Apuleius: Apology and Florida

translation in natural English. I can only trust that the English of this translation has not wholly lost the colour to which Apuleius Lucius Apuleius (c. 124 – c. 170 AD), a Platonic philosopher and rhetorician from North Africa owes so much of his charm. The sacrifice is not so great in these works referring to the specific collection of Apuleius's speeches or treatises in this volume as it must necessarily be in any English translation of the more exotic and more brilliant-hued Metamorphoses meaning "Transformations", better known as The Golden Ass the only ancient Roman novel to survive in its entirety, famous for its story of a man turned into a donkey. But in any case the cooler tints and sobriety of our native language must—even in hands less unskilled than mine—fail to do justice to the fantastic Latin of the original. The vivacity of French coupled with the richness and warmth of Italian would need to be combined to produce anything approaching a really good translation, even of the least fantastic works of Apuleius.