The Golden Ass

“One of her lovers had a wife who made a glib joke about this woman. The wife was already hauling around the baggage of a pregnancy, so this witch sewed her womb shut and held the fetus up, condemning the mother to perpetual expectancy. The consensus count says she’s carrying eight years’ worth of load, and she’s as swollen as if she were on the verge of giving birth to an elephant.”

Socrates’s tale of the witch Meroe’s villainy sets the book’s tone. Her magical revenge is at once grotesque, sinister, and comical—and prepares us to expect some cruel physical jokes. It’s also just one example of the book’s dizzying layers of story: This is a doubly-embedded interpolated story, a tale that Socrates tells Aristomenes and Aristomenes tells Lucius.

“‘I don’t hold anything to be impossible,’” I said. ‘Whatever strange way fate’s ordained, that’s how everything will turn out for those of us who are not gods. You and I and all other people experience things that are amazing, things that we’d almost say couldn’t be. When they’re told to somebody who wasn’t there, however, they lack credibility. But Hercules is my witness, I do believe our friend here, and here’s a thousand thanks for the lively wit of his narration. I, for one, got free of this grating, long-drawn-out road with no effort or tedium. I think even my transport here is happy. Without fatiguing him, I’ve conveyed myself clear to the city gate, not on his back, but on my own ears.’” 

Lucius is interested in magic and the impossible. But he’s also making a point here about the everyday magic of stories. The Golden Ass is in part a story about storytelling itself—and here, storytelling has magical properties for the traveler in particular, making a long hard journey short and easy.

“There wasn’t a thing I saw in that town whose identity I trusted: it must all be transmogrified, no exceptions, through some spectral hocus-pocus. I thought the stones I tripped over were petrified persons; that the birds I heard came from the same stock but now had wings; no less the trees skirting the city walls, before they found themselves covered in foliage; and that the streaming fountains were human bodies liquefied.” 

Lucius’s vision of metamorphoses foreshadows his own eventual transformation and asks us to consider the relationship between magic and art. This image of people transformed to stones, trees, and birds meets its reflection in the astonishingly lifelike statue of Diana Lucius sees at Byrrhena’s house. Here, people seem transformed into stones; there, stones seem transformed into living things. Both transformations are miraculous.

“[If] you were to take a superbly beautiful woman, sack her head of its hair and denude her face of its magnificent organic frame, she might have descended from heaven, emerged from the sea, she might be drawn from the waves—she might be Venus herself, with the whole band of Graces in attendance, with the whole race of Cupids in her train, wearing her own divine belt and radiating cinnamon and shedding balsam like dew: if she stepped forth bald, she would not even please her own husband, Vulcan.” 

Lucius’s rhapsody on the beauty of women’s hair—for which, he says, he’s always had a special taste—fits right in with his musings on storytelling and truth. Hair, in this image, is an essential embellishment to bodily beauty, the spice that makes the dish. The same could easily be said of Lucius’s exuberant, fanciful language.

“Up to this point, a portion of the audience had held out, devising ways to keep their laughter repressed, but now the blaze of amusement ran unchecked through the masses. Some people were delighted, exuberant in their excess amusement, while others clutched at their stomachs, trying to tamp down and tame the pain. Awash in glee, turning to gaze back at me, they made off out of the theater. As for me, from the moment I laid hold of that coverlet, I stood there cold as ice, solidified into concrete, no different from any of the statues or columns in the theater.” 

The people of Hypata play a horrendous trick on Lucius, making him believe he’s about to be tortured as a murderer—all in the name of the god Laughter. This moment recalls the earlier laughter at the mutilated Thelyphron, and hints that the luxuries, delights, and enchantments of Hypata come at a price. This mock trial—which takes place in a theater—suggests the emotional dangers of pretense and disguise, and thus of art!

“In that deathly workshop, she now began by deploying her usual equipment: she set out spices of all kinds, unintelligibly inscribed metal plaques, surviving segments of shipwrecks, and quite a few parts of corpses from funerals—and from actual graves: noses and fingers over here, over there nails from crosses, with the flesh still sticking on them; and over that way, preserved gore from massacres, plus crunched skulls ripped out of the jaws of wild beasts.” 

Pamphile’s love spell requires her to deal with the most gruesome (and unlovely) of materials. Much of the magic we see in the text has to do with dead bodies—ones either resurrected or used as material. Magic, this novel suggests, requires confronting death in its ugliest form.

“[M]y hair thickened into bristles, and my tender skin hardened into hide. On the edges of my palms, I saw the countable digits disappearing and melding into solid hooves. At the end of my spine, a big tail came forth. My face was already huge, with an elongated mouth, gaping nostrils, and dangling lips. Likewise, my ears covered themselves with spiky hair and reached a size beyond all reason. I could feel no comfort in my wretched metamorphosis, except that my endowment grew as well—beyond what would allow me to embrace Photis.” 

Lucius’s accidental metamorphosis into the “Golden Ass” of the title is comically grotesque. This mix-up is humbling, and maybe revelatory: In becoming a ridiculous brute, Lucius must surrender his looks, skill, and pride, and try to get by without the qualities he’s coasted on so far. In trying to use magic for his own purposes, he finds himself mastered by it.

“That time they certainly would have finished me off had not my belly, cramping from the pain of the blows, overflowing with those raw vegetables, and sick with the slippery flux that burst forth as from a water pipe, spattered some of them with fluid in its filthiest form, a liquid of last resort, while others were driven away from my battered withers by the stench of the stink of the reek.” 

This unsavory passage is a good example of the book’s quicksilver language. The translator of this version, Sarah Ruden, observes in her commentary that Apuleius’s original Latin is full of alliteration and enthusiastic, lively imagery. This passage has those qualities in spades.

“They brought her into the cave, trying to talk her out of her anguish: ‘Don’t worry, we won’t lay a hand on you, or your virginity; just be patient for a bit, until we make our margin. We’re only doing our job, and we wouldn’t have to do it if we weren’t so poor. Your parents are loaded—pretty tight-fisted, too—but they won’t drag their feet over paying a suitable ransom. You’re their own flesh and blood, after all.’” 

The bandits’ very reasonable consolations to the unfortunate young girl they kidnap suggest, at first, that they’re not such bad guys—and that they might have been driven to banditry by poverty. But their tone will change quite a bit when Charite tries to escape them and they threaten her with the most gruesome death they can think of. The bandits’ about-face might be a commentary on hypocrisy, but it might also gesture to the playful, fairy-tale qualities of this story: The bandits behave as the plot needs them to, not as consistent moral actors.

“He consulted the age-old oracle of the Milesian god, and with sacrifices and prayers besought this sublime being to grant a wedding—including a husband—for his depreciated daughter. Apollo is an Ionian Greek, but he did a favor for me, as the writer of a Milesian tale, by giving his answer in Latin.” 

Apuleius shows his hand a little here. The tale of Cupid and Psyche is told by an old woman, and this passage is purportedly in her voice—but here, the self-referential text reveals that it’s written, and written in the tongue Lucius happens to be writing in. This is one of the book’s most pointed gestures to its own layers of artifice.

“She saw a grove planted with lofty trees, and a fountain with its glassy, pellucid fluid. In the heart of the grove, where the fountain rose, was a royal mansion, built with divine skill by superhuman hands. When you first entered it, you recognized this as the resplendent, delicious retreat of some god. The paneled ceiling was carved in intricate citron-wood and ivory relief and upheld by gold columns. All the walls were covered with embossed silver depicting wild and domestic beasts, who faced those entering the building. Some downright remarkable man or, more likely, a demigod or—let’s say it—a god had with his sublime and subtle artistry not tamed but literally brutalized all this metal.” 

In the tale of Cupid and Psyche, Cupid isn’t just a lover, but a brilliant artisan. When he “brutalizes” metal, he makes it truly appear to be a brute, a wild animal! As the story often reminds us, the aim of art in ancient tradition was to compete with nature. And the idea that the god of love might also be the most talented of craftsmen suggests that such artistry is a genuine “labor of love.”

“Thus with all due ceremony Psyche came into Cupid’s possession, and when the time was ripe a daughter was born to them, whom we call Pleasure.”

The happy ending of the tale of Cupid and Psyche, in which the union of the god of love and the new-fledged goddess of the soul produces a child called Pleasure, is a good omen. Lucius’s story is about to get a lot grimmer, full of beatings and misery. But the central position of this happy story about finding union and creativity among the gods foreshadows Lucius’s own eventual induction into the cult of Isis: He too will find pleasure in a holy union after long struggles. 

“Fortune is blind—or in the learned writing and great art of old, Fortune is blind—or has her eyes gouged out, which gives us no hope she’ll ever see.” 

Fortune comes in for a good kicking all through The Golden Ass—but of course, she gives as good as she gets. This is just one of many passages in which Lucius laments Fortune’s notorious blindness and fickleness. But her ministrations also eventually lead him to a virtuous and joyful life, even if he has to go through hell first: Perhaps the blind goddess has a plan in mind after all.

“There I was, a free donkey at last, celebrating, capering, frolicking with supple steps, and proceeding to select the most suitable mares for my concubines. Yet even this fresh, cheerful hope led to doom and disaster.” 

Lucius’s misadventures after he escapes the bandits start to feel repetitive: just one terrible thing after another. This passage hints that part of Lucius’s struggle comes from his own donkeyish stubbornness and animal appetites. A womanizer as a human, he’d be a mare-izer as a donkey, if he could get away with it.

“So gradually did [Thrasyllus] maneuver that he went over the edge into a deep abyss of passion without even knowing it. No wonder: when cruel love is still only a little flame, its early heat’s a delight. But the fuel of the beloved’s steady presence makes it blaze up, and then there’s no controlling how hot it gets, and it reduces its victims to hunks of charred flesh.” 

The servant’s dire pronouncement here might serve as an epigraph to many of the novel’s interpolated stories. Love is one of the most powerful forces in the world—and not in a mindlessly happy way. Here, Apuleius really expands the common metaphor of passion-as-fire, reminding readers that fires destroy as well as warm.

“Raise your empty face, recognize vengeance, understand your catastrophe, add up your sufferings. This is all the pleasure a decent woman could get from your gaze. This is all the light that wedding torches can shed on your marriage bed. The avenging Furies will be your matrons of honor and blindness your best man, and you’ll feel the sting of conscience forever.” 

Charite’s dramatic vengeance speech strikes a stark tonal difference to many of Lucius’s bawdy stories. The tale of Charite, Tlepolemus, and Thrasyllus is pure tragedy. And in a comic context, it feels especially painful: readers who have felt cheered by Charite’s escape from the bandits and complacent about her happy-ever-after marriage to Tlepolemus will find this tale a real and affecting surprise. 

“It was my considered opinion that the legendary Pegasus was so flighty from fear and nothing else. This is the excellent basis for depicting him with wings, I thought: it’s from dread of the fire-breathing Chimera’s bite that he capers, springs into the air, and keeps going all the way to heaven.”

This irreverent analysis of the winged horse Pegasus is one good example of the way Lucius transforms internally as well as externally. By describing the sublime mount of the gods as a mere twitchy nag, Lucius makes the divine earthy—much as he did in the portrait of Venus as mother-in-law from Hell. These little jabs will make his eventual solemn encounter with the goddess Isis a stark contrast, the first time Lucius doesn’t laugh in the face of the gods.

“It was not for nothing that early on among the Greeks, when the godlike originator of poetry wished to illustrate a really superior intelligence, he sang about a man’s visiting many cities and getting to know various races, through which experiences he attained the highest excellence. I can now even feel a gracious gratitude toward my past as an ass because while his form was my secure covert, I could be drilled in many different contingencies and rendered well-rounded, if not wise.” 

This moment of self-awareness demonstrates how becoming a donkey changes Lucius for the better. It doesn’t just force him to confront the pain and labor he avoided as a rich kid. It also allows him to hear stories he’d never otherwise have heard—an education, the book implies, that would round anyone out. 

“So now, exemplary reader, take heed: this is high tragedy and not low comedy. Those clown shoes have exited the stage, and the lofty buskins loom above you.”

This caution is at once serious and ironic. Lucius is indeed about to tell a tragic tale of lust and murder. But he’s also already told a genuinely and affectingly tragic tale—the story of Charite and Tlepolemus—with no such fanfare. These words subtly undercut the sordid story we’re about to hear, suggesting that there actually is something grotesquely comical about it.

“Meanwhile, I was bloated with these generous suppers and crammed full with human food. My form was rounded out, plump, lardaceous; my hide softened by the juicy suet within, my hair lush and lustrous like a gentleman’s.”

The evocative assonance and alliteration in this passage help to create a vivid picture of Lucius’s newfound well-fed sleekness. The round “oo” sounds in “juicy suet,” for instance, suggest he’s rounded out wonderfully! These indulgent lines might well help readers to share some of the beleaguered Lucius’s relief at being comfortable at last.

“The whole world worships my power under an abundance of images, a variety of rituals, and an array of names. Thus the Phrygians, the first race to arise, call me the Pessinuntian mother of the gods; the Athenians, sprung primordially from their own soil, name me Cecropian Minerva […] and the Africans, and the Egyptians with their powerful, immemorial knowledge, worship me in ceremonies inherently mine and call me by my true name, Isis.” 

Isis’s self-introduction here prepares us for the seriousness of the book’s final chapter. Declaring herself a universally worshiped goddess (and observing that the Egyptians are most correct about her identity), Isis heralds the genuine faith that Lucius will find when he stops being an ass. The sharp tonal change at the end of the book suggests that Apuleius sees Lucius’s time as a donkey as a metaphor for a man’s naturally and comically “brutish” youth: When men grow up, he suggests, they have to figure out what they believe in beyond their own pleasure.

“Devote yourself obediently to our sect and take on the voluntary yoke of service. For when you become the goddess’s slave, you will know a still greater enjoyment of your freedom.” 

The metaphors in this passage suggest that Lucius’s long adventure as a donkey has taught him to be a better man. Taking on the “voluntary yoke of service,” he’s in a way choosing exactly what he was forced into as a donkey. Rather than unwillingly serving as a beast of burden, he’s now dedicating himself freely to a kind of service that liberates rather than imprisons. 

“For rendering you praise, my talent is paltry; for bringing you sacrifices, my fortune is petty. Nor do I have the lush eloquence to tell what I have experienced of your glory. Neither a thousand mouths nor as many tongues would suffice, nor an eternal, unwearying parade of speechmaking. But I will take care to do the only thing in the power of a man assuredly reverent yet poor. I shall picture to myself and guard forever with my heart’s inmost shrine your divine countenance and your most holy godhead.” 

Lucius’s paean to Isis suggests that he has found true faith, consolation, and humility in his devotion to this goddess. If this loquacious fellow lacks the “lush eloquence” to adequately praise the goddess, she must truly be magnificent: Lucius has never been at a loss for words before! There’s still a little twist of irony here: By saying that he doesn’t have words for Isis’s wonders, he’s actually finding just the right words to communicate awe.