The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which Augustine of Hippo referred to as The Golden Ass (Latin: Asinus aureus),St. Augustine, The City of God 18.18.2 is the only ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in its entirety.
The protagonist of the novel is Lucius.The Golden Ass 1.24 At the end of the novel, he is revealed to be from Madaurus,The Golden Ass 11.27 the hometown of Apuleius himself. The plot revolves around the protagonist's curiosity (curiositas) and insatiable desire to see and practice magic. While trying to perform a spell to transform into a bird, he is accidentally transformed into an ass. This leads to a long journey, literal and metaphorical, filled with inset tales. He finally finds salvation through the intervention of the goddess Isis, whose cult he joins.
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 158–159, or as the climax of his literary career, and perhaps as late as the 170s or 180s. Apuleius adapted the story from a Greek original of which the author's name is said to be an otherwise unknown "Lucius of Patrae", also the name of the lead character and narrator.
This Greek text by Lucius of Patrae has been lost, but there is Lucius or the Ass (, Loukios ē onos), a similar tale of disputed authorship, traditionally attributed to the writer Lucian, a contemporary of Apuleius. This surviving Greek text appears to be an abridgement or epitome of Lucius of Patrae's text.Lucius, or The Ass, English translation at attalus.org
Manuscripts The Metamorphoses has survived in about 40 manuscripts, all or almost all of which are descendants of codex Laurentianus 68.2 (also called F in critical apparatuses), an extant 11th-century manuscript produced in Monte Cassino. Editors of the text have therefore seen it as their goal to apply textual criticism to this particular manuscript, ignoring the rest except for occasional consultation. The text is characterized by a number of non-standard spellings, notably the frequent interchange of the letters b and v.
Plot Book One
Lucius, the narrator, introduces himself as a Greek of Attic, Corinthian, and Peloponnesian ancestry, related to the philosophers Plutarch and Sextus of Chaeronea. While journeying to Thessaly on business, he overhears a fellow traveler, Aristomenes, being rebuked by a friend for telling fantastical stories. Lucius, a lover of the marvelous and arcane, intrudes on the conversation and cautions the friend not to dismiss things outside the scope of daily experience; Aristomenes is induced to retell his story, which involves witches and intensifies Lucius's desire to learn about magic. At Hypata, Lucius presents a letter of introduction to his hosts Milo and Pamphile, who prove to be miserly moneylenders living in an almost-empty house. Their serving girl Photis takes Lucius to the baths, after which he goes to the marketplace and is overcharged for some fish. One of the market officials is his old friend Pytheas, who has his attendants trample on Lucius's fish in a misguided attempt to humiliate the merchant who sold them. Lucius returns empty-handed, and, after an evening of answering Milo's tedious questions about his life, his friends, and his wanderings, goes to sleep hungry.
Book Two
The next morning Lucius encounters his aunt Byrrhena. She urges him to leave his current hosts, since Pamphile is a witch who plans to seduce him, but the news only stimulates Lucius's desire to see real magic. He decides to make an ally of Photis, whom he finds attractive anyway; at their next meeting the two banter and then have sex. Later Byrrhena invites Lucius over for dinner, informing him that it is the eve of a local festival for the God of Laughter. A fellow guest named Thelyphron relates an encounter with witches, who cut off his nose and ears. Drunkenly returning to Milo's house in the dark, Lucius discovers three strange, bulky figures trying to break in. He strikes them down with his sword and goes to bed.
Book Three
The next morning, Lucius is arrested for the murder of the three men. His trial takes place before an enormous audience and proceeds towards a guilty verdict with bewildering swiftness, until his "victims" are revealed to be three puffed-up wineskins and he is released. Photis privately explains that Pamphile wished to cast a spell summoning Lucius to a tryst, and demanded a piece of his hair. Instead Photis provided hair clipped off some animal hides; the spell caused the hides, since made into wineskins, to come to life and invade Milo's house, where Lucius stabbed them. Knowing only that Lucius drunkenly attacked the skins, the townspeople have subjected him to a giant prank to celebrate the Festival of Laughter. Later that day, Lucius and Photis spy on Pamphile as she turns herself into a bird. Lucius begs Photis to repeat the spell on him, but she botches it and turns him into an ass instead. Only eating a fresh rose will restore his human form. Photis hides him in the stable and promises to find a rose for him by morning. During the night Milo's house is raided by a band of thieves; needing a pack animal to help carry their plunder, they take Lucius away with them.
Book Four
On a break in his journey with the bandits, Lucius the ass trots over to a garden to munch on what seem to be roses (but are actually poisonous rose-laurels) when he is beaten by the gardener and chased by dogs. The thieves reclaim him and he is forced to go along with them; they talk about how their leader Thrasileon has been killed while dressed as a bear. The thieves also kidnap a rich young woman, Charite, who is housed in a cave with Lucius the ass. Charite starts crying, so an elderly woman who is in league with the thieves begins to tell her the story of Cupid and Psyche.
Psyche is the most beautiful woman on earth, and Venus jealously arranges for Psyche's destruction, ordering her son Cupid to arrange for her to fall in love with a worthless wretch. An oracle tells Psyche's parents to expose her on a mountain peak, where she will become the bride of a powerful, monstrous being. Psyche is left on the mountain, and carried away by a gentle wind.
Book Five
The elderly woman continues telling the story of Cupid and Psyche. Cupid, Venus's son, secretly protects Psyche; Cupid becomes Psyche's mysterious husband, who is invisible to her by day and visits her only at night. Psyche's jealous sisters arouse her curiosity and fear about her husband's identity; Psyche, against Cupid's commands, looks at him by lamplight which wakes Cupid; Cupid abandons Psyche, who wanders in search of him, and takes revenge on her wicked sisters.
Book Six
The elderly woman finishes telling the story of Cupid and Psyche, as Psyche is forced to perform various tasks for Venus (including an errand to the underworld) with the help of Cupid and an assortment of friendly creatures, and is finally reunited with her husband. Then Jupiter transforms Psyche into a goddess. That is the end of the tale. Lucius the ass and Charite escape from the cave, but they are caught by the thieves and sentenced to death.
Book Seven
A man appears to the thieves and announces that he is the renowned thief Haemus the Thracian, who suggests that they should not kill the captives but sell them. Haemus later reveals himself secretly to Charite as her fiancé Tlepolemus, and gets all of the thieves drunk. When they are asleep he slays them all. Tlepolemus, Charite and Lucius the ass safely escape back to the town. Once there, the ass is entrusted to a horrid boy who intends to castrate him but the boy is later killed by a she-bear. Enraged, the boy's mother plans to kill the ass.
Book Eight
A man arrives at the mother's house and announces that Tlepolemus and Charite are dead, caused by the scheming of the evil Thrasillus who wants Charite to marry him. After hearing the news of their master's death, the slaves run away, taking the ass Lucius with them. The large group of travelling slaves is mistaken for a band of robbers and attacked by farmhands of a rich estate. Several other misfortunes befall the travelers until they reach a village. Lucius as the narrator often digresses from the plot in order to recount several scandal-filled stories that he learns of during his journey. Lucius is eventually sold to a gallus priest of Cybele. He is entrusted with carrying the statue of Cybele on his back while he follows the group of priests on their rounds, who perform ecstatic rites in local farmsteads and estates for alms. While engaging in lewd activity with a local boy, the group of priests is discovered by a man in search of a stolen ass who mistakes Lucius' braying for that of his own animal. The priests flee to a new city where they are well received by one of its chief citizens. They are preparing to dine when his cook realizes that the meat that was to be served was stolen by a dog. The cook, at the suggestion of his wife, prepares to kill Lucius in order to serve his meat instead.
Book Nine
Lucius' untimely escape from the cook coincides with an attack by rabid dogs, and his wild behavior is attributed to their viral bites. The men barricade him in a room until it is decided that he is no longer infected. The band of galli eventually pack up and leave.
The narrative is interrupted by the Tale of the Wife's Tub.
Soon after, the galli are accosted by an armed troop who accuse them of stealing from their village temple, and are subsequently detained (with the treasures returned). Lucius is sold into labor, driving a baker's mill-wheel. Lucius, though bemoaning his labor as an ass, also realizes that this state has allowed him to hear many novel things with his long ass ears.
The Tale of the Jealous Husband and the Tale of the Fuller's Wife mark a break in the narrative. The theme of the two intervening stories is adultery, and the text appropriately follows with the adultery of the baker's wife and the subsequent murder of the baker.
Lucius the ass is then auctioned off to a farmer. The Tale of the Oppressive Landlord is here told. The farmer duly assaults a legionary who makes advances on his ass, Lucius, but he is found out and jailed.
Book Ten
Lucius comes into the legionary's possession, and after lodging with a decurion, Lucius recounts the Tale of the Murderous Wife. He is then sold to two brothers, a confectioner and a cook, who treat him kindly. When they go out, Lucius secretly eats his fill of their food. At first a source of vexation, when the ass is discovered to be the one behind the disappearing food it is much laughed at and celebrated.
Again he is sold, and he is taught many amusing tricks. Rumor spreads, and great fame comes to the ass and his master. As it happens, a woman is so enamored with the sideshow ass that she bribes his keeper and takes Lucius the ass to her bed. Lucius is then scheduled to have sex in the arena with a multiple murderess before she is to be eaten by wild beasts; the Tale of the Jealous Wife tells her backstory.
After an enactment of the judgment of Paris, and a brief digression on philosophy and corruption, the time comes for Lucius to make his much-anticipated appearance. At the last moment he decides that copulating with such a wicked woman would be repugnant to him, and, moreover, the wild beasts would likely eat him along with her; and so he runs away to Cenchreae, eventually to nap on the beach.
Book Eleven