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The Metamorphoses, Book 1
Book 1 of Apuleius’ novel, Metamorphoses, exhibits the spontaneity and ebullience of Apuleius’ Latin as well as his ability to engage the reader with a lively story. This annotated edition • Introduction • Foreword, “Book One and Apuleius’ Metamorphoses,” by Stephen Nimis • Unadapted Latin text • Same-page vocabulary and grammatical/syntactical notes • Complete Latin-English vocabulary • Select bibliography of works in English
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 170
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About the author
Apuleius
424 books233 followersPeople best know
The Golden Ass
, work of Roman philosopher and satirist Lucius Apuleius.
Apuleius (Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis “Africanus”; Berber: Afulay) wrote Latin-language prose.
This Berber of Numidia lived under the empire. From Madaurus (now M'Daourouch, Algeria), he studied Platonism in Athens and traveled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt. Several cults or mysteries initiated him.
In the most famous incident in his life, people then accused him of using magic to gain the attentions and fortune of a wealthy widow. Apuleius declaimed and then distributed a witty tour de force in his own defense before the proconsul and a court of magistrates convened in Sabratha, near ancient Tripoli, Libya.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apuleius
Apuleius (Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis “Africanus”; Berber: Afulay) wrote Latin-language prose.
This Berber of Numidia lived under the empire. From Madaurus (now M'Daourouch, Algeria), he studied Platonism in Athens and traveled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt. Several cults or mysteries initiated him.
In the most famous incident in his life, people then accused him of using magic to gain the attentions and fortune of a wealthy widow. Apuleius declaimed and then distributed a witty tour de force in his own defense before the proconsul and a court of magistrates convened in Sabratha, near ancient Tripoli, Libya.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apuleius
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 7, 2008
Okay, so I’ve only read book one (of twelve), and it took me a good six weeks just to get that far, but The Golden Ass has already moved to the top of my personal canon of Roman literature, right up there with the Satyricon. Sure, Cicero and Virgil and those guys are just fine if you want the official, senatorial view of things, but they’re basically state writers; they always seem to be posing for their statues. To get a sense of how the Romans ate, talked and screwed – or better still, what they talked about when they screwed – you have to go to the novelists.
Unfortunately, Apuleius is the only one of these to have come down to us intact. Yet he’s such a polished stylist, his handling of narrative is so assured (check out the nested frame stories in Book One), that you get the impression he was working within an established novelistic tradition. You have to wonder, then, how much other great Roman fiction never made it out of the Middle Ages – wonder, and weep. It's as if some future civilization should know nothing of the English novel save Tom Jones and a few fragments of Ulysses.
One final point: the Penguin translation by Robert Graves gives a very misleading impression of Apuleius. The Latin original is written in a flashy, sophisticated idiolect. Parallels are silly, but try to imagine a Roman Nabokov. Graves puts this punning, euphonious prose into flat translator's English, arguing that 'the effect of oddness is best achieved in convulsed times like the present by writing in as easy and sedate an English as possible.' An ingenious rationalization, but I suspect Graves is making a virtue of his necessity here. I haven't looked into any other modern translations, but there must be more accurate ones available.
Unfortunately, Apuleius is the only one of these to have come down to us intact. Yet he’s such a polished stylist, his handling of narrative is so assured (check out the nested frame stories in Book One), that you get the impression he was working within an established novelistic tradition. You have to wonder, then, how much other great Roman fiction never made it out of the Middle Ages – wonder, and weep. It's as if some future civilization should know nothing of the English novel save Tom Jones and a few fragments of Ulysses.
One final point: the Penguin translation by Robert Graves gives a very misleading impression of Apuleius. The Latin original is written in a flashy, sophisticated idiolect. Parallels are silly, but try to imagine a Roman Nabokov. Graves puts this punning, euphonious prose into flat translator's English, arguing that 'the effect of oddness is best achieved in convulsed times like the present by writing in as easy and sedate an English as possible.' An ingenious rationalization, but I suspect Graves is making a virtue of his necessity here. I haven't looked into any other modern translations, but there must be more accurate ones available.
February 20, 2021
A rare piece of Latin reading in that it is both prose and fictional. This is a wildly funny and interesting story. I love the elements of social commentary and satire laced among the tales of magic and intrigue. Meroe stands out as a fascinating feminist character, demonstrating early archetypes which had not yet been realized at the time of Apuleius. Her use of magic in defiance of a social, patriarchal system stacked against her makes Aristomenes' story all the more interesting.
I was assigned to read The Metamorphoses for a class, but I have come to love the story for its creativity and involving plot. This is truly a forgotten masterpiece, and it deserves more interest from Latin students and scholars than it generally receives.
I was assigned to read The Metamorphoses for a class, but I have come to love the story for its creativity and involving plot. This is truly a forgotten masterpiece, and it deserves more interest from Latin students and scholars than it generally receives.
November 19, 2019
Omg this was so funny. I think you don't expect literature from 100 BC to be freaking hilarious but it is.
March 30, 2023
For some reason, this app’s classing May’s translation as the same as Ruebel’s even though they’re completely books.
Anyway, I decided to give an average rating of both of them.
May - good introduction and spread of translations and latin text. Also, good that it splits each chapter into line sections. However, on many occasions some sentences seem to miss out words and are more of a summary than a direct translation.
Ruebel - overall good but could be way better. He should follow the same structure; however his dictionary is good, although quite a few words don’t make sense in the context of Apuleius.
Anyway, I decided to give an average rating of both of them.
May - good introduction and spread of translations and latin text. Also, good that it splits each chapter into line sections. However, on many occasions some sentences seem to miss out words and are more of a summary than a direct translation.
Ruebel - overall good but could be way better. He should follow the same structure; however his dictionary is good, although quite a few words don’t make sense in the context of Apuleius.
April 23, 2012
Pretty easy to pick up and read with limited Latin knowledge since the notes and vocab in the back are quite extensive.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews