The Works of Apuleius (Golden Ass, God of Socrates, Florida, On the Doctrines of Plato)

"May I beg you to make me acquainted with your story? Not that I would be impertinently inquisitive, but I long to know everything, or at least as much as I can. Besides, some pleasant, amusing tales will smooth the ruggedness of this hill we are just ascending."

"Certainly," said the first speaker, "this lying story is about as true as if a person should assert that by magical mutterings, rapid rivers can be made to run backwards, the ocean congealed, the winds robbed of breath, the sun stopped in his course, the moon made to drop her foam,The ancients believed the moon shed a poisonous venom or foam that sorcerers could draw to earth through spells. This 'Lunar virus' was a key ingredient in magical compositions. the stars plucked from their spheres, the day annihilated, and the night indefinitely prolonged."

On this, assuming a confident air, I said, "Do not you, who began the story, regret having done so, nor think it a trouble to tell the remainder." Then, turning to the other, I said, "And you, who reject with dull ears and a stubborn disposition a statement of things which, perhaps, are true—you are little aware, by Hercules, by what perversity of opinion those things are thought to be lies which appear novel to the hearing, strange to the sight, or exalted beyond the range of thought. If you examine them attentively, you will find them not only clear to the senses but even easy to accomplish. Why, it was only last evening that, while I was trying to swallow too large a mouthful of cheesecake, I was all but choked by the glutinous morsel sticking in my throat. Yet, it was but very lately that at Athens, in front of the Poecile Portico,The 'Poecile Portico' comes from the Greek 'poikile,' meaning 'variegated' or 'painted.' It was an Athenian hall adorned with paintings by Polygnotus and Mycon, including a depiction of the Battle of Marathon. I beheld with these two eyes a jugglerThese performers were often called 'circulatores' because they exhibited in a ring of people, much like those of our day. swallow a horseman's two-edged broadsword, sharp..."