for a messenger of God.” “Holding apples, know that you will be united with love.” The Dream Book of Astrampsychus adds 101 more. Often the meaning runs against the image, or springs from the sound of a Greek word: an old man in a dream brings a gift of honour, because in Greek “gerōn” and “geras” sound alike. Every such pun is explained in the notes.

The third part is the oldest and perhaps the most intriguing: an oracle that answers your own question. It opens with a letter to King Ptolemy, promising that Alexander the Great ruled the world by this method. Choose one of 92 questions (Shall I take the woman I want? Shall I inherit? Shall I rise in honour? Will the one abroad come home?), name a number from one to ten, and the table leads you to one of ten answers in one of 103 decades. Ask question 55 with the number 9, and decade 42 replies: “You will take the woman you want, and grow rich.” Name 10, and another decade warns: “Do not take the woman you want: it is better for you so.” Our short guide, “How to Ask the Oracle”, shows the method step by step, so you can try it yourself.

Translated into modern English by BlusaBooks, verse by verse and answer by answer, with nothing left out or softened. The dream books follow the Greek first edition printed in Paris in 1603 by Nicolas Rigault; the text of Nikephoros was compared with a 15th-century manuscript in Paris (Grec 2494). The oracle follows Rudolf Hercher’s first edition (Berlin, 1863); the few answers he set aside as later additions are given from the manuscript readings he himself recorded, each marked in a note, so that no place in the oracle stays empty. All source texts are in the public domain. No manuscript or print images are reproduced.

What is inside

• The Dream Book of Nikephoros: 131 dreams in verse, from eagle to egg, in the order of the Greek alphabet.
• The Dream Book of Astrampsychus: 101 dreams, with the entry on Astrampsychus from the Suda.
• The Oracle of Astrampsychus: the letter to King Ptolemy, the prayer, the table of lucky days of the Moon, the number table, 92 questions and 103 decades of answers (1,030 answers).
• “How to Ask the Oracle”: our step-by-step guide with a worked example.
• A foreword, 80 notes at the foot of the page, and a short commentary on what these books promised and what lies behind them.
• PDF, A5 page size (148 × 210 mm), 77 pages, readable on phone, tablet and computer.

Who it is for

Readers of dream dictionaries and old dream books, lovers of oracles, fortune telling and divination games, readers of Byzantine and ancient Greek history, and anyone who wants to put a question to fate the way people did a thousand years ago.

A historical source: the book gives Byzantine texts and what historians know about them. It shares old knowledge and promises no results. The oracle is a witness of an ancient culture, not advice for important decisions; what it says about illness is a medieval belief, not medical advice. Digital PDF, delivered for download after payment.