Apuleius' Metamorphoses
Liber II: 1-8
[1]AS NIGHT FIRST DISPERSED, A new sun made the day, and having been raised from both sleep and the cot, anxious in general and excessively longing for learning what things are rare and wonderful, and considering that I had the thick of Thessaly, where local songs of magical arts are celebrated with the harmonious mouth of the whole world, and considering that story of my best companion, Aristomenes, having been wrested from the site of this city, otherwise in suspense and also with a wish and eagerness, I considered each thing carefully. There was not anything in that city looking to be what I believed it was, but absolutely everything had been transformed into some likeness by deadly hubbub, so that the stones which I was meeting were out of man having been solidified, and the birds which I was hearing were from the same source, having been covered with feathers, and the trees which encircled the pomerium were similarly having been covered with leaves, and the water I was believing flowing fountains were from human bodies; now statues and pictures were going to walk, the walls were going to talk, the cattle and other animals of that kind were going to speak prophecy, indeed from the sky itself and from the orb of sunshine suddenly an oracle would come.
[2]Thus inspired-rather, certainly astounded by torturous desire, indeed with no beginning or entirely no trace of my longing having been discovered, yet I made the rounds of everything1. While I roam around from door to door one by one as in the magnificence of a playboy, suddenly not knowing, I brought myself into the forum2. And behold, I catch some woman surrounded by a crowd of servants walking in the same place with an accelerated step. The gold in her jewelry and in her tunics, there winding , here interwoven, revealed her as the wife to a successful man. An old man now heavy in years clung to her side, who, as he first saw me, “It is,” he said, “by Hercules, it’s Lucius,” and offers a kiss, and at once mumbled an uncertain something in the ear of the woman. “Why don’t you,” he says, “approach and greet you own family yet yourself?” “I fear,” I say, “the woman is unknown to me,” and at once colored red, I stood firm with my head flung down3.
But she, having turned a stare on me, “Look,” she says, “the noble uprightness of his most venerable mother Salvia. But the rest of his body is bitterly in good proportion to precision [with which they fashion something as carefully as with a ruler]: a tallness not ill-fitting, succulent slenderness, a moderate blush, blonde and natural hair, blue eyes it is true, but awake and twinkling in a glance, absolutely of an eagle, a face in every way blooming, a walk handsome and unintentional4.”
[3]And she added, “I, o Lucius, raised you with these very hands of mine-why not?-I’m a companion of your mother’s, not only of blood, but of rearing. For we are both descended from the family of Plutarch, and we drank the same nurse at the same time, and we thrived together in the bond of sisterhood. Nor does anything more than rank separate us, because she made a most famous marriage and I made a private marriage. I am that Byrrhena, whose name often by chance among your fosterers you remember frequently. And so come to my hospitality with confidence. Truly rather, come now to your very own hearth.”
To this, I, now with the blush having been dispersed by the delay of her conversation, “It would be inappropriate,” I say, “Aunt, that I should desert my host Milo without any grievance. But certainly, what can be effected with my duties unaffected, I will see to diligently. Whenever a reason for this route arises, it will never be that I should not stay with you.”
While we argued this and the conversation of this kind, with very few steps having been completed, we arrived to Byrrhena’s home.
[4]The house was by far the most beautiful with columns standing in four places for every single corner held statues aloft, the faces of the excellent goddess, who with wings disentangled, without a step touching the unsteady track of a spinning globe with her dewy soles. They were not stuck that they should stay and they would even be thought to turn. Look! the Parian marble having been made into Diana5 holds the cleared middle of the whole place, a perfectly bright statue, with dress blown back, vigorous with respect to its charge, ready to meet people entering and with the revered majesty of divine power. Otherwise, dogs protected the sides of the goddess on either side, which dogs were marble themselves. Their eyes threaten, their ears stand stiff, their nostrils gape, their faces are violent, and, if from some place nearby barking will have broken out, you will think it to pour out from marble jaws; and-in which that illustrious sculptor produced the greatest example of a craftsman’s work-with the dogs having been lifted with chests in the air, the lower feet stand still, the forward run. Behind the goddess’ back rises a rock in the manner of a cave, with mosses and grasses and leaves and little twigs and vine tendrils wheresoever and little trees elsewhere blooming from the marble. Beneath the lowest edge of the stone fruit trees and polished grapes are hanging most skillfully, which art rivaling nature unfolded the same as in real life. You would think a certain one to be able to be plucked for food from it, when autumn full of unfermented wine will have blasted mature color, and if you, stooping, should look at the spring, which running up and down is flicked by the footsteps of the goddess in a gentle wave, you would believe those hanging bunches as in the country among the rest of real things and not to be without the function of motion. Among the middle leaves of the marble, the image of Actaeon6, prostrate with a curious fixed gaze towards the goddess, now brutish, he is seen in stag and in stone at the same time and waiting for Diana washing in the spring.
[5]While I, examining, again and again extraordinarily delighted, “They are yours,” says Byrrhena, “all which you see.” And when this had been said she begins to leave all the rest for the purpose of a secret conversation. When everyone had been dismissed, “By this goddess,” she says, “o dearest Lucius, how anxiously with fear for you and how with my power I desire the foresight of a sign for you, beware, but beware bravely the evil arts and wicked enticements of that Pamphile, who was married to that Milo, whom you call host. She is believed to be magical of the first order and master of every sepulchral song, who with shouts and stones and trifling things of this sort having been breathed on she knew how to plunge all the light of the stars in to the depths of the Tartaran world and into ancient Chaos. For as soon as she has seen some young man of beautiful form, she is taken up by his attractiveness and immediately she turns both eye and mind on him. She weaves flatteries, she enters his mind, she binds him with the eternal shackles of profound love. Then she transforms the less compliant and the cheap with contempt into rocks and into cattle and whatever animal, having been poked7, but others she utterly destroys. I recommend this woman be avoided by you, frightened. For this one burns continuously, and you are fit on account of age and beauty for her.” Uneasily enough Byrrhena shared these things with me.
[6]But curious otherwise, as I first heard this always desired name of “the magic art”, I was so far from being cautious of Pamphile that by all means willing, I would be delighted to surrender myself of my own accord to such instruction with great price and cause myself to dive straight into the abyss itself with a leap. At last hasty and senseless of my mind, I unfetter myself from her hand as if from some chain and with, “Farewell!” hastily having been added, I fly out swiftly to the lodging of Milo. And while I hasten like the step of an insane man, “Go,” I say, “o Lucius, watch and be mindful of yourself. You have a longed-for opportunity and with the long wish, you will be able to fill up your chest with amazing tales. Remove childish fears, engage zealously hand to hand with the thing itself, and indeed refrain from the amorous tie of your hostess and, conscientious, admire the marriage bed of honest Milo, yes but certainly the servant Photis should be sought earnestly. For her form is pretty and she is playful in manners and a little smart all together. Also last night, when you were retiring to sleep, and she led you into the little room politely and arranged you seductively in the little bed and lovingly enough, she covered you and, having kissed your head, she revealed with her face how unwilling she was leaving, finally, often she, looking backwards, stayed behind. Which good, fruitful and favorable thing therefore, it is permitted if it will not be welcome, let that Photis be attacked.”
[7]Disputing these thing with myself, I approach Milo’s doors and, as they say, I make my way in my opinion with my feet8. Nor yet do I come upon Milo or his wife at home, but only my dear Photis. She was preparing entrails cut up as stuffing and lean meat chopped up into bits, […]9 and juicy, what already I was foretelling from there with my nostrils, a most extremely flavorful sausage. She herself was wrapped neatly with a linen tunic and with an outstanding red ribbon tucked up rather high under her breasts, she was whirling that little food dish in a circle with flowery palms, and tossing it repeatedly in twisting orbits and at the same time gently giving a smooth motion to her own limbs, tentatively with waving loins, shaking her nimble spine properly pleasingly she moves in waves. Bewitched by that very sight, I was paralyzed and marveling, I stood; and they stood, which members were lying idle before10. And finally to her, “How beautifully and how delightfully,” I say, “my Photis, you twist that little pot with your ass! What sweet food you prepare! Lucky and more certainly blessed, to whom you will have permitted to dip a finger in there11.”
Then she, in any case says charming and sarcastic things, “Go away, little love-sick boy, as far away as possible from my fire, go away. For if my little flame should blow on you only slightly, you will be burned intimately nor will anything extinguish your passion except I, who, sweetly seasoning both pot and cot, I know how to cause you to tremble pleasantly.”
[8]While saying these things she looked back on me and smiled. And still I did not depart sooner than I was diligently exploring her every appearance. What do I say about the rest, when always the sole concern to me has been the head and hair, diligently and publicly first to consider and to enjoy fully afterward at home, and the reasoning of this opinion may be in my care certain and decided: for instance, because that particular part of the body placed first in the open and clearly visible presents itself to our eyes, and because the cheerful color of a pretty garment on the rest of the limbs, the natural healthy glow on this head performs; finally most women going to show their own natural quality more pleasing , they strip off all garments, they dismiss their little friends, they themselves are itching to offer their own nude attractiveness, going to be pleasing more from skin with a red blush than from a garment with golden color. But truly-what is a crime to say, and what may there not be any so dire example of this thing!-if you should have stripped the head of whichever exceptional and most beautiful woman you wish from her hair and you should bare the face from its innate appearance, even if Venus herself I say she were, even if crowded around by an entire chorus of Graces and accompanied by an entire nation of Cupids and wreathed by her own belt 12, burning with cinnamon and dripping with balsam, she should have advanced with a bald head, she would not be able to please even her own Vulcan13.
1 I can’t make heads or tails of this either, though I’m sure it made sense when I first translated it.
2 The forum of things wanted or things needed, as before.
3 The Romans were very strict about pudor (showing shame or any emotion, really) among elite men. This blush would be damning in Rome. The implication here is literary (see next note).
4 These are all marks of Greek and Roman beauty. Mediterranean people were (and are) very short, usually peaking at about 5 feet. Tallness was generally a disagreeable trait, though heroes are all towering giants. Anorexia was also unfavorable, but one could be too robust as well, the blush refers to that pudor I mentioned but also to the effect youth has on young skin: you get flower blossoms on your cheeks. Blonde isn’t really blonde like we know it. It’s a brown that’s less black. “Blue eyes” is deceiving as well. We can’t actually translate color words in Latin and Greek because they had a different sense of color than we do. They could be grey eyes, like the grey of the gleam of the underside of an olive leaf, or they could be blue like some glint in the sea when the storms roll in, or…yeah…you see? Lucretius has a fun tirade about this traits of beauty in De Rerum Natura It may have been adapted from a tirade from Simonides about kinds of women.
5 Goddess of the hunt (and a million other girlier things).
6 Hunter who catches Diana bathing in the forest. He is turned into a stag and eaten by his own dogs. Diana is a maiden (virgin) goddess, so it’s a sacrilege to see her naked or to attempt to rape her, etc.
7 I can only take this to mean that she pokes them to transform them, but…I dunno….
8 I guess the senate used to vote this way. Nay stepped to one side of the senate house or a line or something and Yea went to the other side. I guess.
9 The missing word is undeniably corrupt and indecipherable. While I’ve got a note here, we really have no idea what she’s cooking. It’s like I said with their interpretation of colors. Though we do have ancient cookbooks. Or so I hear.
10 Oh yeah. It’s biznass, it’s biznass time.
11 If ya know what I mean. ; )
12 Venus has a lust-inspiring belt Hera cleverly uses on Zeus in…either The Odyssey or The Iliad, naturally.
13 Her less-than-attractive god of ironworks husband (who later catches her with the god of war and divorces her…go figure).
[1]AS NIGHT FIRST DISPERSED, A new sun made the day, and having been raised from both sleep and the cot, anxious in general and excessively longing for learning what things are rare and wonderful, and considering that I had the thick of Thessaly, where local songs of magical arts are celebrated with the harmonious mouth of the whole world, and considering that story of my best companion, Aristomenes, having been wrested from the site of this city, otherwise in suspense and also with a wish and eagerness, I considered each thing carefully. There was not anything in that city looking to be what I believed it was, but absolutely everything had been transformed into some likeness by deadly hubbub, so that the stones which I was meeting were out of man having been solidified, and the birds which I was hearing were from the same source, having been covered with feathers, and the trees which encircled the pomerium were similarly having been covered with leaves, and the water I was believing flowing fountains were from human bodies; now statues and pictures were going to walk, the walls were going to talk, the cattle and other animals of that kind were going to speak prophecy, indeed from the sky itself and from the orb of sunshine suddenly an oracle would come.
[2]Thus inspired-rather, certainly astounded by torturous desire, indeed with no beginning or entirely no trace of my longing having been discovered, yet I made the rounds of everything1. While I roam around from door to door one by one as in the magnificence of a playboy, suddenly not knowing, I brought myself into the forum2. And behold, I catch some woman surrounded by a crowd of servants walking in the same place with an accelerated step. The gold in her jewelry and in her tunics, there winding , here interwoven, revealed her as the wife to a successful man. An old man now heavy in years clung to her side, who, as he first saw me, “It is,” he said, “by Hercules, it’s Lucius,” and offers a kiss, and at once mumbled an uncertain something in the ear of the woman. “Why don’t you,” he says, “approach and greet you own family yet yourself?” “I fear,” I say, “the woman is unknown to me,” and at once colored red, I stood firm with my head flung down3.
But she, having turned a stare on me, “Look,” she says, “the noble uprightness of his most venerable mother Salvia. But the rest of his body is bitterly in good proportion to precision [with which they fashion something as carefully as with a ruler]: a tallness not ill-fitting, succulent slenderness, a moderate blush, blonde and natural hair, blue eyes it is true, but awake and twinkling in a glance, absolutely of an eagle, a face in every way blooming, a walk handsome and unintentional4.”
[3]And she added, “I, o Lucius, raised you with these very hands of mine-why not?-I’m a companion of your mother’s, not only of blood, but of rearing. For we are both descended from the family of Plutarch, and we drank the same nurse at the same time, and we thrived together in the bond of sisterhood. Nor does anything more than rank separate us, because she made a most famous marriage and I made a private marriage. I am that Byrrhena, whose name often by chance among your fosterers you remember frequently. And so come to my hospitality with confidence. Truly rather, come now to your very own hearth.”
To this, I, now with the blush having been dispersed by the delay of her conversation, “It would be inappropriate,” I say, “Aunt, that I should desert my host Milo without any grievance. But certainly, what can be effected with my duties unaffected, I will see to diligently. Whenever a reason for this route arises, it will never be that I should not stay with you.”
While we argued this and the conversation of this kind, with very few steps having been completed, we arrived to Byrrhena’s home.
[4]The house was by far the most beautiful with columns standing in four places for every single corner held statues aloft, the faces of the excellent goddess, who with wings disentangled, without a step touching the unsteady track of a spinning globe with her dewy soles. They were not stuck that they should stay and they would even be thought to turn. Look! the Parian marble having been made into Diana5 holds the cleared middle of the whole place, a perfectly bright statue, with dress blown back, vigorous with respect to its charge, ready to meet people entering and with the revered majesty of divine power. Otherwise, dogs protected the sides of the goddess on either side, which dogs were marble themselves. Their eyes threaten, their ears stand stiff, their nostrils gape, their faces are violent, and, if from some place nearby barking will have broken out, you will think it to pour out from marble jaws; and-in which that illustrious sculptor produced the greatest example of a craftsman’s work-with the dogs having been lifted with chests in the air, the lower feet stand still, the forward run. Behind the goddess’ back rises a rock in the manner of a cave, with mosses and grasses and leaves and little twigs and vine tendrils wheresoever and little trees elsewhere blooming from the marble. Beneath the lowest edge of the stone fruit trees and polished grapes are hanging most skillfully, which art rivaling nature unfolded the same as in real life. You would think a certain one to be able to be plucked for food from it, when autumn full of unfermented wine will have blasted mature color, and if you, stooping, should look at the spring, which running up and down is flicked by the footsteps of the goddess in a gentle wave, you would believe those hanging bunches as in the country among the rest of real things and not to be without the function of motion. Among the middle leaves of the marble, the image of Actaeon6, prostrate with a curious fixed gaze towards the goddess, now brutish, he is seen in stag and in stone at the same time and waiting for Diana washing in the spring.
[5]While I, examining, again and again extraordinarily delighted, “They are yours,” says Byrrhena, “all which you see.” And when this had been said she begins to leave all the rest for the purpose of a secret conversation. When everyone had been dismissed, “By this goddess,” she says, “o dearest Lucius, how anxiously with fear for you and how with my power I desire the foresight of a sign for you, beware, but beware bravely the evil arts and wicked enticements of that Pamphile, who was married to that Milo, whom you call host. She is believed to be magical of the first order and master of every sepulchral song, who with shouts and stones and trifling things of this sort having been breathed on she knew how to plunge all the light of the stars in to the depths of the Tartaran world and into ancient Chaos. For as soon as she has seen some young man of beautiful form, she is taken up by his attractiveness and immediately she turns both eye and mind on him. She weaves flatteries, she enters his mind, she binds him with the eternal shackles of profound love. Then she transforms the less compliant and the cheap with contempt into rocks and into cattle and whatever animal, having been poked7, but others she utterly destroys. I recommend this woman be avoided by you, frightened. For this one burns continuously, and you are fit on account of age and beauty for her.” Uneasily enough Byrrhena shared these things with me.
[6]But curious otherwise, as I first heard this always desired name of “the magic art”, I was so far from being cautious of Pamphile that by all means willing, I would be delighted to surrender myself of my own accord to such instruction with great price and cause myself to dive straight into the abyss itself with a leap. At last hasty and senseless of my mind, I unfetter myself from her hand as if from some chain and with, “Farewell!” hastily having been added, I fly out swiftly to the lodging of Milo. And while I hasten like the step of an insane man, “Go,” I say, “o Lucius, watch and be mindful of yourself. You have a longed-for opportunity and with the long wish, you will be able to fill up your chest with amazing tales. Remove childish fears, engage zealously hand to hand with the thing itself, and indeed refrain from the amorous tie of your hostess and, conscientious, admire the marriage bed of honest Milo, yes but certainly the servant Photis should be sought earnestly. For her form is pretty and she is playful in manners and a little smart all together. Also last night, when you were retiring to sleep, and she led you into the little room politely and arranged you seductively in the little bed and lovingly enough, she covered you and, having kissed your head, she revealed with her face how unwilling she was leaving, finally, often she, looking backwards, stayed behind. Which good, fruitful and favorable thing therefore, it is permitted if it will not be welcome, let that Photis be attacked.”
[7]Disputing these thing with myself, I approach Milo’s doors and, as they say, I make my way in my opinion with my feet8. Nor yet do I come upon Milo or his wife at home, but only my dear Photis. She was preparing entrails cut up as stuffing and lean meat chopped up into bits, […]9 and juicy, what already I was foretelling from there with my nostrils, a most extremely flavorful sausage. She herself was wrapped neatly with a linen tunic and with an outstanding red ribbon tucked up rather high under her breasts, she was whirling that little food dish in a circle with flowery palms, and tossing it repeatedly in twisting orbits and at the same time gently giving a smooth motion to her own limbs, tentatively with waving loins, shaking her nimble spine properly pleasingly she moves in waves. Bewitched by that very sight, I was paralyzed and marveling, I stood; and they stood, which members were lying idle before10. And finally to her, “How beautifully and how delightfully,” I say, “my Photis, you twist that little pot with your ass! What sweet food you prepare! Lucky and more certainly blessed, to whom you will have permitted to dip a finger in there11.”
Then she, in any case says charming and sarcastic things, “Go away, little love-sick boy, as far away as possible from my fire, go away. For if my little flame should blow on you only slightly, you will be burned intimately nor will anything extinguish your passion except I, who, sweetly seasoning both pot and cot, I know how to cause you to tremble pleasantly.”
[8]While saying these things she looked back on me and smiled. And still I did not depart sooner than I was diligently exploring her every appearance. What do I say about the rest, when always the sole concern to me has been the head and hair, diligently and publicly first to consider and to enjoy fully afterward at home, and the reasoning of this opinion may be in my care certain and decided: for instance, because that particular part of the body placed first in the open and clearly visible presents itself to our eyes, and because the cheerful color of a pretty garment on the rest of the limbs, the natural healthy glow on this head performs; finally most women going to show their own natural quality more pleasing , they strip off all garments, they dismiss their little friends, they themselves are itching to offer their own nude attractiveness, going to be pleasing more from skin with a red blush than from a garment with golden color. But truly-what is a crime to say, and what may there not be any so dire example of this thing!-if you should have stripped the head of whichever exceptional and most beautiful woman you wish from her hair and you should bare the face from its innate appearance, even if Venus herself I say she were, even if crowded around by an entire chorus of Graces and accompanied by an entire nation of Cupids and wreathed by her own belt 12, burning with cinnamon and dripping with balsam, she should have advanced with a bald head, she would not be able to please even her own Vulcan13.
1 I can’t make heads or tails of this either, though I’m sure it made sense when I first translated it.
2 The forum of things wanted or things needed, as before.
3 The Romans were very strict about pudor (showing shame or any emotion, really) among elite men. This blush would be damning in Rome. The implication here is literary (see next note).
4 These are all marks of Greek and Roman beauty. Mediterranean people were (and are) very short, usually peaking at about 5 feet. Tallness was generally a disagreeable trait, though heroes are all towering giants. Anorexia was also unfavorable, but one could be too robust as well, the blush refers to that pudor I mentioned but also to the effect youth has on young skin: you get flower blossoms on your cheeks. Blonde isn’t really blonde like we know it. It’s a brown that’s less black. “Blue eyes” is deceiving as well. We can’t actually translate color words in Latin and Greek because they had a different sense of color than we do. They could be grey eyes, like the grey of the gleam of the underside of an olive leaf, or they could be blue like some glint in the sea when the storms roll in, or…yeah…you see? Lucretius has a fun tirade about this traits of beauty in De Rerum Natura It may have been adapted from a tirade from Simonides about kinds of women.
5 Goddess of the hunt (and a million other girlier things).
6 Hunter who catches Diana bathing in the forest. He is turned into a stag and eaten by his own dogs. Diana is a maiden (virgin) goddess, so it’s a sacrilege to see her naked or to attempt to rape her, etc.
7 I can only take this to mean that she pokes them to transform them, but…I dunno….
8 I guess the senate used to vote this way. Nay stepped to one side of the senate house or a line or something and Yea went to the other side. I guess.
9 The missing word is undeniably corrupt and indecipherable. While I’ve got a note here, we really have no idea what she’s cooking. It’s like I said with their interpretation of colors. Though we do have ancient cookbooks. Or so I hear.
10 Oh yeah. It’s biznass, it’s biznass time.
11 If ya know what I mean. ; )
12 Venus has a lust-inspiring belt Hera cleverly uses on Zeus in…either The Odyssey or The Iliad, naturally.
13 Her less-than-attractive god of ironworks husband (who later catches her with the god of war and divorces her…go figure).