The Golden Ass of Apuleius: The Liberation of the Feminine in Man

202 Pages·1970·1.33 MB·English

by  Marie-Louise von Franz

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The Golden Ass of Apuleius
THE LIBERATION OF THE FEMININE IN MAN
MARIE-LOUISE VON FRANZ
Revised Edition
SHAMBHALA
Boulder
2017
SHAMBHALA PUBLICATIONS, INC.
4720 Walnut Street
Boulder, Colorado 80301
www.shambhala.com
© 1970, 1980, 1992 by Marie-Louise von Franz All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or
by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover art by Roberta Arenson LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Franz, Marie-Louise von, 1915– The golden ass of Apuleius: the liberation of the feminine in man I Marie-
Louise von Franz.—Rev. ed.
p. cm.
“A C. G. Jung Foundation book.”
eISBN 9780834840829
ISBN 9781570626111
1. Apuleius. Metamorphoses. 2. Apuleius—Knowledge—Psychology. 3. Femininity (Psychology) in
literature. 4. Archetype (Psychology) in literature. 5. Metamorphosis in literature. 6. Sex role in literature.
7. Men in literature. I. Title.
PA6217.F7 1990 89-43309
873’.01—dc20 CIP
BVG01
CONTENTS
Preface to the Revised Edition
Introduction
1. The Life and Times of Apuleius
2. The Two Companions and the Tale of Aristomenes
3. Lucius Meets Byrrhena, Photis, and Goatskins
4. The Ass
5. Amor and Psyche I
6. Amor and Psyche II
7. Psyche’s Tasks
8. Charite, Tlepolemus, and the Chthonic Shadow
9. The Ass in the Service of Many Masters
10. Lucius Returns to Himself
11. The Goddess Isis
12. Matter and the Feminine
Notes
Bibliography
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PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION
This book is neither a historical nor a literary essay. It represents an attempt to
elucidate and illustrate the problem of what C. G. Jung called the anima: that is,
the feminine aspect of a man’s psyche. The book originated in a series of
lectures I gave at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich in 1966. Instead of using case
material, I chose this novel of an ancient author because it illustrated the anima
problem in all its depth and in a way which is still valid for modern man.
The text of this book has almost suffered the fate of Lucius, the hero of
Apuleius’s story. In the various former editions, well-meaning editors improved
on the style so much that the meaning that I wanted to express got more and
more obfuscated and even partly distorted. In this revised edition I have tried to
restore the original text and enlarge it with some new passages. I want to express
my thanks to Dr. Manolis Kennedy for having translated the additions made in
the German edition and also to Miss Deirdre Bischofberger for the difficult
typing. My greatest gratitude, however, goes to Dr. Vivienne Mackrell, without
whose daily support and valued suggestions I could not have fulfilled my work.
INTRODUCTION
This celebrated novel by Apuleius of Madaura1 has always been the object of
contradictory evaluations. There are, we think, many different reasons for this:
some are inherent in the composition and the sources of the work itself, while
others come from the personality of the author.
This Latin text from the second century A.D. has baffled commentators, for it
seems to have been written according to two plans. It tells one main story, that of
Lucius and his transformations, interspersed with a number of tales which, from
a purely rational and superficial point of view, do not appear to have much in
common with the adventures of the hero. What we know of the novel’s
background explains and confirms this impression of duality, for it is not an
entirely personal creation. The author was inspired by a lost text attributed to
Lucius of Patrai, and the text itself was taken from a destroyed original Greek
text that had also served as a model for The Ass, a novel written by a pseudo-
Lucian. There was thus a collection of novels by various authors which later
disappeared and which are thought to have been in the style of Boccaccio’s
Decameron or Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. All these earlier collections
contained neither the tale of Amor and Psyche nor the initiation into the Isis
mysteries that are so important in Apuleius’s book.2 Apuleius has not only added
two significant passages but has probably also transformed, at least partially, the
original stories to adapt them to their new context. In spite of using many older
stories, Apuleius has actually created a completely new book with a completely
new inner message.
From a literary standpoint, one will notice that the work is complicated by its
affected style and its many plays on words. Knowing nothing of its cultural
background, one would think its language to be that of a neurotic, but it simply
corresponds to the so-called Milesian style, which Apuleius probably acquired in
the course of his studies.3 In its content the book shows certain Don Quixotish
characteristics, with an admixture of occultism. The composition has often been
criticized, since the author, instead of taking the trouble to introduce an
incidental story logically, generally is content with something like, “This
reminds me of a juicy story. . . .” This sort of loose composition gives one the
impression of a certain abaissement du niveau mental.4 It is possible that
Apuleius, being a successful writer and lecturer, composed the novel in great
haste and that his unconscious had therefore a hand in composing the story, in
other words, that he followed a train of associations, a chain of creative fantasies
whose meaning goes much deeper than even he himself knew.5 This seems to me
to explain in part the conscious-unconscious duality of the composition.
This novel, as I have said, has had a considerable amount of commentary,
ranging from extreme admiration to complete scorn. According to some authors,
Apuleius does little more than compile a poor collection of anecdotes, already
known for the most part, while the whole of the work seems to be no more than
satire or frivolous amusement. It is to his credit that Karl Kerényi, who dedicated
the major part of his study to the story of Amor and Psyche,6 recognized its
value and religious depth. After Kerényi, Reinhold Merkelbach realized for the
first time that the book as a whole has a deep religious meaning which
increasingly reveals itself toward the end.7 Merkelbach, however, did not
analyze the book in its entirety. One needs the key of Jungian psychology and
knowledge of the unconscious in order to follow the inner process of psychic
development which the author describes in his book. It then reveals itself to be a
completely coherent whole.
In some older translations, a good number of the work’s erotic anecdotes are
omitted. Some modern versions, on the other hand, have preserved the sexual
passages but have suppressed the initiation mysteries, considering them to be a
useless addition that does not correspond to the spirit of the rest of the work.
Erudite authors have even attempted to prove that the last book, the eleventh, the
initiation into the Isis mysteries, had been added perhaps by another author or by
Apuleius himself in a later part of his life.8
There we touch on the most difficult problem of the proximity of sexual
passion and its accompanying spiritual, religious experience. On the one hand,
many differentiated religions stress the contrast of sexuality and spirituality, as
the existence of many ascetic and monastic institutions proves. On the other
hand, however, the orgiastic character of numerous religious rituals proves that
the deepest root of sexuality and religious ecstasy seems to be one. It is also well
known that many Christian saints lived a riotous life before their conversion.
Apuleius’s work contains both poles of these opposites and sheds new light on
this fundamental problem.9
Another source of difficulty which troubles most commentators is that,
ignoring the psychology of the unconscious, they suppose that Apuleius
consciously introduced all the symbolic allusions present in the novel. This, as I
said earlier, does not seem probable. I am convinced that Apuleius intentionally
slipped in many symbolic ideas, but that others flowed unconsciously from his
pen. Where Apuleius consciously placed certain symbolic motifs in his story,
one could be justified in treating them allegorically, in the Platonic sense of the
term: as a profound philosophical significance hidden beneath the symbolic
image.10 In support of this thesis, Merkelbach remarked that Apuleius attributed
significant names to almost all of his characters. Similarly, it was certainly by
design that he chose to transform Lucius into an ass, for Seth, the enemy of Isis
and Osiris, was frequently represented in this animal form. To live the life of an
ass thus signifies, as Merkelbach emphasizes, enduring “a life without Isis.” But
from the fact that certain symbolic elements have been consciously introduced in
his story, one need not deduce that Apuleius wrote this novel without the
inspiration of the unconscious. The contribution of the unconscious to this work
is all the more probable since we know that he experienced a profound religious
conversion. As the word indicates, conversion signifies a sudden and radical
change of personality, as was the case with Saint Paul and Saint Augustine.11
Such changes are abrupt only in appearance, and thanks to depth psychology, we
can watch their preparation in the unconscious. It is a common occurrence in
analytical practice to see the appearance in dreams of symbolic themes tending
toward a psychic development often not realized for several months, or even
years. In certain cases of neurotic psychic dissociation, it is common for a
subject to lead two lives: the one conscious, on the surface, and another which is
secretly developed on a deeper unconscious level. Conversion corresponds to the
moment at which the two unite.
Jung thought very highly of The Golden Ass and several times suggested that I
look at it more closely. I must say that at first I did not know how to approach it.
I understood from the outset that all parts of the book were absolutely essential
and inseparable and that, thanks to the key of Jungian psychology, a coherent
interpretation was possible. But somehow I did not know how to get at it, until at
last I discovered a very simple trick—though perhaps it is a bit more than a trick.
I took a pencil to try to find out the composition of the book. I first wrote out
what the hero, Lucius, experienced in the “I” form, that is, his experience of
being changed into an ass and all his unfortunate adventures until he is
redeemed. I cut out the inserted stories for the moment so as to get one coherent
line. Then I made the following discovery: one can make a dividing line, and
above the line write all of the story that happened to Lucius, and below the line
all the inserted tales. Between these two classifications I drew a zigzag line, the