Apuleius - Metamorphoses

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THE 'METAMORPHOSIS OF APULEIUS.
Of this Re-i~sueo n& boo copies have been
printed: 500 of which are on thick a~rtiqge
p@ev, and loo on a special' Dutch hand-made
paper, each cojy numbered.
September, 1893.
BIRMINGHAM :
W. J, COSBY, UNIVERSAL PRESS, MOOR STREET.
THE
METAMORPHOSIS,
GOLDEN ASS,
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL LATIN,
BY
THOMAS TAYLOR.
L< Platonic2 familig nihili novimur nisi fcrtum, et I=tum, tt aoleme, et
superurn, et ezleste. Quin altitudinis ctudio, zecta ista etiarn czlo ipso
.;ublimiora quaepiam restigavit, et in extimo mundi tergo dcgit."
APUL. Apd.
LONDON:
SOLD BY ROBERT TRIPHOOK, 23, OLD BQND STREET;
AND THOMAS RODD, 17, LITTLE NEWPORT STREET.
~822,

INTRODUCTION.
APULIEUS,
the celebrated author of the following
work, is undoubtedly the greatest of the ancient
Latin Platonists, a portion of whose writings have
been preserved to the present time ; and though,
in consequence of living at a period in which the
depths of the Platonic philosophy had not been
fathomed, and its mysteries luminously unfolded,
as they afterwards were by certain Coryphzan
Greeks,~h e is not to be classed among the chief
of the disciples of Plato, yet he will always main-
tain a very distinguished rank among those who
have delivered to us the more accessible parts of
that philosophy with consummate eloquence, and
an inimitable splendour of diction.
Of his life,' scarcely anything more of import-
ance is known, than the particulars respecting him-
self which may be collected from his works, and
I i.e. Greeks who philosophized in the highest perfection ; for
such irleIl are called by PlaLo, in the Theretetus, Coryphaean philo-
sophers. But the Greeks I allude to are, Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamb-
lichus, Syrianus, Proclus, Damascius, and Olympiodorus.
2 In this sketch of the life of Apuleius, I have availed myself of
all the most interesting particulars collected by Bayle, in his excellent
Dictionary.
vi.
INTRODUCTION.
these are as follow : He lived in the second century,
about the time of Antoninus Pius, and was a native
of Madaura, a Roman colony in Africa, and hence,
in his Apology, he calls himself a semi-Gaetu1i:tn
and a semi-Numidian, because the place of his
birth was situated on the very confines of Numidia
and Gaetulia. His family was of considerable rank ;
for his father, whose name was Theseus, had exer-
cised at Madaura the office of duumvir, which
was the first dignity of a colony ; and his nlother.
whose name was Salvia, was originally of Thes-
saly, and descended from the family of Plutarch.
He appears to have been well instructed in all
the liberal disciplines of the Greeks, to have been
graceful in his person, and to have abounded in
wit and learning. Hence, speaking of his literary
attainments, he says, in his Florida, " The first
cup of knowledge which we receive from our
preceptors removes entire ignorance ; the second
furnishes us with grammatical learning ; the third
arms us with the eloquence of the rhetorician.
Thus far many drink. Hut I drank of other cups
besides these at Athens ; of poetry, the fabulous ;
of geometery, the limpid ; of music, the sweet ; of
dialectic, the rough and unpleasant ; and of uni-
versal philosophy, the never-satiating and nec-
tareous cup. "
He studied first at Carthage, then at Athens,
and afterwards at Rome, where he acquired the
INTRODUCTION. vii.
Latin tongue without any assistance, as he him-
self informs us at the beginning of his Metamor-
phosis. An ardent desire of becoming acquainted
with all the arcana of philosophy, and all the mys-
teries of religion, induced him to make several
voyages, and enter himself into several religious
fraternities. He spent nearly the whole of his
estate in travelling; so that, having returned to
Rorne, and being desirous of dedicating himself
to the service of Osiris, he wanted money to
defray the expenses of the ceremonies of his re-
ception. Hence he was under the necessity of
parting with his clothes to make up the requisite
sum. After this he procured the means of sub-
sistence by pleading ; and, through his eloquence
and skill, was not in want of causes, some of
which were of great importance. He restored
his fallen fortune, however, much more by a
lucky marriage than by forsenic harangues. A
widow, whose name was Pudentilla, neither
young nor fair, but who stood in need of a hus-
band, and had a good estate, thought Apuleius
adapted to her purpose. The accuser of Apuleius,
as we learn from the Apology, affirmed she was
sixty years of age ; but his design in asserting
this was to prove, that the passion she had con-
ceived for the accused was not natural, but the
effect of magic. Apuleius made it appear, that
she was not much above forty years of age, and
viii.
INTROTIUCTION.
that if she had passed fourteen of those years in
a state of widowhood, it was not fro111 any aver-
sion to matrimony, but from the opposition of her
father-in-law to it; and that at length celibacy had
so far impaired her health, that the physicians and
midwives were of opinion, that the best remedy
for the diseases which were the consequence of it
was wedlock. The argument einployed by Apu-
leius on this occasion was, that a lady so advised,
and who had no time'to lose, if she desired to
make the best use of her teeming years, wanted
not to be constrained by magic art to make choice
of a spouse. This rich widow Apuleius cheer-
fully married, at a country house near Oea, a
maritime town of Africa. This marriage involved
him in a troublesome lawsuit ; the relations of
this lady's two sons pretending that he had em-
ployed magic to possess himself of her money
and her heart. Hence they accused him of being
a wizard, before Claudius Maximus, the proconsul
of Africa. From this charge he defended himself
with great ability and vigour, as is evident from
the Apology, that is still extant, which he de-
livered before his judges.
He was also extremely laborious, and wrote
many books, some in verse, and others in prose ;
of which but a small part has escaped the ravages
of time. Hence, in his Apology, in answer to his
adversary, on the subject of eloquence, he says :
ix.
INTRODUCTION.
" As to eloquence, if ever I had any, it ought not
to appear to be either wonderful or odious, if,
having from my youth to this time strenuously
applied myself to the study of literature, spurning
all other pleasures, with greater labour, perhaps,
than was ever employed by any other man, by
day and by night, I have endeavoured to obtain
it, with the contempt and loss of my health."
He delighted in making public speeches, in which
he gained the applause of all his auditors. When
they heard him at Oea, the audience unanimously
exclaimed, that he ought to be honoured with the
freedom of the city.3 'The people of Carthage, on
hearing him harangue, erected a statue of him,
as a testimony of their esteem of his talents ; and
he was honoured in the same way by other cities.-+
It is said by Siclonius Apollinaris, that his wife
held the candle to him while he studied ;s "but
this," says Bayle, " must not, I think, be taken
literally, it is rather a figure of Gallic eloquence."
It has been above observed, that he wrote
many books. Indeed, it may be said, as Bayle
remarks, that he was an universal genius, as there
are but few subjects which he has not handled.
Hence, he translated the Phado of Pluto, and the
A rithmefzt of A/zco?izachus. He wrote a treatise
3 See his Apology, p. 320. 4 See his Florida, p. 355.
5 Legentibus meditantibusque candelas et candelabra tenue-
"
runt." Sido~i.A pollin. Epist. X. 1. 2.
X. INTRODUCTION.
De Rejuddzca, another De Nameris, and another
Uc Mmica. His Table-Q2lestions are quoted, and
also his Letters to CereClia, his Proverbs, his fir-
maxoras, and his Lztdicra. This last work he
mentions himself: " They read," says he, " in my
Ludicra, a short epistle in verse, concerning a
powder for the teeth."
The works of Apuleius which have escaped
the ravages of time are, his Metamov~hosir,o r,
as it is generally called, The Golden Ass, in eleven
books ; his Treatises of Natural and Moral Phil-
o; f
osojhy ; the Cateporic Syllogism; and o f
the God of Socrates. And besides this there
are extant, his ApoZopy, his Florida, and his
treatise De Mundo, which is nothing more than
a translation from the Greek of a treatise with the
same title which is generally ascribed to Aristotlen6
The Latin translation also of the Asclepian Dia-
logue of Hermes Trismegistus, is attributed to
Apuleius ; and though it is entirely destitute of
that splendour of diction which so eminently dis-
tinguishes the writings of our author, yet it is not
improbable that it is one of his productions ;
since a translator, if he is faithful, will not only
give the matter, but the manner also, of his
original.
6 This treatise I have translated in vol, ix. of my translation of
kristotle's works.