The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses)

knew his Ovid, as can be seen—to take one particularly striking example—in his portrayal of Psyche’s agonized indecision over whether to kill her husband (5.21 and note). It has never, on the other hand, been convincingly explained in what sense Lucius-as-ass is “golden”; the Latin word should connote worth or splendor, 31 not qualities which can plausibly be attributed to him. To Isis, the ass—identified in her cult with the malign Seth-Typhon, her enemy and the murderer of her husband Osiris—was a hateful beast (11.6); and Lucius’ behavior in that guise does nothing to redeem its reputation or his own character. The mischievous suggestion of Paula James that Apuleius’ (if it was his) alternative title for his book was not Asinus Aureus (“Golden Ass”) but Asinus Auritus (“the ass with ears”), the listening or attentive ass, 32 is perilously attractive. That would be in the best vein of Apuleian irony, the ambiguity of auritus underlining the contrast between the efficiency of Lucius’ ears as receptors (9.15) and his consistent inability to profit from what they tell him (and note).

To return to the author himself: After his brief and shadowy appearance in the Prologue, he becomes more or less invisible—apart from the joking apology for the language of Apollo’s oracle (above, §4) and occasional arch reminders of the literary quality of what the reader is enjoying (2.12, 6.25, 6.29, 8.1 and notes)—until the dream of the significantly named Asinius. To him it is revealed by Osiris himself that the candidate for the last and most important of his series of initiations is “a man from Madaura” (11.27). This offhand identification of Lucius with his creator has rattled scholars; some have even emended Apuleius’ text to eliminate it. Are we in fact obliged to take it seriously? Writers sometimes do this sort of thing just for fun. Evelyn Waugh’s novel The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold ends with “Pinfold” sitting down to record his adventures, and beginning by transcribing the title page and the first chapter-heading of the book that the reader has just come to the end of, minus in this case the name of the real author. This is a technically elegant device, a witty acknowledgment of what Waugh’s friends at least were well aware of, that the book was based on his own experiences. In the case of The Golden Ass, it is arguable that the author’s sudden appearance represents a variation on the common literary device of the so-called sphragis or seal, an allusive registration of authorship incorporated in the text of the book itself. 33 In other words, is this perhaps simply an arch way of saying “Apuleius wrote this book”? If so, he chose a way of doing so that was calculated, not merely to flutter the critical dovecotes centuries later, but to give his contemporary readers something to wonder about.