The Golden Ass

by

Apuleius

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Book 1 Quotes

Okay, let me weave together various sorts of tales, using the Milesian mode as a loom, if you will. Witty and dulcet tones are going to stroke your too-kind ears—as long as you don't turn a spurning nose up at an Egyptian papyrus scrawled over with an acute pen from the Nile. I’ll make you wonder at human forms and fortunes transfigured, torn apart but then mended back into their original state.

Related Characters: Lucius (speaker), Isis
Page Number: 1
Explanation and Analysis:

First of all, I swear to you solemnly by this Sun above, a god who sees everything, that the story I’m telling is true—and I ought to know. To do away with any doubts you may still have, when you come to the nearest town, which is where these events took place—and they took place out in public—you’ll find them under general discussion.

Related Characters: Aristomenes (The Wayfarer) (speaker), Lucius, Socrates, Meroe
Page Number: 4
Explanation and Analysis:

My dinner had consisted entirely of my own reports, so I was weighed down by weariness, not food, as I returned to my bedroom and surrendered to the repose I yearned for.

Related Characters: Lucius (speaker), Milo, Byrrhena
Related Symbols: Donkey
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2 Quotes

Well, I was a curious person. The moment I heard the word witchcraft, representing my lifelong aspiration, I shrugged off any need to play it safe with Pamphile.

Related Characters: Lucius (speaker), Photis, Pamphile, Milo
Related Symbols: Donkey
Page Number: 25
Explanation and Analysis:

“It’s true what you say,” I replied. “I don’t think I’ve felt freer anywhere else in the world. But I’m really scared of the black-magic profession lurking in obscure holes here—there would be no chance of spotting the places, and then no chance of getting away.”

Related Characters: Lucius (speaker), Byrrhena
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 3 Quotes

Dawn, her rose-colored arm shaking the reins over horses decked out in scarlet medallions, had just launched her chariot into the sky when Night ripped me from peaceful sleep and turned me over to Day.

Related Characters: Lucius (speaker)
Related Symbols: Roses
Page Number: 46
Explanation and Analysis:

Helplessly surveying this new body, I saw I was not a bird but a donkey. I wanted to complain to Photis, but human voice and gesture had been taken from me.

Related Characters: Lucius (speaker), Photis, Pamphile
Related Symbols: Donkey, Roses
Page Number: 62
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 4 Quotes

These, with their abundant leaves, look like laurels, and they produce, in the semblance of scented roses, oblong little cups, not quite up to scarlet in hue; they have no scent whatsoever, but in rustic parlance the untaught common people call them laurel roses. As food, these flowers are lethal to every kind of beast.

Related Characters: Lucius (speaker)
Related Symbols: Roses, Donkey
Page Number: 67
Explanation and Analysis:

In a certain city there lived a king and queen who had daughters three in number and illustrious in beauty. Though the two born first were quite gratifying enough to look at, praise and publicity on a mortal scale were held to be adequate for them. But the youngest girl’s gorgeousness was so extraordinary, so remarkable that the poverty of human speech prevented any proper description or even encomium.

Related Characters: Old Hag (speaker), Lucius, Psyche, Cupid, Charite (The Hostage), Milo
Related Symbols: Donkey
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 5 Quotes

But the instant the lamp elucidated the secrets of the bed to which she brought it, she saw the sweetest beast, the gentlest wild thing in the world, Cupid himself, that gorgeous god, at gorgeous rest.

Related Characters: Old Hag (speaker), Psyche, Cupid
Page Number: 106
Explanation and Analysis:

But from the time you were a toddler, you weren’t properly socialized.

Related Characters: Psyche, Cupid, Old Hag
Page Number: 112
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 6 Quotes

Believe me, I’m moved by your tearful pleas, and I’d like to be of service, but I can’t fall out with my kinswoman.

Related Characters: Ceres (speaker), Psyche, Cupid
Page Number: 116
Explanation and Analysis:

My daughter, no more moping from you. Have no anxiety for your family tree, sky-high as it is, or for your own prestige because of this marriage with a mortal.

Related Characters: Jupiter (speaker), Psyche, Cupid
Page Number: 130
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 7 Quotes

But she! As soon as she saw the young man and heard mention of a brothel and a pimp, she started to laugh and wiggle ecstatically, so I felt justified in condemning the entire sex… At that moment, the character of all women, as a class, was subject to a donkey’s censure.

Related Characters: Lucius (speaker), Charite (The Hostage), Tlepolemus (Haemus)
Page Number: 144
Explanation and Analysis:

But with lamentable dispatch, Fortune (you know her by now), who was inflexible in persecuting me, headed off such a convenient dodge and set up a new ambush for me.

Related Characters: Lucius (speaker), Ass-boy
Related Symbols: Donkey
Page Number: 155
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 8 Quotes

Leave off your troublesome weeping and your wailing so alien to my brave deeds. I have taken revenge on the gore-caked annihilator of my husband.

Related Characters: Charite (The Hostage) (speaker), Tlepolemus (Haemus), Thrasyllus
Page Number: 169
Explanation and Analysis:

Here, I remember, the greatest peril to my life was played out.

Related Characters: Lucius (speaker)
Related Symbols: Donkey
Page Number: 183
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 9 Quotes

At last, both tasks were completed, and the workman, beset by all misfortunes, had to carry the jar all the way to where the man who cuckolded him was staying.

Related Characters: Lucius (speaker), The Pauper’s Wife, The Pauper
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:

As the baker reviewed these indignities, his spouse, for whom insouciant arrogance was by this time second nature, called down curses on the fuller’s wife in the most hateful terms.

Related Characters: Lucius (speaker), The Baker, The Baker’s Wife, The Fuller’s Wife, The Fuller
Page Number: 204
Explanation and Analysis:

But the rich man’s mind was completely gone. He wasn’t the least bit intimidated, or even distracted, by the presence of so many fellow citizens.

Related Characters: Lucius (speaker), The Three Sons, The Farmer, The Landlord
Page Number: 212
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 10 Quotes

The slaves were brothers, and their master was quite a rich man. One of them was a pastry chef, who stylized breads and honeyed edibles; the other was a cook who flavored chunks of meat with succulent rubs and juices and tenderized them over the fire.

Related Characters: Lucius (speaker), The Two Brothers, The Soldier, Ass-boy
Related Symbols: Donkey
Page Number: 229
Explanation and Analysis:

But these fine—in fact excellent—arrangements, made with the purest intentions, couldn’t hide from Fortune, whose will was death. She prodded cruel Jealousy to head straight for the young man’s house.

Related Characters: Lucius (speaker), The Jealous Wife
Page Number: 237
Explanation and Analysis:

No one believed that such a tame ass needed any special supervision, so with slow, shifty steps I moved gradually away, got to the nearest gateway, and tore out of there at a full gallop.

Related Characters: Lucius (speaker), The Jealous Wife
Related Symbols: Donkey
Page Number: 247
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 11 Quotes

Lo, I come to your aid, Lucius, moved by your pleas—I, the mother of the universe, queen of all the elements, the original off-spring of eternity, loftiest of the gods, queen of the shades, foremost of the heavenly beings, single form of gods and goddesses alike.

Related Characters: Isis (speaker), Lucius, Osiris
Related Symbols: Donkey, Roses
Page Number: 251
Explanation and Analysis:

Soon, shaved to the skin again, I went joyfully about the duties of this venerable priesthood, founded in the time of Sulla. I did not cloak or conceal my baldness, wherever I went and whomever I met.

Related Characters: Lucius (speaker), Isis , Osiris
Related Symbols: Donkey, Roses
Page Number: 272
Explanation and Analysis:
No matches.