Apuleius' Metamorphoses
I told you it would get better. Well, the story...maybe not the translating.
Liber I: 6-10
[6]"LOOK! I SPOT MY FRIEND Socrates. Half-dressed in a torn cloak, he is sitting on the ground, almost another person in his sallowness, deformed to pitiful leanness, such as Fortune's chosen men usually spend alms on at the crossroads. Nevertheless, I, personally, approach him in such a way, although he was a friend and very well known to me, with an uncertain mind. 'Well,' I ask, 'my Socrates, what is this? What a face! What a shame! But indeed now at your house you are lamented and proclaimed dead, guardians for your children have been given by decree of the provincial judge, your wife, having fulfilled the funeral duties, deformed by grieving and long mourning, having nearly cried her eyes out, is pushed by her parents to cheer up the gloom of the house with the joys of a new marriage for herself. But you have been discovered here, a ghostly image to our greatest shame.'
"'Aristomenes,' he says, 'surely you do not know the slippery labyrinth and the changing attacks and the back and forth changes of fortunes.' And after this is said, he covers his face with a patched blanket for some time, blushing out of shame, so that the rest of his body is nude again from his navel down to his pubes. And finally I, having put up with such miserable show of hardship, I strive with my hands on him so that he might rise.
[7]"But he, as he is, with covered head, 'Let me, let me enjoy longer,' he says, 'what Fortune herself imagines for a trophy.'
"I made him follow, and at the same time I pull off one or two of my garments and quickly clothe him (or I should say I hide him) and immediately deliver him to the bath. I myself attend to him because I oil him, because I clean him. I laboriously rub off the enormous flood of filth. I, holding him with difficulty, lead the tired man, having been properly attended to, to an inn, as I myself am tired. I revive him with a bed, satisfy him with a meal, soothe him with a drink, delight him with tales. Then, there is inclination for easy conversation and joking and even witty banter, then shy sarcasm, when he, drawing a tortured sigh from the bottom of his chest, beating his brow savagely with his right hand, 'Woe is me,' he begins, 'who chases the delight of famous gladiator shows, I cut into these things. For, as you know best, I set out to Macedonia on account of favorable business, until after ten months there, I was returning having been marked a richer man. A little before I came to Larissa (I was going to a show passing through), I passed into a certain pathless and sunken valley. I was beseiged by the most barbaric bandits and was robbed of everything in the end. And naturally in the end, weakened, I stay as a guest to a certain innkeeper Meroe, old but quite pretty, and I relate to her my situation and of my long travels and of my anxious home-bound journey and of my pitiful robbing. How very gently she treats me after free and pleasant meals have been asked for and then, aroused by burning sexual desire, she put me in her bed. I was suddenly sorry as soon as I slept with her, I contract from a singular night an old woman and a disasterous relationship1; and I even gave those garments which the good robbers overlooked for me to cover myself with on her, even the little pains which I earned thus far doing sack-hauling as a vigorous man, until a good wife and bad Fortune led me to that face which you saw a little while ago.'
[8]"'By Pollux2! Indeed you are worthy,' I say, 'to endure the extreme, if there is anything still more extreme than the latest, which is that you preferred sexual desire and a leather whore to home and your children.'
"But he, bringing the first finger from his thumb to his mouth and stunned in confusion, 'Quiet, quiet,' he says, and looking around for the safety of the conversation, 'Take it easy on the divinely inspired woman, lest you cause that harm excessively for yourself with your tongue.'
"'Really?' I say. 'What sort of woman is that strong and regal innkeeper?'
"'A witch,' he says, 'and capable of divine things: to put down heaven, to hang earth, to solidify streams, to break apart mountains, to raise ghosts, to weaken gods, to extinguish stars, to light up Tartarus3 itself.'
"'I beg you,' I say, 'part the tragic curtain and fold up the theatrical screen and tell it with ordinary words.'
"'Do you wish,' he says, 'to hear one or two, or rather several of her deeds? For example, that men love her passionately--not only natives, indeed even Indians and both kinds of Ethiopians and Antipodeans4 themselves, these are small matters of her art and mere trivia. But listen to what she did in view of many people.
[9]"'She changed her lover with a single word (because he had shamed himself in another woman) into a wild beaver, because the beast, frightened by captivity, frees itself from unfriendly things by the cutting off of its genitals, so that the same thing might happen, because he had sex with another woman. Also she turned a nearby innkeeper--and because of this, a rival--into a frog, and now that old man, swimming in a barrel of his own wine, as a submissive hoarse voice calls to his former guests with dutiful croaks in the dregs. She turned another from the courts into a ram because he had spoken against her, and now that ram pleads cases. In the same way, she condemned the wife of her lover, because she said a reproach on her sarcastically--already burdened with pregnancy--to perpetual pregnancy by a blocked womb and slowed childbirth, and, as everyone recounts, now after eight years the poor little woman is bulging with her burden just as if about to bear an elephant.
[10]"'With which things, when they occurred from then on and when many were harmed, public indignation became widespread and it was decided that on the next day she be punished most severely by stoning. Because she anticipates the decision by the potencies of spells, and, as that Medea5, in one little while, having obtained a truce from Creon, destroyed his whole house and his daughter with the old man himself by flames from crowns, thus this woman with sepulchral spells administered in a grave--as she, intoxicated, told me recently--she closed everyone in their own homes with the silent raging of divine power. So, for two whole days locks could not be broken, doors could not be removed, finally, not even the walls themselves could be bored through, until with mutual harmonious encouragement they yelled, swearing most solemnly how they would not lay violent hands on her themselves and, if anyone were to think otherwise, they would bring help aiding her. And so she, having been propituated, released the whole city. But indeed, the originator of that meeting, in the dead of night with his whole house--that is, with the walls and the floor itself and all the foundation--as it was, locked up, she transferred to the one-hundredth milestone in another city, situated on the highest summit of a rough mountain and because of this, barren of water. And because the crowded buildings did not give a place for living to the new guest, she left the house flung before the city gate.'
1 HAHAHAHAHA!
2 The ancients liked to swear by heroes because swearing by gods could prove troublesome.
3 My book notes that Tartarus is the underworld. Not so. It's a void in the center of the earth where Zeus trapped the Titans. It's also one of the four elements from which the universe was created (according to Hesiod...a Greek kinda like Homer, except a little older). So, yes, it is a place and a god. Greek mythology kicks ass like that. Look into it. I command you.
4 I don't know anything about these people besides what the book says: they are mythical people who lived beneath the earth. Or something.
5 If you haven't read Medea, you have missed out on the most fucked up play...ever probably. She's a witch who helps Jason get the golden fleece. They get married, he wants to marry someone else (Creon's daughter), so jealous Medea poisons a crown and sends it to the new wife, who, as soon as she adorns the crown, bursts into flames. Then she kills her kids and flies away. But, in her defense...Jason is the shittiest hero to come out of Greece. He can't even kill himself. But that's another story.
Liber I: 6-10
[6]"LOOK! I SPOT MY FRIEND Socrates. Half-dressed in a torn cloak, he is sitting on the ground, almost another person in his sallowness, deformed to pitiful leanness, such as Fortune's chosen men usually spend alms on at the crossroads. Nevertheless, I, personally, approach him in such a way, although he was a friend and very well known to me, with an uncertain mind. 'Well,' I ask, 'my Socrates, what is this? What a face! What a shame! But indeed now at your house you are lamented and proclaimed dead, guardians for your children have been given by decree of the provincial judge, your wife, having fulfilled the funeral duties, deformed by grieving and long mourning, having nearly cried her eyes out, is pushed by her parents to cheer up the gloom of the house with the joys of a new marriage for herself. But you have been discovered here, a ghostly image to our greatest shame.'
"'Aristomenes,' he says, 'surely you do not know the slippery labyrinth and the changing attacks and the back and forth changes of fortunes.' And after this is said, he covers his face with a patched blanket for some time, blushing out of shame, so that the rest of his body is nude again from his navel down to his pubes. And finally I, having put up with such miserable show of hardship, I strive with my hands on him so that he might rise.
[7]"But he, as he is, with covered head, 'Let me, let me enjoy longer,' he says, 'what Fortune herself imagines for a trophy.'
"I made him follow, and at the same time I pull off one or two of my garments and quickly clothe him (or I should say I hide him) and immediately deliver him to the bath. I myself attend to him because I oil him, because I clean him. I laboriously rub off the enormous flood of filth. I, holding him with difficulty, lead the tired man, having been properly attended to, to an inn, as I myself am tired. I revive him with a bed, satisfy him with a meal, soothe him with a drink, delight him with tales. Then, there is inclination for easy conversation and joking and even witty banter, then shy sarcasm, when he, drawing a tortured sigh from the bottom of his chest, beating his brow savagely with his right hand, 'Woe is me,' he begins, 'who chases the delight of famous gladiator shows, I cut into these things. For, as you know best, I set out to Macedonia on account of favorable business, until after ten months there, I was returning having been marked a richer man. A little before I came to Larissa (I was going to a show passing through), I passed into a certain pathless and sunken valley. I was beseiged by the most barbaric bandits and was robbed of everything in the end. And naturally in the end, weakened, I stay as a guest to a certain innkeeper Meroe, old but quite pretty, and I relate to her my situation and of my long travels and of my anxious home-bound journey and of my pitiful robbing. How very gently she treats me after free and pleasant meals have been asked for and then, aroused by burning sexual desire, she put me in her bed. I was suddenly sorry as soon as I slept with her, I contract from a singular night an old woman and a disasterous relationship1; and I even gave those garments which the good robbers overlooked for me to cover myself with on her, even the little pains which I earned thus far doing sack-hauling as a vigorous man, until a good wife and bad Fortune led me to that face which you saw a little while ago.'
[8]"'By Pollux2! Indeed you are worthy,' I say, 'to endure the extreme, if there is anything still more extreme than the latest, which is that you preferred sexual desire and a leather whore to home and your children.'
"But he, bringing the first finger from his thumb to his mouth and stunned in confusion, 'Quiet, quiet,' he says, and looking around for the safety of the conversation, 'Take it easy on the divinely inspired woman, lest you cause that harm excessively for yourself with your tongue.'
"'Really?' I say. 'What sort of woman is that strong and regal innkeeper?'
"'A witch,' he says, 'and capable of divine things: to put down heaven, to hang earth, to solidify streams, to break apart mountains, to raise ghosts, to weaken gods, to extinguish stars, to light up Tartarus3 itself.'
"'I beg you,' I say, 'part the tragic curtain and fold up the theatrical screen and tell it with ordinary words.'
"'Do you wish,' he says, 'to hear one or two, or rather several of her deeds? For example, that men love her passionately--not only natives, indeed even Indians and both kinds of Ethiopians and Antipodeans4 themselves, these are small matters of her art and mere trivia. But listen to what she did in view of many people.
[9]"'She changed her lover with a single word (because he had shamed himself in another woman) into a wild beaver, because the beast, frightened by captivity, frees itself from unfriendly things by the cutting off of its genitals, so that the same thing might happen, because he had sex with another woman. Also she turned a nearby innkeeper--and because of this, a rival--into a frog, and now that old man, swimming in a barrel of his own wine, as a submissive hoarse voice calls to his former guests with dutiful croaks in the dregs. She turned another from the courts into a ram because he had spoken against her, and now that ram pleads cases. In the same way, she condemned the wife of her lover, because she said a reproach on her sarcastically--already burdened with pregnancy--to perpetual pregnancy by a blocked womb and slowed childbirth, and, as everyone recounts, now after eight years the poor little woman is bulging with her burden just as if about to bear an elephant.
[10]"'With which things, when they occurred from then on and when many were harmed, public indignation became widespread and it was decided that on the next day she be punished most severely by stoning. Because she anticipates the decision by the potencies of spells, and, as that Medea5, in one little while, having obtained a truce from Creon, destroyed his whole house and his daughter with the old man himself by flames from crowns, thus this woman with sepulchral spells administered in a grave--as she, intoxicated, told me recently--she closed everyone in their own homes with the silent raging of divine power. So, for two whole days locks could not be broken, doors could not be removed, finally, not even the walls themselves could be bored through, until with mutual harmonious encouragement they yelled, swearing most solemnly how they would not lay violent hands on her themselves and, if anyone were to think otherwise, they would bring help aiding her. And so she, having been propituated, released the whole city. But indeed, the originator of that meeting, in the dead of night with his whole house--that is, with the walls and the floor itself and all the foundation--as it was, locked up, she transferred to the one-hundredth milestone in another city, situated on the highest summit of a rough mountain and because of this, barren of water. And because the crowded buildings did not give a place for living to the new guest, she left the house flung before the city gate.'
1 HAHAHAHAHA!
2 The ancients liked to swear by heroes because swearing by gods could prove troublesome.
3 My book notes that Tartarus is the underworld. Not so. It's a void in the center of the earth where Zeus trapped the Titans. It's also one of the four elements from which the universe was created (according to Hesiod...a Greek kinda like Homer, except a little older). So, yes, it is a place and a god. Greek mythology kicks ass like that. Look into it. I command you.
4 I don't know anything about these people besides what the book says: they are mythical people who lived beneath the earth. Or something.
5 If you haven't read Medea, you have missed out on the most fucked up play...ever probably. She's a witch who helps Jason get the golden fleece. They get married, he wants to marry someone else (Creon's daughter), so jealous Medea poisons a crown and sends it to the new wife, who, as soon as she adorns the crown, bursts into flames. Then she kills her kids and flies away. But, in her defense...Jason is the shittiest hero to come out of Greece. He can't even kill himself. But that's another story.