על החלומות, ספר ב י״בOn Dreams, Book II 12
א׳
1[78] But he who was both the initiated and the initiator in the mysteries of dreams boldly said that his sheaf rose and stood upright (Gen. 37:7). For indeed as skittish horses rear their necks proudly on high, so all the votaries of vainglory set themselves up above everything, above cities and laws and ancestral customs and the affairs of the several citizens.
ב׳
2[79] Then they proceed from the leadership of the people to dictatorship over the people, and while they bring low the state of their neighbours they cause their own to rise and stand upright and firm, and thus they bring into subjection even souls whose spirit is naturally free and unenslaved.
ג׳
3[80] That is why he adds, “Your sheaves turned round and made obeisance to my sheaf” (ibid.). For the lover of modesty is overawed by the stiff-necked, and the cautious by the self-willed, and the honourer of equality by one who is unequal both in relation to himself and others.
ד׳
4[81] And surely that is natural, for the man of worth who surveys, not only human life but all the phenomena of the world, knows how mightily blow the winds of necessity, fortune, opportunity, force, violence and princedom, and how many are the projects, how great the good fortunes which soar to heaven without pausing in their flight and then are shaken about and brought crashing to the ground by these blasts.
ה׳
5[82] And therefore he must needs take caution to shield him, as an inseparable safeguard to prevent any grave disaster suddenly befalling him, for caution is to the individual man what a wall is to a city.
ו׳
6[83] Surely then they are all lunatics and madmen who take pains to display untimely frankness, and sometimes dare to oppose kings and tyrants in words and deeds. They do not perceive that not only like cattle are their necks under the yoke, but that the harness extends to their whole bodies and souls, their wives and children and parents, and the wide circle of friends and kinsfolk united to them by fellowship of feeling, and that the driver can with perfect ease spur, drive on or pull back, and mete out any treatment small or great just as he pleases.
ז׳
7[84] And therefore they are branded and scourged and mutilated and undergo a combination of all the sufferings which merciless cruelty can inflict short of death, and finally are led away to death itself.