Why are pointers to a reference illegal in C++?

Question

As the title itself mentions - why are pointer to a reference illegal, while the reverse is legal in C++?

Answer 1

Because a reference is not a thing that can be pointed at, which in turn is because it does not actually have to be represented anywhere in memory. References exist to give alternate names to already-existing things. You can get a pointer to the renamed thing, but that is a pointer to a value, not a pointer to a reference.