Opening The Golden Ass — Apuleius in Plato Scroll…
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Apuleius · Stephen Gaselee (1915)
That I to thee some joyous jests may show in gentle glose, And frankly feed thy bended ears with passing pleasant prose: So that thou deign in seemly sort this wanton book to view, That is set out and garnished fine, with written phrases new. I will declare how one by hap his human figure lost, And how in brutish formed shape his loathed life he tossed. And how he was in course of time from such estate unfold, Who eftsoons, turned to pristine shape, his lot unlucky told. WHAT and who he was attend a while, and you shall understand that it was even I, the writer of mine own Metamorphose and strange alteration of figure. Hymettus, Athens, Isthmia, Ephyrus, Taenaros, and Sparta, being fat and fertile soils (as I pray you give credit to the books of more everlasting fame) be places where mine ancient progeny and lineage did sometime flourish: there I say, in Athens, when I was young, I went …
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