Penelope’s description of the Gates of Hom and Ivory (Od. 19.560-9) has raised questions never yet satisfactorily answered: (1) where does this «lore» corne from? (2) what connects hom to truth and ivory to falsity; (3) what motivates Penelope to propose this equation to the stranger to invalidate his interpretation of her prophetic dream, when that dream offered the much-desired vision of her husband’s retum and élimination of the despised suitors? I propose that the «lore» derives from traditional belief, easily documented, about double passageways that connect this world to «the beyond»; that the truth-falsity symbolization derives from a complex cluster of attributes that makes horn and ivory similar but significantly opposite («false twins»); and that the queen has a deliberate strategy at this moment that leads her to deny what she secretly wishes to be true. Because Penelope immediately proceeds to propose the bow-contest, her action shows that she does accept the imminent return of her husband, and therefore must understand – with the intuitive part of her mind –, the dream as prophetic of this return. The other, more calculating, part of her mind is still unwilling to discard the defenses that have protected her so well thus far. And so she acts decisively to bring about the event that she correctly intuits is about to happen.