The Golden Ass

Apuleius

After reading my poem on “Heer Ranjha, my appeal to Waris”, my father-in-law who is a very learned man recommended to me to read the story of ‘Cupid & Psyche’ in the book ‘The Golden Ass’.

‘The Golden Ass’ by Apuleius is an interesting read.

Apuleius adapted the story from a Greek original of which the author's name is said to be an otherwise unknown "Lucius of Patrae", also the name of the lead character and narrator. This Greek text by Lucian of Patrae has been lost, but there is Lucius the Ass, a similar tale of disputed authorship, traditionally attributed to the writer Lucian, a contemporary of Apuleius. This surviving Greek text appears to be an abridgment or epitome of Lucius of Patrae's text.

This novel was written in Latin in the second century AD. It is an imaginative and amusing work that relates the ridiculous adventures of one Lucius, a virile young man who is obsessed with magic. Finding himself in Thessaly, the "birthplace of magic," Lucius eagerly seeks an opportunity to see magic being used. His over-enthusiasm leads to his accidental transformation into an ass. In this guise, Lucius, a member of the Roman country aristocracy, is forced to witness and share the miseries of slaves and destitute freemen who are reduced, like Lucius, to being little more than beasts of burden by their exploitation at the hands of wealthy landowners.

The Golden Ass is the only surviving work of literature from the ancient Greco-Roman world to examine, from a first-hand perspective, the abhorrent condition of the lower classes. Yet despite its serious subject matter, the novel remains imaginative, witty, and often explicit. Numerous amusing stories, many of which seem to be based on actual folk tales are included within the main narrative. The longest of these inclusions is the tale of Cupid and Psyche, encountered here for the first but not the last time in Western literature.

Source: Wikipedia

Present-day relevant quotes from the book:

“then had I no small occasion to remember, how the old and ancient Writers did affirme, that fortune was starke blind without eies, because she alwaies bestoweth her riches upon evil persons, and fooles, and chooseth or favoureth no mortall person by judgement, but is alwaies conversent, especially with much as if she could see, she should most shunne, and forsake, yea and that which is more worse, she sheweth such evill or contrary opinions in men, that the wicked doe glory with the name of good, and contrary the good and innocent be detracted and slandred as evill.”

“It is but a folly to have such affiance in your riches, whereby you should use your tyranny against the poore, when as the law is common for all men, and a redresse may be had to suppresse your insolency.”