The Golden Ass

by Peter Singer

  “Many of our brave comrades were inspired to volunteer and assume the clever disguise, but Thrasyleon was the band’s first choice, so he undertook the gamble of this risky device. He concealed himself calmly in the skin, which fit him easily and was soft and pliable. Then we matched up the edges and made a fine seam, covering the gap at the juncture, even though it was small, with the dense hair around it. We forced Thrasyleon’s head up through the neck to the edge of the throat where the bear’s neck had been slashed, and made little holes for breathing and seeing around the nose and eyes. Then we led our brave comrade, who had totally become a beast, to a cage that we bought for a modest price. He crept in quickly with resolute vigor. After this beginning, we turned to the next steps of our ruse.

  “After scouting around, we found the name of a certain Nicanor, a Thracian, who enjoyed a close friendship with Demochares. We fabricated a letter from him stating that his good friend wanted to dedicate the first fruits of his hunting expedition to embellishing the gladiatorial show. When evening came, we took advantage of the cover of darkness and offered Thrasyleon in his cage to Demochares, along with the forged letter. He admired the size of the beast and was pleased by the timely generosity of his old friend—so pleased that he ordered that we who had brought him this delight should be awarded ten gold coins from the cash-box he had at hand. Then, since a thirst for novelty and new sights tends to attract the minds of men toward sudden apparitions, a large crowd gathered to admire the beast. But our comrade Thrasyleon very cleverly impeded their curious gaze by frequently rushing at them menacingly. The citizens declared with one voice that Demochares was happy and blessed, since after such a terrible loss of his beasts, he had somehow stood up to Fortune with this new acquisition. Demochares meanwhile ordered the beast to be taken out into the fields with the utmost care. But I interrupted: ‘Be careful, sir, of exposing a bear already tired out from a long, hot journey to the company of many others who, I hear, are not well. Instead, why don’t you seek out an open and airy spot—maybe something cool, near a lake? Don’t you know that this kind of beast always makes its lair amid lush groves, dewy caves, and pleasant springs?’ Demochares was terrified by my warnings as he considered the number of bears he had lost, and easily agreed to let us put the cage where we thought best. ‘In addition, we are prepared to sleep the night right here beside the cage so that we can offer this bear its usual food and drink at the right time, seeing as how it is very tired from the discomfort of heat and jostling.’ ‘We don’t need this kind of help from you,’ he answered. ‘By now pretty much my entire household is practiced in feeding bears after doing it every day.’

  “After this, we said our farewells and left through the city gate, where we spied a tomb well off the road and set in a hidden spot. There were coffins, their lids half open due to rot and time, which the dead inhabited, now just dust and ash. We forced open some of these for storing the loot ahead. Then, according to the guiding principles of our profession, we awaited the moonless time of the night when sleep in its first onslaught invades and presses most forcefully on the hearts of men. Our division was stationed right in front of Demochares’s door, armed with swords, as a surety (so to speak) of larcenous success. Thrasyleon, too, seized the precise pillaging moment of the night, crept out of his cage, and swiftly finished off every one of the guards with his sword as they lay sleeping nearby. Then he killed the doorkeeper as well, took his key, and threw open the doors of the gate. We rushed in, and when we had been received into the belly of the house, he showed us the storeroom where he had keenly noted a large quantity of silver being stored that evening. When our band had broken into the room through force and teamwork, I ordered each of our troops to carry off as much gold and silver as he could and to hide it quickly in those tombs of the trustworthy dead, and then to speed back and get another load. Meanwhile, in the interests of all, I would remain by myself near the threshold of the house to keep a careful eye on everything until they returned. For the sight of a bear running around in the middle of the house seemed enough to scare away anyone in the household who might wake up. Who, in short, no matter how strong and fearless, would not be roused to flight by the enormous shape of such a giant beast, especially at night, and would not shut himself in his room in fear and trembling and lock the door?

  “All these plans had been organized with robust deliberation, but an unfortunate event intervened. For while I was anxiously awaiting the return of my comrades, some slave boy was awakened by a noise—or maybe by divine intervention—and stealthily crept out and saw the beast running freely about the whole house. Keeping a strict silence, he retraced his steps and managed to alert everyone on the premises to what he’d seen. At once, the whole homestead was teeming with its numerous inhabitants. Torches, lamps, wax candles, tallow candles, and other devices for lighting up the night illuminated the shadows. No one in this large crowd came out unarmed, but each one, equipped with clubs, spears, and even drawn swords, guarded the entrances. They even brought on their hunting dogs, long-eared and shaggy, to subdue the beast.

  “At that point, with the uproar growing exponentially, I retreated backward from the house, but I watched Thrasyleon admirably fighting off the dogs, as I lurked behind the door. Although he was facing life’s ultimate finish line, he did not fail to remember himself, our band, and his valor of olden times, while he wrestled against the gaping jaws of Cerberus.*

  “As long as he still breathed, he maintained the role he had assumed; now fleeing, now standing his ground, taking on various ursine poses and movements, he finally slipped out of the house. But even when he had gained freedom out in the open streets, he still could not seek safety in flight, for all the dogs from the next alley—fierce and numerous—joined in hordes with the hunting dogs that had just left the house in pursuit. It was a wretched and deadly spectacle that I watched: our own Thrasyleon surrounded and besieged by packs of savage dogs and lacerated by persistent biting. Finally, unable to bear the sight of such pain, I mingled in the crowd that was milling about and tried in the only way I could to bring concealed help to my comrade-in-arms—I harangued the leaders of the bear hunt: ‘What a great scandal and disgrace! We are destroying a magnificent and truly valuable beast!’

  “But the artfulness of my speech did nothing to help that most unfortunate youth, for someone ran out of the house, a tall and strong man, and without hesitation thrust a spear through the bear’s innards, then someone else and soon many others. No longer afraid, they rivaled each other, even getting up close and stabbing with their swords. Finally, it was not for lack of endurance that Thrasyleon, that incomparable jewel of our band, was defeated, but his spirit, worthy of immortality, gave out. Nor did he betray the covenant of our sacred oath with shouting or wailing, but with his usual strength, as he was ripped by teeth and pierced with swords, he endured his present fate with determined roaring and animal growling. Glory he kept for himself, while rendering his life unto Fate. Still, he had thrown the town into such turbulent terror and trembling that no one dared to touch the beast, lying dead as it was, up till dawn and well into the next day—not even with a finger. At last, someone a little braver cut open the belly of the beast with a knife, slowly and fearfully, and stripped the splendid robber of his bear. Thus Thrasyleon perished from our company, but he has not perished from the annals of glory.

  “And so, we gathered up those parcels that we had hidden with the trustworthy dead and quickly left the city limits of Plataea, meditating on this idea: there is a reason that no loyalty can be found in this life. Loyalty has left us for the dead, hating our cheating and lies. It is thus that we come to you, worn out by carrying this load and by the ruggedness of the road, and saddened by the loss of our companions. But look—here’s the loot we brought.”

  When he had finished speaking, they poured out libations of undiluted wine from gold cups in memory of their fallen comrades, then sang some flattering songs to the god Mars, and went to sleep. For us, the old woman I have a
lready mentioned dished out fresh barley without even measuring, so that my horse must have thought he was dining on a ten-course meal. He got sole possession, as I had never been in the habit of eating barley unless it was crushed fine and cooked for a long time until it was mush. So I rummaged around the corner where they piled the leftover bread, and vigorously exercised my jaws, which were weakened by incessant hunger and full of cobwebs.

  But as the night wore on, the robbers suddenly woke up. They broke camp and equipped themselves in various ways: some carried swords, some moved along lightly disguised as demons. As for me, not even profound sleepiness could get in the way of my urgent and unstoppable munching. Before, when I was Lucius, I would leave the table satisfied with one or two rolls, but now I was serving such a bottomless stomach that I was grazing on my third bushel. I was still frantically at work when the bright light of day surprised me.

  In the end, I was driven by shame of an ass’s sort, to tear myself away from the bread (but it was difficult!) and quench my thirst in a nearby stream.

  Soon the robbers were back, more anxious and agitated than usual. They weren’t carrying any sacks of plunder, not even a worthless rag. There, for all their swords, for all the power of all those hands and the collective strength of their whole company, was the only thing they had brought back: a single girl, ladylike in appearance. You could tell by her elegant clothes that she was from one of the region’s best families. This was a girl desirable even to an ass like me, by Hercules! She was wailing and tearing her hair and her clothes, so they brought her inside the cave and tried to lessen her troubles, saying, “Don’t worry about your safety and chastity. Just be patient long enough for us to get some benefit off this; the constraints of poverty have driven us to this calling. I’m sure your parents, with all their wealth, will quickly come up with a substantial ransom for their own flesh and blood, stingy though they are.”

  They said these and similarly useless things that did nothing to soothe the girl’s pain. Obviously not. She rested her head in her lap and wept constantly. So they called in the old woman and instructed her to sit by the girl and comfort her with gentle and friendly conversation as best she could while they turned to the business of their profession. But still the girl couldn’t be distracted from the weeping she’d begun. Rather, she increased her lamenting, her sides shaking with ceaseless sobbing. She even brought me to tears. And she spoke: “How can I stop crying, or even keep living, deprived of such a grand home, so many servants, such dear slave children, and such blessed parents? Poor me! The prize of unfortunate plunder, a possession, closed up in this stone prison like a slave, deprived of all the sweet pleasures I was born to and raised on! So many, such awful robbers—a horrifying band of cutthroats!”

  She cried like this until she was so tired out from her unhappy thoughts, the strain on her voice, and the weariness of her body that she finally closed her drooping eyes in sleep. But she didn’t sleep for long. She had just closed her eyes when she was suddenly jolted out of sleep and began to strike herself more and more violently, like a madwoman, beating her breast with self-injurious hands and hitting her beautiful face. The little old woman immediately asked her why she had started up her mourning again, but she just sighed deeply and said, “Alas, now for sure I have totally perished; that’s it, I’m giving up all hope of rescue. I need a rope or a sword, or, best, a cliff to jump off!” But the old woman was furious and demanded, her face livid, what the hell she was crying about, and why, after a nice deep sleep, she was reopening her wounds and giving free rein to her laments: “I guess you intend to cheat my young men out of all that ransom money! The robbers and I, we don’t care about your tears. And if you keep this up, I’ll make sure you’re burned alive.”

  The girl was frightened by that and kissed the old woman’s hands, saying, “Spare me, good mother, and remember your human kindness; help me a little; this is a very difficult situation! I don’t imagine that pity has totally shriveled up inside you, even though you’ve grown older over your many years and your hair is a distinguished white. Consider the scene of my misfortune: an attractive young man, first among his peers, whom the whole city has adopted as their favorite son, my cousin in fact, a mere three years older, raised with me from infancy, then, when we were grown, inseparable from me—in the same house, the same room, and even the same bed. And he was pledged to me because of our mutual feelings of pure love, long ago engaged with nuptial vows, the formal terms of the dowry and marriage set, parents’ consent given. He was even called ‘husband’ in legal documents.

  “He was performing animal sacrifice in the temples and shrines of the town, surrounded by relatives from his side and mine. The whole house, alight with laurel torches, was singing the wedding hymn. Meanwhile, my poor mother was holding me in her lap and decking me out in my wedding dress, giving me tender kisses the whole time and repeating anxious prayers for children to come—when suddenly robbers rushed in and attacked savagely, flashing their bare, sharp swords; it looked like a battlefield! But they didn’t set their hands to slaughter or plunder; they packed themselves tightly together and went straight for my bedchamber. Nobody in the household fought back or even resisted at all when they seized poor me straight from my mother’s lap, fainting and shaking with terrible fear.

  “But just now, a cruel dream revived—or rather multiplied—my troubles. I dreamed I was violently torn from my home, my chambers, my bedroom, and my bed itself and was calling my unfortunate husband’s name through deserted and trackless realms. He was still dripping with aromatic nuptial oils and adorned with a garland, but when he saw he was bereft of my embraces, he came following in my footsteps as I fled on feet not my own. He cried out in distress and called the people to witness, lamenting that his beautiful wife was being taken from him. Then, one of the robbers, indignant at this inconvenient pursuit, grabbed a huge rock lying at his feet and struck my poor beloved young husband and killed him! It was this hideous spectacle that woke me terrified and trembling from my sinister dream.”

  * The quotations are from Robert Burns, Vachel Lindsay, and Dorothy Parker, respectively. Apuleius often adopts phrases from earlier Latin authors.

  * The phrase refers to the Roman practice of executing criminals by throwing them to the beasts in the arena.

  * Cerberus is the three-headed dog that guards the underworld.

  The old woman comforted Charite, as the girl was called, by telling her that dreams often foretell the opposite of what they seem. Then she distracted the girl by narrating the long tale of Cupid and Psyche. I kept regretting that I didn’t have a pen and tablets to write down such a pretty tale.

  Now the robbers returned laden with loot, after fighting some intense battle or other. Some of them, the quicker ones, said they were eager to head off for the rest of the haul, which was hidden in a cave, so they left the injured at home nursing their wounds. After gobbling down their lunch, they led me and my horse out into the street, striking us continually with sticks. We were to serve as the conveyors of all that loot. So, after tiring us out on innumerable hills and treacherous turns, it was almost evening when they brought us to a cave, loaded us up again with a lot of stuff, and, without even a little break, quickly led us back. They were in such a hurry with all their anxiety that they beat me repeatedly, pushed me forward, and threw me onto a rock lying beside the road. After that, they had a hard time making me get up again, even with all their continued beatings, disabled as I was in my right leg and left hoof.

  Then one of them said, “How long are we going to keep pointlessly feeding this broken-down ass? Now he’s even crippled.” Another said, “Yeah, and how about the way he brought along bad luck and we haven’t made any decent cash since? Just injuries and our best guys killed.” And a third: “I’m telling you, as soon as he’s done carrying these packs that he doesn’t want to carry, I’m going to throw him to the vultures. He’ll be a very nice morsel.”

  While these gentlest of men were debating my slaughte
r, we soon arrived at home; fear had turned my hooves to wings. Then they rapidly unloaded what we were carrying without any attention to our well-being—nor my slaughter, either. They recruited the injured comrades they had left behind earlier to return to the cave and carry back the rest with them; they were tired of our dawdling.

  Still, when I thought about that threat of death, I was not a little worried and I said to myself, “Lucius, why are you standing around, or what further crisis are you waiting for? Death, and a very horrible one, is awaiting you by the robbers’ decree, and it won’t require a lot of effort. You can see those pits nearby, and the razor-sharp, flinty rocks jutting out of them. Those will run you through before you even hit bottom and tear you limb from limb. For that splendid magic you so desired gave you only the appearance and the labors of an ass, but it enveloped you not in an ass’s thick hide, but in the tender membrane of a swallow. Come on now! Seize some manly courage and get a plan to save yourself while you can! You have the best chance to flee while the robbers aren’t here. Are you afraid of that half-dead hag who’s guarding you? You could finish her off with a single kick of your lame foot! … But where on earth can I flee, and who will offer me hospitality? … No, that’s foolish and totally asinine reasoning; what traveler would not gladly bring me along to carry him?”