Apuleius of Madauros' Metamorphoses
Quick disclaimer: I am a literal translater except where I know I can fudge a little. It reads a little strangely in spots and some of the sentences are long and full of strange or too many clauses (some Latin just doesn't translate into English well), but I think I work them out understandably well. Most of the time.
This part is awful though. I apologize. I fall into more colloquial English when I get moving, I promise.
Liber I: 1-5
[1]BUT LET ME STRING TOGETHER various tales for you from that Milesian prose of yours, let me stroke your kind ears with witty whispering, if only you do not scorn to look at an Egyptian papyrus inscribed by the wit of a Nile reed, so that you may be amazed at the natures and the fortunes of men shifted into other likenesses and restored back to themselves by a common bond. I begin. Who is this man? Hear a few words. Attic Hymettos, Corinthian Isthmus, and Spartan Taenarus1, fruitful lands forever preserved in more fruitful books, it is my ancient lineage. There I served the Attic language in the first campaigns of boyhood. Then in the Latin city, as a stranger to Roman studies, I undertook and perfected the native speech with distressing work, with no teacher dictating. See here, I say pardon in advance, if, as a speaker of the foreign and rough speech of the Forum2, I will have offended anyone. Now, in fact, this substitution of voice corresponds to the style which we have undertaken, of the skill of a circus rider. We begin a Greek story. Reader focus: you will be glad.
[2]To Thessaly--for even there the foundations of our maternal origin produce fame for us from that famous Plutarch and then his relative, the philosopher Sextus--I was heading to Thessaly on business. After I had emerged from the heights of the mountain and the slipperiness of the valley and the dewiness of the grass and the lumpiness of the field, traveling on a native all-white horse--already he too was quite tired--so that I myself also may shake off the sedentary fatigue by the invigoration of walking, I jump down onto my feet, I carefully rub the sweaty face of the horse, I stroke his ears, I remove his bridle, I lead him carefully in a gentle walk, until the usual and natural defense of his belly refines the discomfort of tiredness3. And while he strives after a mobile breakfast, the meadows which he passes by, his body bending with his mouth twisted, I make myself a third to two companions who had appeared by chance a little way away. And while I overhear what sort of conversation they engage in, one, after a loud laugh had been let loose, said, "Stop telling in those words of yours these lies so absurd and so monstrous."
Having heard this, a thirsty man in general for novelty, I said, "But rather, share the conversation, not because I am curious, but that I am of the sort who wishes to know either everything or certainly most things. At the same time, the charming delight of inexhaustable tales will lessen the roughness of the terrain against which we strain."
[3]But he who began said, "Indeed that lie of yours is as true as if someone should wish to say that agile rivers are turned around by magical muttering, the sea slowly chained, the winds ceased inanimately, the sun controlled, the moon skimmed, the stars extracted, day removed, night kept on."
Then I, more confident in my speech, said, "Hey you, who told the first story, lest it pains or irks you, finish with the rest." And to the other, "You, however, with dense ears and stubborn mind reject that which may perhaps be truly presented. You are not at all skilled in your more distorted opinions, by hercules, if these are thought falsehoods which seem either new to be heard or unfamiliar to be seen or, of course, difficult beyond the grasp of your reasoning; which things, if you should investigate a little more carefully, you might realize the evidence is not only easy to find, but even easy to imagine. [4]In fact, last evening, while, as a competitor alongside guests, I was eager to gobble up a grand cake of barely mixed with cheese in a short time, the softness of the sticky food clinging in my throat and preventing breathing in my throat for a little while, I almost died. And yet very recently at Athens and before the Poikile Stoa4, I saw, with a stare, a performer swallow a sharpened equestrian sword with that dangerous double edge; and later on I saw the same performer, with the inducement of a little bit of donation, plunge a hunting spear, with which part one deals death threats, into the bottom of his bowels. And behold, behind the iron of the spear, from which the shaft of the upside-down spear came up to the back of his head through his throat, a beautiful boy in his tenderness rose and displayed a nerveless and boneless dance in complicated bends, with the wonder of all of us who approached. You would have said the noble serpent of the healing god was clinging to the staff, which he carries knotty with half-pruned twigs5, with its slippery embraces. But now please do tell, you who began, retell the tale. Only I will believe this story of yours instead of that guy, and at the first lodging which we enter, I will share lunch. This reward is set aside for you.
[5]But the man: "Indeed, I say that which you promise is good and fair, yes I will begin again that which I began. But first, I solemnly swear to you by that seeing god, the Sun, that I relate truths discovered by myself; nor will you doubt further, if you reach the next city of Thessaly, because all over in that place, the rumor is tossed about through the mouths of the people, which things were done in the public eye. But first, so that you may know where I come from, [who I am,] I am of Aegium. Hear, too, by what occupation I support myself: roaming on this side and beyond through Thessaly, Aetolia, and Boetia with honey or cheese and innkeeper's goods of this sort. And so, having discovered fresh cheese of excellent flavor for a very desirable price, I tore away to Hypata, which excels all of Thessaly, I hastened quickly to buy it all. But as usually happens, having set out with my left foot6, hope of profit was robbed from me. That is to say a wholesale trader named Lupus had bought it all the day before. Well, then, tired from my useless haste, I proceeded to the baths just as evening descended."
1 Mountains in Greece.
2 Roman Latin.
3 That's right, the horse poops.
4 "Painted Colonnade".
5 Asclepius and his staff. NOT to be confused with Hermes and his caduceus (doctors are dumb).
6 Latin: sinistrus. "Unlucky" as opposed to dextra, the "lucky" right hand.
This part is awful though. I apologize. I fall into more colloquial English when I get moving, I promise.
Liber I: 1-5
[1]BUT LET ME STRING TOGETHER various tales for you from that Milesian prose of yours, let me stroke your kind ears with witty whispering, if only you do not scorn to look at an Egyptian papyrus inscribed by the wit of a Nile reed, so that you may be amazed at the natures and the fortunes of men shifted into other likenesses and restored back to themselves by a common bond. I begin. Who is this man? Hear a few words. Attic Hymettos, Corinthian Isthmus, and Spartan Taenarus1, fruitful lands forever preserved in more fruitful books, it is my ancient lineage. There I served the Attic language in the first campaigns of boyhood. Then in the Latin city, as a stranger to Roman studies, I undertook and perfected the native speech with distressing work, with no teacher dictating. See here, I say pardon in advance, if, as a speaker of the foreign and rough speech of the Forum2, I will have offended anyone. Now, in fact, this substitution of voice corresponds to the style which we have undertaken, of the skill of a circus rider. We begin a Greek story. Reader focus: you will be glad.
[2]To Thessaly--for even there the foundations of our maternal origin produce fame for us from that famous Plutarch and then his relative, the philosopher Sextus--I was heading to Thessaly on business. After I had emerged from the heights of the mountain and the slipperiness of the valley and the dewiness of the grass and the lumpiness of the field, traveling on a native all-white horse--already he too was quite tired--so that I myself also may shake off the sedentary fatigue by the invigoration of walking, I jump down onto my feet, I carefully rub the sweaty face of the horse, I stroke his ears, I remove his bridle, I lead him carefully in a gentle walk, until the usual and natural defense of his belly refines the discomfort of tiredness3. And while he strives after a mobile breakfast, the meadows which he passes by, his body bending with his mouth twisted, I make myself a third to two companions who had appeared by chance a little way away. And while I overhear what sort of conversation they engage in, one, after a loud laugh had been let loose, said, "Stop telling in those words of yours these lies so absurd and so monstrous."
Having heard this, a thirsty man in general for novelty, I said, "But rather, share the conversation, not because I am curious, but that I am of the sort who wishes to know either everything or certainly most things. At the same time, the charming delight of inexhaustable tales will lessen the roughness of the terrain against which we strain."
[3]But he who began said, "Indeed that lie of yours is as true as if someone should wish to say that agile rivers are turned around by magical muttering, the sea slowly chained, the winds ceased inanimately, the sun controlled, the moon skimmed, the stars extracted, day removed, night kept on."
Then I, more confident in my speech, said, "Hey you, who told the first story, lest it pains or irks you, finish with the rest." And to the other, "You, however, with dense ears and stubborn mind reject that which may perhaps be truly presented. You are not at all skilled in your more distorted opinions, by hercules, if these are thought falsehoods which seem either new to be heard or unfamiliar to be seen or, of course, difficult beyond the grasp of your reasoning; which things, if you should investigate a little more carefully, you might realize the evidence is not only easy to find, but even easy to imagine. [4]In fact, last evening, while, as a competitor alongside guests, I was eager to gobble up a grand cake of barely mixed with cheese in a short time, the softness of the sticky food clinging in my throat and preventing breathing in my throat for a little while, I almost died. And yet very recently at Athens and before the Poikile Stoa4, I saw, with a stare, a performer swallow a sharpened equestrian sword with that dangerous double edge; and later on I saw the same performer, with the inducement of a little bit of donation, plunge a hunting spear, with which part one deals death threats, into the bottom of his bowels. And behold, behind the iron of the spear, from which the shaft of the upside-down spear came up to the back of his head through his throat, a beautiful boy in his tenderness rose and displayed a nerveless and boneless dance in complicated bends, with the wonder of all of us who approached. You would have said the noble serpent of the healing god was clinging to the staff, which he carries knotty with half-pruned twigs5, with its slippery embraces. But now please do tell, you who began, retell the tale. Only I will believe this story of yours instead of that guy, and at the first lodging which we enter, I will share lunch. This reward is set aside for you.
[5]But the man: "Indeed, I say that which you promise is good and fair, yes I will begin again that which I began. But first, I solemnly swear to you by that seeing god, the Sun, that I relate truths discovered by myself; nor will you doubt further, if you reach the next city of Thessaly, because all over in that place, the rumor is tossed about through the mouths of the people, which things were done in the public eye. But first, so that you may know where I come from, [who I am,] I am of Aegium. Hear, too, by what occupation I support myself: roaming on this side and beyond through Thessaly, Aetolia, and Boetia with honey or cheese and innkeeper's goods of this sort. And so, having discovered fresh cheese of excellent flavor for a very desirable price, I tore away to Hypata, which excels all of Thessaly, I hastened quickly to buy it all. But as usually happens, having set out with my left foot6, hope of profit was robbed from me. That is to say a wholesale trader named Lupus had bought it all the day before. Well, then, tired from my useless haste, I proceeded to the baths just as evening descended."
1 Mountains in Greece.
2 Roman Latin.
3 That's right, the horse poops.
4 "Painted Colonnade".
5 Asclepius and his staff. NOT to be confused with Hermes and his caduceus (doctors are dumb).
6 Latin: sinistrus. "Unlucky" as opposed to dextra, the "lucky" right hand.