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The Golden Ass

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The Metamorphoses of Lucius Apuleius, which according to St. Augustine was referred to as The Golden Ass (Asinus aureus) by Apuleius, is the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety.

Origin

The date of composition of the Metamorphoses is uncertain. It has variously been considered by scholars as a youthful work preceding Apuleius' Apology of 158/9 AD, or as the climax of his literary career and perhaps as late as the 170s or 180s.[1] Apuleius adapted the story from a Greek original, possibly by Lucius of Patrae (if that name isn't merely derived from that of the lead character and narrator). The Greek text has been lost, but there is Λουκιος η Ονος (Lucios or the Ass), a similar tale of unknown authorship that is possibly an abridgement or epitome of Lucius of Patrae's text, wrongly attributed in ancient times to Lucian of Samosata, a contemporary of Apuleius.

Story

The text is a precursor to the literary genre of the episodic picaresque novel, in which Quevedo, Rabelais, Boccaccio, Cervantes, Voltaire, Defoe and many others have followed. It is an imaginative, irreverent, and amusing work that relates the ludicrous adventures of one Lucius, a virile young man who is obsessed with magic. Finding himself in Thessaly, the "birthplace of magic," Lucius eagerly seeks an opportunity to see magic being used. His overenthusiasm leads to his accidental transformation into an ass. In this guise, Lucius, a member of the Roman country aristocracy, is forced to witness and share the miseries of slaves and destitute freemen who are reduced, like Lucius, to being little more than beasts of burden by their exploitation at the hands of wealthy landowners.

The Golden Ass is the only surviving work of literature from the ancient Greco-Roman world to examine, from a first-hand perspective, the abhorrent condition of the lower classes. Yet despite its serious subject matter, the novel remains imaginative, witty, and often sexually explicit. Numerous amusing stories, many of which seem to be based on actual folk tales, with their ordinary themes of simple-minded husbands, adulterous wives, and clever lovers, as well as the magical transformations that characterize the entire novel, are included within the main narrative. The longest of these inclusions is the tale of Cupid and Psyche, encountered here for the first but not the last time in Western literature.

Style

Apuleius' style is as amusing as his stories are, for though he wasn't a Roman by birth he was a master of Latin prose and could play with the rhythm and rhyme of the language as if he were a native speaker. In the introduction to his translation of The Golden Ass, Jack Lindsay writes:

Let us glance at some of the details of Apuleius' style and it will become clear that English translators have not even tried to preserve and carry over the least tincture of his manner... Take the description of the baker's wife: saeva scaeva virosa ebriosa pervicax pertinax... The nagging clashing effect of the rhymes gives us half the meaning. I quote two well-known versions: 'She was crabbed, cruel, cursed, drunken, obstinate, niggish.' 'She was mischievous, malignant, addicted to men and wine, forward and stubborn.' And here is the most recent one (by R. Graves): 'She was malicious, cruel, spiteful, lecherous, drunken, selfish, obstinate.' Read again the merry and expressive doggerel of Apuleius and it will be seen how little of his vision of life has been transferred into English.

Lindsay's own version is: "She was lewd and crude, a toper and a groper, a nagging hag of a fool of a mule."

Apuleius' vocabulary is often eccentric and includes some archaic words. However, S. J. Harrison argues that some archaisms of syntax in the transmitted text may be the result of textual corruption.[2]

Final book

In the last book, the style abruptly changes. Driven to desperation, Lucius calls for divine aid, and is answered by the goddess Isis.Eager to be initiated into the mystery cult of Isis, abstains from forbidden foods, bathes and purifies himself. Then the secrets of the cult's books are explained to him and further secrets revealed, before going through the process of initiation which involves a trial by the elements in a journey to the underworld. Lucius is then initiated asked to seek initiation into the cult of Osiris in Rome, and eventually initiated into the pastophoroi, a group of priests that serves Isis and Osiris.[3]

The humorous prose of the earlier books is exchanged for an equally powerful, sometimes quasi-poetic, style that draws upon Lucius' religious experiences.

The meaning of this last book has been debated, and there are several possibilities of what it could mean in correlation to the entire novel. The novel could be seen as an Isiac testament; the first ten books are full of troubles and slavish pleasures. But it is only when Lucius discovers religion in the last book that he receives divine pleasure and forgoes pleasures of the flesh. The novel can also be seen as an autobiography, as a relation of Apuleius' own religious experiences. The novel could also be seen as a complete satire, with the last book being a critical jab at religion.

History of the book

In 1517, Niccolò Machiavelli wrote his own version of the story, as a terza rima poem.

In the 20th century, T. E. Lawrence carried a small copy of the "Golden Ass" in his saddlebags all through the Arab Revolt. It was Lawrence who first introduced the book to his friend Robert Graves, who later translated the work.

In April 1999 the Canadian Opera Company produced an operatic version of the "Golden Ass", the libretto for which was written by celebrated Canadian author Robertson Davies.

In 2002, Shakespeare's Globe theatre rehearsed for the first time the drama The Golden Ass or the Curious Man (starring Mark Rylance as Lucius) written by Peter Oswald after Apuleius' novel, while performing A Midsummer Night's Dream during the same season. This shows the connections on how Shakespeare used ancient literature as a source for his comedy (Bottom being transformed into an ass).

Footnotes

  1. ^ S. J. Harrison (2004) [2000]. Apuleius: A Latin Sophist (revised paperback ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. pp. 9–10. ISBN 0-19-927138-0. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  2. ^ S. J. Harrison (2006). "Some Textual Problems in Apuleius' Metamorphoses". In W. H. Keulen; et al. (eds.). Lectiones Scrupulosae: Essays on the Text and Interpretation of Apuleius' Metamorphoses in Honour of Maaike Zimmerman. Ancient Narrative Supplementum. Groningen: Barkhuis. pp. pp. 59–67. ISBN 90-77922-164. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |editor= (help); line feed character in |chapter= at position 22 (help)
  3. ^ Iles Johnson, Sarah, Mysteries, in Ancient Religions pp.104-5, The Belknap Press of Harvard University (2007), ISBN 978-0-674-02548-6

References

  • Apuleius, Lucius; Adlington, William (Trans.) (1996). The Golden Ass. Wordsworth Classics of World Literature, Wordsworth Ed. Ltd.: Ware, GB. ISBN 1-85326-460-1
  • Apuleius, Lucius; Lindsay, Jack (Trans.) (1962). The Golden Ass. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-20036-9
  • Peter Oswald; The Golden Ass or the Curious Man. Comedy in three parts after the Novel by Lucius Apuleius. Oberon Books: London, GB. 2002. ISBN 1-84002-285-X (first rehearsed with great success at Shakespeare's Globe theatre in 2002)

Further reading

Ruebel, J. S. (Trans.). (2000). Apuleius: The Metamorphoses, Book 1. Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Inc. [1] ISBN 978-0-86516-484-0.

See also

Text

Commentary

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