The Golden Ass by Apuleius - Review

I've been on a Classics kick lately. After working through the magnificent Landmark Julius Caesar, I read Emily Wilson's newest translation of the Odyssey (also highly recommended). My wonderful wife, always attentive to my bibliotic needs (not a real word, until now) purchased me a copy of Sarah Ruden's translation of Apuleius' The Golden Ass. Since the latter is by far the dirtiest major work from this time period I've read, this is the one I will review!

Every day (I say this for effect only), someone says to me, "Those old books are too daunting to me. I don't think I'd understand them. I know nothing about ancient Greece or Rome." To these people I always (again for effect) say, "You don't know what you're missing, but probably you don't care." Because we (not you and I, dear reader, but other people) are so glutted with young adult fiction and newspapers written for a 3rd grade reading level, that seriously engaging with harder material seems too onerous. Especially books written in other languages long ago.

People are missing out on some of the most important books in Western Civilization, but also little gems like The Golden Ass. This is no philosophical treatise, no lengthy history of wars gone by. It's also not political theory or epic poetry. This is a comic novel about a man who is transformed into a donkey by witchcraft, and endures a parade of misfortune as he witnesses events that are in turn hilarious, crude, tragic and grotesque. At the end is an earnest testimonial to the mystery religion dedicated to the goddess Isis(!), surely an unexpected dénouement.

The story begins with our protagonist, Lucius, who has traveled to Thessaly because he hears there is a lot of witchcraft about, and he wants to see some for himself. He secures hospitality from a man who's wife is rumored to be a powerful witch, and quickly begins a carnal adventure with their maid, Photis. After a few days of not doing much besides attending a few dinner parties and hearing stories from others, Photis explains that she can help Lucius spy on the wife as she practices her dark arts. Through a keyhole, they watch as she uses a potion to turn herself into a bird, which she does for the purpose of meeting her lover. Lucius pleads with Photis to give him some of the potion and show him how to use it. She does, but oops! She gives him the potion that turns him into a donkey by mistake.

The cure for the curse is for him to eat roses, and he is about to when a gang of robbers breaks into the house, stealing everything of value, and Lucius the donkey. Now begins a series of unhappy events in which our Golden Ass is subjected to the worst treatment as he is captured, traded, auctioned, freed and then captured again by a series of preposterous characters.

A survey of some of his masters: the gang of bandits, who are eventually slain by the fiance of a girl taken hostage; the world's meanest shepherd boy, who is eaten by a bear; a traveling group of homosexuals who carry a statue of a goddess from town to town, fortune telling for money; more bandits; a miller who drives him near to death; and eventually a kindly man who realizes he can train the donkey to provide entertainment at wealthy people's parties. But the real nadir comes at the very end, when he is dragooned into participating in a grotesque execution of a woman who poisoned her family and several other people.

At this lowest point, he runs away, out of the arena, and ends up in a river, praying to the goddess Isis for deliverance. And she does! The final chapters of the book are his description of his initiation into the sacred rites of her cult, and how wonderful this is. Wow!

Throughout the main tale, Lucius is relating stories he hears from other characters. In a long digression, a woman tells the hostage girl the entire story of Cupid and Psyche- this is 45 pages of the book! Most of these stories, and indeed the main action of the plot, are salacious, horrible or hysterical, and often all of these at once. The closest modern analog to the content and tone of these episodes is the television show South Park.

Sarah Ruden, the translator, describes how weird Apuleius' Latin can be- our main character has a sort of peculiar mannerism, full of off-kilter similes, alliteration and puns. Other characters, depending on their station in life or national origin, may speak in highly exaggerated accents. She explains how the Bertie Wooster books by P. G. Wodehouse became a guiding light for what she was trying to achieve as she brings this book to life. Does she?

This is a tricky question. Readers of today will be able to place Bertie Wooster in a particular place and time, and will understand what a marvelous twit the man is, full of his own soup, he might say. Without a similar understanding of Apuleius' 2nd century A.D. setting, it is like watching a Japanese comedian doing an impression of a Japanese person from some rural province. You might see how exaggerated the caricature is, but fail to grasp the meat of it. 

Certainly, her prose is highly readable and sprightly. Consider this passage from the Cupid and Psyche tale, when an enraged Venus confronts Cupid, her son, who has been secretly romancing Psyche:

"Pretty classy goings-on, huh? A nice way to make your family look good! A testament to your maturity! First you stomp your mother's orders into the dirt- wait, you should consider me your mistress, not your mother. You refuse to torture my enemy with a liaison that's way beneath her. Instead, you- a boy your age!- take her in your out-of-control arms, which aren't ready. I was in a fight to the finish with a girl, and now I have to put up with her as my daughter-in-law? And what's more, you worthless, disgusting hound, you assume you're the only one fit to breed, as if I'm too old to have a baby. This is just to let you know: I'm going to have another son, much better than you, and to humiliate you even more I'm going to adopt one of the slaves born in my house, sign everything over to him: those wings and that torch, and that bow, and your actual arrows - all the tools of my trade, which I didn't give you to use like this. "

 I love everything about this speech.

Ruden's Lucius is a young, educated Roman citizen, full of earthy passions and a kind of easy charm. He explains how much he loves women's hair, for example, as he pursues Photis. "Oh, oh, and what about when hair's enticing color and brilliant shines is a sort of internal light and gives an active flash in answer to a sunbeam, or maybe a placid reflection, or else offers contrasting modulations of its attractions? One moment it is shimmering gold; the next, subtle, soft honey; or it starts off crow black under a man's gaze but then mimics the blue spangles on a pigeon's neck ... And mmm, when the hair's piled on top like a tight spray of buds, or when it flows all the way down the back in a lengthy braid? In short, hair holds the highest office..."

Photis responds eagerly to Lucius' advances: "You poor thing! Run as far away from my stovelet as your legs will carry you. If this petite flame of mine blasts on you for just a second or two, you'll be on fire in your guts, and nobody will be able to put it out except me. I know how to season a dish deliciously and shake a bed delectably."

The final chapters detailing his religious awakening and induction into the Isis cult at first seem out of left field- after all the outrageous goings-on, Lucius' sudden devotion to the goddess is curious. But this makes perfect sense when one realizes Apuleius' moral project. As he is transformed back into a man, a priest says to him,

"Lucius, you have scraped the bottom of many and various hardships. You were driven off course by great storms, gigantic cyclones of Fortune, but you have reached at last this haven of rest and alter of mercy. Neither your distinguished family nor your lofty rank, nor even the learning in which you excel, profited you in the slightest; no, the exuberance of your tender years tripped you up. You toppled among pleasures fit only for slaves and gained the sad reward for your unpropitious curiosity. Blind Fortune mangled you with the most painful trials, but she managed nevertheless, through a spite that could not make out what must come of its own maneuvers, to bring you to this holy bliss."

 And earlier on, as he witnesses a theatrical production of The Judgment of Paris, he remarks,

"Nowadays every man on every jury disposes of his vote as if in a market square, but what's so surprising in this, you scum of the earth - no, sheep of the courts; no, better: vultures in togas? At the dawn of creation, influence peddling sullied a judicial process involving both gods and mortals. The judge whom great Jove's counsel approved was a rural grazier who sold the world's first verdict to rack up erotic profit and destroy a whole race- to which he belonged! ... And what (I ask you) was the character of that notorious trial conducted by the Athenians, foundational lawgivers and our instructors in every academic discipline? Didn't a lying, two-bit cabal gang up, out of pure envy, on their sagacious, divinely inspired elder, whose wisdom the Delphic god judged superior to all other mortals'?"

The path of lust and greed leads to all the injustice and suffering Lucius encounters, in his view. As he is gradually purified through his initiation into the mysteries, he experiences the harmony and peace of the divine vision. In the end, "Soon, shaved to the skin again, I went joyfully about the duties of this venerable priesthood, founded in the time of Sulla. I did not cloak or conceal my baldness, wherever I went and whomever I met." Once, he was just an animal, the braying Ass, buffeted by Fortune and caring only for his material comfort, and now he has been elevated through his devotion to the status of Man.

For a fresh, original look (if over the top) at the Roman world in late antiquity, this highly enjoyable book will delight. The R-rated nature of the book puts this firmly in the "not for children" category, but any adult who partakes of this rollicking yarn should find much to appreciate.