Auctor & Actor
- - -
_ _ _ AUCTOR
&ACTOR A Narratological Reading of Apuleius's Golden Ass by John J. Winkler
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Auctor & Actor
- - -
_ _ _ AUCTOR
&ACTOR A Narratological Reading of Apuleius's Golden Ass by John J. Winkler
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley · Los Angdcs · London
University of California Press lkrkdcy and Los Angeles. California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England
© 1985 by The Regents of the University of California Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Ljbrary ofCongreu Cataloging in Publlcation Data
Winkler. John J. Author and actor. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Apulcius. Metamorphoses. 2. Apuleius-T~hnique. 3. Narration (Rhetoric) 4. First person narrative. 5. Isis (Egyptian deity) in literature. 6. Detective and mystery stories-History and criticism. I. Title. PA6217. W5 1985 873' .01 84-00182 ISBN 0..520-05240-4
Fnmlispitu: Lef[, figure of Egyptian priest, Hellenistic bronze, counesy of The Walters An Gallery, Baltimore; right. bald comic tc:rracoua. Myr 324, photographed by Chuzcvillc, courtesy of tbc Louvre, Paris.
Contents
Pre faa•
VII
List ofAbbrcviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xm 1.
The Question of Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Question of Genre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mithras's Interpretation of Tlte Golden A H Ht•rnu-ncutk Entcrtajo nwnt
Historical Context Overview
1 2
8 11 14 19
Pan One: Til UTH 2. The Interpretation ofTa1es
3.
Introduction
?5
Aristomcncs' TaJc ofSocratcs (1.2-20) . . . . . . Lucius's Account of Lucius (1.26) . . . . . . . . . . . Milo's TaJc ofDiophancs (2.11-15) . . . . . . . . . . The Ass Reporter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
27 37 39 44
Two Womcnts Stories
50
The Scrupulous Reader.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Detection Sc•nsationl
60 93
4,
The Contract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.
Playing Fair ............................. 100 Malice Aforethought ..................... 104 ImpJication ............................. 110 The Marketplace of Desire ................ 119 Interlude: Socrates in Mot1ev ................. 123 v
VI
CONTENTS
Part Two: CONSEQUENCES 6. The Duplicities of Auctor IActor ...•.•......... 135 The Narrator (Auctor) as Character (Actor) and the Character of the Narrator . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Suppression of the Auctor-Narrator ......... 140 From Auctor-Narrator to Auctor-Novelist. and Back Again ....................... 153 7. The Prologue as Conundrum ................. 180 The Origin of the Book ................... 183 Egyptian Sharpness ...................... 186 Mutual Nexus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 The Rude Speaker's Identity ............... 194 A Model for the Speaker's Identity .......... 200 8. The Text Questions, the Reader Answers ....... 204 Three Difficulties
204
The lsiac Interpretation ofLucius·s Life ...... 209 Surprises at Rome: Money and More Initiations ............. 215 The Final I mage ......................... 223 How Else Could This Book Be Read? , , . , . , . 227 Part Three: CONJECTURES 9. Parody Lost and Regained .........•......... 251 Three Tales ofthc Ass . . . • . . . . . . • . 252 The Restless Quest for Wisdom ............ 257 Apulcius's Adaptation of the Parody ......... 273 10. Isis and Aesop ............................. 276 Why Isis? ............................... 276 The Lift of Aesop ........•................ 279 The Grotesque Perspective ................ 286 11. The Gilding of the Ass ...................... 292 The External Case for Asinm Auwus .. , , , .. , 293 The Meaning of the Title .................. 298 Select Bibliography .............................. 323 Index LocoruJn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... 327 Index
Preface
This book is written for three quite different audiences-those whose inrerests are, respectively) in modem literature, in GrecoRoman culture, and in religious history. To set the scene for the performance of this book. you must imagine yourself in an audience composed of people with diverse interests and backgrounds, hoping to ]cant something not only new but multidisciplinary.
My first aim is that readers whose focus of interest is modern fiction and its theory will find that self-consciousness in narrative (a mode that often seems distinctively modern), so far from beginning with Cervantes, is an ancient achievement. The Esc her-like interplay of fiction and reality. the joking awareness ofwhat a subtle and foolish game it is for any "I" to write anything-these arc the specialties of The Golden Ass. Borges and Nabokov have nothing on Apuleius. CJassicists. it is my second and fonder hope, will find that narratology, though the word and the theories it names are recent, is a good language for giving voice to the interpretive problems of Apuleius's novel. The method is untraditional, but then The Golden Ass is and always was a d&lasse dassic. The risk of anachronism seems to me worth taking for the reward of bridge building between ancient and modern literature, not to mention of solving an as yet unsolved literary puzz1e. As I invite modernists to inspect a novel that ought to interest them, so I invite classicists to sample a method that has much to offer them. For the traditionalist in us alii would recall Frank Kcr-
modc's words: "what we arc leaming about narrative may be, in a sense, new, but narrative was always potentially what we have now learned to think it, in so far as our thinking is right." 1 1.
Not'P.·I and NanuliJ't', W. P. Kcr Mcntoria] Lecture 24 (GJa..,gow, 1971): 6. vn
Vlll
PREFACE
Third, religious historians, particularly those focusing on early christianity and related cults, know that no text is more frequently cited in discussions of Greco-Roman piety than the concluding book of this nove!. Lucius's unexpected devotion to the goddess who saved him from 3sininity, his prayer and fasting. his apostolic self-publicity and self-rejection give us one of the first (it seems) first-person accounts of an experience that from then on would have a central place in the conflict of Western religious and political idcoiogics-convcrsion. The jack-in-the-box appearance of that born-again narrator is what first irked me to look very closely at the narratology of ApuJcius'scxceedingly clever performance. The reinterpretations reached here should significantly alter our understanding of what it could mean to have a new religious commitment in the second century C. E.; they thus ought to be of interest to Western social historians generally, who arc sometimes misled by periodizations (especially of the exciting Foucauldian variety) to dismiss the beforc-X as radically irrelevant to X. From each of these audiences I anticipate a different skepticism, a different initial reluctance. From modem literati I cxpc:ct modernism-the belief or premise that medieval and ancient cultures are beyond the horizon of our conremporary perspective: one can get there, but only by abandoning all the familiar social and historical realities that have shaped Europe and America since the Renaissance. There is some truth to that. I hope this book will build a bridge. From classicists I expect an initial disdain of current fads and a feeling of disorientation at the untraditional arrangement of materials. Classical philology is a venerable discipline ofgreat comprehensiveness and stability, and its best practitioners arc rightly suspicious of the ephemeral. But important new 3pproaches to literature have flourished in recent decades: they can complement and build on the achievements of traditional philology. Certainly this book has relied on the labors of several generations of classicists and would not have been possible without them. Again I hope to build a bridge. From religious historians I expect a reluctance to deal seriously with the whole of The Golden Assratherthanjust its magnificent lsiac conclusion. The lusty ta]es at the beginning obviously have so 1itt1c to do with the Great Lady at the- end that their suspicions. I admit, are not without founda-
PREFACE
IX
tion. But if you approach the subject with an open mind and a little curiosity I promise that you will see a marvelous bridge being built. l would hazard a guess that the general reader, whom l have in mind as much as the specialists, is likely to care more about the claim that there was a "modem" ancient novel or about the issues involved in rdigious individualism than about Latin liter:ature as such. Sinct' (it goes without saying) Latin literature is terra incog~Jita, how should we conduct our trek over this strange terrain? The problem concerns more than just the general n:ader. Since the argument of this book draws on three kinds of expertise. even the three kinds of expert will probably find themselves sooner or later in alien lcrritory. My challenge as a writer has been to speak. as it were:. not only everyday English but also the special vocabularies ofl3arthes, Pauly-Wissowa, and Nock to an audience of persons who may not know those languages or who may know one very well and the others not at all. l think at this point of a display speech that Apulcius once delivered to a sophisticated and critical crowd iu two different languages: ••1 ha\·e not forgotten my original promise to the opposing factions of this audience-that neither the Greek-speakers nor the Latin-speakers among you would leave at the end with less than full measure of my mcssagc." 2 My aim here has been to conduct the analysis at a level that will satisfy not only the sman general reader but also those knowledgeable in each discipline without contusing or alienating the rest. In practice this means that I try, wherever possiblt:', to usc narratologkal techniques for their implicit intelligibility and to avoid Members Only discussions of shop. particularly in pans One and Two. The footnotes cite some key theoretical discussions behind the techniques I employ, but I have Jimited references to secondary literature to what 1 hope is a helpful minimum rather than given an t.•xhausrivt.• maximum (a point on which Quintilian is wise). 3 The cultural specificity of Part Three demands a good deal of documentation but even here the text is meant to be re-ad2. 114m t1 i11 prin(ipio ,,_,his diu,·rs.1 tendemibus iM lllt'miru pvllicm, 111 tll'fllra pcHS UI"S· tnmt, nee qui Gram• lite qui l.aliN•' prldbdti~ JiaaC evanRflica Isiaca. It is a religious book.6 (iii) Apuleius was known as Platonicus, a name based on his pamphlets expounding a Platonic philosophy, on his (lost) translations of Plato's works into Latin, 7 and on his self-presentation as a philosopher in his Apolo.~ia. There are many themes and names and situations in the AA that can plausibly be read as references ro Platonic dialogues and devdopments of Academic principles. The AA is a philosophic novel. B Reading (iii) is distinguished from its near neighbor (ii) by its emphasis on the universal forms of experience and on cpistcmo]ogy rather than on the particular myth oflsis-Osiris: that is, the religious approach is concerned with the many-named Isis in various manifestations of female power and allure fleetingly discerned by a male viewer; the phiJosophic approach is concerned with the structure of that hierarchy (Me roc- Venus-Isis) and with its implications for the nature of soul as related to body and to ideas. 9
··r
5. The case is wdlmadc by M. Hiner, Autuhil~grap}ue dans l'Am: d'Or J' Apulee," L'Antiquitr Classiq11c' 13 (1944): 95-111, 14 (1945): 6l-6t!. ·'Lcs nombrcux taits autohiographiqul-s unanimL"mcnt admis p.ar IL"scririques,l':allusion ridicule au mariage in villt~, lcs episodes enticrs de l'atTairc des Poissons, du prod:s des oum:s, lc theme des :ICCUSations injustes, prouvcnt :lSSC'Z, nons sc-mblc-t-il, l'intiiUC COnfusion rhysique, morale. intcllcctudll.' qui cxistc.· entre ApuiC:e ct son 11CnJS Lucius. ou, 1."11 tout cas. b presence continuellc de l'auteur d;ms son oeuvre ... cettc intimitc c:nt~c lc pcrsonnagc historiquc: et son heros unc: fob. prom·«. lc problcmc du c~r.Jcthr: dl." I'Ant' d'Orchangc J' ~speer" (L'.4tJiiquili Cla$siquC' 14{19451; 65f.~ 6. E.g., 1'. Scazzoso. Lf Mttamo~/clSi di .4pull'it!: ~trrdirJ (riti{o sui si,~lli/itllto dtl ro· t1r.a11,;;o (Milan. 1951); R. Mc.rkdb,l.dl, R in abdita siwt !iiJn(lior.J $Olit bien que lc!t lcctcUr!t cnli5ant Cc rccil, a pres ;l\'oir g~"mt~ l~o'S $COtimcnt!> Jlllri.'OU:Ot IC'rTt"StrCS, puis.:s dans Jes livrcs precC:dcnrs, suivmnr \'Oionticrs, au rnoins pour un moment court !'auteur dans lc nnu,·c:~u domainc ClnOtiOI11lcl de l't.•X[3SC rdigicust.•, de l'311C3.1ltiSSl'tll('tl[ dc\·.:mt l:1 di\·initC-Il:UllfClJL·Illt"l1r, 11011 pour ~c dirig~.·r sericuscmcnt n~rs UTI chan~·mc:nt itucril.'ur subl~o• cr Ia rc.•naissance de J'amc'" (242). 11 . E. g .. P. Junghanns, Dit• Er zi:iltlunJ(SII'dmik 1\ltl A Jmll.'im' ,\1t'MIIIL''1'1111SI'S 11t1cl iltrer 1-·ilr/~~r, l'hilologus Supplcmentband no. 2411 (Leipzig, 1932~ A. Lcsky. "Apulcius von Mad aura und Lukios "'un P:atr;u:," Umm·s 76 ( IIJ41 ): 43-74 = C.ri'~mrrwltt· S.hri(ir·rl (Munich. 1CX>6): 541.J-7!'1. H. \'an Thiel Drr Esclsrom.JII, \ul. l, L'ulmud~rm.~" (Munich. 1971 ); \ul. 2, Sytroptuclrl.' A11s~bt> (Munich. IIJ72) - Zctc:m:ua, nus. 5-1/1. 3-1/2. 12. A typical p.attcn1 of combination is to make some mention of Apulciuss lite (i) and Lurius, "' 1lrc• A~s (\'~ then mo\·e [0 either (iii iii) or (i\·~ Proponents of {ii) regu-
THE QUESTION OF READING
7
of imerpreution. that needs to be noted and questioned. Each of these readings is based on the synoptic comparison of Tl~e Goldetr As5 with a master tC'xt, a document or writing that is given privileged status in the decoding of the AA. The decoding text may be part of the AA or a different text altogether. bur in each case the assumption is that we need a Rosetta Stone:. a master signifier that will allow us to make sense of an ambiguous message. The i\A is placed in one column as cxplanandum and one or another text in a parallel column as explauam. The philosophic reading gives privileged explanatory status to the name Platonicus, which may indeed have been foWld in the inscription of the work in its original form. The FIMida and Apology serve to justify the autobiographic and sophistic readings: they arc reasonably clear and authoritative cases of Apu]cian autobiography and sophistry. and they arc used to support the claim that the ambiguous AA should be clarified by reading it autobiographicaHy or sophistically. The Lucianic reading and the religious reading are complementary: the former takes the frame ta1c of the AA as an extratext. an independent work found both outside the Latin AA (the Greek. L~tciHs, or the Ass) and inside it as a skeleton. The latter takes the
concluding book of the AA, the part that is in strongest contrast to the Lucianic frame, and gives it a privi1cged status in rereading the once comic, now religious ass-talc. The poim to be stressed is that every one of these approaches, each in its own way, makes this same assumption about the incompleteness of Apulcius's narrative. They read it as a dclightfu) but problematic story who st.> meaning is more than (or O[hcr than) at first appears. Interpreters arc sometimes explicit on this point: for instance. ~']n short, The Goltlrn Ass is a coded arcta1ogy, a laud oflsiac deity."U "Pernmlcere can translate the Greek E1TatBEw ... and like the charm of which Socrates speaks in the J>llatdo (n£~ [the storks) can comfort the chi1d within us." 14 "The reader is invited to compare the stories of Psyche and
larly show some interest in (i), since their notion of llook 11 .a!> serious includes its being based on his own experiences.. The introduction to ;my translation of Apuleius will illmtratc this formJI pattern. 13. G. C. Drake.:, .. The- Ghust Story in TIH· Glldrll .1.ss by Apulcius.'' lbpcrs orr Lm~uage and Liumtlm·13 (1977): .3-15~ 1:111ote front p. 4. 14. C. C. Sc:hbm, "Pt.tonic:a iutlw Mrt,mt~l'J'ItMc's of Apulcius." ·nuH 101 (1970): 477-~7;
quote from p.
~~.
8
AUCTOR & ACTOR
Lucius ... and it is in the comparison that the real significance of'Cupid and Psyche' becomes apparent."15 With such formulas for finding and declaring the meaning of the text, it is no wonder that the AA seems to be an ambiguous riddle with many proposed solutions. The commentators' method assumes as much, and the conflict of interpreters can only become a quarrd over whose Rosetta Stone is the authentic one. Does the text invite this assumption of incompleteness or translatability? Or rather. since no text actively "invites" its readers to do anything other than read, we should ask, When does a reader decide to regard the AA as a problem, possibly decodable?
MITHRAS'S INTERPRETATION OF THE GOLDEN ASS For myself. and for many readers of the AA~ the moment can be quite precisely located. Though the first ten books contain many odd and delightfulJy contrary tendencies, no overarching hypothesis that this book is a problem for interpretation suggests itself untiJ a character in the story announces at 11.15 that all the previous plot had a higher mcanjng than at first appeared. Thjs character is a priest of Isis named Mithras. In what is vjrtually a breach of contract between narrator and audience, Mithras summarizes Lucius's history in new terms and throws in doubt the meaning of the ear Her books as we had read them. I paraphrase: Driven this way and that by the storms of Fortuna. at last you have sailed into the Port of Peace. Lucius. Your fine family and education did not prevent you from slipping down into servile pleasures and enduring the punishment for curiosity. But let blind Fortuna now find someone dsc to play witht for you have come into the protective custody of the goddess whose light illuminates all the other gods. Pay her worship. Let the irreligious sec the error of their ways. And to be even safer, Lucius, join our group and put on the voluntary yoke oflsis's ministry. For when you start serving the goddess, then you will know what freedom rt>aUy is. The fundamental characteristic of the five classes of reading outlined above is not only that they uanslate or "solve" the AA by appeal 15. J. L. Pen will, "Slavish Ple:uurc:s ;;~nd Profidcss Curiosily: F;~1\;~nd Redemplion in Apuldus" Metamorphoses," Ramus4 (1975): 49-82, quote from p. 51.
THE QUE~IlON Of READING
9
to a privileged master text, but that th~y have been stung into doing so by the felt discontinuity of the priest's speech at 11. 15. The critical completions are various ways of coping with th~ curious blend of rightness and wrongness about Mithras's rereading. Compared to anything we were in an explicit or natura] way led to expect, Book 11 is something of a surprise, depicting as it does a leap of faith that the narrator (who turns out to be a shaven-headed deacon of lsis) had cenainly kept concealed. The only genre I can think of that has a comparable form is the shaggy dog story-a long and engrossing tale. often of fantastic adventures or of a quest, that ends abruptly with an awful pun. The two parts-a long talc and a pun-both make sense, each in its own way, but to unit~ them in one structure as if one led up to and was completed by the other is a dislocation or rclocation of the rules of meaning. And this is what we are de: aling with in the case of the ll.A: the basic rules of meaning arc changed near the end of the game. Since Book 11 is not a short, story-stopping pun bm an extended narrative, a more benign view of the disjuncture might compare it to a long narrative dream (1-10) with a waking coda (11). This too involves a surprise and a change of the rules of meaning. Even on this view the puzzle of the secret still remains. because the narrator never says it was all like a dream. never supplies the rule of interpretation that will coordinate the mismatching of 1-JOwith H. Since Mithras's interpretation of Tllr Golde" Ass, Books 1-10, provokes all readers to face the question of meaning, it clearly has a privileged place among the readings of the AA. Yet notice that it is a reading only of Books 1-10. or to put it slightly differcontly, Book 11 is an interpretation of Books 1-10. The entire AA concludes with what might app~ar to be an authoritative answc:r. Dut an answer to what? The problem did not exist until the answer was given by Mithras. Book 11 posing as an answer makes Books 1-10 a qucstion.16 Lucius's adventures become retroactively a problem ar the moment when the last book claims to be not only a conclusion to them lb. Tht' c;,,Jdt'll As$ IS exactly the opposit~: of that modern type ofnowl stud1ed by S. Kellman, "'the scit:.ocgt:tting novd," in whkh tht" n;urawr tdls d1c story nih is meat ion to be tht• nm·•.:list who will write the hook you arc now reading. Luciu!i's \'ot:ation in Book 11 makes him precisely such :l person as could not haw n:matcd the pre,cding ten boob ( Tlu· .~·U~&-gr-11i11g 1\:o,\·IIN('w York. 19XOJ).
10
AUCTOR & ACTOR
but a solution of them. This refor·mulation is dearly a surprise to all first-readers of the AA, and it is just this induced self-recrimination ('·Have I been misreading this text all along?") that is the fillip for rereading the novel and for trying to construe it by one or more oft he methods outlined above. All these critics of the AA are in principle second-readers who lost their innocence at the moment when they reached the priest oflsis (11.13£) and, like Lucius as he ate the roses. realized that they were naked. This is an inevitable fall. No reader can really be expected to see what is coming the first time through. There were, one later recalls or rereads, premonitions. The witch Mcroc had tumcd s~veral impudent fellows into animals. Lucius had heard his aunt Byrrhena's wamings about witchcraft and thought he understood them even as he rushed to his doom (2.5f.~ And so any firstreader wil1 certainly scurry along, little thinking that Isis might be waiting at the end. It is only a second-time reader, a rcrcader, who will be fully alert to the ambiguities and traps that might conceivably (ir has been claimed) point toward Book 11. The common feature then of the several current readings of the AA is th
This book may be viewed as complementary to C.JIIebat's. for I discern in the author as plotter the same sourin: complier du IJcliTatt'llrthat CalJcbat finds in the texture of the language. These then arc two qualifications (i, ii) that must be added to tlu.~ truism that a lirerary performance assumes a knowledge of the language and culture in which it is written. Within these limits my approach in parts One and Two wilJ be decidedly a historical, avoiding the conventional information about second-century religion, satire, and so on. that is usua1ly invoked to make sense of the AA; but then, in Part Three. I will delve rather deeper than usual into some byways and corners of Apulcius's cultural context to set the novc:l firmly in history
agam.
OVERVIEW The literal effectiveness of the AA for a first-reader will tum out in my analysis to depend on certain forms of semantic and interpretive problems. These arc adumbrations of what the entire text has hl·come and was intended to become-a problem ofi.nterprctation. ln the uninitiated tirst-rcadcr's understanding of the narrative there already occurs a provocative entertainment that raises playfully and in Lmproblcmatic terms what we can now sec to be serious questions of truth and the possible limits of interpretation. Se\o't"ral dozen scenes of the A . 1 establish connections between the ordinary techniques of narrative in a popular vein and the deeper issues of how a text comes to have mt·aning-any kind of meaning. including religious enlightenment. Therefore, instead of asking rht· question of genre-What kind of book is Tlu· Goldm Ass? - I will ask the question of reading, which has two parts: What arc the: cases of reading and interpreting that arc: displayed in the AA itself. and What signiticance can these have as models for our reading and interpretation of the who1c book? The tlrst part of this question is explored in my Pan Onc-''Truth." I will maintain that the author shows a very high consciousness in the AA itsdfofthc problems of meaning. of reading and interpreting, and
20
AUCTOR & ACTOR
I will examine the many significant and dclibcratdy posed enigmas of interpretation and misinterpretation.2 4 The initial survey (Chapter 2: .. The Interpretation of Tales") raises the major themes and charts the dimensions of the problem, showing that ambiguities and revisions of meaning are a pervasive concern. their presentation being both hilarious and philosophically sophisticated. But since, on first inspection, the interpretation scenes go off in so many different directions and yield no consistent hermeneutic rule about how we should make sense of a story. I turn in the next chapter (3: ~·The Scrupulous Reader") to a set ofissues common to Apuleius's AA and the
modern detective story. a genre obsessed with hermeneutic entcruinment. In Chapter 4 ( ••The Contract") I focus on a particular Apulcian trick-the sudden reassignment of guilt or responsibility to an unexpected person. When a tale turns out to have a different meaning not because its words arc ambiguous but simply in virtue ofassigning it to a different speaker, we are obviously dose to the central problem of the A A-Who is the narratort after all? Part One tries to be open-minded about whether the AA is a hodgepodge of uncoordinated material or a work with some panly or fully realized design. This stage ofopcn-mindedncss. of taking seriously the possibility that rhc AA may be only frivolous. is necessary in order to justify further scrutiny. P:lrt One is therefore like the proceedings of a grand jury, convened to determine not guilt or innocence. but merely whether there is a case to be made. It aims to show not that the AA means this or that, but only to examine whether the question is well put and therefore not to be: ruled out ofcourt. The method there will be heuristic, skeptical ofeasy answers, and patient in the accumulation of suspended possibilities... to inquire rather than to decide." as the Skeptic Fa\o"Orinus recomrnended. 25 This is of course something of a masquerade. for I know perfectly well where the analysis is leading: I now 24. This is now one of the most familiar moves in modem criticism: "Gcncttc and Todoruv h~vc repeatedly focused their am:nrion on metalinguistic commentary incorporated in the: texts themselves...• Now from the notion that fiction is self-conscious :and rdlt'Cts upon its own representation of speech acts. to the notion-which seems to be gaining ground today-that novds also represent ~nd rdicc:t upon interpretation as performance. there is not such a vc:ry far way to go .. (N. Schor, "Fiction as rnrerpreration/Jnrerpreration as Fiction,.. inS. R. Su1einun and J. Cmsman. cds., Tht Reddtr i11 tl~ "/'txt !Princeton, 19801: 167). 25. lnquiTI'n' potiusq1u1m duf!mtrr (Aulus Gdlius Nocr. llll. 20.1.9}.
THE QUESTION OF READING
21
believe that the AA's attention to issut.·s of interpretation is too continuOUS, and its Shandyesque self-referentiality too clever, to be accidental. But the method ofexamination must be convincingly aporctic, even to the reader who already entertains views about what Tl1e Golden .iss means. Part One therefore notes in tum the more striking pieces of conflicting testimony to the foolishness and to the sophistication of the novel, holding in check all the temptations to speculate too hastily. Ifit is any consolation to the impatient readR (1972-73): 232-35. 2. The titles in this list arc t:tkcn, whcrc••cr possible, from phr01.scs in th~· text i[sel( The reckoning would be different if one numbercti talts: some ofthc.-sc n:m:~ting scenes cont.1in SC\'eral tales (#5, # 12), one has none (#2).
THE INTERPilETATION OF TALES
27
text. Together they determine a field of themes and motifs that is arguably the single most coherent subject of the novel, namely, the semantics and hermeneutics of thl" act of narrating. More than the themes of lust, witchcraft, criminality, curiosity. or the nature and destiny of the soul (psycllt')t misunderstanding a story is Apulcius's favorite comic subject and its varieties the most significant set ofjokes in the novel. The first three narrative settings arc: the most elaborate and significant, dep1oying at the very beginning of the novd some of its most tdling hermeneutic tricks. so more than half of Chapter 2 wiJl be devoted to them alone.
ARISTOMENES' TALE OF SOCRATES (1.2-20)
Com.'l'rsions ofmeam'ug The: narrator begins to describe his journey to Thcssalythc hiJis and valleys. the difficult roads. the scenery. Suddenly the calm is interrupted by a loud laugh and a command. "I was just adding myself as a third party to two travelers \vho \Verc a httle ahead of me on the road. just as I turned my ears to tht: subjt:ct of their discussion, one of them, with a jolt ofloud laughter said, •stop! This is all impossible. outrageous·lics!'" 3 The first action in the: novel is to calla halt to a story for a discussion of the truth of stories. This giv«!s 3 certain facetious prominence to the theory of tales over the tales themselves, as we find our narrator postponing the first of his Milesian tales for a discussion oft he possible truth of fictions. The Iaugher who begins the novel by stopping a story is never identified beyond what we learn here about his cynical attitudc. 4 His function is to ridicule and reject outlandish narrative. Surely what this travder's laughter means is not that he found some particular incident in Aristomcncs' talc insupportable, an incident that we could con3. duo bus comiturn, q11i .f"rrr paululum prt~t'tS5t'nmr, lt'rtialm me ./;JCio. 11c dum auscullo, qaliJ srrrn(lttiJ. d.~il.lTf'tlt, alrcr I'XrtM ( mira r·t J,.lt"tlr ir!fi·, Iii, •JUat•I.Jmc·nrgufully suspending judgment, should be directed instead at the old woman, at her comments on her talc. her motive for telling it, her audience (the young woman), and at the young woman's own tale. The t1rst item to notice is that there arc two stories told. The young woman whom the robbers bring back to the cave explains who she is to the old housekeeper, and the housekeeper in tum tcJis the young \\.'oman a fairy talc. These two narratives. different as they arf'- and they set:m to be purposely as different as possible-form an asymmetric pair. The old woman's talc should not be iso1atcd as the center of the ..4A; rather it is one half of a balanced (or bettt.>r, unbalanced) diptych whose two members are placed side by side to highlight a set of contrasts. Considered as a narrative situation, 4.26-6.24 is a mutual exchange of tales in which the roles of narrator and audience are held in turn by the young woman and the old woman.
TI-lE INTEHPH.ETATION OF TALES
51
The two narrators trade tales fro111 opposite perspectives on life: young/old, on the thrcshhold of marriagcfon the thrcshhold of death, wealthy I poor, high class /low class, real-life account I fairy tall-. This last is most important, for the young woman's account comes the closest of any such narrative so far in the AA to escaping the category of story and being taken as a real-life episode. But we should look closely at this apparent contrast. So far in the AA we have been entertained by what arc obviously diverting narratives that mark a pause in the progress of Lucius's plot-tales whose occasion (at a banquet or on a journey) and whose content mark them as anecdotes with a tictional rather than historical cast. Is the young woman's account so different? Like other tales, c. g., tl1osl· of Aristomcnes, Thelyphron, or the robbers, it is autobiographical, relating an important event from the narrator's own experience. Those narrators arc suffering still from the effects of the dramatic incidents they describe, and so is the young woman. Like them she speaks somewhat reluctantly, forced as it were to recount something from her past in order to counter the opposition ofhcr audience. Her intention in speaking at last is to convert the old woman from anger to pity: "For compassion, I think, has not entirely dried up in your rnawre o]d age and holy white hair-consider therl·fore the tableau of my misfortune" (4.26). And like earlier taletellers the young woman identifies herself by her account. We have watched her entry into the cave, her grief, sleep, despair, the robbers' counsel about her with the old woman-all this while we are wondering who she is. So the young woman's account of herself is in all these respects a narrated talc. The tale itsd( not only the narrator, stands in sharp contrast to the talc with which it is paired. The young woman·s story is very brief; the: old woman's talc is very long. The tirst comes very closqw•IH.JS ,,..,iiiLtlas h·J'i,/., HUIIrTI' ,~mwla·am (1. 1).
54
TRUTH
seems to be: a direct literary aJlusion to the old woman narrator:"[ am even more upset that some of you would praise Clod ius as a man of letters when he busies himself with old wives' tales and grows senile amidst his countryman Apulcius's Punic Milcsian tales and other litcrary trivia.'' 38 This quote is from a letter to the Roman senate purportedly written by the emperor Severus, but the exactness of the literary allusion suggests that it is a document not from the late second century. shordy after Apu]eius's death, but from the late fourth century (as most scholars think concerning the whole work). At least there is some evidence that Apulcius's fame by then had become even greater and that the old woman's tale in particular had been singled out for special attention (sec Chap. 1, note 3). But \Vhatever the date of the description ofClodius's literary activities the point is not only that the entire AA can quite naturally be referred to as old wives' tales, verifying our conjectural association of the old woman and the prologue narrator as similar figures, but that this characterization is a disparagement. In the judgment of the quoted letter-writer the category of Carthaginian Milesi:m tale is not an objective classification but a scomful dismissal. The AA is trash. junk literature, old wives· ta1c:s. 39 That central. disparaged narratrix, who parodies the opening of the AA and who is the extreme opposite of the wealthy young man narrating the novel. has a ghostly alter ego. She is also described as the one .. to whom alone the salvation and protection of so large a band of young men apparently was l·ntrusted ." 40 The narrative context determines for us that this means she. fixed their meals and swcpr the floors ofthdr hiJeout, but in themselves the words quoted might be used of a protecting goddess. Thl" robbers she saves and protects insult her: "'you cadaver on the edge of death. life's prime obscenity, unique reject of Hd1." 41 The superlatives in this sentence (extremum, primum, JK m.licYr_titil J,,h,r, quL'IIi illrtm pro lillt'miLI l. :uu/a,dmPI plrri.lHt' duxistis, mm illf' m·r~iis qui/ou.,dam .milil•us Nmf'!ltru inla .\1ilr$ioJs / 1rmicas :lf'ul.·i mi t'l JuJia11littc·mritl •••IISI'Pit'$cart (Hisltlri~ l'\u,~;"ml••· Clt>di••s Allrinus 12.12}.
]'J. As so oftl·n in rc.·;uling du: ..o\:1, we: must :.caml pn:carillU!ily bc:t\Wcn cwu nu:anm!;t-') ant.i thcrcli:m: auynJ.Tr:ttiuns ot hc:r:s .lrt" anilibuJ_Iabr~lis, :m uld woman·~ tJkli.
40.
wi S,l/i s.tlus arqm·tutt'loJ tLll mmrt:rt' irlllt'llllm commiJsa uidrbatur (4. 7).
-11 .
hwli (dJaurr t'.\'lrrmum t'l uilolc' d.·decus Jlrimum rl OrciJutiJimll -~~,Jum (4. 7).
THE INTERPRETATlON OF TALES
55
solum) arc tr.ansfcrab1c epithets rhat might bc applicd. say, to Isis,
.. first offspring of the ages, highest of divinities, queen of the dead, first of the heavenly powers.'' 42 The robbers address their housekeeper in a litany of abuse. The hymnic phrasing means nothing at this point in the story to a first-reader and in fact must be entertained briefly only to be rejected. The first-reader does not know the housekeeper's character but knows only that she is an old woman weighed down with age uto whom alone the salvation and protection of so large a band of young men apparently was entrusted." As so often in the AA an extravagant tone has been introduced to convey what turns out to be a mundane meaning. The period of suspended judgment that precedes each such deflation is a time when the reader must work hard to determine the degree of distortion in each phrase. measuring the angle between the pretentious overstatement and the plain facts. In resolving such sentences the reader must often reject, as here, what seems to be religious language-a kind of exaltation and s:mctification that the material of the plot docs not in itself admit. It is curious that Apu1eius should thus give us practice in rejecting over-tones of reverence, not merely by presenting us with irreverent tales, but by saucing them occasionally with the language of holiness. so that we ourselves must make an effort and decide to repudiate it. The peripheral forces that draw us to elevate the old woman's tale and concentrate on her as a paradigm of narrative oppositions are themselves balanced by one of the sordid brutalities that arc also prominent throughout the AA. Notice first that the matched pair of women's tales exemplify the interpretive prindple that occurs between them: they arc opposite ways of developing the same thing. The central moment of the old woman's story is Psyche's nadir of despair when she loses her lover and contemplates suicide. This situation closely corresponds to that of the maiden to whom and for whom the tale is being told. By claboration backward and forward from this kernel, the old woman presents a fairy tale that inverts the young woman's account of hcrsdf. Both Charitc and Psyche arc wd] born, bqth arc happy in love with soul mates who apparently die. both endure trials. The naive conclusion is that the young woman's story may have as happy an omcome 42.
(11.5).
sarml••mm pr..,gl'llic.s iuitialis,
SUIIIIHd
ttwninwn,
rrgit~a m.mil~m.
prillld
t"atlilum
56
TRUTH
as Psyche's. But for her audience the most important point about the meaning of the o]d woman's taJe is that it js a ]je. The robbers had instructed her to console their captive. We have no reason to sentimentalize the old woman. whose interests are entirely those of the bandit gang, or to read her story of Psyche as anything but a cruel deception intended simply to keep the gir] quiet for a good long time. Of course there is a correspondence between the young woman's situation and Psyche's: the narrator is Charite's enemy and her tale is specifically designed to lull her fears by using a mirror image to tum her away from reality. ApuJeius thus engages us to react with contradictory feelings. not in alternation but simultaneously. for the more delightful and distracting the tale is in itself the more horrible is the treacherous fact that it is being told. In this case the narrator's motive, which provides a perfect explanation for the tale's length and its seductive beauty and the kernel of its content, has been revealed to us ahead of time, so that as first-readers we can both smile and wince. In the case ofthe entire AA it is only as second-readers that vvc can experience this same continuous betrayal-the more scabrous its stories, the more scandalous the fact of its chaste conclusion. and the more crafty the narrators, the more puzzling the fact that the whole enrity does not compute. And if her auocabo ('.I shall distract you,'' 4.28) is perfidious, what are we to make of his pennulceam ("I shall seduce you." 1.1)?"3 43. S. fc)man. "Turning the Screw of Interpretation," Ycdt Frrnth Srudits 55/56 (1977): 94-207, esp. 124 (the content of the story is its own rt!ading) and 131 (seduction. authority, and belief).
3
The Scrupulous Reader •• ... I've read that people never haa't' tigurcd out 'Hamlet.' so ir isn't likely Shakc:sJXare would have madl' 'Macbeth· as simple as it seems." I thought this over while I tilled my pipe. ''Who do you suspect? .. I asked, suddenly. •• Macduff.'' she said, promptly. "Good God!" I whispered,
softly. -James ThuTbcr, "The Macbeth Murder Mystery''
What we have so far surveyed suggests an authorial intcl1igencc of high I.Q. with a surreptitious bent. No single feature stands out in a way that would authorize a rule of interpretation for the whole, but at least we can rule out the radical position that Apuleius ''took few pains and had no purpose." 1 The next stage in the analysis is to expand the data base and refine the method of inquiry. The narratological themes raist:d explicitly and facetiously around the telling of tales arc also found within some of the tales and in other episodes of the novel. They wilJ be reviewed in this chapter and the next. The fictional act of narrating was our point of entry; now we will look for Apulcius's narratology in all parts of the text, except the prologue, the narrating of Lucius himsdf, <md Book 11. At the same time that we expand the field. it will be useful to contract the method. To pursue the investigation more vigorously and 1. others:
The opinion is B. E. Perry's; th~: phrase is C. C. Schlam's. reviewing 1\-rr)' and World64(1970-7l): 293.
Cl~tssical
57
SK
TRUTH
single-mindedly. however, runs an enormous risk: a ruthless thirddegree can force a witness to agree to almost anything. We must be scrupulously aware of how our conduct of the inquiry, as it isolates certain features of the text and brings cxtcmal forces to bear. may affect the nature of the outcome. The problem is that reading must always break into a text: "the inaugural act of reading is a certain destruction of the text's apparem order." 1 The reader must make decisions sentence by sentence as to what wi11 be emphasized, italicized. The text can contain clues. hints. and nudges but ultimately cannot read itsel( The most important question, in my view, is placed in the first paragraph: qt4is illr?-.. Who is that speaking?'' llut to focus on this question, though it is offered in a place of honor, is already "a certain destruction of the text"s apparent order;• for the question is presented as incidental, an afterthought from another speaker. not a center ofattention for reader or rereader. We need to find a kit of specific tools that will enable us to break into the text without shattering it irreparably. I take my cue at this point from those modern readers who have seen in T/rr Goldm Ass a solvable al1cgory.3 The.· critical assumption behind such re;-adings is that the
novel is rather like what we nowadays can a detective story. In the classic detection novel there is a solution given at the end that reitrterprtts the earlier events as having a significance quite different from what superficially appeared. Since the last chapter has displayed how high a proportion ofherml'11curic entertainment the AA contains. it makes a certain sense to compare the AA to that single form ofliterature that has in the last century engaged so many authors and readers in the very specialized pursuit of puzzle narratives with a solution. Perhaps the chief advantage of this method, however. is that there is not the slightest danger that we will instal1 it as mandatory or inevitable. Readers who come to the AA with a set of questions derived from ancient religion. philosophy. or rhetoric have difficulty distancing themselves from what they a]ready know. and difficulty therefore in 2. T. Todorov, "How to Read?" in "l'lzr 1\JctilS 4 Prosr, tnns. R Howard {Oxford. JCJ77; Frcndtorig. )971):241. .3. According to this mechod fsiac figun·s ;m: concealed in 011l the episodes: the widow in Thdyphron"s talc is rcaJiy lsi!; mourning fiu Osiris (G. C. Drakl.•, "The Ghost Story in Tlr~ c;.,IJ~n A.H by Apuleius,.. l'aptr$ Cll Lan.eua~· auJ Litt•rtJtlm.•1311977j: 1214); the clc\.'l'r doctor in the fourtc:c:nth tak is rc.aJiy Hc:rmcs/Thoth Jcting as ad\'OCJtc for Horos when Typhon put him on trial for illegttimacy (R. Merkdb1eh. Roma" unJ .\1ystrrium in drr :\rrtikt' (Munich I Berlin, 1962): 79-86.
THE
SCI~UPULOUS
READER
59
seeing how their preconceptions may alternately erase and italicize portions of the text. Information about religious and literary culture in Apulcius·s day is very important: my researches in that field will be presented in chapters 9-11. But what I will anachronistically bring to bear on the AA in this chapter is information drawn from nineteenthand twentieth-century reading habits. ranging from Poe to the present. For the moment, as a necessary. facetious praeludium, I will treat Tile Goldeu Ass as an unsolved crime that may be unraveled by a somewhat unorthodox procedure in order to Jearn quis illt:? ("'Whodunit? .. ). As a sort of grand jury report, I would cite the tollowing tivC' considerations that indicate that there' is a prima facie case for the similarity ofthe AA to modem detection stories: (i) The AA wasjudgcd by some in its day to be a high-class rhl"torkian·s descent to despised popular culture. 4 If Apulcius really did descend to a popular format in a way that made respectable readers blanch. we should not cover up the scandal. Rather we should view it in a way that now fl"ds slightly scandalous. (ii) The AA 'sending is a surprise and yet in some sense seems to have been lurking there all the time. If Apulcius seems not to have played fair with the readers, is he any worse in this respect than cdebratcd modcn1 mystery novcJs that have deceived readers by violating their own unwritten conventions (e.g., Tilt Bi~ Bow Mystery, Tl1e .Wurdcr of Ro,Rer Ackroyd, The Seccmd Shot, Before rhr 1-acr)? It might seem if anything characteristic of the genre to be most daring in the subversion of its own rules. (iii) The ratiocinative clements in the AA and the modem detective story can be readily blended with sensational clements-horrible deaths, violent confrontations with physica] danger. easy sex, a bruta1 odyssey through a1ien terrain. Hermeneutic entertainment is a central but by no means exclusive clement of both the AA and the detcctiw story. (iv) The detection story has been especially fostered by academics and intellectuals-both as readers and as writers. To mention only thccmincnt:J.I. M. St~wart ("Michael Jnncs"~ C. Day Lewis ("Nicholas Blake.. ), and Dorothy Sayers ("Dorothy Sayers.. ). Even mort• pertinent is the post-modem usc of the detective story as a framework for sophistic;~ted meta-literary works: Robbc-Grillct (Les Gommrs~
60
TRUTH
Nabokov (Pale Fire~ Borges and Bioy-Casarcs (Six Cmwersations with Don Isidro Parodr), Butor (Passitr~ Time). The puzzle n:irrarive is a natural locus for the seriocomic posing of fundamental issues about litera[Ure itself. (v) Readers have spoken of detection stories' special qualities in regard to time and memory: they are a concentrated exercise in immediate recall (of alibis and evidence~ yet somehow very forgettable as a whole, and beyond all other forms of popular diversion they arc unrercadable. •• I forget the story as soon as I have finished it, :md have no wish to read it again. If, as sometimes happens, I start reading one and find after a few pages that 1 have read it before, I cannot go on." 5 This is an uncanny mirror image of the reading of the AA, a work that makes no obvious demands on immediate recall, is episodically forgettable but leaves a lasting impression as a whole. and demands to be reread. Perhaps there is a pharmacological relation between the AA and detective stories, whereby opposite effects (pharn•akon as poison and medidnc) 6 are due to the same ingredient-in this casct a readerly role as weigher ofevidence that is either rigorously employed (detcctjvc stories) or mercJy toyed with (AA).
DETECTION "But perhaps, scrupulous reader, you wiJl raise an objection to my account, arguing as follows: 'But how could you have known. you sly ass, confined within the boundaries of the mill, what those women did (as you claim) in secret?' .. ' A good question, and one that
5. W. H. Audcn. "The Guihy Vicarage,.. in Tht Dytr~ Hatrd a11J Otlltr EsSdys (New York, 1963): 146. (Originally published in Harprr's .\laga::ittt', May 1948.) ''And even more dearly dun other n.ur;;uivc gt"nrcs, the dctccti\"C' nmrcl is created to feed an appetite in such :a w;ry that by the time it is read to the end nothing of the original novel remain!> except the paper it is written on and the memory of pleasure or disappointment. Detective novels :are the most bb.unt examples of throwaw~y litcnturc. They are books to lea\o-e behind in trains or \oacalion homes because in mos1 cases 1hdr only 'meaning' is in thefi r.sl rrading of them." IJ. Jlortcr. The Pursuit ofCrimr: Art a11d ldtoloK)' in Dttectilor Fictioo (New H:~o\•en/London, 1981): 7 (emphasis added). 6. J. lXrrida, "Plato's Pharmacy," in Disuminaticm, runs. B. Johnson. {Chingo. 1981 ; French orig. 1972~
7.
st'dJorsita 11 lt'llt1r SfruJ'llfc,SIIS rr l'"'l1rndrns narratrm• 1111'11111 sic argumrmaiJI'ris: "u 11dt asint, i11~n1 tt'nllitws pistrini cost, May 1, 1841) in which he solved the murder that had been described in chapter 1 and was meant to remain a puzzle throughout the long course of the novel. Poe's critical essay on the whole work ( Gralwm lwagazine, Feb. 1842, which quotes his earlier notice) brilliantly analyzes the confusion Dickens caused by simultaneously developing clc\·er enigmas to mislead the reader and broad melodramatic effects to portray the behavior of those who know the Awful Secret. Thus, in chapter 1 of Bamal1y Rudgt. Dickens poses an enigma:
s
The: steward and gardener were both missing and both suspt!Cled for a long time, but they were never found, though hunted far and wide.
varying from pity to anger, dut I took out my bicycle and tric-d. I had imaginl"d that the obsl..•r v-.n ions of the wa~· in which t ht.• t r.ac k of the hind wheel over1a id the track of the front one when the machine was not running dead straight would show the direction. I found that my currcspnutlcnts were right ami I w;~s wrung. 1\)r this wouM be the s.tmc whichever way the cycle was. mm·ing. On the other hand the real solution was much simpler, for on illl unduJ.ning moor the whec:ls make il much dttpcr impression uphill and a more shallow one downhill. so Holmes was justified of his wisdom afrer aU" (Mtmllrirs tm.l Adl'~''lhlrts (London, 1924 ): 107). Scrupulous readers-a fiction in Apulcius-hild ;U bst become a general reality. The public's resistance to detectives in the earlier part of the nincteemh century w:~s due to the perception of them as bounty hunters: ~·c I. Ousby, BIOmt'llltl m,..Jiw, immo pmrcto t".¥· (I!U•I . . . ]'1211' r fl'J'If'lltt' j;u IIU c•JI (1 0. 12). 33. Thormlyk.~'s char;1crcr wa!> inspired by a real-lite ex pen in forensic medicine. Or. Alfr~o:d SW;Iifh." Taylor.jusr as n ..,ylo: inv~.·set·d Hulna·s with the n·al-lifc: ;tCUiry of Or. Joseph lldl; 5cr Doyle. .\lmt,,rfc·s (note 1J): 20-21. On medical s.cmiotics and detection, S('e T. A. Scbcok. "'"You Know My Method': AJuxt:aposition of Charles S. Peirce :and Shcr1od• Holmes," in his. Tfu· P/.1y c~f .\fmC'mc·m (Dinomingtnn, Ind .. 19RI ): 17-52.
THESCRUPULOUSREADER
~
servation. like those of Dupin and Holmt's, seem at first uncanny and even suspicious. The proper name for such observation is serendipity, whose defining case was the observation by the three princes of Sl·n·ndippo that a ]ost camel, which tht"y protess not to have seen, was blind in one eye, had a tooth missing. and was lame. They deduce these tacts from the traces they had noticed: the camel had grazed on only one side of the road, where the grass was less good; its tracks showed that om.• foot was dragging, and it occasiona1ly dropped by the road part1y chewed dumps of grass just the size of a camel's tooth. 34 Apulcius's physician displays his remarkable powers of observation specifically in his attention to words, an operation we might ca1lscrcndipity of the text. But rhc physician's extraordinary acuity, which divides rhc story into two halves and coordinates its parts, is introduced by a statement from the narrator that subtly but definitively cancels his own acuity. Just before the physician stands up to speak at the trial (the momt·utum). the narrator r~:minds us of his own scrupulous reporting: "I learned how the tria1 was being conducted from various people who were discussing it with each other. But as for what fiery words the prosecutor used. what facts the accused put forth to weaken the charge, and indeed the speeches and cross-examinations~! myself, away at my manger~ could not know; therefore I could not be telling you what happened outside my ken, but what 1 plainly learned I shall set forth in these 1cttcrs." 35 This gratuitous remark is the narrator's reminder of his own acconntabihty for a text that is true, or at least truthful in appearance, because it is internally consistent. In f.1ct, however, the narrator·s disclaimer of the right to quote the speeches verbatim is violated-pre34. An ancient Gl5C ofserendipity: when llippokr.atcs once came to visit Dcmokrilos, the philosopher ordered some milk 10 be served to his guest. As it was brought out he took a Jook at it and rcmarkc~i that it was from a black goat who had lxnnc nne kiJ. Hippokr01tcs was astounded b~· the acui1y nf hi~~; ,1b!;Cn:ation. But more \\':IS m come: there was a youn~ womann1 Hippokratcs' rctmuc. whom Ue,nokritus :addressed on the tirst day with the words "Good day. m:aiden," and on the following day with th(' words .. Good day, ma'am." She 1ud in fact lost her \"irginity that ve-ry night. This is told b)' Athcnodoros lhc Bald in the eighth book of his l"tn);utoi (Di.og. Laen. CJ.42} 35. lrcJI't 111/ immr lllllllumJ:t>sla amtpfuribus mlllrw urmodn.nuibus wgnoui. qw'bus I.JHrtm llc·rbis .umsuror ursrril, quibus rcb1u Jilut'rit rtus Q( ptorsus cTdliU~u·s altrr(atiorlt"Tqur m·qur ipJt' dbsrm ap11d l'rat'jt•pium uirt' 11rque
Qd
wmpc•ri, otd istQSiillr'raJ pr.!]i.•rum (10.7~
liM, t]U function of the detective is that of an ideal reader. present in the text as a representative of the readt>r to review fi1cts, draw panial conclusions, and pose the challenge of understanding the whole. Th~ function is necessary. the character is not. A genre of detecting story that often lacks a detective is the "fantastic." so finely analyzed by Todorov. 41 In a fantastic narrative the rcadl!r, and sometimes a character as well, hesitate between two different orders of explanation for an event: either the event is a miracle, to be explained by some powers beyond the ordinary set of natural 39. IYhllr Will H11w Hr, ed. E. R. Moneg:tl and A. Reid I~"·w York. ICJISll: 72-73).
THESCRUPULOUSREADER
~
.. DaJlmcycr~" cried the President.
··aallmeycr!" exclaimed Robert Darz.1c, springing to his fl·ct .... BaUmeyerf Ballmeyer! No other word could be heard in the courtroom. The President adjourned the hcarinH· -Gaston Lcmux. Tire Mystery t!{tlrr Yellow Rollm
The detection story often fails to observe the Jaws of steady narrative momentum, makjng a 18fr change of direction on a single word. Afrcr prolonged intellectual bafflement, one key word can sometimes make the whole puzzle fall into place with an almost elastic snap of understanding: "Rosebud." In .Uurder at thr Flea ClubJ the victim's dying word, Gutzeit, turns out to refer not to the suspect Freddy Fairweather but to the Alsatian victim's own former name. Bontemps.49 The sentences recorded and continuously replayed by the surveillance expert in The Ccmversatiou take on a different meaning with just a slight change ofintonation, converting victims into murd~rcrs.so It is not the word itself (Ballmcycr, Rosebud, Grdzrit) that solves the puzzle, but an identification of the person or object for whom the word stands. often a rcidentification that alters the meaning of a set of actions by switching the character of their subject. The actions of the Siirctc detective Frederic Larsan at the scene of the crime have quite a different meaning when thought of as the actions of the crimiual Ball meyer. The characteristic progress of a detection story is a rotating, tentative reidentification of each character: What if gentle Miss Birdfeather were really a vicious criminal? What would her words mean then? After the tale of the robbers' cook, Apuleius indulges a bravura piece of multiple rcidentifications. The robber left behind in Hypata to watch the reactions of the townspeople returns with a new recruit for rhe band. This young man assumes seven different identities or characterizations, the last of which reveals that 'the first three were outright lies and the rest were tricks calculated to destroy the band and rescue the maiden. (i) The first lying identity is that of a humble 4CJ. 50.
M. Hc.:~d, Murdcrartllt-Pit+ll Clul,(Ncw York, 1955~ Directed by F. F. Coppol:l (~umount Pictures, 1974).
88
TRUTH
peasant. The robber proposes that the band's numbers be replenished by inviting and dragooning poor young men, the sort who would be ready to abandon the unprofitable life of legitimate 1abor for daring action. His candidate appears in torn clothing, evidently confirming that impression. (ii) But in saluting the rest of the band. the young man reidentifies himself: "Do not think me poor or abject, and do not judge my qualities by these rags'' (7.5). He proclaims himself already a famous robber from Thracc named Hacmus (Bloody). son of an equally famous robber, Theron (Wild Man), whose band was destroyed by Caesar's soldiers in response to the appeal of a valiant wom;m, Platina. (iii) In escaping from their dragnet, he assumed another identity, that of a mulier asinaria, a young woman riding on an ass with a load ofbar1ey. The disguise of a flowered dress, rather full in aU dimensions, with a shawl and dainty white slippers was successful because, though Haem us is considerably taller and better-muscled than all the present company, his boyish cheeks could still pass for a girl's. (iv) The first stage of his maneuvers is to propose that they elect him leader of their band-dux ltJtronum-which they do, seating him at the place of honor in new clothes that transform him.Sl (v) Entering the debate about how best to dispose of the captive maiden and the ass who abetted her, he persuades the group to sell her to a brothel rather than kill her outright. To Lucius listening. Hacmus now appears ''the outstanding savior of the virgin and the ass" (7.10). (vi) The last stage of his plan to rescue the maiden requires Haemus to become •'not only the leader of your expeditions and depredations but of your pleasures"-not only dux latrormm, but dux uolrlpltJtum (7 .11 )-in which character Haem us now sweeps the cave, sets up the couches, cooks the food, slices the sausage, serves it up nicely, and pours drinks all around. Having once appeared as a farm girl to pass through Roman Jines. he now assumes the ro1e of the robbers· cook. (Their cook had killed herself at 6.30.) (vii) But it finally dawns on the ass that this is the maiden's bridegroom come to rescue her. His re3l name is Tlepolemus, hers Charite. The point of his lies had simply been to inveigle himself into a position of confidence with the robbers. and in that position (iv) he first stopped their plans to murder her (v) and then supervised their drinking until they passed out 51 .
sit rrform~lus (7. 9).
THE SCI~UPULOUS READER
89
(vi). The entire sequence of statements and actions has to be reevaluated at the end: as Haem us. his actions made one kind of sense, but considered as the actions of Tlepolemus the same statements and deeds take on a different meaning. We might even be able to recall that Charite had not only mentioned her bridegroom in g1owing terms to the old woman but had described a dream in which he set out after the robbers but had been killed by one of them with a rock (4.26-27). Identities (ii) through (vi) arc minor readjustments, but the very fact that the character keeps shifting ground in sma11 surprising ways is in line with the major rcidcntifications: farm boyfamous bandit-bridegroom. Rcidentification may be an important element in the episode of Tlcpolcmus, but the story is not presented to the reader as a quest for an identity. There is however one celebrated portion of the AA that is spccifical1y constructed as a quest for identity and is therefore on the surface rather like a detective story. By way of preface, I must Jodgc a protest. The usc of the unauthorized title "'Cupid and Psyche," both planted on the page in translations and in our own reference system, is fundamentally abusive to the narrative technique of the talc. To be faithful to the story as it unfolds and to the Vf.)ltr-jafe effect of reidentification, we should not give away that the invisible bridegroom's name is Cupid, nor even that the beautiful princess's name is Psyche. For the identity of her lover is a real mystery, and most of Book 5 is devoted to following two trails of detection (the sisters' and Psyche's) in solving it, so we should not announce the solution :at the beginning. Qack Lindsay's "Tale of the Old Woman" is properly circumspect.) I recommend that we abandon the tide "'Cupid and Psyche" to show our regard for the real narrative operation of the talc. After a11, we would not refer to certain notorious detective novds as Tile Narrator Did It, The Detutivt Did It, Tl1c Prosuutors Did It, All tile Suspects Did It. AJso, the princess's jdcntity is at first established simply as a fairy-tale heroine, not as a religious or philosophical allegorization of the Greek psyche. The mention of her name comes as an afterthought, a minor piece of information added when the story is well under way. 5 1 Now it is hardly conceivable that the choice of this name for her is only of parenthetical significance: all the more reason then that 52.
h"c enim mmzi11r pudld IIUII(Up.:lbatur(4 ..30).
90
TRUTH
we should not falsify the delicate effect of suppressing her name for a while. (See also 5.29.) Each of the various answers to the question "Who is Psyche's husband?" is a tentative solution to a mystery that the first-reader may folJow as a detection thriller. The hypotheses arc tested in succession. and the evjdcnce swings first one way, then another. The full effect of the accumulating clues would be felt best by the reader who does not come to the story spoiled with the knowledge that the mysterious lover is Cupid. But even if, say, the tale was widely kuown and (as some argue) the very mention of Psyche brings Cupid to mind. the narrative structure of the story is still that of rotating hypotheses about the identity of Psychc·s husband. Psyche at least doesn't know it, and the talc is told (mainly) from her point of view. Even the reader who comes to the talc knowing the outcome must bracket that knowledge as he watches characters who do not know the outcome grapple with the problem_ Even a knowledge::able reader goes through the motions of discovery, as much as docs an audience of Oedipus Rt'x. For the attentive reader who does not know the answer to the central question-Who is Psyche's husb:and?-thc story is a genuine and exciting
mystery. Apuleius has written it with such a reader in mind, exploiting multiple hypotheses about the ]over's identity, as the following analysis will show. One might expect from the .. Once upon a time" beginning that the beautiful princess will be courted by a handsome prince. but Psyche is worshiped rather than wooed. Her incredible beauty brings admirers from distant lands, but oddly not a sentence even hints than any of them might be a suitor rather than a pilgrim. A suitor is inevitable in such a story, but before a Prince Charming can present himsdf. Vc:nus's curse dictates that Psyche "will be held by the burning lov~
of an extreme tnan"53_a mildly ambiguous phrase that could
refer either to Psychc·s dishonorable passion for someone of low estate or to her entrapment in his for her. (ExtremuJ is immediately glossed as ..one whom Fortune has deprived of dignity, patrimony, and even health itsdf, and one so low Ior, ''debilitated .. I that in the entire world one may not find his like for sheer miscry.") 54 53. 54.
oiiiitlrt'.fm.~ldJitU$imo lt"rlcarur lum1i11is rXIrrmi (4.31 ).
qutm rt d•).miratis tl p should notice that thc dett•ction-puzzll• ntw~o.·l of the 1920s was itself a spcci.1l devdopmc:nt out of the: ad\·cnwrc thriller with mystery clements. Cf. L. Panek, mmca11s Slu~plu·rds: Tlu· Dttttlil'c ,•,;,,u•l ill Britain 1914-19-10 (Dowling Gn:1..·n, Ohio, I'J7Y).
THE SCRUPULOUS READER
95
And while he 1.vaslooking I let him sec what came out of the gun. Doctor Soberin only had one eye lcfc.61
Overstated: ••you'n: going to die now ... but tirst you can do it. Deadly ... deadly ... kiss me." The smlJc never left her mouth and before it was on me J thumbed the Jightcr and in the moment of time before the scrl.·am blossoms imo the wild cry of tc.-rror she was a mass of flame tumbling on the Aonr with the hlue Aames of alcohol turning the white of her hair into black char and her body convulsing under the.· agony ofit. 62
Apuleius often pitcht:s his narrative in the mode of pure sensationalism: She untied her belt and looped it around each one of my legs and pulled them eight together to keep me helpless while she worked me over with the two-by-four that k!;!pt the stable doors locked. She final1y swppcd pounding mt.· from shcc:r exhaustion when tht.• beam slippt·d from her tired hands. She cursed her weak muscles and r:m to the lu~arth and grabbed one end of a burning brand and stuck it bet \VCen my rear legs until, counting on my last resource, I fartcd a tight jet of gummy diarrhea right into her tace and hit her between the cycs. 63
This is an extreme moment in T/u· Goldrrt Ass, as Hammer is an extreme case of tough-guy detective. The next sentence in Apulcius veers back away from pure sensationalism with a Jitcrary reference to Mclcagcr and the burning brand of Althaea-doser to the sensibility of Chandler, who names his mysterious lady Mrs. Graylc and shows us the enormous Moose MaUoy on a quest for her (Fan>wdl, My Loz'ely). The characteristics oftht• hard-boiled detective, as outlined by Cawelti, 64 arc a profile that fits one side of the AA: recurrent physical assaults on the hero, a quest \vith ever-changing matrices, a view of the cntirl· society as corrupt on every lcvd, with especial venom directed at women and the wealthy, a strict division of the characters into those for and those against the hero, a portrayal of sex as the great Kiss Me• Dc•i2dly(Ncw York. 1%2): 2-47. 62. Ibid.: 250. 63. rx.wl•1it su.zm sibif.udam I"'•lt:S(JIIt' mtol sitlgllllltim itllig.11JS inJidt'ttl uttmringir artislitllt", scilia·t IU' qiH'J uinJicltJt" lllectt' supncssrl prut-s~lium, ~~ pcrtice~, qua ste~b1di fon·s offirmari .$Oieb.mr, aJ"pta '""'' prius rtlt> dt'siit ,,btutrdtrr.', quam uictis fesJisqut> 11iribus moper po11dm• degnmatus m.miJms c•ius .Ji•stis t'SSc>t C'IIIJ'Sus. tuttc dr bmclricmm1 numm1 cit.z jlt{~titme mt~q~~e~sla prowtrit .td fowm ardoltt·mqllt lilic~tlt'11J J..~rrns mtdiis in_euinib•u obtntdit 11s~ut, do" cc sclo, q•wd (11.
rrsMbdt, ttiSIIS
64.
pmrsMic' liqrli.ld _time• striaim fgtstaf~~t'it•m at~1tt ,,mJ!'j tiu.s Ulfljc!td~tssnn (7 .2R~
Cawclti.
Adl~t'lllllrt {note
11): 239-56.
96
TRUTH
temptation and trap. The presence of all these in the AA does not make it a sensational detective story any more than the uncoordinated ratiocinative elements make it a puzzle story. For instance, the recurrent physical assaults on the hero arc not prompted by his coming too close to violent criminals whose conspiracy he might uncover; he is on a quest of sorts but has not been hired for it and develops no commitment to it of the sort that makes Marlowe and Spade seem valiant knights in the midst of prevalent urban evil. If I were trying to write an adequate account of the AA, sensationalism is one of many Jines that would have to be developed. But since this is, on the contrary, a general argument about how to undertake the interpretation of the book and is in effect a prolegomenon to other interpretations. it is enough to note the sheerly sensational as the copresent opposite of the ratiocinative investigation. It is the combinarjon that js provocative. Together they define. by opposition, two poles of all narrative. "It is significant that in [ratiocinative) tales the body is usually discovered in the library, for their authors tend to be opprcssivcJy bookish."6S The charge leveled by red-blooded tough guys against
ratiocinative stories is that they are deadly to action, that they kill real plot, that they dissect stories rather than Hvc them. The intellectual detective novel is not a real story. rather it is a parasitic narrative-the story of a decipherment of a story. Its plot is the determination of what already happened; and insofar as its painstaking accuracy in sifting through traces ofwhat really happened is indulged, it provides us with what Barthes called l'atJcantissmtmt de /'anecdote. That is why most mysteries are unrereadable. They are not stories at all, but epistemological exercises in correctly identifying the roles played in a story. The exercise is occasioned by act of vjolence that brings an end to whatever story there might have been.
an
65. M. Holquist, .. Whodunit and Other Questions: Mct.i!physic.a.l Detective Stories in Posr-War Fiction," Nt!w Lilt'nlf}' Hist"'}' 3(1971-72): 65. George Grella Ius tried to interpret the plot of such detection stories as social comedies with the criminal as "blocking figure"; seC' '"The formal Dcttctivl- Nmtd" in IRtmivr: Fictioo, cd. Winks (note 19): 84-102. In spite oft he merit of dtisanalysis. we must obsc rvc that the concealment of the identity of the blocking figure does make a radiC3l difference. Could we imagine a traditional comedy. say Mcnanuer's Grouth, in which the play was spent discovering by careful investigation which of the chuactcn h.ild a mis.mthropic temperament?
THESCRUPULOUSREAOER
~
Dut paradoxically the ratiocinative story in contrast to th~ hardboiled sensationa] story is a much more natural emmciati.,n. Watson & Co. have a plausible reason (its roots arc in crime journalism) for writing up thdr accounts for an interested public and a fictional stance that suits the printed page. Mike Hammer's confidences might be uttered in a bar late at night-\vith all their intimacy, maudlin asides. and sentimental violence-but could hardly be written down. The utterance conceals its own mode of existence as a printed page. helping along the illusions of readers who feel that only sissies read. The root of these contrasting attitudcs is the complexity of even th~ simplest narrativL" statement: "1 ran;· uttered by a person who is not running. Already in such an atomic unit of narrative there is a polarization of the I who did and rhe I who tell, of past and present, of experience and telling of experience. of action versus book. Two worlds must be posited side by side, one filled with people and things and events (and l'Vcn narratives) tllen, the other equally tilled \\'ith people narrating and listening uow. If this inherent and inevitable complexity of narrating itself is allowed to develop, we may find narrators subtly affirming the reality of past events at the e-xpense of present telling. especially when we come to a book for its telling of past events that we assume arc fictional. The double I of any narrating easily becomes the duplicitous 1.66 The two strains of modern detective stories thus show a polar contrast that is already implicit in any narrating. The anesthl"tized inspection of a violent murder is a parable of reading. heightening the built-in opposition between present telling and past experiencing. between the mind's appreh~nsion of what happened and the unmediatcd impact of a slug in the belly. Both represent real aspects of any narrative, the one emphasizing (in Gcnette's terms) the story (=what flli.
The only
w~1y
m avoid rhis
a:~~:is
of ltlt'diarion and
(mis)rc:p~nt:nion
is. to
suppress the I altogether: .. Contrary to what might be expected. a novel in the first person rarcl)· su((ttds in convcying rhc iJlusion of prescnrncss and inuncdiaq•. hr from facilitatin~ the hero-reader idcmific.ation, it rends to :1ppcar remote in time. The essence of suc-h a nm:cl is that it is rc:uuspned but specifically at the narrator. whocv.:r he is (quis ille?). It will appear that the responsibility of all authors/narrators (a distinction we will look at in Chapter 6) for the text they produce has already
100
TRUTH
a certain criminal cast, and that even the most magisterial author of any narrative finally becomes answerable to a charge of complicity in the plot, often of outright masterminding. I shall try to make clear not only that narratives work this way but that the narrated narrative situations in The Golden Ass provide a series of X-ray pictures from ditTcrcnr angles that show up this usually invisible guilt and show it, too, dispersed over members of the audience. The implication of the audience as secret sharers of the guilt of the tale leads us to an analogous metaphor (or a simi1ar analogy), that of the narration as a contract. Merchant and customer strike up a deal to make a mutual exchange, a givc-•md-take wherein both give and both take. "Give me a copper coin and I will give you a golden tale." 1 Both panics arc allowed to hope that the terms of the exchange will tun1 out in their favor, and both must be wary of misunderstanding the letter of their law. It is a sort of secret guilt. at which we all smile, to think that we have gotten the better of a bargain. and it is accompanied by an all the more sour surprise when we learn that we have been taken. The transformation of guilty delight to chagrin. arguably the p.atten1 of the AA for the first-reader, seems to be .accompanied by
some mysterious voice from a higher point of view commenting on our entrapment in a bad bargain: .. Fool! He exchanged with Diomedes gold armor for copper, a hundred hides' worth for nine" (IUad 6.235-36). Having sketched the nexus of seller and buyer as it is persistently represented in the AA. we will have brought out the major forms of interpretation ponrayed in the novel that are relevant to the interpretation of the novel and so bring to a close Part One. The original question will by then have been replaced by a more specific one, viz., the identity. characterization, and performance of the auctor/actor. To these inextricably linked functions of the text (author and narrator) we may applf the full force of ambiguity packed into the term "confidence man" as one whose role is to promote both faith and wariness.
PLAYING FAIR All narrators of tales know the ending when they begin. Hence, a talc may begin with and be prompted by a gJimpse of the 1.
ass~m p11r{J ~~ 11cdJW 11141Tolllt fobul11m
(Pliny Ep i1l. 2. 20. 1~
THECONTRACT
101
ending, as ''Sarrasine" is the tale of the mysterious old man in evening clothes, or as Apuleius's fifteenth talc concerns a woman who has already been condemned to die. Or the beginning may offer a tantalizing piece of information from any part of the talc: "I quite agree-in regard to Griffin's ghost, or whatc\'er it wasthat its appearing ti.rst to the little boy. at so tender .an .age, adds a particular touch. But it's not the first occurrence ofits ch::mning kind that I know to have involved a child. If the child gives the effect another tum ofthe screw, what do you say to twochildn:n-? ..1
In any case the narrator can sre the whole plot as a single finished entity: "He took no notice ofher; he looked at me. but as if. instead of me, he saw what he spoke o£'' 3 This encompassing view entitles the narrator to make ominous pronouncements about the outcome: .. It's beyond everything. Nothing at all that 1 know touches it." .. For sheer terror?" I remember asking. He seemed to say it was not so simple as thar~ to be really at a Joss how to qualify ir. He passed his h3nd over his eyes. made a little wincing grimace . .. For dreadful-dreadfulness! .. .. Oh. how delicious!'' cried one of the womcn. 4
Such preliminary glimpses can never nffcr us more than a cloudy knowledge of the end. The narrator, as one who imparts to us the secret of the talc, must begin with an act of concealment-otherwise the talc would be already over. Exploiting this dimension of all stories. the detection story exhibits a very exact and carefully wcigh~d formula of allowab]e foreknowledge and necessary ignorance. lt is, on the one hand, a deathand-taxes certainty that by the end of a detection story the reader wiU know the Who?. How?. and Why? of a baffling crime. This is a more exact prediction than is possible for almost any other form of story. Insofar as the reader knows that a solution wiJl occur, postponements of that solution arc- a form of suspense. Virtud innocc:>ncc by a reflection on Fortuna. the h!ind assigne-r of wealth and reputation: .. And worse than all. she attributes to us various-or rather, contrary-reputations, so that both the bad man glories in the good man's fame and. au colllmirc, the most innocent man is entangled in hateful rumor." 15 The passage is crudal in retrospect (i.e., to rereaders) because it is the tirst introduction of blind (or malevolent) Fortuna and the first striking of a moral pose by the ass-narrator. Together these two features of the narrative in Books 7-10 lead some readers to discern an educational process, a growth of consciousness on Lucius,s part, as he refl~cts ever more frequently on the moral repulsiveness of this wicked world and r:hc blind cosmic power who harries him. The k·vcl of sheer sordidness and the varieties of sadistic pain seem to increase. as if to prepare Lucius for making a radical break with the secular world and its controHing force. This is ofcourse a retrospective view. Its key terms (increase, preparation, break) can be applied only from the vantage of a 14. r~a rHilli tamtu l•ctbar c.ZIIMIII mrmn d~fendere ud 1111ico uerbo s.1ltem dmt:_edrc. tleni· que 11e mala tmJStienria 111111 sulrsw ltimirri prursrm uid1·rrr silruti(l ,·ortsmtirt . .. (7 .3). 15. quclqur nmais tsl t•.wrrmiuJ, 11arias t~pilliclJI('S, immo amlraritJs llc•bis amiimat, 111 rt nMI.t$ borti uiri fatrM glorirtur eI ir111oce-nt issimus lOll tl'll m.1.t:io Tlllllt'IR' plutalrlr (7. 2).
THE CONTRACT
107
reader who has finished the whole and decides to describe its overall shape and direction. or rather who only then feels the need to reassess rhe book as a whole and looks for a shape and a direction. It is a simple reading-a neat. clean shape and an easily mapped direction. [ts adequacy will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 6 (pp. 147-49}. Here we must simply note that the two traits (Fortuna's dominance and Lucius's moral indignation) arc co-dependent. Neither should be given a separate forcet as if Lucius's comic prissiness were unrelated to his equally comic fatalism. The temptation of the simple reading I have described is to connect the dots {using perhaps the Judex Apuleianus, s. v. Fortuna) and sec in the AA a theory of Fortuna and, separately. a psychology of world-disgust, which then, in isolation from the situations that genera led them as a twin pair, can be put into relation with the good Fortuna (Isis) and the chaste. worlddenying initiate of Book 11. In the interests of such a connection, the interpreter must also suppress the comedy of Fortuna's unrelenting insidiousness in ever devising m·w pt"rils and the comedy ofth~ philosophizing ass's shocked innocence. The co-implication of oppressive Fortuna and victimized Lucius should be (first) seen :IS the first-reader sees them. viz., as interdependent clements in Lucius's defense. They arc generated together in a forensic context and an: (at least initia11y) a reaction to an accusation of guilt. That charge of guilt is so framed as to make us aware of the hermenemic l1amart•'a r·just missing the mark") of the Hyparan investigators. The robber rcpons their reading of the availab]e evidence: like rcrcaders ofthe AA, they have a problem to solve. Their data are a mixture of circumstantial fac[s and personal testimony that leads to an obvious conclusion. Lucius and we: alone arc privy to the most interior judgment possible, that his peccadillo has been misconstrued as a mortal sin. The motive and nature ofhis false pretenses have been conn· a led from everyone: on thl· scl."nc, which both justifies the investigators in their simple. satisfying reading of events and explains rhc peculiar pangs of affront expressed by Lucius. Furthl·r, rhe twin demt:nts of the pose have a specific relation to narrating. Obviously. one use for Fortuna is to keep up the momentum of episodic adventures. especially at the gaps where one might expect a rest or intermission: "crud Fortuna handed me over, already broken by such sutTcrings, to new tortures'' (7.16); ··but Fortuna, insatiab]e for my sutTerings. once more marshaled another opponent
108
TRUTH
against me" (7 .17). At a deeper level Fortuna stands in for the ultimate director of the action, whose taste in drama is for the maximum of fast-paced thrills and an unrelenting sense of crisis. But most important of all, Fortuna is the figure who is assigned respotrsibility for the amazing concatenation of events, making Lucius a correspondingly passive pawn. Analogous to the ass's radical innocence (viewing behavior in which it it unthinkable that he, modest and chaste, could have any part) is his radical passivity in the face of Fortuna. The codependence should again be clear: with an enemy like that no wonder Lucius was helpless. Now it is not necessary that qua narrator Lucius should reproduce the helplessness of Lucius who experienced the events. In addition to the original overpowering of the agent/actor Lucius by the force of circumstances {Fortuna~ there is the question of the narrator's responsibility for telling the story. On this level, beyond the almost inevitable concealment of the end to be reached, there is an almost total dereliction of responsibi1ity for integrating the story as a measured progress toward that end. The story remains. in its narrating, enslaved to Fortuna. The narrative itself thereby conveys the understanding that in the future course ofevents no subst:m-
tive change occurred in the metaphysical relation oft he all-dominant Fortuna to her helpless victim. The responsibility for the events and for the telling of the events is not only lopsided between Fortuna and Lucius but between the author and ourselves. Before we can analyze that relation (pp. 119-22~ let us look at two other narratives about finding a guiJty party and then at some instances of specifically narrative guilt.
TIJe crimirral ct'lebmted The two cooks noricc that portions of their best food arc disappearing and make a careful investigation for the guilty party. 16 They finally break out into mutual recriminations, each thinking the other has sold some of their common goods for private profit. When they notice that their ass is growing daily fatter and glossier, and chat his fodder is untouched, their suspicions tum to him-incredulously, since it is a well-known fact that asses do not eat hunun food (for those readers who do not know. it is mentioned in 10.15). They lay a 16.
SluJiMt: Uf'Siig.tbmlt Yf'IIIH
(10.14); lalrlltltiPf (10.15).
THE CONTnACT
109
trap. Pretending to go off to the baths at the usual hour they tiptoe back and through a smallish knothole scrutinize the ass. ,..,.ho is devouring their banquet with gusto. The sight is not only a joke (they split with laughter) but the criminal. after being detected, becomes a taus;: d:lebre, feted and pampered at the mastcrJs table, bridled with gold and silver, and a spectacle whom many desire to sec (10.19). In fact, when the master, Thiasus, and the ass return to Corinth, which is the native city of them both, the crowd assembles more to see the famous ass than to honor one of its first citizens. The conversion of detected guilt to glory may recall the pattern of events leading up to Lucius's first transformation-crime, investigation, exposure of guilt, laughter, reverence (the city magistrates announced that a bronze statue of him was to be erected, 3.1 1). Hypcuritical wt~{ession The priests of the Syrian goddess arc mendicants whose religious showmanship, ecstatic dancing, and sdt:.ftagellation earn them offerings of money and food. The narrator calls their collections "robbery" . 17 Their prophecies are made-up lies. 18 Their chastity is a sham (exposed by the saindy ass whose ..eyes could not long tolerate such a spectacle," 8.29) and they rob temples (caught with the goods at 9. 9-10). Paradoxically. these arc the very persons who practice a liturgy of confession:
IAmidst the twirling ofhcads and cutting ofbare arms] onr: ofthem ..vas even more wildly ecstaric. Heaving frequent gasps from deep in his chest like one tilled with the divine breath ofa god, he simulated the torments of madness, as if the presence of gods did not make humans better than thcmsel\'es but made them weak and debilitated. Consider the blessing this man won from heJvenly providence. He began to reproach and accuse himsdfin a loud-shouted prophecy. a made-up lie. as if he had committed s01nt· dl·~d against th~ propriety of holy religion, and morco\"cr he demanded that he himself impose the just pt>nancc tor his noxious misdeed on h imsd f with his own hilnds.l9 17.
dt•prardab.3t11Ur (M.29).
fictac llaticirMtit'ltlis mrtrdfJcio (H.29). 19. ·ima l1ac•t 1111115 c'X illis l~t mori cupi;, nos tuwrbiJac· ,·aput 111111 habt•r1ws, Ul pn' '" ml.lriamur" (1.15). 39. quem $0/um ill Jtu'O rt'dfuleslwl imrolmtioJr citdrr ptJ$HIIPI (1.16). 40. quiJ tuim Jc dr1obw lcmilum I•IIIC'rum siiiC' o::~ltrriuj Uo.J.W [Kn'mptum atJI'trt? (1.1')). -'1. 42. i~hmc:nt
qJitJsi amscilli milti c11t'dii lmmauar {l.JCJ). Mcroi.' had forgiven the citizens in brcnc:ral bm singled out the: aua1.1r fiu pun-
( 1.10).
118
TRUTH
always "the criminal author himself [ tmctor crimifralis )." Aristomenes· role in the story. as actor. is to be constantly accused of having designed and perpetrated a crime. In terms of the story this is untrue from every human point of view, but it is true from the extra-human point of view of the witch, thl· ftmirta diu ina (1. 8~ His function outside the story. as narrator (auctor), displays the same intersection of two incompatible perspectives: he gives his companions an account that has all the qualities of a good fiction (some of which are mentioned by the characters who listen to it) and yet ends as an account of his irreversible. real-life exile: and alienation. The springe of Aristomenes' talc not only entraps the tclJer, it implicates Lucius as well, which brings us to the subject of the audience's guilt. Remember Lucius·s account of choking to death on cheese pic and watching a sword swallower (1.4, analyzed in Chap. 2, pp. 3032). That all too disconnected discourse strangely corresponds to the events of the story itsdf-Socratcs gets a sword in the throat and apparently does not die, Aristomenes (the cheese merchant) chokes on a chunk of bread (.. Although it was rather small it stuck in the Cl"nler of my throat and could neither descend downward nor reascend upward"). 4 3 Exactly as with Lucius's crisis of choking, no outcome at all is reported. Two incredible deadly thrusts of a sword in the throat that do not kill, two chokings on food caught in the throat that have no outcome-the narrator as actor in hjs tale and the listener who wants to believe it mirror each other. Both watch similar major crises and suffer the same minor one. What we must assess about this correspondence is its combination of accuracy and irrelevance: too exact to be accidental, too extraneous to be significant. The natural home of all such point]ess precision is in a game. The mutua] reflection of frame and talc celebrates the secret, hidden in plain view. that reading the AA is a gamelike procedure whose two players arc Apulcius and the reader. Games arc precisely the kind of activity that we can take more seriously than life. The concentration and invo]vemcnt of chess p]ayers or football players far surpasses that of agents in non-game activities. This is possible because in a game the rules and boundaries arc we11 defined. The itA. however, nor on)y has boundaries (those announced in the prologue) 43. qw11nuis ad~tw.lum modicum t11t'1Jiis jo~ucil111s inlldrrrR"t d( 11rqur dt(lrsum .l~rnrare rtc•· qau ru-rmnr rr• mt>a rr f"JSif't (I . 19~
THE CONTRACT
119
but cominuously creates interior bounded siwations that represent its own activity (characters narrating to each other) and then playfully violates aJl such boundaries. "Playfully" here means .. as a recognizable prank," ··as an infraction of the rules so humorous and so unconcealed that it cannot be penalized ... The throats pierced and blocked arc significant bcca11Sc they arc irrelevant. They are thereby a token of the text as game (ludus) as illusionary and ludicrous in every selfmirroring facet. The entire project of detecting corrcspondcnccs-bctwcen Lucius and Socrates. between Charite and Psyche, between Psyche and Lucius, ru. <Jd i,rj:, must take place, if at all. only against the background ofboundary-vio]atingjokes that a1Jude to the real nature of the text itself as a game. When docs a playful infraction of the game's rules become a serious (penaHzable, guilty) offense? The answer is~ When the player stands to gain something from the crime. If there is nothing at stake. no self-advancement in the game at another's expense, then an obvious rule violation is either mere clumsiness or a joke. In either case the player is not held accountable for it as a fault. Indeed, a wiuy and open infringement of rules is a perfectly acceptable feature of game playing. Mentally. everyone marks it as time out because pranks do not gain points. Gain at another's expense is the feature that transforms a fcl1ow p]aycr's caprices into felonious capers. Let us tum, then, to thl· subject of well-gotten gains. 1
THE MARKETPLACE OF DESIRE
We may miss some of the intensity of involvement between narrator and listener if we regard the stories in the AA as examples only of the ironies of interpretation and the delights of detection. They are also represented as an exdtange. A story docs not float about freely bm is offered to someone for remuneration. whether that be money, a meal, or simp1y the listcn~r·s attention. Now there are two interesting features about the stories in the .4A considered as objects of value or items of exchange. The first is that many tales arc about closely watched cash transactions: Thclyphron·s contract and reward ("g1eaming gold,.. 2.26)~ Diophancs and th~ businessman. Mr. Profit; Myrmcx and the adulterer's gold (with its magical power to entrance him and break doors, 9 .18-19); the pric~
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TRUTH
of the poor man's tub; the robbers' tales. The point is not that money occurs in these tales but rather that its transference is the focus of a shrewd attention both by the actors and by the narrator/narratce. The money staked in a transaction is an index to a feature of the: tales that would be apparent even if the recurrent thing were not cash bur dothcs or honor or tickets to the circus-namdy, that the tales have their sharpest point of interest and value for us in their mercantile cunning, a quality of the tales themselves that is often, naturally enough, represented in the tales by a cache of money at stake. The exact tone of shrewdness in these narratives is that of a merchant or customer watching for tricks. The second, and contrasting, feature is that the judgments passed by characters on the value of the tales arc palpably wide of the mark. An exception to this rule is the just verdict, .. We learned a delightfu] talc of a certain poor person's adultery'' (9.4). Compared to the adequacy of this remark. all other judgments (expressed or implied) are fatuous (1.20, 26; 2.15, 31; 4. 27~ inflated (8.1, 22), or deliberately misleading (9.14). Together these two features form an asymmetric syzygy-intense
shrt-wdncss within the talc, attributable to the narrator and watched by the audience; a notable absence ofshrewdness outside the tale, as if the audience had missed the point. This may be associated with another asymmetry of value in the AA. The prices of goods and services reported in the novel arc preposterously inflated-with one exception. The ass himsdfis sold at way bdow market value. 44 The field of values constructed in the AA is a crazy market in which the forces of inflation and collapse, of intense watching and stony indifference. alternate unpredictably. An apt name for this Exchange is Fomm Cupidinis, "The Marketplace of Desire'' (as of Cupid~ where luxuries and goodies can be purchased (and the place where Lucius meets Pythias and Byrrhena, 1.24; 2.2~ One of the culturally specific frameworks within which this asymmetry makes some sense is that of popular narrative as a much44. R. Duncan-Jones, Tht Econot~~y of tht Roman Empire: Quamitaliltt Srudits (Cambridgt'. England, 1974): 248-51. Some oft he prices an: for forbidden sen·ires on which no realistic cost~stima.tcs survh..-c, but they arc alw:;ays set .... gucly high: necromancy (grundij• pratrnio, 2.28~ love spell!l (multi$ mutJtribus, 9.29), fortune telling (wumr1 dtnarium, 2.13; 11on pamas IWCUtti~Js, 9.8~ provision of poison (cr11tur" aiHl'llS solidos, 10. 9; qui~Jolrlagint~J sestmia, 10.25~ instruction in witchcraft (amp/a Cllm llltm•dl', 2.6).
TI-lE CONTRACT
121
culth·atcd but pot.:ntialJy embarrassing art forrn. let nte tell a story that illustrates this. (If your interest perks up at that prospect. the point has already been made.) ..They say that Dcmosthencs the orator was defending a man on trial and noticed that the jurors were not paying attention. "Listen. gentlemen. to a delightful story: a young man once hired an ass to go from Athens to Megara. When it was high noon he untied its load and crept under the ass's shadow. When the ass driver kicked him out he began to argue vjolently, saying he had hired the ass's shadow too. The ass driver objected and said he had only hired the ass. So the two of them went m court to settle the matter.' Dcrnosthenes then stcpp~d down from the platform. The jurors, however, demanded to know the end of the case, so Dcmosthenes remounted the platform and said, 'So you \Vant to hear, gcm1emcn, about an ass's shadow! But when a man is on trial tor his lite. you can't bear to listen to my voice?'" (Zenobios 6. 28). 45 The point I take from this is the opposite of Dcmosthenes': of course it is more interesting to listen to a story than to a courtroom speech. They stand in a rdation to each other of business to pleasure. Apuleius 's audience may be quite willing to be seduced by dte pleasures of narrative, but reading the AA is peru tinged with gui1t. If for Apu]cius's audience listening to tales always implies some fcdings ofguilt, ofcomplicity in the illicit, ofbad cultural conscience, then we can give a narro\\>-cr characterization of the narrator. The name for a manipulator of non-innoCL"tlt vicrhns is the con man: .. his idcnrifying ploy is to cheat only those who arc themselves ready to cheat. He is the swindler raised to the second power, re~rving his blandishments for would-be swindlers. An ordinary swindler falsifies legitimate moneymaking schemes: stocks or bonds, warehouse n·rtiticatcs for vegetable oil. a biography of Howard Hughes, or whatever. The victim falls when he naively accepts the legitimacy of the bogus scheme. A con man, on the other hand. offers his victim partnership jn an illegal scheme. the more sure because it is illicit. The victim must agree in advance to panicipatc in rrickery." 46 The mistakes of fic1ional audi45. T. K:uJd:agli, Fal!i'l rmd .-'\it10s, Bcitrage zur ldassischc.-n Philologi~:. no. 135 (Konigstein. 198l): 50-5.2. Jsokratcs tc:stifies to the same split: "When I was younger I decided dut m)' compositions would not be among those that are mydtlikc: an~J full of a111azing and mad~.-·-up things. the !LOrt that lwi i"'ll"i far prefer to those that conce-rn their own s:th•ation" (~,.~, hmaiktts I ). 46. J. G. Bbir, Tlr~ Cm~fi•lt'PUt' .\.fat1 ill ,\l,t~lm• Fifli''" (LoJH.Inn, 1979): 12.
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cnces about the nature and value of the tales they listen to and the presence of cash are two reflections of the fact th~t the narratology of these tales exhibits the sensibility of a con man. Something of value is staked (cash and our attention~ a contract is set up (the plot with its expected end~ :md the author then cleverly reverses our expectations. In return for our time and attention we arc allowed to participate in a shady transaction. To what authority can we ]egitimatdy complain when it turns out in the last book that we have been fleeced? For the larger investigation ] draw out three lines of thought. First. the first-reader on some level of awareness knew all along. simply from reading the tales and episodes for their characteristic narrative strategy, that th.: text had qualities of a confidence game. This ought to be relevant to a reading of Book 11 as a surprising development that catches us off guard. But, second, there is an important difference between the clever escapades of Books 1-10 and the final caper in 11. That book was not only unpredictable before the event (like any good gimmick~ it remains an uninteUigible, apparently unmotivated surprise. A con man's motives we can understand: he cams a living by his tricks. But wh;at does our ::mthor or narr;ator gain from springing Book ll on us? What else can we give him besides our attention and thl" price of du: book? Third, we must note the sense in which Book 11 is MOt a con man·s shrewd trick. The superior cunning of 1-10 is no longer in evidence. There is liturgical rhapsody, cami\'alesque variety, dreams-come-true, but nothing like the brilJiam sheJI games of the preceding book. "' 1 It makc-s one miss the friendly, familiar con man of the earlicr books, whose narrative intelligence could always be relied on to manipulate a clever conclusion. Now the question is not just ··who is that speaking?" (quis ilk~) but "Where has he gone to?" We knew at least the kind of truth he was purveying (clever multiple lies in narrative form); in Book 11 no such certainties are possible. More, we are acutely aware of what the narratology of Book 11 lacks because Books 1-10 have demonstrated the highest degree of narrative sophistication ... This, I think. is the answer. 47.
The two episodes in 1-10
rh~t.
like Book. 11, :arc rather pointless
(olm~
Allot·
Erkbr1isj uc P)·thi01s's fish-tr.-.rnpling (1.24-25) and the diatribe on judici.-1 bribes (10.33). Both concern money (a tis.h-pricc about twenty times higher th.ln normal; see Dunnn-Joncs, Enmomy (note: 441: 249-50) ;md unrdi;:&blejudgments by uffid;als, bnth .:arc at the c:nd of narrative units. both pro111pt a desire simply to escape-
5 Interlude: Socrates in Motley Any fool can tell a lie, and any fool can belie\·e it; but the right method is to tell the truth in
such a way that the imelligem reader is seduced into telling the lie for himself. -Dorothy Sayers
The principal reason for following an a pore tic method in the last three chapters was that the very difficulty of keeping an open mind, of aU owing alternate hypotheses their full weight, is what has led most readers over the years to simplify the Asimts Aureus. Yet the difficulty of keeping an open mind is, for this book in a very deep sense, its own reward. Let me explain. At this fulcrum, where we shift from th~ reported tales and reported acts ofintcrprcting tales to interpreting the reporter himself, I will also shift methods. Instead of continuing with a heuristic and cautiously inconclusive survey of suspicious parts. I will first sketch the goal to which the next three chapters arc leading. The characteristics of Apu]eius's narrative that I take to be most significant for the question we ar~ asking arc su(;h features as these: (i) the surreal conjoining (which I haw called imbalanced pairs or ~symml·tric syzygies) of hermeneutic aJternatives; these have responded to thoughtful analysis in such a way that they seem to be designed rather than fortuitous~ (ii) the two unresolved debates (between the cynic and Lucius and between Lucius and Milo) about the truth of strange tales and about the ability to prove claims to higher knowledge~ (iii) Lucius's recommendation of an open mind and his argument for suspended 123
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TRUTH
judgment; (iv) the comedy of irreconcilable interpretations, each of which seems vaJid to the individual holding it and must be taken as true by the reader for the sake of the story; (v) the exaggeration and ridicule that may be directed in turn at each element or participant in an epistemic structure (narrating is the chief example); (vi) the contrasrjng intelligibility of the entire novel to first- and second-readers, which gives to each scene a stereoscopic quality of unresolved differences in perspective on the same item; (vii) the focus on the question of the author's missing point of view (quis ille?) as the perspective that, if only it could be located, would authorize one interpretation over another. On the basis of these features and all the readings in the last three and next three chapters. my ultimate assessment of Tl•e Golden Ass is that it is a philosophical comedy about religious knowledge. The effect of its hermeneutic playfulness, including the final book, is to raise the question whether there is a higher order that can integrate conflicting individual judgments. I further argue that the effect of the novel and the intent of Apuleius is to put that question but not to suggest an answer. Such a posing of the question without giving an
answer (a posing that includes Lucius's curiously unendorsed finding of an answer) amounts to a limited skepticism. The implicit argument of the novel is that belief in Isis or in any integrating cosmic hypothesis is a radicalJy individual act that cannot be shared. We can watch Lucius make a leap of faith but we cannot find the grounds to stand on (in the novel) that would enable us to leap with him. The briJliance, and the point, oft he AA is that it never states such a thesis outright but makes each reader undergo the experience of having to make up his or her mind about what Lucius's experience and Lucius's narrative mean. 1 The shift from a clever. comic narrative with marked hermeneutic interests to a relatively serious and committed religious discourse in Book 11 makes the reader ask a new set of questions that had been latent all along: q11is illr?-Who is Lucius anyway? How docs his entire narrative cohere? Is there an authoritative endorsement oflsis? l.
'"IApulcius'sl message, what we must call his philosophic vision. is all the is no sraremenr uf message: because ir is the re<Jdf'r Cnlc:ncc that might admit of a different rc.Jding. It will be the business of the m."Xt thn.'C chapters to show that the first-reader resolves such ambiguities jn f:avor of Lucius's randomness and absurdity, that the secoml-readcr tries to ~ad lucius'sjokc:s and ambiguities .as tokens of a higher seriousness, and that the second-reader. although he nr she can find sc-anercd Jl'IS5oibilitit·s, can locate no amhorilation for tht·ir asSt·mbly into an integral whole.
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TRUTH
dcnly seems to be looking back on his ad ventures as a dosed set of items organized by a rule (signified in the diagram by the square
brackets). This new view of the very Jife he himself has just narrated docs nor result from his drc:am of Isis (11.3-6) or from the sermon of her priest Mithras (11.15), but rather is implied in the radical change of Lucius's own consciousness that is mentioned-but not explained~ at 11.1. At that moment Lucius becomes a different Lucius. (ii) Ludus. ln the first sentence of Book 11. Lucius says he awoke: suddenly on the beach and saw the full moon low against the sea's horizon: •• Being now in the silent solitudes of the shadowy night, certain too that the preeminent goddess was powerful in her special majesty and aU human affairs were indeed ruled by her providence. that not only beasts tame and wild but even creatures inanimah.· wcrc quickened by the divine directives of her radiance and her godhead, that even physical dements on the earth, in the sky, and in the sea took increase by accre[ions pursuant to her will and suffered loss by depletions compliant with her comnund. that tate (one might assume) was now satiated with my abundance of terrible disasters and was now offering a hope, though late in coming, of rescue, I decided
to pray to the noble symbol of the goddess before rne.J'U The word in this sentence that makes this Lucius a different person from the Lucius of 1-10 is crrtus, .. certain:· This Lucius is convinced that the cosmos is governed by a power that can save him from his excruciating condition. The emergence of this conviction is a crucial event in the narrating, and certus is precisely the fulcrum (mmm·utum) between Books 1-10 and Book 11. It is news of some moment to the rl·ader that Lucius has this certainty-not that he tenrativdy began to entertain such a possibility but that he now securely possesses this very relevant view of the human condition. It is momentous news too that his adventures arc disasters of the sort that might need a goddess's rescue rather than mere roses. The narrator had been presenting his disasters as an amusjng act; now we Jearn (as it were) that 11. IIIWtJu.sqm· ~Jpatar: 1111ttis silnlliM4 sttrt•la, talus t'tiam smmnarrm .lt',llll pmaipua maitstalt pollrrc rrsqut prorsus fwmartas ips ius rt_(i prouidtlltioJ, nee tantmn pecui11a et jl"rilf4, 111'111111 illomima t'ti11111 di11ir1~, tillS lwuirliS rllmlilli.lqu,· nutu utgtfari, iJ'Stl etjmrl wrl'''~'~~ ttrra, catlo mariqut nwu illtl'tiPitllliJ co,utqllwtcr au~tri, IIIIIIC dtlrimtnlis obstqurnltr irnminui,jiuo scilicrt iam mf'is tottalllis']llt' dadibus satia1L1 et sFm salutis, liut to~rJ•m•. SJlbmiuislriltUr, augus111111 SJtt !>~ere:-,{ room." a dylitl is an emendation proposed by Scyffcrt and Jcccptcd by all modcn1 editors for F's iJ~fiid (For y represented by fin Greek names. cf. 1.12: Endjmit~~t; 2.32 and 3.19: Gtr· _{Cin.) Earlier c,limrs variously read rx dStu, .:.1 urJstio, ur a ur11it1. o1 dytitl is rco~ched by the similarity of d to d in Longobardic script. 11 < b rJ > Jytio posits the omission of two lc:uc.-rs by haploguphy inscead ofrhe misreadingoftwo letters .as one. 3. "Lucius," 1.24; Athcru. 1.2; Adytius. 1.24; class, 1.23, empb:asi2cd .at 3.11 and 3. 15; appearance, 1.23, 2.2; manners, 1.23; yourh. implic.-d in the d~ription tJfhis appc.ar.am:c aml~..-rnpha!iized at 2.5.J":raclllltPJI; parents. 1.23. 2.2~ llyrrhcna's marriage, 2.3.
THE DUPLlCITrES OF Al)CTOR I ACTOR
137
than he did then, a perspective that entides him ro stand outside himself (that is. his then self) and present the self he was as a character along with others. His access to the knowledge and feelings of that character in the srory is of course privileged, but though he can know that character better than all the others (Mi)o, Photis. Charitc~ Lucius is nonetheless presented as a character acting in a story. But at the very beginning (for tirst-readers, whose experiences at this point ar~ very hard for us second-readers to pin down1 Tire Golden Ass is not at all a story about Lucius. Most critical secondreaders seem to forget that the ego of this narrative is only gradually discovered to be the central character in a plot. The erasure of this experience of discovery is the result of exclusively synchronic analysis that ignores the actual process of reading as a mental act that occupies a space of time. Thus what is arguably the most important rcidcntification of a character in Books 1-10 (narrator becoming the central actor) is overlooked. Parallel to the naturalistic method of introducing information about the ego as having a wdl-dtaractc:rittd identity is the much more important discovery that the ego is not only a storyteller but a tclll•r of stories about himself. Let us examine this initial period of getting the focus right-from blurry to sharp-as the reader's sense of who is speaking and from what perspective gradually becomes clear. The I of the prologue says, "l will thread together tor you various tales," a phrase that ought to mean that he is an anthologist, selecting separate short narratives. This is also the obvious implication of his reference to "figures and fortunes of persons converted to other images." If he is introducing not a novel but a story collectio,, the tentative sense of the phrase '4 We begin a Greeklikc talc" is not "I am starting a novel (or even a frame tale) set in Greece," but r2ther "the first story of my anthology is set in Greece:· Perhaps the subsequent stories will have different locales-Egyptian, Milc:sian, whatever. As far as the first-reader knows. the storyteller may. after completing the Greeklike talc with which he begins. jump around from country to country and perhaps from time to cimc, the only connecting thread being the storyteller himself. The next few paragraphs of the AA set the scene for the narrator's meeting with a storyteller, Aristomenes. The content of those paragraphs is essentially an daboration of ..Once on the road to Thcssaly I
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CONSEQUENCES
heard the following story." This extended introduction does not demand to be read as the beginning of a story about Lucius. As far as the first-reader is given to knowy the narrator will skip, after Aristomencs' tale is finished, to another point in his life when he heard another good story. This would be fuUy in accord with the expectations set up in the prologue. When we learn at the dose of Aristomencs' tale that thenarrator means to continue an account ofhisjoumey to Hypata, we make a small adjustment to our earlier expectations: the narrator is either going to hear more tales in Hypata or he is going to confirm there the ta]c of Aristomencs, which was dear]y said to be set in that city and verifiable by all its inhabitants. When he subsequently (2.1} refers to Hypata as the city where Aristomenes encountered the witch Meroe, either of these possibilities may seem to be confirmed. The introduction of further tales in Book 2, however, gradually changes the reader's sense of the storyteller's anthological method. Apparently he (whose name we now know to be Lucius) will give an account day by day of the various taletellers he met. The string stitching the tales together wjl] be not just himself as a storyre1ler but 2 continuous account ofhis life as a witness of tales.
It is a further modification of this to Jearn, at the beginning of Book 3, that Lucius himself is the subject of ta1es. By this time the two series reinforce each other: (i) the gradual characterization of Lucius as an agent, and (ii) the gradual spccit"ication of the narrative as not a serial anthology but a life, and then not a life as witness but a life as hero. Most efforts to interpret the AA forget the original experience of the first-reader groping to understand the form of the narrative as it slowly reveals itsdf. It is important to remember that the original storyteller beramt a characterized agent and that the various tales became an autobiographical narrative. The prologue speaker does not say that he wil1 telJ a long. contjnuous story about himself; if anything he creates the opposite impression. The slow approach to the correct awareness of the form in which he is writing allows the author to play with the reader's undefined sense of what might be appropriate in this text. If we were told in the t1rst sentence that "This is the story of my life and the experiences I underwent,"' we: would pay a different attention (lector intende) to what the narrator says about himself from the beginning. As it is, we arc given first a strong sense of disconnected, discrete .fictions and then an autobiographic account that continually and playfully asserts that it is true.
THE DUPLICITIES Of AUCTOR /ACTOR
139
Consider Lucius as a ch::aracterized actor in the plot. We are given the elements of his specific identity (name, city of origin, dass, etc.) and we are told something ofhis personal traits (curiosity, impetuosity). These characteristics belong to Lucius no matter who tells the story of his journey to Thcssaly and his transformation. lt would be incorrect therefore to use the term "'characterized narrator," meaning that the narrator qauJ narrator is wealthy or curious or impetuous. But the narrator qua narr:uor docs have characteristics: he has, for instance, a tendency to postpone information for the sake of surprise or suspense, a marvelous narrative skill, and a mastery of many literary qualities pertaining to style. description, dialogue, and innuendo. These characteristics have nothing to do with Lucius the agent or actor. They are the qualities of the ego who offered in the prologue to whisper ddightful stories and whose presence is established by the performance of the text long before the separate characterization of Lucius as central actor in the narrative. There is a kind of deception induced here: the reader might well come to think that Lucius is simply telling what happened to him and that it was very interesting indeed. This is what I referred to above as "a simple. common-sense notion of the AA as an utterance by a narrator named Lucius about his past Jife.~' This notionfi,rgt'ts that th~ character of the narrator as a gifted, clever teller of tales had been earlier established and is not replaced but only overlaid by another form of discourse, the connected autobiography. As the reader progresses through the text two sets of characteristics are gradually perceived and assembled-those oflucius then and those of the narrator now (actor and auctor). Though the narrator now claims to be the same person as Luc:ius then, the AA contains many obvious tokens for the innocent first-reader that the narrator is a teller offictional stories rather than true stories. First, the prologue speaker had announced "various tales" "to amaze you" and "to enjoy.'' Then there is the sustained incrcdibHity of the events, not only their magical content but their obvious dramatic quality. Everyone's life may contain a few good scenes and a few startling events worth telling just as they happened, bm the unremittingly dramatic and storied quality of Lucius's life is itself a strong indicator that it is a thing not only reshaped by an autobiographical narrator who has learned to make the most of what really happened to him but that it is fundamentally a fiction made up for amazement and enjoyment. To say this is, in a
140
CONSEQUENCES
sense. to beg the question of the entire text, which repeatedly plays with the issue of the truth of tales and converts that play into a serious issue in Book 11. But it should be obvious at ]cast that the "simple, common-sense notion" with which we began-that ofludus telling us what happened to him-is not adequate to account for what happens in the text. We have to speak instead of two dupHcitics and a playful slippage between them. The first duplicity is that of the writer pretending to be a certain Lucius who tells us his story. This relation of auctor (whom we may call Apulcius, though his name is irrelevant ro the analysis) to aaor (Lucius) accounts for the high level of narrative delight, the incredible coincidences, exciting characters, and in general the storied quality of the book. Insofar as such a narrative is a game of Let's Pretend, this duplicity carries a connotation of confessed deceit. The second duplicity is the relation of auctor (Lucius as narrator) to actor (Lucius as actor~ This duplicity is a mere doubleness between past and present selves, with no implication of deceit. Nothing in the AA le-ads us to think that Lucius, considered as a concrete person. is altering his real past or deceiving his audience in any fashion. 4 Both of the mutorlactor relationships are complex. Both exhibit unresolvably different meanings for first- and second-readers. First I wilJ analyze the rdation of Lucius as present narrator to lucius as past actor, then some oft he points where the text slips into a different framework of reference, that of Apulcius the novelist in relation to Lucius the fictional character.
SUPPRESSION OF THE AVCTOR-NARRATOR Consider tirst the relation of auctor Lucius to actor Lucius (present narrator to his past self). The remarkable feature about this pair is the constanr and steady suppression of the auctor Lucius's present reality. 5 The speaker of the AA conceals the conversion to 4. This i!i the point ill which anotl)·scs of Lucius as an "'untru.'itworthy narrator" go astr;~y. C. S. Wright, "'No Art at All': A Note on rhe Procmium of Apuleius' Aftlamclrpllom, .. Classical PM"h'.~Y 6H(IlJ73): 217-19. 5. J. T. Svendsen, "Apulcius.' Tlrt.Coldm .4.ss: The Demands on the: Rc:adc:r." /)g. c{ficC1.1oJsl Pl.ilpf~,gr 13(197B): 101-7.
THE DUPLICITIES OF AUCTOR IAC1'0R
141
which the narrative (evidently) leads; he makes not even the broadest gucssablc allusion to some special evem that will cap the narrative (such as "Little did I know that my misery as an ass was a path to special glory," vel sim.). Each event of the past is told for immediate effect, wjth virtually no intrusion of the present speaker judging, condemning. commenting on the action. 6 The few comments he do(·s make arc not intrusions in the character of an Isiac deacon on his misguided past but those of a mere survivor who lived to tell the talc. We wil1 see below (pp. 147-49) that all intrusions of the present speaker's judgment arc strictly designed to heighten the vividness of the story and the re.ader's control of the units of action. They provide the first-reader with no sense that the story will reach a serious telos when jt catches up with the narrator's present. From at least one angle Augustine's Gmftssiom, ifhdd up to Apulcius's Asim~s Aureus, presents an interesting reversal or mirror image. Both narratives might be described (w1th serious foreshortening. of course) as sequences of spicy and dramatic episodes. (An ad hoc case for their relatedness might include the fact that Augustine began his lessons in literature in Apulcius's city of Madauros: Corif. 2.3.) But in writing his autobiographical conversion story, Augustine refuses to relive those events except in the buming spotlight of his present consciousness ofhis god. Each past episode is drawn into thl" present relationship of Augustine to his god and examined for what it now means, with some regretful comments on what it used to mean to the past Augustine. The present narrator invades his past as an enemy territory, using his god as a powerful ally to destroy the lingering vestiges of the pleasure he originally felt. Apuleius's narrator, though he is a deacon of Isis, describes in luscious detail his seduction dialogue, his foreplay. and each sexual position he assumc:d with Photis; Augus[inc, the: priest of Jesus, gives virtually no details of his love life, withholding even the name of his devoted mistress and quite obscuring his strong attraction to men (Cot~{. 3.1; 4.4-6). Not what nowadays we would call a confession. The title C.Ot-~Ji:ssitms names rhc present speaker's act, as the.: Ass in 6. ..I The I cOi:ct [of mctamorphosi~ I on m. is cnh;mccd by the mr.rrator's Sl.."cming inability (or tht' amhor·s own puckish rc:fus:~l} to prm•idc the n:adcr in advanCl· with precise roadsigns" (W. S. Smirh.jr.. "The Narrative Voice in Apukius' MftJIIWrplwsr1," TAP:\ 10Jil972J: 523). The terms in which Smith puts the rroblem :~re exactly right: the narrator wrsus author, incompctc:ncc or pm:kishm:ss.
142
CONSEQUENCES
Apu]eius's title names the past self of the speaker. The ditfcrcncc in
titles aptly sums up the opposite weights given to the I now tcUing and the I then acting in the two works. What arc we to make of the suppression in the AA of the I now narrating in relation to the I then acting. a suppression that becomes problematic not merely in comparison with a differently structured text such as Augustine's but in the light ofits own conclusion-Book 11? Three areas can be examined where the absence of the auctor is significant: the information he provides about the future direction of events (.. Suspense and surprise"~ his past and present thoughts commenting on the significance of those events ("The thoughts of the actor. the thoughts of the narrator") and his references to himself ("'The ass I was,' 'the Lucius I was'"). My thesis in these three sections will be that what Apuleius tells us about the narrating I in the AA is exactly gauged to maximize the immediate, dramatic effectiveness of each episode for the first-reader attd to be an uncanny torment about the end for the second-reader. The thrt=-e areas of interaction between present aHilor and past actor form a complex but quite intclligib]e system for the first-reader, a system that the second-reader will later reexamine with some sense of shock, disbe1ief, amazement, or irritation. In the second part of this chapter I will examine the interaction of the two auctorcs-Apuleius the nove1ist and Lucius the narrator-for a similar structur~ of twiceread intelligibility. In both relations. Lucius now/Lucius then and Apulcius author/Lucius fictional narrator, the search for a single perspective on the dua] structure is endless: a reader may decide to stop at some point in the cycle of shifting points of view, but the authoritative voice of the text makes no declaration about what the reader should choose. Apulcius neither affirms nor denies any of the perspectives-he merely signifies that they are there.
Suspmsc aud surprist.' Narrative suspense requires knowing ahead of time that a particular event is meant to occur (the secret agents intend to assassin:ue a visiting dignitary when the cymbals clash during a symphony concert: Hitchcock's The A1a~J Who Kru:w Too A1uch) and watching the progress toward that well-defined but maybe-avertablc event. A large number of narratives employ what we might more accuratc1y
THE DUPLIC ITJES OF AUCTOR I ACTOR
143
call a pretense of suspense. It is quite certain that Pauline tied to the railroad tracks will be rescued before the train comes. Some such guarant~e is auromatk in t"go-narrativ~s wht"re the narrator recounts what happened to himself or herself. We know at least that the narrator survived the experience and kno\vs \\'hat finaJly happened. Because the survival and retransformation oflucius are evident to the tirst-rcadcr at all times. the frequent imminence of the narrator·s death-by beating (4.3; 7.19~ decapitation (6.31: 7.26), burning (7.27), butchering for stew meat (8.31)-is pretended suspense. The intensity of a beating graphically rendered: .. It was not only the high mountain's steep path that exhausted me. and the rocky spikes that gouged my hoovt.•s as I walked, but on top of all that I was being desperately whittled away by the constant thwacks of the boy's cudgel. ThL• pain of the blows throbbed right through my very marrow and never wem away. Continually whacking away at my right hip and always striking the exact same spot. he made the hide there wear away and created a wide hole of a wound, or rather a trench-practicaUy a window! And even then he never stopped beating again and again on that wound slopping in blood.'• 7 If this were the description of the beating of an ass who was not the narrator. it could for all we know be leading to his death. The comic scnsationa1ism of such scenes (with aHitcrative mctaphors:fommir~r ... jo14ra ... fem·stra) is made possible as a form of pretended suspense by the twin conditions that the ego-narrator is there to anchor the talc in the present, but makes no referetK·e to the nature of his present reality. To the first-reader this is the point of suppressing the narrator's present reality; it makes immediate sense as a technique of presenting (making present) the past as a forum of entertaining torment. Surprise in a narrative is possible in direct proportion to how little we arc told about its future stages. Much of the immediate delight of the AA depends on the rurrator's withholding crucial intorm.ation. We wuuld certainly not expect Thclyphron to preface his story by 1. nrc mr ltWIIIi:> t'XCt'hi t.mtum arrJumn fi11(1,P(l~ll iugum, 11ec s.1xras 11111t11m mdl'S iPZmr· Joflult• Ltmlril~"' ungula$. JlrWm }imium q"-'IJ Ut' m.·bris i(t ibu$ pt'rtJ it(' dnlol1th.Jr, m mtJ ur plagarum mihi meJrtllaris imiJt'rrl dt~lor; COXmption in Apukiu!>· Me[.:unorphos~s:· R1mws 4(1975): 49-82. Comllll'nting on d-.c- sc:nh.·nn• '"blinJ Formna has brought y'Oll to s.J.fcty ... ," Pcnwill intcrpn.·ts •·!Fortuna's I treat~ ment of him was roo b:ad ... 1hat he was impelled to break out ofhcr clurdu:s" (p. 74}, and in a note on that r.cnrcncc, "Thi!i must be what the Priest means. Kenny ... cannot
148
CONSEQUENCES
No. For the authority of Mithras's pontification about Lucius's life has the effect of directing the rereader's attention to Fonuna-statemcnts in a way that falsifies (rather than completes) what they originally meant. There are two falsifications: (i) that the narrator's Fortuna-commems, because they arc forward-looking. aJludc to a consummation of the narrative, the goal being his freedom from her dominance. and (ii) that Fortuna is a wicked force. The trick is that, while the narrator is literaUy saying these things, any first-reader understands such remarks as a playwrighfs or novelist's technique for heightening the vividness of the story and defining the units of action. (i) The narrator's Fortuna-comments form part of a larger dass of statements. Compare: "'But my agile and splendid efiort was unable to anticipate the perversity of my fortune, for ... '' 14 with: ··so it came about that my destruction was deferred to another day.... However. not even the tiniest space was granted for my rejoicing or rest, for •••• " 15 These two sentences have the same function. viz .. to connect episodes, w mark the narrator's control of his units by reminding us of his presence at the points of transition. Neither is read as a reflective or contemplative intrusion, since each is a neon arrow catching our attention at the close of an episode and immediately pointing us to the next: note that each is followed by nam or enim. The connecting function of such statements does not require Fortuna, in fact they often occur without her: connectors mentioning Fortuna: 4.2; 7.16, 17. 20, 25; H.24: 9.1; 10.16; connectors with no agent mentioned: 7.19, 20, 27: 8.16, 31; 9.11, 39; 10.13. (ii) Still, a determined second-reader who has been gripped by the inAuence of Book 11 may want to insist that in the guise of providing conventional narrati'omJnaltu J.l· drnr (10.16). 17. (7 .20~ The fri\\llousncs~ ofcwn the Jownruru ing ("malevolent Fortuna .. ) connectors is shown by the case with which they introduce humorous scenes: 7 .16. t:l.24. 18. diuitlolt' P'''"idemiae.faJ!ilis dispMiti(1 (CJ.l ~
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CONSEQUENCES
despise his presence as that of a genuine corpse (7.12). In either case, humble or dead, the actor is a no-account. a negligible presence. The present narrator's assertion of his presence at the past scene consists in a statement that he was virtually absent. I should imagine that most first-readers understand these remarks as intentional, sophomoric allusions to the fictional nature of the narrative. The most outrageous and also the most accurately contrived reference to the ass's real presence occurs when he is blinkered in the mill. He is intensely curious .about the miller's wife's lover but unable to see who he is: .. But although I was extremely angry at the error of Photis, who, while turning me into a bird, made an ass of me, yet at least I was recreated and restored by the unique solace of my miserable deformity-the fact that endowed now with enormous ears I very easily heard everything even at quite a distance. For instance, one day the following conversation of that timid old woman reached my ears." 19 The verification of the narrator's situation is postponed (c£ 10.7); when the timid old woman's talc is told, the miller's wife complains that other adulterous women arc better off than she: "Poor me, J have to put up with the sound of the mill :md aloyer who is frightened by the face of-see!that scabby ass!" 20 If the miller's wife can hear the sound of the mill, presumably the ass can hear her voice. That is the point of her remark. 21 The narrator's own term for what l have called the sophomoric nature of the text might perhaps be "philosophizing ass" (pllilosophautem asitmm, 10.33~ "Phi1osophizing" refers in the first pJace to the scrmonctte just (at 10.33) uttered by the narrator ;,. the preserJt time, not by the actor in the past: since he is not supposed to be an ass any longer. asitws inconspicuously acquires a transferred sense as "fool." as it docs explicitly at 10. 13. If the narrator's references to himself as realJy having been an ass seem sophomoric and in various ways inauthentic, the narrator's lan19. Jt t•gt~, qmmq11am gra11itt'r Sltsumms t"ori Fotidis, qul2t' mt', dum .wtm fobriral, J't'rfi·cit asimm1, islo tamtn 11rl unico solatio acn•mr~abilu dt;{onr~ilati.s mrar rrcn-o:~bo::~r. f/IIM iluribus .~rllnd issimis pmt.liwr mncttJ lougult rriam disJ iltJ focillimt mllitiM "'· drn iq 114' d ir qu.zdam 1im idat illius .:~nicuJaf senPJo talis mras a4f(rturauris (9.15-16~ 20. at t~ misrlla mCII.u t'liarn son 11m et t'CU illi11s scabiosi •Hini focirm timmttm familian:m inddi (9.22). 21. One might also note thJ.r rhe women are specifinUy said to be r:alking in loud, drunken voices: "wrangling," ut'lirar~t (9.15~
THE DUPLJCITIES OFAVCTOR !ACTOR
151
guage about his identity as Lucius is a1so strange. The folk metaphysics of transformation tales requires that the person before and the animal after have a common core ofidcntity. The same thinking ego is transferred to a new body, there to discover new physical sensations (enjoying a dust bath, 4.5; a capacity to cat three whole bushcl-baskets of bread, 4.22) but with memory. language. values, and personality intact. The speaker of the AA makes this explicit just after he has reported his first transformation: "But J, though a perfect ass and a beast now in place of Lucius, nevertheless retained my human consciousncss." 21 The name Lucius no longer applies to the speaker. ht" is now an ''ass instead of Lucius" (pro Lucio iumentwn). From the viewpoint of the ass, Lucius is a status and a look that he wants to regain. Rather insistently, Lucius is used as the name not of the I whose thinking persisted, but as the name of the visible human body that the ego has lost: "You will return into my Lucius."23 "On the following day with some rosy help I was going to be Lucius again." 24 "Before. when I was Lucius ... '' 25 " ••. roses. which would restore me to my old Lucius•'16 (also at 3.23, 29; 7.2; 9.13; 11.2). Each ofthese phrases implies "I was not Lucius;' which for the secondreader becomes a teasing reference to the ultimate1y unfixed and un]ocatable authority of the text itself. The second-reader might also be sensitive to a profoundcr feeling of a1icnation in these phrascs. 27 But if the speaker enjoys saying that he is not Lucius, he takes equal care not to identify himself with the ass. He finds himself '•in the appearance of an ass'';28 Fortuna has brought him ''into a beast" ;19 "I 22. t'J!r.' ut•ro quamqu~m pt~{tctus asinus l'lJ'rO Lucio rwnrntum smrmn tamL'fl rctincboJm lmrtl.mrmt (:\.26). 23. i11 tncmn Luciam1 postlilni11io rcdibis (3.25). 24. in alrrrum ~u~m .-Juxi/i,, rMari(l Ludus Jrnw' ji11ums (3.27). 25. prim, n•m t'SSt'm Lu.dm (4.22~ 26. "ua.·. qwu IHl' rriolri ,,,.., Lrui,l rrJJnrut (Hl.2CJ)27. Cf. Aristomcncs: .. But I, just as I wn, C\'CD now lymg on the ground, soulless. naked and cold and drcndwd murine, as if ren•mly ~nu:rg"•d frnm my morher's womh. n.;~y rilthcr iiS if h.;~lf-dcOLd, but e\·c:n so sun·iving mysdf. pm;thumous to me.... " (ut c*', 111 t•ram, 1.'tia111111rnc l111mi l'roicctus, iuanirrtis, uudm t•tfrigtdus ctltltio JICTiutus, quasi r{'{efls lttuo mdlfis !'Jit1u, i1111111.1 1ttr1l Sl'lllillh'rllfll1, uc·mm ~tio~m ipn· miJri SIIJII:miuuu t'l [1Mlrmwr, 1.14~
2R. 2tJ.
;, .zsi~rifoNimr (3.2Y). . . . in bestiam . . . deJuxcrar (7. 2 ).
q•u~m
152
CONSEQUENCES
confess myselfgratefully grateful to my ass that, while hidden under its hide.... " 30 It is possible to hear phrases like "the old Lucius" and "the ass I was" as having what we might call an Augustinian ring. I suspect that something of this order is meant. The narrator certainly is capable ofdeploying other phrases that have a striking religious sound, though he on]y docs so at times when the context of action so alienates them that they cannot be taken at face value. A group ofexamples follows: •• And I did not emerge from the underworld until . . . '' 31 -of Lucius's shock at discovering that the corpses arc wineskins. Photis closes the doors of his room, embraces him, and whispers, ~·what ever I thus entrust to the sanctuary of this rdigious breast of yours, you must ever preserve locked within its barricade."' 32 Lucius drinks from a pail of water to prove that he is not rabid: "I lapped up those truly saving w~tcrs"; 33 that water test had been suggested by a bystander, whom the narrator describes as "obvious)y a savior sent down to me from hcavcn." 34 The young adulterer, caught by the miller, is let go the next morning after only a beating and a sexual humiliation (he might legitimately have been killed): uhaving gained an unexpected salvation.'' 35 Most striking of all, the ass pretends to be too stupid to walk in the circle that will move the millstone, but the miller blinkers him and a circle of helpers at a signal begin to shout and strike him; the ass, against all his firmest plans, is startled into moving: "But at this sudden alteration of my sect. I moved the whole company to laughter."l6 30. r1arr1 t'l ipsr .~NtaJ grari.zs aJitto lllti' mcmini, qr4od tnt" suo cd.twm tl.",.~rnilll." (9.13} Oth'-·njokc about him in the same way: "There could llc hidden inside this ass either the person of some nun or the presence ofsome god." (potc$1 i1J a$i~Jo mto l~ltiT aliqui ,.tf mdtu> hominis lltlfacirs Jron41n, 6.29)... You st.ooc before' you~ wether, nor.;m ~!>s, submi~
!ii\'c ro .all uses., nor .1. biter. ccrtJinly not J kicker, but rather such a gentle ass that you would belie-ve a modes1 human being is inhabiting his hide." ("l4tnlt'ftm," i11quit, "ncm olSitrmn uidrs, o~d Juus omm·s quictum, "'"' mordaum, m.·c calc:ilroru~rn quidrm, serlprow~J ul ill asini coritJ modrstmnlwPllintm inllabitan: cmlal, .. ~.25). 31. lit'( Jlriu$ t1b itiftris tmmi .. . (3.10~ 32. quan:Um.JilC ifdqur comPlliuro l111ius rd(~ios1' ptctCITis tui pt'IU'lralilm.s, scmpt.T hoJt'C
imr.t (Pil.wpmm dau1a t u~todioJJ (.'\. 15~ 33. 54/ut.Jre.s lltTr rq uidem illll$ aquas ~.auriebam (9 .3 ~ 34. .It co~t'lo rcilictt missus milri sospitawr (9 .3~ 35. ittSptmta p.,titus .wl1ttr ('J.28~ 36.
nt
subiM Jfllar (OIIUrtutalicmt' risurr• toto iclflll C{111111fOilffllm (9.12).
THE DUPLICITIES OF AUCTOR /ACTOR
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Subita s,•aae (()mmuMtitl is about as close as this text ever comes to describing what happens in Book 11-a sudden reallegiancc of beliefs, a surprising abandonment of old commitments in favor ofa new sect. But the context is debased. the content of the convt:rsion is ridiculous, and the audience quite appropriately guffaws. Each of these religious phrases is inserted into a secular scene that contains no possibility of literally applying the religious meanings of ··underworld," ••religious sanctuary," "saving waters,'' "savior scm down from heaven," or (most tantalizing and relevant) "sudden alteration of sect:' If this class of ex pression is the correct subset in which to place Lucius's references to himself, then their unsolvable ambiguity is another hint at the fundamental theme of the AA-non-authorization, particularly of religious notions.
FROM AUCTOR-NARRATOR TO AUCTORNOVELIST, AND BACK AGAIN
The complexity of self in the AA cannot be accounted for simply in terms of two fixed locations for Lucius as present narrator and past actor. It also requires that the auctor be thought of sometimes as Apuleius the novelist and sometimes as Lucius the narrator. The slippage between one auctor(Apulcius the novelist) and the other auctor (Lucius the narrator) takes place along what I will call three axes where the text shifts its meaning in such a way that the: reader must sense a fiction writer behind the character of Lucius narrating. Now this is of course a quite ordinary feat of impersonation, ana]yzable into author {scriptwriter) behind actor (person who reads the lines) behind character (role p]ayed), as in any stage comedy. But what is extraordinary about Apuleius's script is that the three axes, or types of oscilJation in reference frame of the narrative, set up two different effects simultaneously: they determine for the first-reader an intelligible sy.stem of interplay, characterizing the book itself as a sophomoric text. while for the second-reader the same facetious, boundaryviolating play becomes an ongoing allusion to the problem of Book 11. (The reader will understand now why the analysis of the narrating ego could not be tack]cd at the beginning of this book.) Along what I
154
CONSEQUENCES
call the three axes, the AA plays almost every imaginable game of self-conscious and self-referential duplicity. The first axis is that of class-the AA slides back and forth between the opposite extremes of high seriousness and ]ow comedy. The second axis is that of unity-the AA fluctuates between seeming to be a whole whose parts have an integral relation to each other and seeming to be a disjointed, episodic work. The third axis is that of authority-the AA variously indicates either that it contains a message or story that the author endorses and takes responsiblility for or that it has no center of authority. Since a sudden change along one axis does not entail a change along the other two, I tend to visualize this image of three axes not as a set ofintersecting coordinates but as three parallel lines that cover the same territory. On them may be diagramed three acts of the mind performed by the reader of the AA as he or she asks the ordinary questions we bring to anything we read or watch in performance: What is the decorum of this text-high or low or varying? What is the progressive buildup or coherence of its parts-tightly or loosely organized, or fluctuating? And what is the character of the author who has put out this text-one hidden behind
the jnhcrited authority of other texts, masked in a persona, or seriously present in his own person? Insofar as these three axes represent the typical coordinates along which we locate works ofliteraturc (not by genre but by rhythm, style, and I. Q. ~ the complex and quite particular performance of The Golden Ass sketches a comprehensive model of narrating identity. One may observe that these three oscillations have affiniries, but they do not entai1 each other. On one side of the cognitive field they depict a text that is (a) ideally noble, (b) unified, and (c) makes a responsible utterance; on the other side, a text that is (a') vulgar, (b') disorganized, and (c') inconsistent for no reason. Some types of text vary on one axis but not on the others: parodic and seriocomic texts may shift class by introducing unexpected patches of vulgarity or sublimity while maintaining a unity of plot or argument and a coherence of purpose. Anthological or episodic texts may have parts that are quite unrelated to each other, omissible at wil1, but without varying in tone or overall intention. It is harder to iJlustrate the third axis with any other ancient work than the AA (or possibly the Satyrika of Petroni us), for the degree of responsibility or fixity of pur-
THE DUPLJCJTIES OF AUCTOR /ACTOR
155
pose is the most fundamental unity in any \\'ork that has a single author. 37 The degree of responsibility for different texts may be high or low-low forth~ author who collects without endorsing, high for the author who assembles and actively integrates and argues for the value of his or her perspective-but that degree of authority is almost always inv:1riablc within the bounds of a single text.
Tire axis ofclass: book and b•!JToon To keep these sections reasonably brief and subordinate to the larger argument. I propose merely to indicate a few telling examples rather than inventory their fuJl talc. I shaU isolate a single image that represents each end ofeach of these axes and illustrate the pinball flippancy of the text in bouncing from high to low, one to many, authoritative to helpless. The result will be only a suggestive sketch of these three basic principlesofits composition. Thus, in the case ofthc variable class, [will not detail Lucius's alternate em bodimcnt of prestige as an upper-class gent and degradation as the lowest laboring drudge, but wiJI focus on the particular prestige assigned to learning and book-knowledge and the particular degradation of the mimic fooL In Greco-Roman culture there was a nexus of book and buffoon-the sciJolasticus-that the AA consciously exploits. The occasionaUy archaic language of the AA defines for the reader a learned perspective on the often vulgar action. A display of recondite diction was a mark of high excellence in certain currents of secondcentury literary culture, so that the very use of obsolete vocabulary constituted a m~ssagc of upper-class writing. As the AA on the level of implied literary class sporadically looks down on its own vulgar conrem, so the unlearned characters from time to time allude to a higher class of speaking and writing than their own. Both (together) must be ironic, considered not in isolation but as parts of a single-authored composition. (Notice that in speaking of any one axis we must refer to the others: here:, .. p.uts" of the umc: whole and ··authored" by somt.·
one writer.) Thus, Charitc promises the ass a reward of fame, as well as 37. In s~aking of imention and authuri;al purpose I do not man tlut t'itht:'r author or reader can necessarily isolate and state the intention of a text. but rather that, in writing and reading, th" notion of a governing perspective or a rc-·rsonal poin1 of view from which all dements in the text make sense is regularly employed.
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CONSEQUENCES
food, for being her savior: ''For I shaJI signify the memory of my present fortune and divine providence by a perpetual witncss-1 shall dedicate in the atrium of my house a picture of my present flight painted on a tablet. It will be seen, it will be heard in tales, this rude history wil1 be perpetuated by the stylus-pens of leamed men: Royal Virgin on Carrier Ass Fleeing Captivity." 38 She mentions the multiple, future existence of her plot as a painting, a tale, and a high-stylized Jiterary composition. The fleeting image of textual glory, someday to be the mode ofexistence of this event for readers, alludes in soml' fashion to the book in hand; but the description of the event as a display of divine providence and the hope of a learned book to celebrate it arc immediately frustrated by her capture and return to captivity. After this false finale, the actual end of Charitc's talc is similarly offered to us as matter for future literary exaltation by someone or other besides the speaker (8.1 ~ Both as narrator and as actor, Lucius sometimes voices the condescension of the polished and learned: "These trees, elaborately foliated after the fashion of laurels, produce gently blushing bud1cts. proffered by way of an odorous flower-which blossoms in point of fact the uneducated masses refer to by the conspicuously uncountrified name ·rose laurels,' which are a lethal food for any beast." 39 His approach to Hypata. just after the close of Aristomenes' tale (an important passage of the narrator's redefinition as a character; see above pp. 137-38), is the occasion of a little dialogue that shows the speaker as dignified in addressing his inferiors: "I approached the first public house I saw and inquired of an old woman who kept the inn, 'Is this the city of Hypau?' She nodded. ·And do you know a certain Milo, one ofits first citizens? • She grinned at me and said, 'Yea. of course; Milo is one ofour first citizens: he lives right our side the city walls and he is one ofthe first citizens you come to.' 'Dispense with the joking, good mother.' I said, 'and simply tell me, ] pray. his whereabouts and 38. rMrH mtmoriam pr.JN~PIIiJ jMtrma~ mtoJ~ Jiui1111~qur prouiJrmim~ ~rl!t'fll said to the captain, 'If you lose these. I will make you replace them with new ones!'" (78). The absurdity ofa stern command with a foolish content is just the note struck by Pythias, reprimanding the flsh seller by trampling on Lucius·s fish (1.25~ and it is a stag,i't'IM
cries out for staging, especially the sight gags, and some of its types were certainly stage figures. Dut the: c:viJcm mime-rontcnt of the Plrii~~·IM might simply h;,m." been the basi5o for the SouJa's conjc~;turc that Philistion, the archetypal mimographer, w;u its :author.
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CONSEQUENCES
tury C. E. or is he a post-Apulcian development of popular culture? 55 Some of the jokes in the Pllilogelos arc also found in prc-Apuldan authors. 56 The type we arc especially interested in features an irreconcilable conflict between thoughtfulness and folly, such as Vdldus Patercu)us 1.13.4: "Mummius was so ignorant (mdis) that when Corinth was captured he designated certain pictures and statues made by the greatest artists to be conveyed to Italy and told the transporters that if they lost them they would have to rcp1ace them with new ones." Mummius becomes a;xoAaUTtKo~ in Philogelos 78 (quoted above p. 163). The tradition of sophomoric humor has, in fact, a long history. Thalcs was perhaps the first uxoAO:O'TUCO~: he was so intent on studying the stars that he fell into a well (Plato Tileaet. 174£). The 1argcst collection of sophomoric routines occurs in Aristophancs' Clouds, esp. 206-17, 636-93, 747-82. Note esp. 780: Strepsiades' bright idea for avoiding creditors is to hang himsdt: 57 (For more on this tradition, see Chapter 10.) The linchpin of the argument that the sophomoronic sclwlasticus is not a later figure than the AA is the existence of two pre-Apulei:m tc~timonia
to the usc of the designation
U)(O~Qc.M"c.KO~
as a term of ridi-
cule. •• At first in Rome Cicero conducted himself circumspectly and was reluctant to approach magistrates and was generally held in disesteem, being known by those epithets so usual and ready to hand among Romans of the lowest class-'Greck I and 'professorllt ( r pa,KO~ ICth crxoAaCTTtKO~, Plutarch Cicero 5.2). ''You see then that you must bccoml' a uxo>..aUTtKa~. that creature that everyone laughs at, if you set yourself to examine your own opinions.. (Arrian Epict. 1.1 1.39). Galen's testimony is perhaps later than the AA, but it is the dearest: 55. The cxum recension oft he PhilogdM is fourth- or tifth-ccntury, but this is no obs.t;adc to its material's being mud1 older. RL-writing is the: common f;;r.tt: of books in the class to which Philofrlos belongs-the L!Jr 4 At".s~p. Apc,IIMiM ,~f "fyn-, the Lifr of Smmdur, the: Srntet~crsojMtrumd(•r tmd Philistic"lll, and pos§ibly Ludm, or tlrt Ass. 56. 193,., Cicero J,. omt. 2.276: I·Ui"" Plutarch Reg. rl imp. applltll. tnA~ 263 •
=
Plutuch Apcpllth. U(. 235E; 264 Plutarch Rrg. ct imp. 12popl1tll. 17HF; 142 = Aesop 57; possibly 'h•ul 18 =Cicero dcorat. 2.274; 21 = Sut:lonius mpi. /311.aO"IpTU.&UiJv7 (p. 59 Taillar.bt; but the text is supplied from E.ustathios Com•nmt Jess discriminating but more know]cdgcab]e." Dtn this is a misreading: it ignores the tenor of the whole sentence as an expression of thanks and gratitude, and that to an ass {the Isiac incarnation of the devil); it ignores the sad-sack humor of etsi minus and the untutored enthusiasm ofgratas gratias; it ignores the prominence of .Hllacium and rccrcaluar as dct1ning: the point of the comment; and in place of these three ignorings it puts an addition whose only virtue is that "it has to be right" in order to make the narrator's narrating here cohere with a certain interpretation of Book 11 . What then is the effect of proposing a moral reading of the Odyssey as a poem culminating in wisdom and virtut" and then denying that any such improvement-if anything, a deterioration, etsi minus pmdrutem-is to be won from the text in hand? Like other such assertions implied in the narrator's performance, this is neither true nor false. Nor is it just playful1y ironic. as if the concea1ed (cclatus) narrator simply meant the opposite of what he says. Rather it is one dement in a larger system of playful allusions to the A A's unity I disunity. The characteristic ro be l'rnphasizcd is the elusiveness of the thought. which seems to go in two directions at once, tO slip back and forth along an axis of possibilities, only temporarily locating itself at any one spot. Note here the rising grandeur of the comparison to ancient Greek epic {priscae poeticae tliltitws auctor ... sum mae pnulmtiae ... smt1mas adepwm uirtmes cecinit). the application to sclf(tJam rr ipse). and the odd conclusion-not a clear switch to the opposite but a very ambiguous diffusion (mim1s . .. multisdum). Neither the first- nor the second-readers. as long as they arc looking for tire meaning. can fmd this wholly satisfying, because it refuses to be univocal. If Lucius theactor is imprudem and Lucius the narrator has gained at least enough prudence to be able to commcnr on his own imprudence. the text before us is a third thing-not the sing1c voice: of either nor a clear combination of the two but a score that unpredictably changes tempo. key, and clef. The reading of such an indecisive sentence as that about Odysseus does not render one more knowledgeable about
168
CONSEQUENCES
the unity/disunity of the A.4 but only at best more conscious of the r:mgc of possibilities and perhaps more alert to the issue. 61 The opposite to a story that wanders all over the place is the story that is fixed in place. The statuary in Byrrhena's atrium tells the story of Actaeon, freezing it at a moment that implies all that precedes or follows. The entire story of Actaeon can be read from that single moment. It will serve for us as an emblem of the ideal unity to which the AA might aspire:. For the: myth Sl.-cms to be introduced as a calculated premonition of what will actually happen to Lucius; it is an objective correlative to Byrrhcna's verbal warning. Lucius like Actaeon is curious, spies on a powerful woman, and is transformed into an animal. The statuary presents an elaborate vision of the mythic narrative, which is both an archetype for the relatively crude experiences of Lucius with witches and hounds, and in its noble figure of Diana prefigures the divine woman who will appear at the end. Byrrhcna remarks, "All this is yours," 61 a lovely ambiguity, read as hospitable by the tirst-readcr, as ominous by the second-reader. In being a digression that turns out to have key significance for the shape of the whole noveL thC' Act:acon description at 2.4 represents an ideal of ~urprising cohc;or-
cnce, discovered as it were by accident amidst the randomness of Lucius's various tales. That frozen tale is one of the best candidates to serve as a paradigm that will integrate: the Brownian movt:mcnt of the ass under a single sdt=ntific formula-curiosity penalized by bestiality. Aptly enough this very soHd model of stability, of narrative that docs not move, is described as appearing volatile: ir is a triumph of unity, we might say. to emerge against the centrifugal forces of disunity. The contrasts of stability and motion arc worked out in some
detail. The standing columns support statues (root sta· : sramibus. sta· tr~as)
of winged N ike, whose sole touches a spinning globe, seeming not to be supported by it: "adhering as if they would not remain, they even seem really to be flying." 6 3 The dogs too seem to be running in dcf1ance of gravity's law for stonework. As the viewer's eye descends 61. l uy "perhaps" because the whole pa:ss.a~ mighc also seem oflittiL' importperhaps no more lhan an uncontrolled expansion of two narrati\'C: tormulas: "My as.ssha pc allov.~d me: to witness r he following St.·crct stOr)'." and ··My se ri("S of ad vcntltrcs was rcillly cxtraordinuy, a writable tXiysscy, .1ml (or thilt rc01son quite worth hearing." 62. tua Slltll {1111Cia 1 IJUdt' uidt'S (2.5). 63.
rtl'( 111 "talk'tmr
inh.tc·rrmrs rlidm uolarr m·drmrur (2. 4).
THE. DUPLICITIES OF AUCTOR /ACTOR
169
from column top c:o ground )~vel, th~ contras£ of rest /mOlion is picked up by £hat of rock /water. The grape clusters seem real enough to ripen and be picked come autumn, and if you noticed their reflection in the rippling water at Diana's feet, "you would think them, Jike hanging clusters in the countryside. not to lack-among other signs of truth-even a certain tremor of agitation.'' 64 Diana is enormous and occupies the center of attention; Actaeon is off center, reversing the relations oflucius-lsis in the novel (though in Book 11 she suddenly looms enormous~ He too is a rock in motion and his movement is double: he presses forward toward the goddess (in deam proiectm) and ahead in time ("already bcstia], becoming a stag," iam irr cenmmfrrinus~ The text here reads in deti tu'" proiutus {that is, ;, deam tum proiectus, corrected by the same hand adding sum over tum~ Among the interestmg corrections of the correction sum, there arc suam C'his goddess." Armini}. uersmtl ("toward," Oudendorp~ deorsmta ("down toward," Rossbach. Heath~ andsusum ("up toward;' Winkler~ If we consider the fairly cxtt.'11sivc collection of pictorial representations ofDian2 seen by Actaeon, in which Actaeon is usually above and behind the goddess, often on top of a cave. dtorsum and susum become the most eligible corrections. Both deorsum and suswn (the latter belonging either to the popular6 5 or to the Plautinc patina of the £ext) would easily be miscopied. The suspension ofjudgmcnt between these two supplements is a perfect reflection of the scene's own double-dircctcdness. The motion of the observer's (narrator's) eyes is from top to bottom, then back up to the cave behind the goddess, but the long and searching description of its foliage docs not yet discover the watcher hidden there. [nstead the viewer's attention is drawn back to the water and the reflection of foliage in itt and then at last Actaeon is seen, or rather a stone simulacrum of Actaeon with his curious gaze directed at the goddess. 66 If we think of the stone Actaeon on top of the cave. his gaze is (1-J.
(fn/t•s iliLIJ
IH P"Uff Jlt"tiJt•fll,;j
roUt'ltWS
illlt'P' o"r'll"ro.l llt"rlt~IIS W'f llglffllltlniS l~lfi.:io
(2.4 ). 65. &nc-ca F.J'ist. mm: 91.19, quoting .m dcgant vulg.uity by l)cm~o'trios the Cynic. 66. A mosaic in the Villa of Trajan n Tim gad (late fourth- or early fifth-century) shows Actaeon both on top of thc cave and rc:Aectcd in the water: S. Geran;~in, I-ts Mm.iiqut5 dt Tim~·l (Paris, 1~(•9): #17~ H. Etienne, •·La Mosiiquc du 'Dain des Nymphes' 3 Volubilis (Maroc~" in I. Con,r;:reso drquco/,l~ico del Marn1rcos rspt~iiol (Te-ru:m, 1954): 345-57.
CllTt:rl!
170
CONSEQUENCES
downward (deorsurn); if we think of the reflection in the water, where it seems he is first seen (uisitur), susum seems right. But the quest for the goddess watcher ends with an ambiguous bilocation for Actaeon: ct in saxo simul et infontt, "both in rock and in water,"' Actaeon is seen watching Diana about to bathe. 67 Actaeon then is frozen in the midst of a double change (moving toward the goddess and into a stag); the origin of his looking is dou-
bled (from above and from below); and he is seen twice by the viewer (.. both in the rock and in the water"). At this moment of the story he is poised between seeing and being seen (by Diana), and in this work of art he is seen watching (opperiens uisitur~ But who is the agent here who views Actaeon's gaze? Someone who was mentioned several times earlier in the same passage-you: .. You will think .. (putabis), "you would think" (plllts1 and at the climax of the watcher's prolonged scrutiny for Actaeon, "if you bent forward and looked into the fountain, you would believe.. (si Jontem ... pronus aspexeris, credes~ That the second person is normal in such descriptions does not prevent its being used with playful attention to its significance. Since my estimate of Apulcius's controlled gamesmanship is high and since I
believe him to be maneuvering the reader into a dilemma to choose among interpretations. 1 think that pronus aspexeris should be fully visualized. If you did lean forward to look into the water you would sec not only a second Actaeon but yourscl( At key moments Lucius becomes immobile like a statue. When his desire is finally realized to sec a witch's transformation, he is fixed in place: .. But. enchanted by no spell, merely fixed in place by my own stupefaction at the event, I seemed to be anything else rarher than Lucius: thus outcast from my own soul. thunderstruck into mindlessness, I continued to watch what was happening. as it were, in my sleep.''68 The stupefying discovery that he is not a half-guilty murderer but rhc butt of a festival joke freezes him: "I stood there in a chil1, solidified like a stone, as if I had become one of the statues or 67. Tht' AA seems to be thl• kind of composition in which even mistakes make sense; for the problematic equation of Actaeon wirh Lucius with Apulcius makes the echo -swm proirctus (which would mean "I was projected") an intriguing, even teasing, riddle for the second-reader. 68. at t!e:' tJullo dt>tallttJtus tarmint, prat;entis ldnfllm _f(J(ti stuport dtfixus tl'~id111's ali11J magis uiJtbdr csst quam Lucius; sic txttnnitlallfs flrlim{, auonitus jn ammtiarn ~tigildns wm· 11ial-"lr (3.22~
THE DUPLICITIES OF .-'\L'C'fOR IAC'fOR
171
columns in the theater. Nor did I reemerge from the underworld until ... '' 69 The combination of extreme mental states and motionlessness is fairly regular: "thus astonished, or I should say stupefied by my excruciating dcsire"; 70 "thunderstruck by the stupefaction of this sudden sight and forgetting the present business he was engaged in .... n 71 Before his "conversion of sect" in the mill, the ass was ''fixed in place, pretending stupefaction." 72 The most extended depiction of the frozen, immobile self is 3.1012. The grief Lucius feels at being the scapegoat of the Laughter festival anesthetizes his external body. while: his interior is throbbing with unspeakable pain. The indignation .. had struck deep in my chcst." 73 The magistrates bid him "dismiss aU this present sadness from your breast, drive out the anguish of your soul. ... This god will be gracious to his agent and author [auctMrttl et < ac > torrm }, and will lovingly accompany you everywhere; nor will he ever allow your grief to be hcartfcltt but will continuously make your face shine with the happiness of serene plcasurc." 74 To cap the psychological immobi1ity in which Lucius is caught, he is offered immortalization as a public statue. which will declare for all time his humiliation in Hypata; "For the city has inscribed you as its patron and decreed that your image stand in bronzc." 75 Lucius declines with as much poJir.:ness as he can muster, .. with a momentary cheerful look on my face. trying to force a little joy-as much as I was capable oC' 76 Milo drags him out to the baths-.. but was it really 1who bathed, I who scraped my flesh clean, I who returned home again? Such was my scale of cmbarrassmcm that I hardly remember: as the object of all eyes. of evcryonc·s nods and pointing hands. I was perfectly stupe tied and om of my o\vn mind." 77 6CJ. .fixuJ ir~lapidm1 stctigdiduulillil Jt'WJ q11ollll 1ma de Ct'tt·ris tllt'o21ri jlrJiuis ~te'i lolumrzis. nee pri145 ab iuft.>ris emc-rii quam •.. (3.10~ 70. sic CJIINI i11u, i Pllllltl Ill' r,, cnu iabili rlt·s idt·r;,, 51UJ'iolw> (2. 2). 71. altoniws rcpcnti1to2c uisionis stupore et pr.mc~lllis llt~tii, qnodA,'t'rr:boat, oblittiS (2.l3). 72.
!IIIJ>•>rr mt'PIIil bassin oritlltal dt la.Uiditnnmh, EPRO, no. 26/3 (Lcidcn, 1973): l45f. The exalting adjcctiVI:s then refer to his actual status and authority rather than to hu tide. 6. 11 ir 111ioq uin gnmis tl sobn'at rrligion is ob.u~nlatimttfomoms (21 ~ 7. diuhw ~noniw cog,iriJ "b origine Wtlclis dadibus mcis (14~
THE TEXTQUESTlONS. THE HEADEn ANSWERS
21 t
semblance]; 30 [directly]). Mithras's message can have at lhis point in the book no higher validation than the goddess who is .. the uniform face of alJ gods and goddesscs." 8 (iii) •• Having delivered this oracular utterance. the exceptional priest gasped deep breaths of exhaustion and fell silent." 9 This seems to be a tinal stage direction from the author td1ing us that Mithras's words are not his own but come from a higher inspiration. We must note these tokens of authority not bet·ause we want to surrender our judgment to the highest bidder but because the combined effect of first and second readings has been to make us avvare that reaching an interpretation of anything is a serious. complex. and funny issue in Tire Goldeu Ass. To say that Mithras's Isis lecture has unmistakably been invested with trappings ofauthority is not ipso facto to say th;lt we must believe it. What Apulcius shows us is the acquicscc:ncc of a mind (that of "I. Lucius..) to an authoritative interpretation of his life, an acquiescence that we arc invited to consider for its beauty. its strangeness, and its unsharability. He: does this by flanking tht.· official message with two vignettes: that of •• I, Lucius·· at a loss for words and that of the bystanders reaching a d!fli:n·m iuterprt•talicm. To take the latter first: .. Having delivered this oracular utterance, the exceptional priest gasped deep breaths of exhaustion and fdl silent. Then, taking my place amidst the religious column, I walked alongside the holy shrine, noted and conspicuous to all the citizenry. the object of pointed fingers and nods in my direction. All the pcoplt: were chatting about me: 'This man the almighty goddess in her venerable power transtormcd today to rejoin the human race. Happy man. by Herak]es. and thrice blessed, who obviously by the innocence and faith of his preceding life merited so splendid a patronage from heaven as to be born again, in a manner of speaking. and instantly vowed to observe the holy lifc.'" 10 ~.
9. 10.
clr'lll'lrm
tlammrquc'Jd' io 1111!/i•rmis (5).
c1d islllm ttwdurn uaririntitw saurrios cgrc~ius_tiw"x•JiclS a11lrrlitus rralsms hllltiwit (16).
itd i$tum rrlllllumuoJiicillatru sall·rJos l!grmpt'l im II~IImistiscltm t\egyptm (Leipz-ig/Berlin. 1905), 1; 94-9B: T. Hopfncr... Pastorphoros," RE 18: 2107-9. argues for the priestliness of~srurphoroi; A. Nuck, .. The Gild of Zeus Hypsiscos" HTR :29(1936): 1::13, interprets rhe evidence that "pasrophoroi were allowed to hold "laymen's positions' which wt·rc not opt·n to tht" priests" as follows: .. Thcrc seems to have been an almost sharper differentiation between the higher clergy 3nd the: lower clergy th.u1 bctwn-n the lower clt"rgy and the laity."" Ono takes exception 10 the sharpness of this fnrmulation, but locates the pastophoroi as the principal rcprcscnmivcs ofminordcrical functionaries (&itrii~ zllr Hicrodulie inr l1~llfnistischrn Aegypt('n, Abhandlungcn dtr
n
THE TEXT QUESTIONS. THE READER ANSWERS
219
god, unnamed but evidently Osiris in some guise, foretells his meeting with Lucius ... a Madauran and a total pauper." 24 As Apulcius must have cxpectt.>d, more fish have risen to this piece of bait than to any other of his tricky lures. 25 The point, however, is not to emend the riddle or solve it as it sunds but to notice th~ paradoxical structure of authorization that it introduces. The new high god knows something beyond the fictional framework of the text. Osiris and .. the Madauran.. (Apuleius) arc equally outside the grand and (as we thought) final solution of 11.1-26, which was a rdation between Isis, Queen of the Universe. and her humblc_(anaticus Lucius of Corinth. It is a dangerous thing to propose a grand dim ax and then to top it with another, for it inevitably raises the possibility that it too will be ante-climactic. and so on ad iufiuitum. The problem is not that "Madauran•· could not be made to make sense bm that we arc forced to guess what it means precisely at the moment when a new answering god appears on the scene. There is an ~scalation of provocative uncertainty rather than a surcease of doubts and a blinding flash of light at last. The relation of lucius (wherever he is from) to Asinius the deacon is specitically described as a mutually profitable conjunction: 26 Lucius will acquire the glory of studies. As in ius will make a great profit. The mention of profit is the signal for the following passage of economic complaint: "Thus betrothed to the rites I \\'as nonetheless sloWl"d down against my will by the slenderness of my means. For the expenses of travel had worn away the little strength of my patrimony and the cost of
------- ·--· Baycrischcn Akadcmic d.:r Wisscnschaftcn, phil.-hi!it. Klass~.-. n. f., 291 Munich, 194CJ J 17-26). H.-B. Schon hom (Dil' Htstt1pl1c•n·11 i1n Kulr d1•r ii.'!)'pti$(hm Giitrt•r, Be it rage zur klassischcu Philologi~:. no. HOI Mciscnhc:im am Glan, 1976 J) argues that the: pastnphoro• wc:re consid..:r:ably more important in the lsiac '"mission" than they \Wr.: m Egypt itsdf~ much of his argumcnt is nmjcctUfl' and the c\·idcncc is lar from conclusi\'c. 24. MaJaurtllSl'lri S('d adm!ldUPH pdiiJ)('rt'm (27~ 25. R Th. van der P:urdt. "Th~ UnmaskC'd 'I': Apulcius .H1·1. X I 27." Mm•mM)'I1f 34(1lJl'll ): 96-106.
26. Mirhras h;ad lx""Cn rho!St:n for the tirst initiation bccau~c of an astrological conjunction th.u th~ goddess pcrceiwd bc![wccn him and LuciUS. Thc1r rd:nion LS u..:!icribcd as like that of parent to child (21, 25) partly bee :;a usc initiation is L"Oilc{·iw.-d of as the acquiring of a new birthday anJ a new horoscope: J. Bergman, •· 'I 0\•ercomc Fare. Fate Hearkens to Me': Snmc ObM:n':;ations on Isis ..1.s a C'roJdc:ss of Fate."' in 1-'aldfistjc l.klit:Js ir• Rdi~i..,u, p,,lltltm: 1111d Litrnuurr, cd. l I. Hinggrcn, Sui pta lnstitmi Donn~riani Ab~·nsis, nu. 2 (Stockholm, l%7).
220
CONSEQUENCES
living in Rome far outstripped that ofthe provinces in my past. So hard poverty stepped in and I was painfully trapped, as the old saying goes, between the rite and the rock. Yet the deity's insistence kept pressuring me no less. Finally, after frequent and far from minor stressful insistences and then at Jast outright commands to do so, I sold my clothesthey weren't much, but I scraped together a little sum that wou]d suffice. This had been a distinct and specific directive: 'Now look,' it said, •jf you were engaged in something to bring yourself pleasure, you would certainly nor spare your clorhes. Now that you are about to approach great ceremonies. will you hesitate to entrust yourself to a povcny th.:u you wiJI not regret?'" 2 7 The imd]cctual stress of uncertainty and the pragmatic stress of divine commands that exceed his means arc not what the narrator of chapters 1-26 led us to expect. Lucius there had worried about the religious discipline but had attained great peace in accepting it; he had answered the goddess's requirements for money by purchasing the required items "on a somewhat more generous scale.. (23). This double rhythm of theoretical and practical stresses resolved is repeated in Rome: he reaches .. full confidence"' (pl~nafiducia, 28) in the nc:'-V rites ''of the principal god" (principalis dci~ 28) that arc revealed to him, and
though he is unable to give more money than is asked, he adds an extra measure of disciplinc-''moreover I also shaved my head.'' 18 The outcome of this epilogue is peace at last and even marcrial success: "This business contributed to my sojourn abroad the highest consolation and. what's more, tendered me a richer livelihood-yes, the kindly breezes of Luck favored my forensic income, earned from legal speeches in the Roman languagc."l9 27. ad is11m1 modmn dc·spLm;uJ saais Jmupturml tc•mut~Jtt l'tlrrlta lhlrlliJl mt•um rc•tarJahar. rt•m• c·t uiriml11s f'alrim.mii !'f'rrgri,tJli.mis aJtriurrant irHtl't'HStlt' tl t'TLl~tiOtu•s urbicat• rri$lilli$ il/i$ l''''uiucialibus allti$tabatJif1lurimrun. c·rgo drtritia pauprrtatis illlrurdrntr, quod tlil m·rus prtml'rbium, imrr S.t(nmr ,., saxum P'lSitus muiabar, m•c s,•tills ttJmrtr l.ltmidrm r1umi11is prrnlt'IMr imlalllir.~. i11mquc· sat'J'intlt' Prl'll sint· magt~a wrbati.mc• slimulalus, l'''sfn'lllt' iussus, srt·ste· ipsa mc•a qrMPtllliJ JMruuld distract a, sr~{ticit'lltcltl conrasi summularn. et id 'J'$11111 pntt'(C'Jllum.fiu•nJt sprdo~(it~r: ''tJII tu," ,.,,,Jsrit, "si quam rrm ,,.,l,ptali slmrndtJe· moliris, locitrii1 t11i~ llt'4lllol'l'''1m twrUI'ts: nunc tJntou C•lt'timoni.Js 11ditunu impat>llitmd.Jt' u pd14fK· ric>i (WUidri1 (t11HIIIittt'r(?" (28). 2K irullpt·r rlic1111 JaUStl (apit,· (2~). 29. quae rc'!i smmnumtwrc·grinatit>ni lnl'dt'tribru·bat .rc1/a(illm nrf ll'limu r'li11m uimun ubt'ri .wm submill istnJ lhtr, qu idni, t pirit11 .f(mmris E11rltl t~s quacstilu(,,.hll'l'IIS i 11Utri111 JX'' ,,.,,,1,d11 ia
smn{ltlis RtlPnarri (2H).
Tf-JE TEXT QUESTIONS. THE READER ANSWERS
221
Again, a sense of ending. The c:piloguc's difficulties overcome and echoes of the prologue-forr.flsi, scrm<mis Romaui, pere_RrinariotJe. As promised by Osiris, Asinius made a huge profit (grande compmdiwn, 27), Lucius attained a "glory of studil"s .. (studiorum gloria (27], echoing studiomm of the prologue). If the rt>ader, when surprised by the epilogue, did a double-take, what occurs now can only be called a triple-take. •• And lo, after a smallish time I was again interrupted by unexpected and in every way wonder-causing commands of the gods, and I was forced to bear a third initiation as wdl." 30 There is a limit to the number of repetitions even a good routine will bear, and a limit to the number of epilogues a completed solution will tolerate. A certain wearing-thin of patience can be detected even in Lucius's nominally devout account-the ambiguous tone of usquequaque, the unconcealed resentment of co.~1r and sustinr.rr
(Helm; su.stitart, codd.; susceptarr, Wowcr). ln this epicpiloguc (and for all we know as tirst-readcrs there may be more cpi"s to come), the intellectual stress is given prominence ovl"r the pragmatic, and it is indeed the profounder and more disturbing issue. Lucius introduces a passage of radical religious doubt that if taken seriously could metamorphose the whole of Book 11 into a con game by venal priests. He begins to suspect that he is being had: .. , was bothered by no frivolous concern; but rather in a state of real mental suspense, I vigorously examined my own thoughts: Where could this new and unheard-f celestial program be leading? What supplement had been left out of the mystery that had already been twice handed over to me? Obviously each of the priests had given me information that was wrong. or at the very least inadequate. And by Heraklcs, I was now beginning to entertain a bad opinion of their honesty as wcll."3t This brooding period of fundamental and heartfelt suspicionsuspicion of his own fol1y and the clergy's bad fairh-is ended by another dream lecture from the new principal god. advising him that 30. n aa: I'I.ISif14UWimn lt'ltlplu inopi11atis rtusq•u·quaqm· mirUitis imp•riis dcmn mrms ifltt·rpdlor t't CclJW trrtiam qut~qut• rrle·tam msrirrc·no (29). 31 . liN lt:lfi mm Si.l/liciiiU, $1'1# CIJipiJo SUSJif'JUUJ dllimi IIJC(IInl i]'St' (t'gilati4lnt'.$ t:arliliUS agitabdm, tllltlfSJIS llt,JIQ Jaat'{ rt i11•111Ji1a St' c.Jr/(",Siium P•lrri)tt"rfl itlll''ftil'l0 l[lliJ subsiduum, •JIIdllwis irl"ntMI' imn, tmJiri1ltli n·ma,uiHI't: "r1imirum pc·rpcrum ud minus l'lrnc> wnmlucnmt itl nu· saunJ,ls utrrqm·"; t"t llt·rwll·s i.Jm dt• tidt· qm'qJrc• I.'Cirum t'Jiilldn Wt'tllabam S1'4mus (29~
222
CONSEQUENCES
"nothing has been left out,"ll that three initiations are better than one. and that if Lucius wants to look his best in the Isiac processions he needs a new robe. (The robe from the first initiation had been left in Greece.) [n paraphrasing this epiphany I have chosen a flippant tone, but the point is not that the reader must now perceive the god as the greatest con artist. rather that the author's narratology has invested the reader with the opportunity, the materials, and the necessity for interpretiug Lucius's narrative one way or another. Something has been left out-in this at least Lucius's fears are correct and the god's statement to the contrary is wrong. The standard ofsurprising clarification scr by the inrcllcctual worries resolved in Aristomcncs' talc, Milo's tale, Thelyphron's talc, the Risus festival, etc .• is not met here. As those narratives raised doubts about the nature of what happened and the narrator's interpretation of his experience, so the epilogues to Book 1l cast doubt on the events of chapters 1-26. But unlike those paradigms, Lucius's epilogues reporting his own post-initiatory astonishment and desperation do not outshine the odd illumination of chapters 1-26. Instead they raise potentially serious issues of religious criticism, and the nar-
rator (1. Lucius) s'ww.s us Lucius going through the motions of acceptance, the I remaining strangely removed from the writerly process of tempering in hindsight the shocks of the past. What has been omitted, not from the initiations but from their recounting by ''1, Lucius," is the narrator's present aurhority as a confirmed lsiac. Since Lucius is now, by a windfall of luck as a Latin legal orator, wealthy. he can buy what is required for the third initiation without strain. Again he docs more than is required: he fasts for more than the prescribed ten days and purchases the! religious supplies with a largesse measured not by the rate of his income but by the zeal of his piety. 33 We may consider his willing contribution to the god's requirements, supplying more than is asked, as an analogue of the reader's activity. We find ourselves supplementing the text. making up for the author's reticence, fulfilling his obvious intentions in the direction he must be heading. Particularly in the two epilogues we must over32. quicquo1m sitr•riHs Mtlis.mm (29). 33. iPutm((um tt'ldat• CLmtp~Jro la~l(illH ex SlluliiJ pit'lo1tis maRi.r •JU•UII I.Jti.s (30).
mt'PUimJ
rrmm
col·
THE TEXT QUESTIONS, THE READER ANSWERS
223
come the! monclary and theological scrupll.'s that du.· author has placed in our (and his own) path. This is our contribution to the worship of Isis and Osiris, making up for the present narrator's dcticicncics. He might have said, •• 1 must admit that there were surprises still in store for me in Rome-some temporary anxieties about making a living and offering sufficient recompense to the temple of Isis, further enlightenments about the higher reaches of Osiran initiations that were complcmemary to those of Isis-but none of these could touch the profound sense of calm and self-possession that I now have reached." But he doesn't. This is the contribution asked of us. lt is worth remarking. though it takes us outside the text, that the accusations of venality and deceptiveness were: familiar cllltural images conceming the clergy of Isis in Rome. A believer knows as well as an unbehcver \\.'hat arc the malicious charges brought against his faith. It is more from christians than from non-christians that we learn the general suspicions of cannibalism and incest in thc:ir Jove feasts. 34 To an lsiac, supporting the temp)e \Vith contributions of money and accepting religious authority arc nm obviously bad things, but they arc the ricklish side of Egyptian religion in Rome. Their prominence in such a jolting fashion at the end of this profoundly sophomoronic text is no solution to rhc problems of understanding that have been engineered by Book 11 .
THE FINAL lMAGE The closure of chapters l-26 and of the first epilogue (chapters 26-2H) on themes from the prologue (presence of a stranger in Rome. language studies. forensic practice) has been noted above. As the second (and, as it happl·ns, final) epilogue winds down. there occur some of the same topics, bm with a difference. Osiris encourages Lucius to keep delivering legal speeches in the: forum anJ to display uthc hard-won learning ofmy studies."3S Th'-' penultimate sentence notes a special honor: Lucius is chosen as a member of the goveming 34. E.~ .. 'Icrtullun i-\pol. M. 7; Ort!!:en lo,tlra Cl'lsum6.27. Sec further F.J. lJol~r. .. S:u;ramentum Jnf:mticidii," Ar11ik1· un.l Chrisft'tlfum4(19.\4}: 1~-22ft 35. sruditltum mn•nmr labrJritJJ.a d.wriuoJ (30). cchomp; the prologue: .swdiLmmr Quiri-
tiwn . .. tll.'rlmmabilll.rbon.· . .. moJ!istm
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CONSEQUENCES
board of the pastophoroi. It is possible to detect here that peculiar note of intense dignity associated with the lowest echelons of any administrative hierarchy: ''lest I be forced to attend his rites mingled with the rest of the crowd."36 The difference in this third ending is the image that the final sentence impresses on our minds: •'So once again with my head shaved as close as possible, I was performing the duties of the most ancient college. founded in the days of SuJla himself; and with my ba]dncss not o'ershadowed or covered from view but displayed in every direction. I was joyfully going about."3 7 In the translation I have represented obibam twice, in order to catch the important effect of an imperfect tense ("I was goiug about") at the t•nd of the last sentence in the novel. The narr3tor qua narrator is of course located in the present, contemporary with us in the act of narrating. He bt•gan his enunciation with a promise for tht~ future (.. I will sew together,'' .. I will charm your cars..). He then began his impersonated narrative with a past imperfect {"1 was heading for Thessaly .. ). The full cirde of narrative time would be completed by a simple past or a past perfect closing the talc :md connecting with the
present: ··so I walked the streets of Rome and here I am today." There is no escaping the incompleteness of the end ... I was walking:· The imperfection of that tina] verb leaves the narrative circle unclosed: The idcmity of the impersonated I is ncvc:r brought into contact with the present narrator of the prologue. The distance between the llllctor and the actor, defining a flexible space in which the AA had been continuously playing. is left unbridged. 38 No spark can cross that gap but what the reader supplies. The incompleteness of the egonarrative, three times hinting that it is about to conclude by catching up with the present but ending on obibam, is in the nature of a taunt. Behind it I sec (as Callt-bat cal1cd it) le sourire complia· du uarratetlr. 3 9 But more astonishing for its exquisite ambiguity is the picture itself. Note its graphic and personal decisiveness, not just baldness but 36. llf s.t(ris sui~ gn·gi omeone may be making a fool of him. The author's narratology in its own unspoken way reinforces that possibility. The two worries so comically and a)most pathetically developed in the epilogues are just such as would be pounced on by the severest critics of non-Roman and non-Hellenic religions. If the notion is atloat that Lucius is a gu1lible dunce. the last sentence of the AA must beg, and refuse, to be read as a witty, unwitting aBusion to just that fact. Because baldness is both a potentially funny and shaming "infirmity" and is, because of its very extremity, sought out as a religious sign by lsiacs and shipwreck survivors, it makes here a picture of exquisite ambiguity. Those readers who are inclined to share with sympathy Lucius's commitment to his dreams and his priests will have no trouble with his bold. almost defiant and obviously joyous display of his naked head. Those other readers who arc inclined to 42. ju\'cnal5.171; Arnobius 7.33: ··They love the morons with their shaved heads, the resonant sound of he:tds being boxed, the appb.use. d1e shameful jokes .and gestures, the huge red phalluses" (ddatanwr, llt n.·s est, slupidorum tllpitibus r.ui.s. S~JiaJ'ittarum sonitu rlltJ14l' plmuu,jactis et Jiais turpibus,.fiucinomm illgl'lltium ru""n•); Synesios liml>mium [IJI B,ddl!t$S nn For illustrations. see Chapter 10, not~ 19.
THE TEXT QUESTJONS, THE READER ANSWERS
227
doubt the claims of priests and the business of shrines wil1 tind just as much justification in the AA for their murmurs ·~what 3 fool this Lucius is.'" My argument is that Apulcius has made both responses possible as a lesson about the nature of religious conviction. The full force of the unresolved ambiguity is caught in the image of the shaved head. My cmphasis will of course seem to some too ami-lsiac and to others too proreligious. Can an ancient novel be both. or rather indudl· both while endorsing ncithl·r? I ask readers of this book to take note of their own beJiefs and of their reading of Tl1e Golden .4ss, and then. whatever their answers to the question "What is true in life?", to hold the need to answL·r such 3 question of the real world distinct from the need to answer the question for the book. Apuleius acknowledges the net"d to answer such questions in the real world. but his book is a pmtiug ofthe question and a demonstration of
the sophomoric naturl' of its answers. Whether an individual answer seems more wise or more foolish-wise enough to accept in spite of its evident folly. or foolish enough to rcj~ct in spitL· of its apparent wisdom-is and can only be an individual's decision. The shrewd trick of the AA is that it serves both to engage such a decision and to leave a lingering feeling that thert..• is another side to it too.
HOW ELSE COULD THIS BOOK BE READ? Since t ht..• AA has indcrd been read in other ways, it is pt..·rhaps worth our while to take at least a quick look at the types of reading that have been proposed. Tht..•rs MttdPH~JrplrMt'S (Paris, 1940~ 1: xxx11; Lcsky. "Apul.:ius von Madaura" (not~ 12): 72; C. Morcschini, "La Dcmonologi:a ml'dio-pl.ttonic:~. c lc Mt'I~Jtlll''}i'si di Apuh.·io," Maia 17(1965): 30-46 (rd. p. 43); Flaulwrt. C,m'5pcmJaiUt' (Paris. l'J26). 2: 450: "Mais s·il y a unc verite artistiquc au mondc, c'cst que: cc: liwc: c:st un chef d'ocu\'re. II nu.· donne: ~ moi dc:s vc:rti~s c:t ~blouiss.:-me-nts. l:l nature pour c:llc:-mcmc. lc paysagc. lc: ~:c.itc purcmcnt pittorcsquc des cho!ioCS sont traitcs Ia a la modc.-rnt• ct avt.>1.' unl" sou tHe amiqu1.' et chrcficn tout ensemble qui passt" au milieu. (.a sent l'cncc:nsc: c:t l'urinc:.lc bcsti.a1itc s'y mari.e au mysti~.:ismc. Nous sommcs bien luin Ctll'Or~· de l."l..'la, mluS autn-s, conunc t:uundragc moral. cc qui me fait croire que le littcr.:uurc franc;aisc: c!>t l"ncorc jcunc."
THE TEXT QUESTIONS. THE REA DEn ANSWERS
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and-sour juxtapositions arc sometimes explained by the personality of the author, as well as the tastt: of the times; ~'There is in fact a central ambivalence in the romance. a tension between Milesian ribaldry and Platonist mysticism, which reflects the complexity of the author·s personality." 45 Similarly Hoevds reads in the novel an unconscious dynamic of the author's psyche. which is however so representative of the readers· unconscious contradictory tendencies that Apulcius naturally became the most famous representative oflatc antique irrationalism. 4 & It is true that variety was widely appreciated as a spice oflife and of literature in Apuleius·s day, and this approach does welJ to bring that out. But the limitation of this approach to the AA is that in such fashionable variety one can sometimes detect deeper principles at work. For instance, Lucian in lkaromeuippos 15-16 portrays Menippos as one who appreciates the rdativity of human situations. From a point of view high above: the earth, one can see tragedies (serious crimes) in the palaces of kings and also the ridiculous contretemps of commoners: "The spectacle was altogether variegated and contrasting in its parts:· This vision is not an end in itself but a means to realize the truth in cynical commonplaces a hour the vanity of human striving. lt would be shonsighted to deal with Apuleius only as an epicure who appreciates an extraordinary range of flavors and not to notice those elements of tltougltt that he introduces about the various meatlit~gs of that variety. Pointing to th~ utaste of the times" as an explanation for the construction of the AA misses the most interestmgtssucs. I think it worth emphasizing that the fundamental shortcoming of such an account of the AA is its subordination of the author's work to a greater entity. the force of "the age itself... which like a strong currem or a panicky crowd carries everything with it. All explanations that begin •• A pule ius lived in an age that ..... arc methodologically dubious. It is a patter (see below) of thought that by definition can produce no surprises, since it sees Apul~ius and the AA as passive products of the 45. P. G. Walsh, 'flu· R,,m,m .'\'•'l't/ (Cambridge, England, 1970}: 143: J. Am;lt, "Sur qudqucs asp~.:cts Jc l'c!iothctiquc baroque dans h:s MhamrJrpln•s'"s d'Apulcc," Re,•u( dt:l Elrldt·s Aruit'rlnt•s74(11J72): 105-52. 46. E E. Hoc-wls. Miirdtt'tl ur~J Afo1,ek i11 dm .\·1t·tar~wrpl1osm d'"s Apul'"ius 1.-\Jff .\ladaura, Studies in Classic:a! Anuqu1ty, no. 1 (Amstcrd:l.m, 1979): 2&..
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times, as symptoms. as excrescences, as reflections. But if, as I argue, the AA contains a great deal of the surprising and thoughtful. then a theory that has no place for the notion of an individual work written against as well as with its times can hardly be adequate. [I had written "pattern'' above. but a witty typesetter improved this to "patter.'' defined in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate thus: "(From pater in paternoster.) 1. The cant of thieves, vagabonds, etc., or of any class or profession: jargon or lingo. 2. A kind of rapid, voluble speech or harangue such as used by fakers or tricksters, or by comedians." The academic speaking I have in mind is bounded by a triangle at whose corners stand the preacher, the con man, and the standup comedian, each with his set of glib formulas.]
Scltrrz mtd Enut Another species of the same view, which acknowledges the meaningfulness of Book 11 as both a] together diffcrem and final. tells us that Grcco-Roman religion-and perhaps pre-modem religion in
general-displays a festive mixture of playful and serious elements that is puzzJing to us only because our own religious formats have developed on other, more strait-jacketed lines. •• Ancient folk thought differently on this subject." 47 Tragedies were foiJowed by satyr plays; the Isis procession is preceded by a masquerade (11. 8). The end result of this line of thought is that Book 11 is not a problem, wa.snot a problem to its audi~nce, because Book 11 fits an obvious paUt!rn of practice (which has since disappeared~ Like the Vinaigrette view. proponents of Sclrerz mrd Ernst arc saying that if only we had lived at the time Apulcius wrote we would not be puzzled by Book 11. There arc some important truths lurking behind this approach. but like Lcvy-Bruhl's invocation of a uprimitivc mcntahty" that is not confined by the law of non-contradiction, Scherz 1md Emst can be a catch phrase that legitimizes fuzzy thinking about the complex realities of Greco-Roman cults, festivals, taboos, prayers. rheologies, and senses of decorum. The essential distinctions to draw arc the foUowing. The sportive and satirical treatments we find ofGreco-Roman religious practices are most often located outside actual rituals. It is one thing to find jokes told about priests and sacrifices; it would be quite -17.
R Merkel bach, RMran a.md .\lyJt~rium itt der Atttikc (Munich/ Berlin, 1%2): 1:!6.
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another to find priests telling jok~s at sacrifices. I would include in this catgory ofjokes about religion not only texts such as Juvenal's Satires but also many passages from Greek comedy, which, though performed tmder the general patronage of Dionysos on his holidays is not a rite. The real value of Scherz wrd Emst is that it draws attention to the character of holy days as holidays in societies before the invention of rhe weekend. Some of these jokes arc directed at character types (hypocritical or venal priests) or at the sheer foreignness of a non-native rite; a large number arc just silly portrayals of ceremonial behavior. Strepsiades' initiation into Socrates' school and Dikaiopolis's phallic miniprocession follow the same comic routine as the trial of the dog in the Wasps: a fami1iar ceremony with unexpected implements. Under the empire the comic tradition of sporting with things religious continues with mimes involving mytho}ogical travesties and parodies of Egyptian religion and christian baptism. 48 Indeed, some of Apulciusts readers on first reaching Book 11 must have thought. at ]cast momentarily. that he was now beginning an Isis mimd [n a different category altogether we must place scurrilous behavior during rites-those archaic practices of honoring certain gods on certain days with obscene cookies, dirty jokes and gestures. Of these we must observe that they arc not a generalizable feature of all religious holidays but rather a well-regulated and situationally dependent allowanc~. 49 Thus the men and male animals are expelled from the temple of Demeter Mysia ncar Pcllcnc on the third day of her seven-day festival. and the women hold an all-night celebration during which they do "what custom lays down''-Pausanias's polite way of referring to indecorous behavior-and on the next day the men return and the two groups take turns ridiculing and insulting each other (Paus. 7 .27. 9). Such rituals arc evidently very archaic and occur only within weH-dcfined limits. Tht!' late intellectuals who mt!ntion them express both reverence for their antiquity and profound shock at their content. Ritualized obscenity is a very different thing from the general laxity of behavior on tcstivc days. 4X. The m1mes. mocking Christian ri1uals. ate ,icscribt:d by H. lkich. /)(r Mimu~ (Berlin, 1903): 80-'J); Tc:rtulli<m 1111:ntions one involving E~yptian religion: ''w.:.-lws Arwbis{Apol. 15.1~ 49. H. Fluck. "Skurrilc Rih.'ll in gricchischcn Kultcn" (Diss. Frciburg im BrcJ5.gau, 1'131 ).
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Next to the old and carefully circumscribed traditions of ritual Scl1~rz 1md Emst, we must not forget to place the widespread norm of Scherz gegen Erust. Plutarch, for instance, who had maximal respect for the conventions of Greco-Roman piety even when they were nonsense, is puzzled and upset by ritual obscenity (citing Xcnophanes: dt /side 361 B; de defect. orat. 417C1 as were most thoughtful persons who took both their morality and their worship of the gods seriously. Pythagoras is an extreme case. but one understands the premise behind repons that he never overate, had sex, got drunk, or indulged in ]aughter, ridicule, and vulgar stories (Diog. Lacrt. 8.20). If Milcsian tales ar~ not really felt to be incomp.atible with serious pursuits, how could Epiktctos criticize a student for reading them instead of Zeno and Chrysippos (Arrian Epict. 4.9.6)? Neither festival license nor certain very specific ritua]s of indecorous laughter should be used to obliterate the normal distinctions felt and observed regarding serious ceremonies, religious holidays, joking tales, and obscenity. Priests did not suddenly wink and grin and tell diny or frivolous stories to the crowd during a ceremony. In particular, Egyptian priests were generally characterized as peculiarly sol-
emn. During their welJ-known periods of purification. they (like Pythagoras) forbade themsel\'eS all sex, laughter, or wine (Plutarch. Quat•st. cotwil'. (5.10: 685A); .. Their laughter is infrequent, and when it does occur ic on]y goes as far as a smile" (Chairemon frag. 10 Schwyzer = Porphyry de abstitJ. 4.6). Clement of Alexandria (Pard. 2.4.2-4) describes the interior of Egyptian temples where you will find "a pastophoros or some other ministrant about the precinct, looking solemn, singing a paean in Egyptian, drawing aside just a little of the curtain to display the god-which affords us broad laughter at his reverence"for it is only a statue of some animal! Clement may be laughing, but the pastophoros is not. Of course, Egyptian holy days wen: ft:stiv:ds and therefore one encounters licentious activities among the general populace: Strabo at Kanopos notes the wild license of the holiday crowd, dancing and cavorting indecently, and sets it in opposition to (dvri. uavrwv) the great reverence observed within the temple of Sera pis itse1f (17.1.17). So in Book 11 the entire city ofK.:nchreai (and presumably Corinth) celebrates the spring festival of Isis's ship-some as a m.:re holiday and a time to wear Mardi gras costumes. others with the clear and dignified reverence of their calling as priests or initiates.
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Finally it must be said that the Scherz Jmd Emst view ignores the order of information arranged in the AA. Thc:rc is nothing surprising or confusing about marginal merrymaking git'Cn that we know this is a religi,ms ltoliday. But that is exactly what the narrator of Books 1-10 has not told us about the narrative. The cultural equation is not reversible. Ifwe know that a certain day or place is holy, we may expect it to attract less serious paraphenomena. But nothing in the ancient world authorizes us to infer fromjokcsorentcrtaining tales (Books 1-10) the imminent prC'scncc of a goddess. The deepest irrelevance of Scllerz 1md Emst as an expla11atiou of The Goltletr Ass is that it addresses only the fact that serious and frivolous elements may sometimes be juxtaposed, and not the fact that we arc reading a serial narrative by a single narrator. Both the Vinaigrette and the Scherz mrd Enw theories talk about the narrative of Lucius as a variegated thing rather than listening to it as a discourse by an ego. They arc quite successful, to be sure, in bringing out one pole of its axis of unity. But the AA is not simply an anthology with an invisible editor, rather it is an autodiegetic ('~[") text that is both tocused on an
auctor /actor and that continually plays with the significance of that fact. The next theory. however. does try to account for the compatibility of Books 1-10 with Book 11 as a single person's narrative.
Exegetes cmd co~/fssors One of the most interesting and suggestive approaches to the AA is that which locates the implied occasion of its narration (what Gcncttc calls its .. narrative instance") in a temple precinct. A visitor to any of the great pubHc sanctuaries of the ancient world would have encountered among the crowds of hucksters, oracle sellers, 50 and devout worshipers two kinds of storyteller: exegetes and confessors. The exegetes, or pcricgctcs, offered guided tours of the area for a fee, and the ]ore that they retailed about statues and persons and p]accs h;td
~
good deal of the secular-f:abulous about it. Confessors were
50. Plut.uch de l'ytll. Oltli'. 407C: '"Howcvc~ the gre.ttest disgrxe was brought upon the honor of poetry by those rncndi•ant hustlers, that unstabk crowd who hover abou~ l he tcm plcs of~ he Mother or of Scra pis. rccil ing oudes that they cit her make up or pick out by lot from some books for slaws and \Vomeu, who arc mo!it irnprc!iSt.-d by ntetcrs and poctkal words."
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those who spoke aloud their personal testimony to the helping power of the god in question: it was considered a normal return for an important divine favor to spend some time at the temple announcing to all and sundry that the god had manifested his or her power in one's own life. Alternatively (or in addition~ one could write up an account of the desperate need and divine liberation one had experienced and deposit it in the temple as an offering, for others to read. The storyteller's invitation in the prologue of the AA docs not in itself suggest that the speaker is to be thought of as standing ncar any temple, but the concluding scenes of Book 11 locate Lucius precisely at the grear temples of Isis and Serapis on the Campus Martius in Rome. The suggestion is that (i) the tales ofBooks 1-tOare the sort that could have been heard in a temple precinct as well as in many other locations (marketplace, dinner table1 and (ii) the narrating $ituation that emerges in Book 11 clarifies the (fictional) setting in which the audience and the narrator of the entire book are to imagine themselves located, and more precisely, identifies that narrator as a confessor. 51 Both parts (i and ii) of this theory are truc:-and I shal1 now support them with a selection of evidence to recrc=atc a sense of place for our .. narrative instancc"-but though (unlike the theories in the previous section) they do account for the identification of the speaker as an auctor I attor, they still do not explain the AA. E:n~gete.s.
The most complete picture of guides at work is Plutarch's Wl1y the Pythia No LonJ!er Gives Omc/es in W!rse. The periegetes52 at Delphi take a group on tour through the sacred area. Their lecture is a set spiel (Ta uvvrETay,Uva, 395A; T~ friluE18, 396C) that includes reading aloud the inscriptions (ni ?TOXXa T~v i:m:ypCliJ.p.lrrwv, 395A), 51. The rhc:ory here advanced is my own version of a suggestion that has been often made without much rigor: H. We mer." Zum Loukios e Onos," 1-lmnc·s 53(191S): 240-41; R. Merkelb~ch, "Fr;Jgtnent C'ines s:atirischen Romoans: Aufforderung zur l:Scichre," Zeiuchrifrfur fbpyroloxir amd Epigraphik 11 (1973): 88 n. 24. 52. Plut2rch's word for "guide"' is prrirgrtrs, proboably bec2us~ tor him 'he older s.cnsc of "exegete" as inrcrprctcr of ritu4llaws is strung. ln Pausanias's lhirgesU, however, the: guid~·s arc: n·gubr!y c:s should be: regarded as a temple office in the same sense that priest, pastophoros, etc .• arc offices with cult duties ro be performed at stated times. Rather an aretalo~s, like a dream interpreter. is a person with a skiU to offer who finds his livelihood where he is needed. most often ncar shrines. The assumption that aretalogos denotes a sacred office is exactly what has created the problem of how to understand the aretalo~i who entertain Augustus at dinner (Suetonius Oaar~. 74). The same assumption has led many, in searching for texts suitable for an arctalo· gos to deliver. to caU the [sis hymns arctalogics. 55 What we are de54. (Lc1pzig. 1Yddi'Amzdrmia llalttl'il'ltl Ji &irnzr Ltrtm· td AniR7/3(1974-75): 335 n. 10. Archaeologicill juxupositions of [siacil 01nd Mithraica arc collected by R. E. Wiu, "Some Thoughts on Isis in Relarion fO Mirhr:ts," in ,\.fillmlil St11dits: Pr,•lrrdings '!; lhe ~irst bllmsalic,,l411 Ccngrm t?f Midnuir StuJir.\ cd. J. R. Hinnclls (Manchester, 1975~ 2: 47993; the same author's "lsis and Mithras on Andros," in Hommagcs a M.j. H•nnastrrn, EPRO, no. 7H (Lcidc:n, 1lJ7H~ 3: 1320-33. mak~s much of no ~vidence. 75. L. Vidman. Syllo.~ irum.ptionum rrligionis lsiacae tt SampitZlat (Herlin, l%CJ): 434, cf. rhe ~:une family in -147; comrarable insunces of Mithras/Isis/ctc. worshipers from the late fourth c:cmury: 457, 450 note. On the ··general absence ofcxdusivencss from Impt"rial p.ag:mi~m." mnk~:d in the ti.lurth renwry, !iee A. n Noel:. "Studies in rhe Gracco-Roman Beliefs of the Empire," )oumal of Hdlrnic Studie.s 45(1925): 88-91. who notes that "only the Egyptian deities claim to hold the tidd aJonc.... This c:xc:lusin:hl'SS was felt as such :md at times rc:~oCntcd ... •• (p. 89). In general, :sec L. Vidman, Isis rmd &ro1pis bci Jm Gricchen und N.iirnf:m, Rdigionsgcschichtlichc Vcrsuchc and Vorarbcitcn, no. 29 (Berlin, 1970~ ch. 8. 76. The back side of the umc rippns has a devotional inscription either to Zr:us I ic:lios Sarapis fmm 3 ~rson namnt Midtra or to Zt'US Hdios ~rapis M\thras from a person unn.amed. A sla\.'C named Mithrcs. who when freed ch3nged his n3me and the inscription to Aurdius Mithrc:s, uffc:rcd 01. dedication to Sera pis in the btc: thinl c:c:mury C.E (L Vidm.m, Syllogc [note 75J: 3HH). Needless to say. there is a grc.at difference berw~en a sl:.ve Mithres honoring Serapis in an inscription and a high priesl Mithras conducting the rites of Isis and offering a spccia) revelation to Lucius.
THE TEXT QUESTIONS. THE READER ANSWERS
247
someone felt that the names still did make a difference. [f\vc look closely at the group of phenomena loosdy known as syncretism. important distinctions emerge. Some gods, we might say. took to each other-others didntt. c~rtainly of all the candidates for amalgamation, the religions of Persia and Egypt were among the least likely to take to each other. The alliance of Demeter and Isis is t."arly and strong, 77 but thr- mythology. cult, and aspirations of militaristic Mithras and mate mal Isis have so little in common that it is hard to imagine how a single person could take them both seriously-that is, with the fen..ur and dedication ilJustrated by the prayers of Hook 11. A striking instance of the antipathy is Eunapios's account ofa Mithraic pater who becanu: a hierophant at Eleusis and thereby destroyed the worship of Demeter ( Vit.at.' soplti.st. p. 436 Wright~ But the point is not that a speculative interlacing of the two forms of worship would be impossible or unthinkable-Isis's priest does use military metaphors-hut rather that the issue of Mithras /Isis, 1ikc that of Luther /Leo X, is so charged with controversial implications that to toss it casually into a purposely problematic narrative about an unexpected leap of faith is bound to give one pause. The etTect is delicate and deliberate. central and eccentric. J propose it as a minor tacct of Apulcius's narrative-hermeneutic strategy in Book 11, which is altogether. at its best, an eloquent argument from silcnct.". What needs explaining is the direct and unmissable experience of extraordinarily subtle narratology in Books 1-10 combined with silence on the narrative's break at Book 11 . The text is full of signs, of connections waiting to be made, but the l·ign{{icam fact is that they can only be made on the reader's initiative and responsibility, often appealing to the high priest's doqul·nr and authoritative speech, but never on the authority of the narrator in any of his shifting personal locations. Abovtlc5 in the vc:n>c portion!>, pointed O\lt to
me b)· Da,·idjordan. have: bcc:n noted by M. l. Wc.s(, "Magnus and Marcell in us: Unnoticed Acrostics in th\· Cymuilll.'s_'' ClaJsical Qu.Irlcrly .32(19H2): 48U-XI. The names Tl.cssalos and Harpnkration hoth occur in a library inwntory of the third century c. E. th:u. though it is very fragmentary, seems to consist mainly of philosophical and medical \\-arks (P. Varsov. 5: G. M:mtcuffd, Rlp)'ri l'ctrsOI'itmt"S 11935~ reprim: Milan. 19HJ~
264
CONJECTURES
from Syria to Babylon, on which Harpokration discovered not only the introductory verses but the entire text of Kyranide-s, is a fiction, ]ike the copper column engraved with the laws of Atlantis (Plato Critias 119C) or the golden column jnscribed in Panchaian letters by the mortal Zeus. who traveled from his native Crete to Babylon and then to the island ofPanchaia according to Euhcmcros. 28 lt seems reasonable to judge that the other clements in Harpokration's prologue arc equally conventional. They run as follows. Addressing himself to his daughter, Harpokration tells of the journey he made through Babylonia gathering information (iuropT,uat;), especially at Sdeukia. There he meets an old man who is very ]earned and can speak Greek; he was brought as a prisoner of war from Syria to Babylonia. The old man is Harpokration's guide to an the sites of the city and then takes him to a spot some four miles outside the city where there is a stele inscribed with Persian (or: foreign) letters. After taking measurements of the temple and its shrine that house the stele and counting the 365 silver and gold steps that lead up to it, Harpokration tums away from every other feature of this wonderful place and w;mts to know
:~bout
the inscription alone. The
old man takes a linen veil off the stele and shows that it is engraved jn foreign letters. Since Harpokration docs not know the language, the old man agrees to translate. Like Pliny's Demokritos, Harpokration wanders in se:uch of learning (iUTopie.n) in the East. What he finds there is an ancient secret, inscribed on an iron pil1ar, bringing joy and health to mortals. On this last point the alternate prologue. written in the person of King Kyranos of the Persians, is explicit: Depa:'TT'Elas EJJEKEV, oV JLTW aXAa Kai TEpt/IE~ Kat cpi.Jue~. ··ror the sake of healing, and further for joy and nature" (p. 15 Kaimakis). He prcs~nts himsdf as a mature and wise scholar rather than as a foolish young scholar Jike Lucius, but the quest for arcane knowledge is fundamentally the same. The modem reader may find these narratives not only strange but contemptible. It is easy for us to feel superior to the contents of these books and to the sonu:what pretentious fictions that introduce them. On the other hand it is also possible to find them rather delightful if not taken seriously. Both of these attitudes arc: found among ancient 2H.
Speyer, Bii(htrfimde (note 24): 111-17.
PARODY LOST AND REGAINED
265
readers. Plutarch speaks with gentle disdain of such sympathies and antipathies as the power of garlic ro demagnetize iron or of an oak branch to paralyze vipers. At a dinner conversation he represents some of the guests ridiculing such be1iefs as fantastic and incredible fictions(~ 1r'Aar:rp.a p.viJiiJ8f.r; . .. Kai a1Tt.OTov. Quaest. cotwiv. 2. 7: 641 8~ while others .. chatter on about the antipathies" (oi 1'0~ a1J'TI.1Ta0Eia~ iJpvA.oiiiiTE~, ibid.). He is critical of the mystification that treats side effects and attendant circumstances as essential causes. (Compare his similar discussion of whether Jightning produces truffles, Quarst nmviv. 4.2: 664B-665A.) Noting the pleasant tolerance with which Plutarch conducts these discussions, we may say that, although he docs not entertain such beliefs, he is willing to be t.•ntcrtaint!d by them. At any rate rhey were obviously much in che air, and both Lucian and Apuleius could count on their audience recognizing the type.
The mage as rta"ator. At least two of the: major Greek novelists seem to havc found
that the character of the traveler who has sought out occult lore and who now divulges it to his readers was nicely suited to convey that note of marvelous ad venture and exO[ic itJcredibilia that are the stuff of their narratives. lam blichos 's Babylotriaka is the clearer case; Antonius Diogcnes • Marrlfls beyo,,J Th11/e conr:ains most of the dements of the type in question. Iamblichos and Antonius Diogcnes offer us an affectionate treatment of the type. but with no him that he is anything
more than a sp]cndid narrator. These arc not texts that promise salvation to the noetic reader or healing to che client who can pay for a prescription from the mouth of Asklepios himself. They seem to raise no questions of belief like those in the .-\A, yet they resemble Apuleius's novel in that the exotic treasure with"which the traveler has returned is a collection of tales.
/am1Jlid1os's nABYLONIAKA. Photios's summary of Iamblichos's Babylm1iaka (Bib/., cod. 94), supplemented by an important scholion in A 1 , contains the following information about the author. He was a native Syrian. entirely unhdlcnizcd in language or customs. The tutor who took charge of his education was a Babylo-
266
CONJECTURES
nian of high standing, once a scribe for the king himself and learned in barb:arian wisdom, but who had been taken prisoner during Trajan"s victory and sold to a Syrian among the spoils of war. This Babylonian scribe and scholar, now fallen on hard times in a foreign land. teaches IambJichos the language and customs and the logoi of Babylonia, of which the present novel is one. lamblichos then learned Greek so well that he became a fine rhetor and now presents this novel. If the material acquired from the Babylonian scribe were only the plot of the novel, we might not be able to discern a real similarity to the traveling researcher bent on aHcn wisdom in the manner ofThessalos, Harpokration, and Demokritos. But when the mother of Tigris, Euphrates, and Mesopotamia, who is a priestess in a temple of A phroditc where cures are performed, learns that her son Tigris has died from the bite of a blister beetle hiding in the petals of a rose that Tigris was eating, she decides to invoke the spirit of her son in a magic ceremony. At this point the hero Rhodancs and the heroine Sinonis reach the island where the temple is located, seeking a cure for Sjnonis's wounded breast. (She had been awotkcncd by a sudden fright
and accidcntal1y stabbed herself with a sword.) As it happens. Rhodancs is identical in appearance to the twin brothers Tigris and Euphrates, so when he arrives at the temple while the priestess's magical ceremony is in progress. she cries out that her dead son has returned to life and that he has brought Persephone with him. Rhodanes plays along with this. as a sort of concession to the remarkable naivete of the island"s inhabitants. As a part of the description of the priestess's ceremony, lamblichos discusses the different types of ma· gike-locust magic, lion magic, mouse magic. This last is very important, for it was the original form of all magic, as is shown by the derivation of the word mystericm from mys (mouse). Furthermore there arc magicians of hail. serpents, necromancy, and ventriloquism; a practitioner of the last the Greeks call a Eurykles and the Babylonians a Sacchouras. It is impossible to tell from Photios's bare summary what the tone oflamblichos was at this point-solemn, facetious, or some mixlUre ofboth. It might well have been a display of sham scholarship like rhe encyclopedic parody by Ptolemy Hcphaistion (Photios Bi/JI., cod. 190), who has similar lists and even more outrageous etymologies (Odys-
PAHODY LOST AND REGAIN ED
267
scus changed his name from Outis to Odysseus~ he had been called Outis because he had large ota, "ears," p. 147a10-11 Bekker~ The insertion of Jamblichos's scholarly digression into a scene of necromancy that then takes a comic turn (like thl' entry of the second Menaechmus mistaken for his twin in PJautus's Mmauhmi) suggests that lamblichos had no serious purpose in discussing the forms of magic. But the reference to the Babylonian word for "ventriloquist" reminds us, as it reminded Photios at this point in his summary, that the entire story was said to be derived from a Babylonian who not only knew the literature of his country but was, as the scholiast put it, "learned in barbarian wisdom" ( CTOVJOV n)v {Jap{Japov uof.{'it.l!v). Here we encounter a confusion of identity not unlike that which bothers readers of the ass-talc and TIJe Gollleu Ass. The information about lamblichos that I have gjvcn above is from the scholion in A'· Photios's text there reads: ''The writer [ b avyyp~~~ says that he is a Babylonian and has learned magic, that he has also learned Greek cuitun~. and that he flourished under Soaimos the Achaimcnid and Arsakid, king from a line of kings who nevertheless became a senator in Rome and then consul and tinal1y king again of Greater Armenia. This w.ts the ruler under whom the writer says he flourislu~d. He ~xpressly states that Anton in us was then the Roman emperor. When Antonio us (he says) sent Vcrus, his brother, kinsman, and co-emperor, to make war on Vologaisos the Parthian, he himself forem]d the coming of the war and how it would end, and that Vologaisos did flee beyond the Euphrates and Tigris, and Parthia became subject to the Romans'' (p.
75b27-41
Bc:kker~
If the infi)rmation in r:hc scholion is correct, Photios has confused lamblichos, a Syrian author who lcarnl'd Babylonian, with the Babylonian scribe who was his teacher. One might bC' tt·mptcd ro interpret ''the writer" as the Babylonian scribe whose logos Iamblichos is reporting. This would explain the.· confusion, hut it cannot bt• right. The ,.,·riter .flourished (dK~O:~EtV, p. 75b29 Bekker) in the 160s; whether or not the Babylonian scribe is a complt.>tc fiction (which I suspect~ lamblichos would not describe him as a tutor and ex-scribe in 116 (Tr~1jan's conquest of Babylon) a11d as flourishing under Soaimos, the restored king of Greater Armenia. This paragraph in Photios makes clc:ar not only that lamb1ichos was writing after 165 (defeat of Vologaisos), but that he himscJf
268
CONJECTURES
speaks as a mage (foreseeing and predicting the outcome of the war), and that he attributed his knowledge of both mag ike and storytelling to a Babylonian wise man. To explain his contact with the Babylonian, Iamblichos might have invented a journey of his own to that country. Instead he has the Babylonian come to him and teach him as a boy the ancient lore in question. The somewhat pathetic role of fallen dignitary is like that of the Syrian wise man and prisoner of war who instructs Harpokration, and we will meet a somewhat less honorable ma~11s-in-exile below.
Autoni11s DiORtHts 1 MARVEI.S BEYOND THULE. Photios has fairly carefuJly preserved for us the complicated interweaving (O'VvEi.p(LIJI, Bib/., cc>!l. 166, p. llOa 15 Bekker) of narratives in Amonius Diogcncs' novel Marvels Beyoud Thule. Most of the adventures arc related by the heroine Derkyllis, who has b~en condemned by the wicked Egyptian priest Paapis to lie dead by day and to live only at nighr. (Perhaps. like Sharazade., she interrupts her account as each day is dawning.) She is on the far distant island of Thule, and the audience who listens to her tales is Deinias. Deinias, in tum, is narrating all this
to a fellow countryman of his named Kymbas, who has come from Arkadia to Tyre to persuade Deinias to return to his homeland. Deinias's explanation of why he cannot return begins with an account of his leaving Arkadia to make researches (Kara (TJT"'}CTtV iOTopla~ . .. a1T01TAaVTJnEi~ rij~ 1rarpwo~. p. 109al3 -15 Bekker). His inquiring mind takl's him eastward, of course. past the Caspian Sea. the Ripaian Mountains, the source of the river Don (Tanais~ across the frozen wastelands of Russia (Skythia) to the Far East. On his longjourney he encounters many fantastic sights. Photios does not record what they arc, but the adventures ofDcrkyllis and her brother bring them in contact with horses that change color (p. 109b24-25 Bekker~ a Pythagorean philosopher whose eyes grow larger and smaller with the waxing and waning of the moon (p. t09b27-29 Bekker~ andreports of incredible items of natural history pertaining to animals, plants, stars, and islands ( 1TOA.Aciw d7Ttt7TOTaTCtJJI iJEaiJ.arCdv, p. 110a10-13 Bekker). Presumably this captures the general tone of the wonders met by Deinias on his scientific expedition. But what he principally discovers is the artful narratrix Drrkyllis. with whom he falls in Jove.
PARODY LOST AND REGAINED
269
Her narrative, which is apparenrly the substance of the twentyfour books, begins inTyre, where she is duped by the Egyptian priest in exile into unwittingly casting her parents Into a deathlike trance. She meets this wizard Paapis again in Sicily, where he has become the eminenu grist of the tyrant of Leontini. She steals his satchclful of books and his herb-chest, bur after very lengthy journeys and countless adventures he catches up with her on Thule and casts a magic spe11 (nxvy ~-t«ytKV• p. tlObl Bekker) on her and her brother. Dejnias, to whom she is narrating her adventures, discovers from the Egyptian magician's satchel (EK Toil '11'T1Pt.8wv, p. 110b27 Bekker; presumably from the books therein) how to reverse the spell and incidcnta1ly how to wake their parents as \Vc11. The lovers. Derkyllis and Dcinias, with all their friends, journey beyond Thule and finally reach ro 1Tth'TC&JII a1TtO"TOTaTOII, .. the most incredible thing of all., (p. 111 a7 Bekker). They come so far north that the moon is almost touching the earth and they can speak to the Sibyl who is living there in retirement. She grants their wishes and, after falling asleep. they wake up in the temple of Hcraklcs inTyre. This eat's cradle of stories is composed of two strands-Deinias's eastward journeys in search of marvelous knowledge and Dcrkyllis's perilous adventures with a wicked Egyptian priest. Together they form a block of information that is itsc1f the object of discovery. For at the end of his talc, Deinias tells his Arkadian countryman K ymbas to record his story on two sets of cedar tablets, one of which he is to takt• back to Arkadia; the other will be buried with Deinias in his tomb. It is not Kymbas but his Athenian companion Erasinidcs who writes down the entire narrative on the cedar tablets. (This evidently accounts for the Attic, rather than Arkadian, dialect of the novel.) These cedar table-ts arc discovered by Alt'xandcr the Great after his sack of Tyre. The set of frames around the narrative of Dcrkyllis is not yet complete, tor the story of Alexander's discovery of the chest in the tomb is relatt!d in a letter from his general Balagros to his wife Phila, the daughter of Anti pater. This is contained in turn in a letter by Antonius Diogcncs to his sister lsidora. The novel concludes with a letter from Antonius to one Faustinus, in which he explains that the entire novel, though it seems to lack the ring of truth. is based on a library of ancient testimonia]s from which he has ]aboriously compiled his apista, ··incredible things." Furthermore, he brings forward
270
CONJECTURES
a list of authorities for the contents of each book. so that none of the marvels will be left unvouched for. 29 Antonius Diogenes has included every form of veridical documentation and applied it to what Photios regarded as the sheerest hallucination ("things that no one has ever claimed either to have seen or to have heard, not even to have fantasized in his imagination," p. 111a5-7 Bekker~ We can only regard it as parody when a chain of narrators is set up that goes, beginning with some adventures rc1ated by DcrkyJljs's brother, from Mantinias to Derkyllis to Deinias to Kymbas to Erasinides to Alexander the Great to Balagros to Phila to Antonius Diogcnes to his sister lsidora, and when the entire chain is explained to another party as a fiction indeed, but one based on careful research into ancient authors. I have described these tivc "'I went in quest of secret wisdom" narratives in some detail to give the reader a sense of the repeated pattern and of what scope it allows for variations, and also to present their characteristic flavor of strange-but-true, whether seriously meant (Thcssalos, Harpokration, Dcmokritos) or adopted as a t1ctional pose (Iamblichos, Antonius Diogenes~ There is uncerrainty and dispute a bout the dates of aU these works. but each is arguably of the second century C. E. or earlier, and in any case what they exemplify is afomrat of which there were undoubtedly many other instances and that is certainly current in the time of Lucian and Apulcius. My proposal is that the reader of the ass-tale would calculate its significanct' and its force from the recognition of this particular narrative format. Another example of the same format, Lucian's parody MetdpptlS, makes explicit the connection between higher saving knowledge and the problem of conflicting philosophical schools, which I take: to be the skeptical impetus behind The Goldert Ass. Menippos, just returned from the underworld in outlandish garb and S'pouting poetry, tells 3 friend that his inquiring adolescent mind was bedeviled by the contradictions in Greek culture and philosophy, so he decided to 29. Such lis1s are what is u.su:~Uy de:dgnated by the term "paradoxo~raphy.'' r:uher th~n narntivcij; (wondet :.tortell~ This i!l my only hcsit;~rion ;about endorsing Ptrry'5 formulation, "s;~,tire on a paradoxographer." P;~.radoxographers in the strict sense are those aurhors collttrcd by A. Wc:sr~rnunn, .R1mdoxo~raphi Gmed (1839; reprint: Amstcrd~m. 1963~ and A. Giannini, 1\Jmdoxvgraphorwm GnatCtJrnm Rrliq11i12t (Mibn, 1965~ in which rherc docs incidc:nt;ally occur some l'lOirrativc: marc-ri~l. notably in Pblegon ofTralles.
I'ARODY LOST AND REGAINED
271
journey to Babylon and find a Zoroastrian mage who knew the incantations and rites for taking one safely to the underworld. Mcnippos describes his meeting with the Chaldaean sage Mithrobarzancs and the careful ritual preparations for the desceut (6-10), comparable to those ofThcssalos and to those of Lucius in Book 11. 30 This wisdom that Mcnippos brings back is a conventional Cynic diatribe on wealth. not a revealed handbook of zodiacal herbs. The example of the quest-motif in Lucian's A.fmippos brings us around to the question of the ass-talc's author·s identity. This is not an issue on which I care to be very positive; it docs not affect the shape of the argument that 1 will develop about Tile Goldeu Ass. But one cannot help noticing that the reading of the ass-talc as a send up of the "] went in search of arcane knowledge"' literature makes itjusr the son of thing that Lucian loved to write. Compare cspcdally the J>lrilopS('Udt·s, with its rc-pc:ated confrontations of be1ievcrs and cynic (like the: opening scene of the AA). It was the brilliant and economical thesis of B. E. Perry that the Metamorphoses had been writrcn by Lucian and abridged by anothcrt with the result that the abridgement came ro be collected with Lucian's genuine works. 31 My reading of the ass-talc only strengthens Perry·s intuitions. and incidenta1ly cxplains how Photios was able to get two opposite readings from the same text in its longer and shorter form. It is not only that the longer form C()lltaincd assertions of belief in the persona of Lucius of Patrai but that the structure of the work itse1f contains both the cre-dulous (quest for wisdom) and the cynical (anyone who goes on such a quest is an ass). So a parody always contains the parodied: Underlying the ~·pisodic and ;mtidcvdopmcnral narrati\'l' of th~ pican:squc is yet another important pattcm of organization: rhc structure of
30. F. Doll, "Das E.ingangsstuck dc-r Ps.-K kmcntincn," Zt·il:scllriftjiir die llrurcstamrntlirl•r Wim·mdhJ/i 17( llJ16): 13tJ-4M: R. Rcirzens~ein, Helleni$li( .Hys•rry·Rt'li· xions: l"lu:ir Basic ldr~s and Sigr~~nWI(f, trans. J. E. Steel~·. Piusburgh Theological Monognph Series. no. 15 (Pituburgh . .Pa., lY7t!; Gc:rnu.n Jd cd. publ. 1'126): 127-31 (marginal pagination): "What Thessa1os pinurcs or Lucian oOC:rs lin the .\_lnlipptlS I is the: same thing that Apulcius purports to have cxp(.·ricnccd, only abbrevtatcd and !iimpliticd" (p. 130). 31. A solution widdy ;u:ct·pt,,.'d, to which G. Anderson aJds the: lwist tha.t both the MetoJmcrpl•osrs and L11cius, or tl11: Ass could be the work of Lucian: Swdirs ;, Ludatfs C(lrtli{ Fiaion, MnentOS)'Ile Suppleml"nts, no. 43 (Ldden, 1976): 35.
272
CONJECTURES
the narrative genre {or genres) being parodied. While numerous critics have discussed the picaresque as "antiromance," as a "countergcnrc·· thar d~velops dialectically as an inversion of the pattern of chivalric romance, tcw have rcaliz~d that it {·mbodi ass-god of Egypt. Thcrt" were occasional reports that tht· Jews worshiped an ass, ..a and since Jews were both honored for their ancient wisdom and despised tor their alien ways, a Jewish rather than an lsiac Book 11 would have been quite conceivable. (The Syrian goddess could be carried around by her dcvolees on an ass, bur she is nlll:'d out because shl:' is already in Lucius, or tilt' Ass.) By far the best known rcJigious ass \.vas the Seth/ Typhon ofEgyptian mythology: magk:ll spells ap1cnty testify to the usc of his name and his totem animal. If an ass-talc parodying the 2. S. Gsell, lmm'ptious larillt'S de' I'AI~irit• (P.uis, I'J22~ 1: 2115. Sec also J. Gucy, '"l" Apcllpgir d"l\pul.:c.· ~:t lc:s insaiptions de: Tripolitainc:.'" R1'l'lrl.' 1lt:'J Eru.IC's f_tllittl'5 32 (1~54): 115-l'J. Tin: statue is the.· su(.,_jcct of J. wry cl.:vcr :;pc:t:ch of gratitude in which Apulcius declares hunsdfc:c:mc:nte-d in piJcc: in C:nthagc fon•\·er {quippt· it4 insrillli 1m111r uir.Jr rur.zr·umpu.< 11obi.< I"''brJtr, quilms lilt" iuJx·rt'('tuwu_/irmirt-r .lrJi.-o~ui) .md describes the
death oflhc ingenious comic poer Philc:mon, who was tound rigid on his couch, still holding a scroll and fm:r.cn in an attitude of thoughtful conrc:mpbtion (Hc,ri,/d 16, p. 23.22-24 Helm). .~. P. Monceaux," Apulee ma~iden: hisroite d'unc ll·~cnde africJinc," Revue dc•s IJr:ux .\toudes HS(Jan. -Feb. 1H.'HH): 571-60~- In Thcodorus JlrillCianu~·!> J..:upCirist.J ( IJL•tnc Rl!mc•tlits) one of ei}l:ht ..."\'n w3ys ro Lift of Aesop and thc mimc of Apuldus's day arc two representations of a cultural forum in which speakers in grotesque disguise arc aUowcd not only to be obscene but to utter critical truths about authority. One of the moves possible, and therefore inevitabk·. in the repertoire of low. vulgar comedy is serious sassincss. Because the actor is already grmcsque. deformed. and without honor, and because he is punished with slapsticks on the spot, he can speak the unspeakably irreverent thoughts about rulers that arc forbidden to normal citizens. The ritual or performativc connection between a visibly shameful status and a grt:ater freedom of thinking and speaking can be traced through all the eras of Greco-Roman culture. My suggestion is that Apuleius chose to descend to that arena, speaking in the person of a fatuous scholasticus and a grotesque, much-slapped ass, bccausl· it enabk·d him to construct a more complex, more unauthorized and more replayable set of games for the readers who would be enticed to his Golde, Ass. The dialectic of deformity, intelligence, and authority that connects Hipponax, Epicharmos, Aristophancs:pl1lyax plays, l-lcrodas, and the mime has not yet been traced out, but if I mention a few high points the general notion will perhaps be clcar enough to make the point tor my argument. The ugliness of Aesop is a specific cha1lenge to convention, not just an objc:ct of ridicule but a prO\·Ucation to thought: ..The Samians looked at Aesop and laughed, saying 'Bring on a second interpreter of signs to unriddle this sign.' Aesop heard this and instead of showing contempt he kept calm and said, 'Men ofSamos, why are you staring at me?' They replied. 'Can this person solve our r1ddlc? His own looks arc a ponent! He is a frog, a galloping pig. a hump-backed jug, a drill sergeant for chimpanzees, a clever imitation of a fiagon. a butcher's pantry. a dog in a madman's cage!' But Acsop said, 'You shouldn't look at my looks, you should think about my thoughts. It's absurd to make fun of a person's mind on the basis of his external features. Many pcop]e have ugly looks and sound minds,"' etc. (M7-88~ The deformity of Aesop is as csscmial to his tradition as is his wisdom.16 Wicchers reproduces an Attic vasc of thc fifth Cl11lUry ncr:. The: opening lines of the: L!lr of AI'"SLlJ' (ms. G) OJ.rt.' n~ry garble-d, but tlu:y roughly meaning "rcmlting to look at, putrid and useless, with a bulgmg head and :1 pug nose, bl:u:k, stunh.'d, corrulent, b:mdyumcd, his limbs set .n odd .;~nglc-s ... a mistake." 16.
ron~i~t of a list of pejorative: adjccti ..·cs.
21U~
CONJECTURES
showing Aesop with a huge head, sloping tacc, outsize nose. and puffy cheeks, conversing with a fox. 17 Il may even be built into his name, if Nagy's etymology is correct; aiu- w~ = .. base facc." 18 The same look is found on the statuettes of mime actors in late Hellenistic and imperial times: large dopey ears, bulbous noses. flat foreheads, pointy heads, usually bald. 19 1 have alrcad y noted that the obscenity in the Lift often stands in a tendentious relation to conventional wisdom. Now I will argue that the ugly, obscene speaker of mime is an inheritor ofthc traditional role of Grotesque Outsider, who from earliest times was a blamer and critic of conventional authority. The early comp1cxities of this cultural group arc traced by Nagy, who includes Thersites and Iros as well as Aesop. Both are deformed, Thersites being hump-backed and pointy-headed, lros fat-bellied (~apyo~) and probably phaHic. 20 Within the aristocratic tradition of cpos these blame figures arc themselves blamed: Thcrsitest for all that he speaks the same truth :as Achilles, is beaten with a royal stick; Iros is promised a deformation that will give him the permanent look ofa grotesque-he will have his ears and nose cut off. The Homeric singers portray the ugly railer as an unpleasant outsider and make him
suffer serious beatings because he says thing that the aristocratic and polite traditions regard as ugly. Thersites and Iros are caught. as it were, in a hostile genre. If we could sec the cultural blame-figure (of which Thcrsitcs and lros arc distorted appropri.uions) in his own proper environment, he would be, like Aesop in his stories, the center of value and insight. He might still be ugly and still be beaten, but beaten now as the uglyt slapstick hero of his own genre. The Lij(· of Aesop can thus be interpreted as a witness to a submergt"d. Jargdy unwritten and unlcncrcd cuJrural tradition in which the Deformed Man speaks both comically and seriously against the 17. Wicchcrs. At•setr• (note 14): 32. 18. The nanu· of his nustcr may also be gcncr;~rcd from the same traditional opposition of smart, ugly slave with stupid. handsome philosopher. At least f~o~ is m.cd in the- l.if~ to n.une tht opposite of Ae-sop:" Aesop s;aid, 'Lo~dy, dicJ you w:ant your husband to buy a slave who was youn~. h:~ndsomc. good-looking, bright-eyed, and
l
fJir-ho~ired ~Q'VlM~I?"" (32).
19.
G. M.A. Richter. "Grotesques and the Mime." Ammc.m);mmal o{.4rclrcoloo 17(1913): 149-56~ A. Nkoll Maslts, Mim,•s ~tnd 1\firatlt$: Swdit$ iu 1lrr 1\lpular Tlrt.alrt' (New York. 1963) has a goud selection of iltuscrations, csp. pp. 43-49,88-89. 20. Nagy, B~sr '!l rh~ .icllacans (note 14): 229 n. 4. citing F. Broer, ··un Nom indocuroJ~en de rhomm..- che7. Hmnerc,.. Rti'UI! II(' Philo/,l_gil: 50(197(i): 206-12.
ISIS AND AESOP
289
tyranny of conventional wisdom. 21 If Aesop tends more to the serious, his non-idemical twin, Margitcs, tends to represent the merely comic formulation of the same clcmcnts. 22 Aesop knows nothingin the Socratic sense23 -and yet there is no puzzle that stumps him; Margites litera1ly knows nothing. His speciality is to display ignorance of things so basic that it would ordinarily seem inconceivable that anyone not know them. Margites was afraid to have sex with his bride because she might tell her mother. He had to be tricked into it by his wife, who pretended that she had been wounded in the vagina and the only cure was for Margitcs to put his penis on the wound. Other fragments imply that he had trouble with elementary arithmetic (Polybius 12.4a.5~ He may have tried to count the waves and simply started over each time he reached the highest number he knew (which was either five or a hundred: Ihroemiographi Gmeci, cd. Leutsch 2.517). The phrase that sums him up is "He understood many things and Wlderstood them all wrong." 24 As to the look of Margites, we may guess that he was pot-bellied (J.Ld:fYYo~) and perhaps compounded of disproportionate parts like the polymctric verse of the Homeric poem about him. Certainly in regard to ro]cs he is the ancestor of the Jatcr deformed performer of mime known as the stupidus. I introduced in Chapter 6 a tradition of sophomoric jokes about the sdtolasticus, arguing that they were specifically stage routines of low comedy. Now I shaH put together the Grotesque Critic (Aesop) and the Grotesque Fool (stupidus of mime) 3S the serious and comic poles of a seriocomic tradition in which 21.
Mclantho and Mcl:mthios, r.:.ilers both, m.:.y :~lso c:ury with them :m unex-
purgcd sign of rln: tur111i11g of the: bbmc figure. They :~rc both children of Dolios (="Crafty"~ Odyllq 17.212: 1H.322). 22. Tl.'stimonia to the poc:m .\tar..'!itrs, though not to the entire: tradition about Margitcs. arc collected by M. L. West, l~mbi tt Elt'Ki Gmcci (Oxford, 1972~ 2: 69-76. Cf. H. Lmgcrbcck, •• .\largires- Versuch e-incr Bt.-schrc:ibung und Rekonstruktion.'" Han'drd Srwlit's ill Classual Pllilol...,gy 63(195H): 33-63: M. Fordcrcr. Zum lromt'Tisdlm _ Margilr:s (Amsterdam, ttJf.Cl).
23. How much of Pbto's version of Socrates is due to a ron5eiously Acsopic coloring-his; looh, his long suflC:ring, his c;ommon rouch. his uncom·cnlion~l wisdom. his homdy similes~ 24. noll' -IJ1TU:rraro lpya, teaJt~ S' Y,'ITicrrcrro mivra ((Plato} A/rib. II 147B "" Marg. fr. J Wl!'sr). Mugites.' hrand ofpolynuthy nuy stand bc:hind lucim's anti-Odyssc.an tlsi min1u prud(lltrm, nntllisciurn .:.t AA ':1.13. Lucius slides from ;t self-identitic-:~tion as Homeric Odyssc.-us to Homeric MargitC!i. C( Fordcrcr, Margilts (note 22): 16-20, on Marg:itC's as a nc~ativc 170AliTpomJ~.
290
CONJECTURES
physical deformity and intellectual paradox are exploited to arouse critical laughter. The testimonia collected by Reich. Wiist, and Nicoll15 picture the stupidus as a second banana. a clown who may confuse, disrupt. and make fun of a primary action by his imitations and intrusions. Only one extended example of such a routine has accidcntalJy survivedthe Charition mime.l 6 In it the rescue of a maiden from a barbarian land by her brother and a ship captain, a Ia Ipltigtneia among tile Tauriaus, is combined with the KykloJ1S trick of getting the barbarians drunk. As counterpoint to the mdodramatic action. the stupidus interjects obscenities-praying to the goddess Pordc (roughly "Fartern is:· or it may be a stage direction: 4. 241 mentioning the Psolichos ( •• Hardon.. ) River (23, 46~ and suggesting that the captain be thrown overboard to kiss the ship's ass (109~ He is sacrilegious too: when tht: heroine rejects with horror the plan to steal some oft he temple offerings. he agrees. "You mustn,t touch them- I will" (37, 55). For these Harpo Marx shenanigans he is ofcourse rebuked, at least verbally (5, 55~ More common in mime was the usc of sticks to thwack the misbehaving buffoon. The blows r2inC'd on the stupiJIIS's bald head or humped back are a signal that his words are outrageous as well as a mock punishment for them. The formal appearance of punishment is employed not to censure the offender but to enable the audience to respond with free delight to the transgressive behavior of the buffoon. Because the mime encouraged violations of respect for authority (in Cllarition's case the gods. temple property, and the captain of a ship) by appearing to punish them on the spot. a space was opened up on occasion for truly dangerous jibes at powerful persons. N umcrous anecdotes relate how, especially in imperial conditions, the mimes became voices for what no one else dared say. 27 Thus a mime delivered a lightly veiled allusion to the inevitabjlity of tyrannicide in the very presence of Maximinus, but did so in Greek. ••when the emperor asked his friends what the mime clown [mimims sct4rm J had 25. H. Reich. lkr .~lim1u (Berlin, 1903): 57H-83; E. Wiist. •'Mimos," RE 15: 1727-64; Nicoll, Masks (note 19): M7 -90. 26. POxy. 413; D. L. ~ge. &lul PaJ'Y'i, vol. J, Lifrmry Tbpyri, H.Jrlry (Cil.mbridgc. Mass./London, 1970): 336-49. 27. Reich, Mir"Hs (note 25}: 182-92, coU.cCls the anecdotes.
ISIS AND AESOP
2YJ
said. he was told they were ancient verses wriw:n against rough men; and he, being a Thracian and a barbarian, believed it.. (Historia Au~usta, Duo .\1axim. 9.3-5). Another mimL· was able to allude: with impunity to Marcus Aurelius's wife's lover (Historia Augusta, 1\1. Atttcmin. 29). Ptolemy Philadclphos and Caligu1a killed downs for insullS like that (Athcnaios Deipn. 14.621 A; Suctonius Cal(~. 29.4). By emphasizing the critical cutting-edge of the I~i)(· Clj At·sop and mim...-. as expressions of popular thinking that contained dements of resistance to elite educational privilege and public authority, I mean to bring out the: cunning and point of the: AA 's frequc:m imitations of them. If Book 11 has an abrupt ending rather than a tidy one-a feature of mime performances18-and if the theme of the ass-man was featured in mimes, 29 our verdict on this should not be that Apulcius participated in the mindless antics of the rabble but that he saw it as a novel and effective venue for putting unthinkable issues on trial. 30 Because Aesop and mime already contain a devious play of unwanted perspectives and a hiding of the se1f behind a grotesque, degraded facade, they can be subsumed in Apuleius·s larger device. his Socratic game of provocative questions with no authorized answer. But lest this chapter's treatment seem to play favorites in Apulcius's mock trial of issues, secretly advocating the bald down over the bald deacon. I shall now give an example of another, contrary intricacy that can be traced in this doscly tatted text. ''lc is the c:ondm>ion of~ mime, not a play -there's no tina I cadence, one ch.ujust eh1des ;mother's ch1tChl'S, the clacker rattles and the curuin is pulled up''
28. ;~cter
(Cicc.-ro Jlro Carlio6..1). 24J. lllustr~ted by il tim-century c. L bronze relict: H. Reich, "Dcr Konig mit der Domenkrom.·," NrurJal~rbiidu!rfiir .ltJs kltJssisf$u• Allt'rtuiN 7(1904): 705-33, tigurc on p. 711; Nicoll. ,\l4sks (note liJ): 75. 30. Cf. the moving of lucius's trial frorn the hw court tn the theatl·r (3.2}. The most startling of the mime dements in the :'\A, if only we knew a little more J.bout props, might be the- fake cal"i :md nose of Thdyphmn, The 'it.ltm•Uej; regularly sh~lw such actors as having large, tl.mny noses and cars, though the evidcm:c is clear that they did not wear 111.1sks. Surely nut all mimes 3L""tu;~ll)· h;ni gmlcsque f:.lcct: wmc of them must have used stit:k~n or ti~o•-on noses and cars. No other chancter in the .-\A is so
perfectly the slllpiJus as Thclyphron.
11
The Gilding of the Ass '']suppose it's abour Christ?" .. No. Jt's about the childhood of Dostoevsky.'' ''Dostoevsky," said Miss Terborg One tirmly, "was very interested in Christ." Across the chasms, thought Gott, threads of connexion can always be traced. -Michad Innes, Hamlet, Rrr~tnge.'
Still in the familiar realm of conjecture and tollowing the norma] un-Carresian methods of historical reconstruction, let us tum at last to the first words of the novel and tell a likely story about the title of the book that we have throughout referred to as rhc AA, for Asim1s Aureus, Tile Golden Ass. I should warn the reader that this, the eleventh, chapter will have an Egyptian character, for in it there occur revelations of mysterious s~:cret meanings, lsiac and Sethic lore ••emwined in a calligraphy so dense and involuted" as to be illegible to non-tanatics, arcana of which no hint has been given in the first ten chapters. Of the two titles by which Apuleius's novel is commonly known, Met amorphous and The c,,fde" Ass, the latter is frequently declared to be merely a nickname, popular in origin, honorific in character, and perhaps easier to understand in the Latin West than the author•s original Greek title, A1etamorphoseon1 (a genitive plural). All known manu1. The discussions: of e•rly modern scholars are col1ected in F. Oudendorp, Apl'uleii O]Jrra 01Pmia (Lddcn, 1786). 4: 2-J. who insisrs that Mttdmorphoses ;alone is ;authentic, the other title being mere GsjnitJus l1tsus. The common opinion may be found.
292
THE GllDING OF THE ASS
293
scripts arc derived from Laurentian us 68,2, 2 where the subsaiptions to each book attest only to the title Metamorplzoseon: e. g., E..~ salustirls /egi et em(eu)davi romeftlix. METAMORPHOSEON · LIH(BR) II· EXPLIC(IT) INCIPIT LIBER · III· F(eliciter), .. I. SaJlustius. read and emended at Home with joy. Book 2 of the Metamorphoses concludes; Book 3 begins. WithJoy." These subscriptions are the work of one Sallustius. whose work on the text can be shown to go back to the years 395-97. 3 These subscriptions arc the basis of the almost unanimous modern agreement tha[ the novel was en[itJed by its author Atetamorpl•oseis (in the Greek nominative plural). a word that in fuller
bibliographic references including the book number automatically becomes genitive plural: (LibcriLibri) Metamorpl10scoll. I believe this consensus about Apuleius's title to be wrong and wiJl argue here that Asinus Aureus is both authentically A pule ian and very significant.
THE EXTERNAL CASE fOR ASJNVS AUREUS
The earliest reference to Asiuus Aurcus is a well-known passage in Augustine (de civ. dd 18.18) concerning folktales of human-
tor instance, in R Hd m 's introduction to his translation, A p ult i•~ Alt"tamotphoscn; odtr, l:>t'T~Idtnf' r:JI'I,l.~ttittisl/1 und /Je.,tsch{Berlin, 1961): 5~ H.J. Rase. A HotndbookofLuin Litt'mturr (London, 1936): 521; L. \'Oil Schw.:~bc •• Appulcius... RE 2: 250~ J. Tatum, •.thaphormorpllO$l'OII (my f;n~rite, explicit VIII).
294
CONJECTURES
to-animal-to-human transformation. He himself has heard such tales in Italy conceming innkeeper womt!n and unfortunate travelers: .. Their minds however did not become bestial but remained human and rational, just as Apulcjus (in the books that IJe inscribt·d witlz tlr~· title Tl1c Golden Ass") reported or pretended to have happened to himself-when he took a drug and became an ass but kept his human soul" (my italics; n~c tam~u itr eis mrmem_fleri bestialem, sed raticJtJalf•m lmmanamquc servari, sicut Apuleius, iu libris quos Asini Aurri titulo illscripsit, sibi ipsi aaiclissc llt accepto l't.'Ut''to lmmano at1imo pemraumte asitwsfierct aut indicavit autjinxit). It has not hitherto been noticed that this unambiguous phrast• can only mean that Augustine read the novel in manuscript bearing the title Asinus AJm•us and that this appeared to him to be Apuleius's own choice-.. that he inscribed with the title ... ;• quos ... tiwlo inscripsit. This is rather stronger than. say. inscribitHr, .. is inscribed," which would merely indicate a tide found rather than a title authorized by Apuleius. Augustine has, I think, his own reasons for pinning the title on Apuleius (sec p. 297~ but he could nor develop his polemic unless he did regard the title as an authentic one. Augustine is thus a witness to a distinct manuscript tradition (and a community of book readers) in the fourth century in which the novel's tide was Asinm Aurem. Nothing can be made of che relative priority of Sallustius 's years of work (395-97) to Augustine's writing ofthe deciaJitatedei (413-26~ since Augustine presumably knew Apulcius's writings throughout his life (born 354~ and his testimony, though set down somewhat later than Sallustius's, is therefore relevant to the entire second half of the fourth century in Africa and ltaly. Neither of these two early witnesses to the title of the work can be invalidated as inaccurate, and neither betrays any knowledge of the other. An evident stalemate. The main argument of this chapter is that rhere are four good reasons for believing that Asi,ms Aure11S was Apulcius's title. But before embarking on that I would Hke to suggest in passing that tht! most economical hypothesis to account for the divergence between Augustine and SaJlustius is that Apulcius's original title was double-like those of Varro's AJt•nippean Satires and Plato's dialogues as known in 1'
THE GILDING OF THE ASS
21J5
Apulcius 's day 4 ~Asi11us rmreru, TTEpi p..ETCXJ.WprpwuEwv, ( Tl1r Golden Ass, Cone em in)! lvletamorphoscs ). 5 Ancient readers were ordinarily rather casual about exact titles: Cicero, for instance, refers to one of his own compositions 'lr.triously as Cato maior and as de se11tctutc and by its opening words, 0 Trte, si quid. 6 One of the works Cicero used in that dialogue (1.3) was Ariston ofKeos's Ta.iJCdvO~. 7TEpi. yi]p~. Varro's Menippeans arc the most telling model, since they often feature a phrase whose meaning or relevJnce is not at first apparent: caprinum proelium, 1TEpi T;Bov-i}~ desultorius, 1TEpi Tov ypaf{JEtv; cymu.c, 1TEpi Tafl'ii~ mutumtl muli mtlmrll, 1TEpi xwpLUJ.WV. Sometimes the two parts of Varro 's title are split between Latin and Greek, as I am proposing for Apulcius's .4.sinus Aureus, 11epi p.eTap.opf{JwUECdV. 7 PIJto\ dialogues were org..mizc:d inro tetralogies with double titles l:ty Thr .l(c.uly fint-ccruury c E.) according to Di.og. Llt'rt. 3.57-60, the :;.crond p.ut usually beginning with 7rEp,(27 out of 36~ That Thrasylloo; w.1s fo1lowing the example: of Derkylidc~. probably already known to V01rro (•I~ liti~Ud L.ui"" 7 .37), is argued by H. Allinc, Hisroirt' dwrf'.~tt ,/e Pl.mm, Bibliothcque de I'Ecolc des hautes etude!';, no. 21S {Pari!>, 1915): 112-13, on the basis of Albinus Pr.llt,l!. 4. Varro\ title:;, arc .1 nutter of controversy: E. llolisani. t-anoraf' Mct1ippco (P.1dua. 1936): :..:xix, and P. Ccbc, l{m,,, ~tin•J Mtniptt~~ Collection de r"Ecnlc fran,aisc de Rome:, no. 9 (Home, 1972), 1: xiiixiv, accept the arguments of A. Riese' .. Die Doppdtitcl\·arronischcr SJtircu," in Sym· bola !Jhift~lo.\~nltn Bont~tnsium in Hvuomn F. Rirsclu~lii, (lcipzi~. 1H64-67): 471J-H8. that the Greek nEpi-titks ;arc the: invention of ;a htcr ec.titor. Ric:~':. argumelll!t sibility oL1 posc-Apuleian double ride in his Armleii4S, M••fllnr"''I'JrMol: A C'..otmtJcnMry, Beirr".ige zur kla~i!iChc:n Philologie, no. 54 (Mc:i~c:nhcim am Gl.m, 1975): ~9. 5. Pettus Colvius (citl!'d in Oudcndorp !note l J) thought that Apul1.•ius"s own title was .\.ftldtrwrpiii)Sttltt sir't de· Asitlcl Allrto, on the grounds that both Wl.·re us,cJ by ancienr :mthors. 6. H. Zilliacus, "Doktitcln i :.mtik liuc:ratur," l;rdlh'S 3li(JIJJR): 1-41; E. Nachmtcborgs Hocgskolas Arsskrift. no. 47/19 (Goteborg, N41 ); Carl Wendt!, Dir ~rif'CIJistlrt•-romisclre Bluhbrscl~r·ribuug rorrglidltrl mit J" drs rttlrd(fftl Orirnts, llaltiliChcn Monographicn, no. 3 (IIallc, 1949): 29-34; K.-1:. Hcnriksson, Crird•istht Biicl1~rt•td in drr ro•niscllt"ll Lilerarur (Helsinki. 1956); N. l-:lorslall, "!)omc Problems of Tituluurc in Roman Literary t·JiSoltu)·," B•,Jirtitt cif tlu· lnstirute C'f C/assi(al Studirs (l..~ndotl Uniwrsily) 2H( 19XI ): 103-1-4. C ic~:rn \ rcfcn:ncc:s: Cdlo mawr-Lad. 4, ad ..o\tl. 14. 21; dt' m•ututr -de J;,•. 2.3; wo 'li"le, si quid'" -.1.1 All. 16.11. 7. Wholly Latin title~: 40; Grec:k words written in Latin chuactcrs: 17; Grl·ck titles: 25. AU the second halves otthc tides ( mpi.) arc in Grct'k. 4.
syllo~
296
CONJECTURES
Modern writers usually explain the gemuve plural J.A.ETaJ.WpcpciJuewv by adding Aoyot from Phorios's discussion of the two asstales (Bib/., cod. 129)-p.E-rap.optpcixrE6JII AO')'Ot- llui'()Opot.. But TTEpi. p.ETap.o(HPWuEwv has two advantages over p.ETa#U)fMPcMrEwv A.oyoc (i) it represents a wc11-known form of title that solves the apparent problem of Asimu AureJ~s versus JUTap.opcpwCTEwv and (ii) it dissolves the problem sometimes felt about the appropriateness of the plural. p.ETap.tJ{)(PWuEwv Acryot clearly indicates several tales involving transformations, and to find this in Apuleius one must invoke metaphorical transformations, which is not the immediate scnst" of the term as applied to "these Milcsian tales." 8 mpi.. p.ETap.opi{)6Juewv would be a generic plural, which Perry argued must be the: proper sense. 9 A number of Varro 's subtitles are generic plurals: e. g., Testamenwm, mpi 8taih}Kwv; fbpia papae, mpi E')'KCtJp.i.bJv. It is the example of Varro's A.ft>tJippeatiS that leads me to supply 1TEpt as the link between Asitms Aurtus and p.ETap.owwuEwv. (A double tide consisting of two nomjnatives in different languages would, I think, be unparalleled.) I further suspect that the Varronian project of philosophy cum comedy for the: masse's may be the most important model for Apuleius 's own work.• 0 H. J T.atunl, .. Apulcius and Metamorphosis," A'"crican J.mnlod of Pl1ilolo~y IJ3(11.J72): 306-13. 9. "Th~ Significance of the Title in Apuleius' Mrto~morpJ.oscs," C.:lrJ.Ssi(oiii,hilciC'l)' IH(1923): 23R So H. 1l Gousch:.lk concludes ch~t Herakleides Pontikos's mpi roO"(I.III means ... On dbc:asc in gcnr:ral', not rh.u sc\·cral diseases wcr~ trc.ttcd s(·rialirn" (1-ltmclides ot' Hmws !Oxford, l9HOI: 21 ~ The drarn4tic and (;~bulous dialogues of Hcrakleidcs Ponrikos. who combined .1 wom;~n cured from :1 thirty-day trance. a s.ymposium on the bst d.ty of Empedokks' lift", and ules of Pyth.lgura!lo inro a single work, will serve a:o; .m insunce uf the Greek models .ag:.in.">t which Varro was writin~ (Gottschalk. HtmdidrJ lnote IJJ: 21). V.uro ~ .\lmippram are like the A.A. in their amhiguou" mix of (PbutinC") Jrch;~i.;ms ;md non-st.JnUJ.rd c:onccmporary !'opt.-cc:h: E. Z.:~ffo1gno, "Cmnmcmo J.llcs.!>ico delle Alrnippa,'" in St11di .f\'oniani, Pubblicazioni dcll'htituto di fi1ologia classica !:' mcd~v;ale Jeii'Utliversir:, di (~nov;a, no. 41 (Genoa. 1975~ 3: 195-256. esp. 219-24. V;~rro is speaking: .. y,_"t in those old works of mine where I interpreted r:uher than imitated Mcnippos. I s;altc-d the whole: with a l'cruin hilarity. mingling many ~hings from the very hC'ilrt of philosophy and many dialectical propositions-all this in order that the less cduc.-.tcd might more c.uily get the point, if thl!'y were invited to read by means of a certain jocularity" (cr lamw i11 illis li~Uribus noslri.s, quae ,\lt'111ppum imit"ti, 11011 illlrrprrlali, qr~o~tlam luldrilalr ctmsprrsi1mu, 'm1lta admi.~M rx imi111a plliiMt~pllia, mulla Jictd didlatiu; lJtldt' q~t!l_latililu trrinu.s dolli illll'lltogtrttll, ;,,rrmdit.:zrt· quddam acJ ltgt'tJJum ir-witoti, Cic-ero An1J. 1.2. ~).
to:
THE GILDING OF THE ASS
2Y7
The hypothesis of a double title leads us to ask whether th~rc is any significance in the fact that Augustine uses Asiuus Arm·usand Sa1lustius uses .Hetamorp/Joseon. Probably not, but there arc three possibilities to keep in mind. It is conceivable that either Sallustius or Augustine (or both) was simply ignorant oft he other ride. Again, both may be indifferent to which tide they usc, like Fulgentius, who knows both titles and cites either one on various occasions, but never both togcthcr. 11 But there is also some plausjbihty in the suggestion that Sallustius and A ugustinc could have known the two titles but each consciously chose one over the other. Augustine regards Apulcius as an authority in the enemy's camp. and his citation may easily be read as contemptuous: "'The Goldcu Ass, as he himself called it ... " (stressing Asinus rather than A11reus). He also emphasizes that the narrator Lucius is identical with the author: sibi ipsi accidissc. Augustine seems pleased to have caught Apuleius in a dilemma: either he was an ass or he was a novelist-in either case his contemptibility is self-prodaimed. 12 On the other side. thanks to the arguments of A1an Cameron, it now seems unnecessary to associate Sallustius's work on Apuleius with the late fourth-century efforts of Roman traditionalists to maintain and defend the continued cxistenc.: of their culture against christian assaults.tJ Yet it is easy to imagine that a serious student of the work. who thought it worth copying (no matter what his religion). might hayc preferred the more abstract and honorific title p.E.TaJ.WP¥JWuEW'II to the paradoxical and folksy title Asitws Aun•us. Sal]ustius would not be the first or the last reader to have been drawn to this text as a dassic of religious experience or sheer narrative excelII. in libris rttr"lltrl•PJil$t'tltt (Myt/1. 3.6): iPI ,u·tmtMjciSI'IItt (ExpM. smn. 12111. 36)~ in .uir~t• aHmJ (Expos. st"nll. ant. 17; 40~ Fulgcntius ;~]so pa}·s Apulcius the tribute of imitation: ~fftJlim wamm .wrium S1!1l~s lrpido quolibt-r s1wmo pt'rtnultrdm (Jiytll. I, prcf. 3) = aJIITfJIJilt' ltttJJ bt~til\1/as lrpido msurro pmnulcrtJm (AA 1.1 ): cf. also Myr/1. 1, pref. 2 (catl1in· """'n n.-,, ia1 j, 3 ( mg.lr.J,., suln's anil ibusjabuJam), 4 ( Jl1ius cu riMitas ), 20 ( Ps ittn).
12. On contempt fornovds, sec D.P. Reardon, Gl/ffiUIIS litlfrairrsgrw des ut ft 1111'
$iivlt-.~at•rcJ).-C.
(l'.uis. 1971): 323 f. note32. Augusrine'!o :accuution that Apul'-'ius may
have wrincn fiction ( {i11.\·il) is almost a~ seriuu~ a charge as his suspicion th;~t Porphyry mo&y h:avc for~ocd an ~raclc (cor~jinxcril; dt civ. Jri 19.2.1.2~ The theological defense of tr:ad itional Roman myths, t h.at Ju pitc: r's scandalous ad vc:nr urc:sa rc just 111 adc-u p s tmics. is in itsdf a condemnation of them (rot!rinxil, Augustine Epist. lJit 1~. follo·wcd by a discussion of Apulcius). We might add that Augustine had no taste for Greek at all and for tlut reason too may h~ve s1ighu:d n~pi.~U-Tap.o()IPWvEwv. 13. Sec note 3.
29H
CONJECTURES
lcncc and yet to have been somewhat repelled by its uncompromising incorporation of barnyard filth-wh21t Flaubert referred to as its heady smell ofincense and urine togcthcr. 14 But these thoughts are an asjde from my principal argument, to which I now return. that Asiuus Aureus is genuinely Apuleian.
THE MEANING OF THE TITLE If the external case for Asinus Aureus as authentic is at least reasonably soundf there is ncverthdess a second and rather trickier set of considerations about its sense :md appropriateness. The only serious defense of Asinus Atm•us to date is that ofR. Martin, 15 who argues that it represents the ass associated with the wicked god Seth, who in Egyptian texts is described as ruddy ( 1T11ppbt;} Few accept Martin's analysis, since it is based on a leap from dry desert red (structurally opposed to the wet black earth around the Nile) to the brilliant yellow hue denoted by aurtrls. Yet, though the argument fails, it is ar least a type of consideration that would be relevant to justifying Asinus Aureus on intcmal grounds. These internal grounds mw;t be our next subject. First we must reexamine the interpretation of arm•r1s as a simple and straightforward term of praise. It is this interpretation that has in some part Jed commentators to reject Asitws Aureus as of Apuleius's own devising, thinking that he could hardly hav.c tried to promote the excellence of his own composition by so crudely flattering a title. The parallels adduced to illusnate the honorific sense of aureus as applied to works or writers do indeed show the peculiar devotion of a disciple, often verging on the obsequious, 16 and it is hard to imagine an author getting away with it in his own instance. 14. Sc.:c Chapter 8, note 44. 15. ''Le Scns de !'expression 'A sinus. :~urcus' et lJ signification du rom;1n apu]}icn," R~••urd!'J Eludts Luira~s4S(1970): 332-54. 16. (i) "Golden'' words or writings: •.ml't'a Jicra (Epiam'), Lucn:tius 3.12; est '"nim r~on ma.~mu ttt•mm al4rtolm ... libtll•u (Krantor, mpi. 71'illt7o~). Cic~ro ;-\r<JJ. 2.135; }lumw ora1ir»1is tlurrumfimdtns Aristottlt'j, Cicero !let~d. 2.119: Ta XJ1Vuii l7r1J I Pythagore3n), lamblichos Protrcpticus 3; XPuua 7rOtpay-yiA~UX'a IPyth;lgorean), Jerome adv. Rl4/in. 3.39~ Pf,1lor1i.s amulum tlc~t~uium, Fulgcntius Mytl1. 1, pre£ 27; title: .--\urea {dictd?). G~iu.~ the Jurist (d: F. Schulz. History ~?f Roman Legal S,ittltt' )O!iKth voyage be
inscribed on parchmenl in k-ttcrs of gold. (There is also in Greek an ironic us:r.gc. }(PIXTOW =''foolish": Mcn.mdcr 1Jyskt•lt•s675: Ding. Lacrt. tO.H [Epil"mm; on Ptato);
Lucian Ldps. I; Adian Epi$1.19; Alkiphron2.14~ 17. The contrast c;m be illus.trJ.ttd within th~ animal re;\ltn. lo JS ;\ "~ld~n cow" (lhn:·hylidt"o; lfl.1(,) h~·,·;m!l.t' she i'i au ;lll!."c~tral heroine: Hera '!o J"IC;u.:ock b. a ''golden species'' bccmst• it is beautiful (KaAA&poj)(po~) ::md admired ( mpc#Air.ovr;) (Antiph:mcs. C.m1iMnHn .-\rtito•rmn Fm.cm~tlld, cd. T. Kock (l('i~,zi~. 1HH2~ 2: fr.1~. 175 = ArhenJios Ddpt~. 14. 655B). Th~ s;une (,:c. {X¥ravijw) it itv{JpUmov JUTEIJDfMI'Wh'l llt'T)()~~. 794; ~UTOJ.Wf¥Wa'E'~· m.
304
CONJECTURES
tales had of course for a long time been wciJ known and well despised; evidently any plant or animal species might have a story told of its former existence as a human being. 30 Some at least of Pamphilos's lore was hermetic: "Next he speaks of the plant cal1ed aetos, about which he admits rhat no Greek has ever said anything. but which has been recorded in one of the books attributed to the Egyptian Hermes. comprising the thirty-six sacred plants of the zodiac:· Pamphilos's offense. by Galen's lights, was to lend his authority as an important grammarian to the recording of popular superstitions and mysrcriosophic fraud. Another significant instance of a metamorphosis fantasy in occult lore is attested for Bolos himself: in his On Sympatltics and Amipatl1ics he told how the Persians tried to cultivate a deadly Persian plant in Egypt for usc against the Egyptians, but it changed into the opposite (el~ Tovvavriov #UTa~a'A.eiv. Schol. Nikander Tlleriaka 764a). The origins of alchemy remain obscure. Defming alchemy very strictly by the discovery of distillation appararus, I. Hammer-Jensen criticizes those (including the alchemical writers rhcmsclves) who would date its origins to Hellenistic times or earlicr.l1 But. on the other hand, it is quite dear from Pliny. Plutarch. and others that by the first century c.E. a fairly substantial and heterogeneous body of Eastern systems of natural magic was in circulation 32 -Thcssalos and Demokritos are convenient examples. It is clear too that some of this material dealt not only with natural powers in substances but with hand-wrought operations {Bolos's Cheirokmtta; Seneca's reference to the Demokritean recipe for emeralds), and thar fantasy pat30. The.- bee was once a beamiful wonun nam~d Melissa-:~. t~l«.· that nO[ t!'ven ru!>tics bclicw, says.Coh.nnc:lla (d~: tt tmt. 9.2); awnitc tirst sprang up from Cerberus's slawr. Pliny ."'1/111. hi.It. 27.4; nunr W;lS Hades' mistress, trampled ro death by jc;Jious Persephone. Su:abo R.3. 14 (344C): cabbage was a rear shed by Lyk.ourgns. GI'Of'llnika 12.17.16-22; the Ophiogencis arc descended from a serpent that turned into a hero, Str;abo 13.1. 1-t (SHHC~
31. l. Hammer-Jensen, Dir c~tltf:11t .Jllr:hymit, Del K.on~ligc Danskc Vidcnsk.:ibcmcs Sdskab., Historisk-filologiskc Mcdddelser, 4, no. 2 (Copenha~n, 1921~ Stt .:~)so F. S. Taylor, .. A Sun"Cy of Greek Alchemy... }4lUnloll ".f Htlltnic Studit.l 50(1930): 100-39; H.J. SheppJ.rd. "Alchemy: Origin or Origins?" Amfli.\'" 17(1970): 69-84. 32. C[ the sctlsiriv~.· ;.mal)"l'is ofJ. A. North. "Religious Tol~.·ration in Re-publican Rome," Prorudit.gs f.!{ till.' Cambrid~c· Philo/.;~,&al S~.Jrif.'fY 25(1979): !G-103, shO\.,;ng th.n in the early second rcmury u.c..c. rhc.-rc was dearly ;a rnark.c.-t in Italy for new, .. spccitically religious" org:mizations :md new :l\'cnucs of apJU03Cb to higher powers.
THE GILDING OF THE ASS
305
terns such as instantaneous transformation were at home here. Taken together, these facts justify my daim that the title Asinus Aurrus and the prologue of Apuleius's novel might easily put an ancient reader in mind of occult lore, proto-alchemical science and the usc in those systems of tales of metamorphosis (Pamphi1os~
Tl1e Ass becomes goldt•u lf it is legitimate to envision :m ancient reader carrying with him thoughts of alchemy, occuJtism, or science fantasy during the reading of The Goldm Ass, such a readt:r might experience Book 11 as transforming the novel itself. The plot concludes with the transformation of the ass not into the same human being he once was but into a candidate for lsiac initiation, and with the change of story go changes in style, pacing, values, character types, and authorial perspective. It is, one might say, as if Apuleius has turned base Mi1esian metal into lsiac gold. lnsofar as the story itsclfis transmuted from low to lofty, from vulgar to valuable, the promise oft he title is at last fully borne out. The snap of recognition (AI!a-Erlcbuis) about the title would match the problem of the lsiac surprise ending and perhaps cover for it. at least to the extent of giving the impression that the full implication of the title had from the start included such a possibility. This interpretation gives central importance, as any interpretation of the title should do, to the oxymoron gold/ass. The appucnt incomputability of those two concepts is now, for the reader who has finished the novel, a mark of their aptness as title to the text. Of course, this does not solve the narratological problems to which parts One and Two have been addressed, since the goldenness of the ass is only vaguc1y honorific and '"rill not bear the scrutiny of intelligence that the i\A itself has exhibited to and demanded from the reader. That is to say, Tilt GolJetJ Ass is a completely satisfying title only to the reader who is content with a general sense that gold and Isis are simply good things and nothing more. The peculiarly sophmuoric
performance of the AA and its provocation as a narrative about narratives sets a higher standard for a neat so)ution than that here oudined, a standard that would be met if there were, say, some more particular connection between the notions of Isis and gold in the paradoxical transformation of the ass.
306
CONJECTURES
Tilt ass ;, tllr prologue For the reader trained to an Apuleian level of ingenuity, the prologue already bears out the relevance of the asitms in the tide. The speaker's explicit question about his own identity, the autobiographical answer to that question in terms oflanguages learned. and the conduding ambiguity of mdis lowtor have been analyzed in Chapter 7. Here it is simply pertinent to note that the argument about the title advanced by J. Tatum embodies a correct principle but needs to be supplemented and revised by a point of fact. 33 Tatum pointed out that Metamorphoses is a thematically appropriate title because the prologue contains dear allusions to metamorphosis (figums conuersas, uocis immutatio). He 3lso argued that the prologue contains no allusions to asses or gold. and this appears to be only half-correct. Tatum's emphasis on theme is important: I should say that the prologue·s dexterity in enunciating themes is that it puts the theme of transformation in the foreground as the storied content of the following discourse and just as clearly (mis)directs the reader,s attention to the themes of identity and language as the unspoken conditions for understanding and interpreting the text. That the speaker is reidentified as an ass and his language as braying is the first. comic transformation to which the prologue alludes. The spcaker·s reidentification as a pastophoros of Isis and his language as that of her hturgy is the finale that at last redeems aureus as a specifically Isiac oxymoron. as I shall now argue.
Tire lsiac ass: &tlr Nbty The actor is transformed from ass to initiate, eventually to pastophoros; his language is transformed to ... what? The liturgy of Isis outside Egypt seems to have maintained both a firm commitment to the primacy of its ancient hieroglyphics as the visibk· token of its authentic mystery and antiquity and also a readiness to speak Greek and Latin wherever it was practical. To go no farther than the AA, Lucius is privileged to see the sacred hieroglyphic script locked up in the inner sanctum of the shrine (11.22~ but the forms of worship also show adaptation to Grcco-Roman patterns. "But when we came to the temp]e itself ... one of the initiates. whom they all referred to as the ..grammatcus," standing in front oft he doors, addressed a gather33.
.. Apule ill$ and .Mct.lmurphusis," A•ll.-ritaP1}4l•tma1 4 Pl•ilology 93(1972): 306-13.
THE GILDING OF THE ASS
307
ing of pastophoroi (which is the name of a very sacred group) who were so to speak summoned to an assembly. From an elevated position he tirst read out from the formulae in a book the prayers of weBwishing for the great emperor and the senate and the leading citizens and the whole Roman people-for sailors and ships and whatever in our world is ruled by Roman authority. He: then pronounced in Greek language and rite the p/oiaphesia. "34 The ship-launching ceremony (ploiapl1esia, Nauigium Isidis) is little attested: it seems to be a Greek development of authentic Egyptian ideas a bout Isis. 35 The pra}'l'rs for ci\'il authority are more at home in Roman than in Egyptian contexts: on the Roman side they were the core of a New Ycar·s festival on January 1 and 3 (•wta pub/ira), on the Egyptian side prayers were rather addressed to the ruler as a god than for him. 36 But no oil-and-water separation is possible when Egyptian personnd and gods are being cultivated in Greek and Roman milieux. The symbolic importance of Egyptian words and writing never diminished; paradoxically. it may have increased as Isis became more established. The ear1iest Greek prayer to Isis, recently found at Maroncia, is mainly concerned with accommodating her worship to the Greek notions of Demeter at Eleusis. Equivalent later inscriptions arc much more comfortable in using cult tidc:s for Isis that arc defiantly Egyptian and unassimilablc to Greek traditions. The shift from apologizing for Isis as not so very foreign to proclaiming her aboriginal Egyptianncss as a reason for her excel1ence can be paralldcd in the social history of early unrest and later acceptance of the cult itself. Th~ presence oflsis in Rome had off and on occasioned intense rdigio-political controversy in the late republic and early empire, particularly during the two decades 64-43 D.C. E.. but after Tiberi us the cult, which had always sprung back after persecutions like a riotous weed. was held in high honor. 3 7 By the
34.
at wm .ul ipsum
il3m tt·mplrun
perurnimm ... ex Iris r11ms
,/i,·e•IJooml tn~•.f.•rilms ds. accurate knowh:dbtt: .about the: thrn· writmg systt.'tnsof Esypt frum Ch.1c:rc:mon: ··clement d" Ah:xandric' et I'C'criturc cgypttcnnc." C/lrt~tliquc· d'J~:~Yt'tr 31(1941 ): 21-)H. Sec also E. Iversen," Horapollon and the .Egyptiln Conceptions of .Eternity,"' Ril'iJlll dc~li Studi Orirmali 3H(1%3): 17786. There \\"t'rt: of course mln~· other writers whose authority was based on their trawls in Egypt, such u Seneca, til:' situ ct Jr Jolcris Ac.'~}'ptiormn, and Str.abo. Diodorus Sikulos seems to have some ~mhemic Egyptian vocahularv: H. Schaefer.·· Acgn1tischc Woru: bc:i Diodor.'' .ZAS ·H (1904). 140-42. ' Sb.
(L~ipzig. 1?32~
312
CONJECTURES
bly of pastophoroi in the Isis temple at Kenchrcai. In praying for the Roman emperor the lsiac clergy were in a sense negotiating their own identity with its compound of non-Roman liturgical practice and full allegiance to the social welfare of the empire. One of the available formulas for minimizing the difference between traditional Egyptian rites and the realities of Roman political power had already been adopted by (or foisted on) the Greek Ptolemies and was continued by the Roman emperors-they were addressed as if they were pharaohs, using the five standard pharaonic titles. On three of the obelisks mentioned above, the two at Bcncvcntum and the one erected to commemorate Domitian's accession, the emperor is described by the five pharaonic titles. These inscriptions arc original compositions executed in Italy in correct hieroglyphs, part of which is the standard titulaturc. We cannot say that in every lsiac prayer for the emperor, whether spoken in Egyptian. Greek, or Latin, these tides were uscd, only that they were obviously one of the avaHable formats. Domitian's accession obelisk was originally erected (81 C. E.) in the exact center of the court between the temples of Isis and Scrapis on the Campus Martius. Lucius·s destination when he reaches Rome. 5 7 I take this as a
tangible symbol of the availability of the specific knowledge to which l will now refer. The third of the five pharaonic titles is the so-ca1led Gold Horos tide. It consists of the Horos-fakon sitting on the sign for gold, the Egyptian word ,b.5 8 The interpretation of this hieroglyphic title, as given in the trilingual Raphia decree (217 llC:f:..~ is·~ Horos over his enemies:· avrt:rrlrAwv inrE(YTEpov. demotic: p3 nrj liT u3j-f ddj. 5 9 Why shouJd the enemies of Horos be denoted by the sign for "gold'•? Because in Egyptian mythology Horos's ent:my. Seth. is referred to as 57. Thl!'rc it !'>r.aycJ unril M.1xeruius movcJ it to his circus in the fourth century; it is now in the Pi.1zza Navona.. E. I 'l.'erscn, OIJtlisks itt Exile (Copcnhaltcn• 1%8). 1:I:IOf. 5~. /\. Erm.m, Wiirlt'rlul(lr ller ii"Ryplistlm• Spmtht' (Berlin. 1957). 2:240.1-3. 59. 1-L-J. Thissen, Stwdim zurra R.zpltiaJrkrr~ Uciti.ige zur kJassischcn Philolo~-lc. no. 12 (Meisenheim am Glm. 1966): 33. I .:~m p;meful to Prof,.. L. Koenen and S. Stepheus for Jr:JWing my anet1tion to this 'IM>rk. /\.H. G..udincr. Ancirrll E.1..ryptilm Otwmastitil (1947; reprint: Oxford. 1%H~ 2:70•. The !"oame Greek tr:msbtion oft he Gold-Horns title is u~ in t~ Rosctr.a SlOne (l% H.. Morrow
(Ch~eago/Londm1,
1977): 12.3.
Hani, ·· Artc d'Or" (norl' 61 ): 275. H. Kc:c:s, "Seth," RE2J\: 1!:199, citing Pluun:h ;m,J Adi;~n;J. G. GrHlidls, Plutauh Dr· Jsidt• rr Osiridt• (Carditl: 1970): 4(19-12~ I. Grumach, "On the History of a Coptic Figuu M3gica." /lrtJclskult dc:r Judc:n unJ Chri!otr:n." ;\TC·IIia· fiir Rd{~iQf'l>lf'l$$fPJsdr.:~fi 25 (1927): 265-IQ~ thJt the anti-semitic stories of an ass's head worshiped by the jews aro!ic from the Egyptian perception th.-u the n~meJ.thv..'Ch/j;~hu !loundt.-d to rh.ctn like .l sentence in Coptic meaning "He is .an .:.s..-." (i.J or io = ".1s..o;." evidently a simple onomatopoci.-. in Coptic, like English .. hcc-haw."lt .1ppcars that hu•JuJ• was the demotic word for .. bray": W. A. W.ud.jo11nanl ojNt:ar E~wmr Stu11ies 28[1%9): 267. S(.~ ;also W. f;mth. "SethTyphon•.Onod und dcr csclskoptl.ge Sab.aoth," Oriws Clm'sti,;rmu 5711973J: 7')-120. On early Esypti.m us.; of "Yahweh" as the name of a place in P:llt.-stint•, ~"C M. C. Astour. .. Yahwc~~ in Egyrtian TupographiOnu:ofthc accounts, the ass's head i!i specifically s;~icJ to bt.• :..uldm (joscphos wrtllll .-'\piorJfiPI 2. 9.114: Soauld, s.a•. lia,..,OtGMJ. rev. A. Henrichs IStutt~art. l'J7J-74J: 111.46; JV.JU6, l•Uti, 2213, 2291 t:, 2485. 260..1, 26b5f.;2750, 2913; VIL317f., 4%; XIV.3. 23; XVI.ll6; LXXII.9; A. Audollcnt. Dttixicmum "litbdlad JIJ04: n·s~rint: Frankfurt am Main, J'Jt,7J: JH. 13. 242. 42}. Some of these arc Sc:thi:m contexts. but often conflatc:d with He kate. More to the point, I invite dc:motit: experts to judge: NEBOUTOSOUALETH in Egyp1i.1.n magical im-ocations: (i) an invocation to Seth /Typhon to be recited owr an as..p1. $o1p. lSOF ................. "11 Str'ZO dt dt.foclr4 omc. 401E-F .................. 235 417C .................... 2J2
df' lsidt 352C .................... 225 358A-D .............. 320rt8U .361B ................•... 23'> 362F-363A .•............. i l l 3811) .................... llll On tl11~ soul frag. 118 .•............... lli
Quat>sl. cotwiv. 2.1. ...................... 265 :1.2 ...................... 2G5 5....1.U ..................... 232
TACITUS :\~rico/11
J.J ...................... C!U TERTULLIAN A pc,f.-.((ti(ll m
H.1 ................... 223n .11 15..1 .................. 231 "48 VARRO
Jt linj!ua Lt~lifl~l 1069 70 ...............
~
ap. Nonius p. 722 ~-5 Lindsay ..... 196 9i Vita :\r.wpi
"-3 ..................... 2.86
21 ....................... ~ 22:.11 ................... 2M5.
JL 39 44 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2ll=i t
:l2 ....................... 28.1 QUINTJLIAN Inslitrllf's
liLZ2 ................ ~ 8 18-19 ............... xiH..1 8..1.25 .................... 1.8 1
115 .....•......••......•..
l.Hj
(iJ. . ...••.••.••••••..•••.. ~ ...................
2H.l
2.82
ZB..:80. ................... 2.HS
8Z.=88 ................... 2H1 l.!ll..:8 ................... 212 105-23 .................. 2HU 12Z .........•....... 2fl4. 2B6
129, 1J.J .......•......... 2&.1
SENECA
l"iJ'iJiular mt1r•llts 90 32-33 ................. .lli.1 21......1.2 • • . . . • • . . . • • . . . • . l69n 65 ~
.................... 5n2
SERVIUS in Am. 7.16. 8.24H ............... 1.91
XENOPHON EPHESIOS 5 Jl-JJ .................. l!lil ZENODIOS ~ ..................... 121
Index
Achillcs Tatius, 224"~ 319rt77 Achiq.ar, 262. 279-80 Actaeon, 168-70, 2.H.lnl..1 Adytius, l.J6.
Ac\tsop~ 164n55. Chapter 10 Aetius. 125d Afterthought (to a contract) 58,112. 125 A1hR-cht, M., 22.a6 Alchemy. 261 rt20. Jl.ll...=.5. Allegory, 5& Amat.j., 2"9n45 Anaxilaos ofL.uissa, .IDJ Andcrs.on, G., Z1lull Antonius Diogenes, 2.£1, 251. 261u21. 265, 268-70, 27.'\,.JS, 273n37 Aphrodite of the Bc.mtiful Buttocks, 237-38 Apion, 3l.laS:1 .i.pcllonios orryrr:, 2M! J\.pulcius: .as nugu~. 260, 277; J.S pl1ilet· 5ophus, 276; as sophist. fu on trial, .11.6 .4n-t.dOAtJ$, 2'\S-38, 2M} A~t, S.• 116, :IDl Holqui!tr. M., ~ Homodiegc.'Si.s, ~ Su al1oAutohiogr:aphy; Evidential accountability Hopfner. T .• 205, 218n23. 313nf10
Horapollon (Hiti'O)?Iyphikn~ 3.10.l1..1.tt.56 Horse, Lucius', ~ 199-200, 21(,; as audic:~ 36-37; as Lucius' yoke-mate,~
Hubaux, P., .Jl..8n15 Hymns, lsiac (falsely c:dled 'aretalogics'). 205. 236 [amblichos (B~abylortiaka~ 2S7, 265-68. 272n34
ldentific;nion: of Lucius, 136; ofa n.untor, :fl..l9'J:ofprolo~uc-spc:aker. 196.~
Ignorance, offirst-re:ulcr, 15-19,101: Socratic, 1.26. lies, F., 52 Initiation: of :my reader into any story, 102; of Lucius, 127. Chapter !:1 lnnc."S, M., 222 Integrity {uniry, coherence) of AA: ftUf;:tUating. 165-73. Jll Irony. See Oispar3gement. of!>elf lser, W., 2+41170 Isis, Chapcr ~ appc.us to At"Sop in a
dream, 2R(,; COillJlU('d Hl witches,~ erects ida I, 3.20 lvt"rsen, E., 309-10, Jttn56,l1.2u51 Jacoby, A., .l15n1ll j;'lffttr, U.. 1&21
J;llllC'!i, !::::b 34" 10, 99. 11l1 Jan.-.on, T.• L2fw2fl
Jews.. 277, 315rr70 Jordan, D., 2f\"n27 Journoud, S.• l..2.1n2i Jungh:mns, P.• 6"11, 2.5fin8 Karada~li. T., 121MS Kecs, I:L 313n6J. l1.1zztn Kellman, s.• ':lnl6 Kenny, R., Wtt69 Kcrmode, F....·ii, 6.1 Kiefer. /\., 2J5n5.\
Kierkcg3.ard, S., llilil2
INDEX Knox, R., ill2 Koenen, L., 3121159 Korte. A.• ~ Kri\ppe. A. tL. Jill
Mc:nippos, 270-71, 22fuilll Mcrkelbach. lt. Snf,, 5Rta3. 19."\tz24. 230n47. 234n51. 242rJ67. 2731!3H Meroe, ~~ !}1117. 1.B2.. 191 92
KrinasofMassiha, 26ll Kroll, W., 303u27
Mida~ .lill-2
Langcrbcck,
!::!. 2.8'l.u22.
Leroux, G., l::l6.dlZ lcs.ky, A., 611ll, 212rtl2, 22tU&!Y Lewis., C. D.• 52 Locked Room, 62. U1 Long. A. A., l2.5.ul
Longo, V., 237r6(, Luci:m, Q,_ l25n4, 136. 229, 2421'166. 253-56,270-71.27R Lucius: chuactcriu-d as agent, l.J6. 139:-40: c:hu;actc:rized as narntor, l36-4CJ: not disillusioned with wor1d, 14647: not untru.'itwonhy u narrator, 140n4: suppressed a~ narr;.~ tor.~
LutiiiJ. or rl1r AH (the Greek Mt't.lfnorplroJr.s~ l1-1. JH.1-!i;;. 12R.l2l. 252-57.270-75.277 Ma Bellona, 2.:l1uZZ MacKay, L.A., 1..2Hu2. MacLeod, M. 0., .2.5.:lr1j
Millar, F., 2M6rt15 Milo. J2=H. 1116.12.1 LSB.l21 Mime: 160-65. ,,6i costume of: 126; lsi~c and christi.;m, 2ll; resistant to .authority,~
Mithras (priest oflsis): illitrologically conjoined with Lucius. 212n26; interprets lucius'lit'to, 8-1;1, ~ 127, \48-49, 210-15; odd name for Jsiac priest in second l."entury, 245 -47; on servile pleasures,~ 1.2.3 Machos of Sidon, 26la2U Molt, M., 2..tcl
Momr11tum (fukrum): in a talc, ~in .4.4. 127. 1JO: in A&A, 12.3 Monceaux, P., 2nuJ Mores.chini, C.,~ 22Ht!44, 21ZzLJ Moritz, L. A., 2.85..r.tJ
Mueller, D., 205 Mutua,,. (loan), 18H-94, Stt also Contract; Nexus
MacMullen, ll, 2.ll.u5.2
N.1 bokov, V., 5..2. Naes!i, A., 126nf\
Madaura {Madauros~ 141: Madl11trtttstm,
Nagy, G., 28£Jnl4, 2B8.
12.li. 122. Z1.2.. ill
Mabisc, 307rt37, ~Ot!n"\8, 309n47 Malhcrbc. A.J., l2.SA!l Marangoni, C., 246n74 Marcillct-Jauherr,J .. l..1&9..l Margiu~s,
2.H2
337
Narr.ning: an acti•.rity ofcharacters, ~ and food, 37-38; subject of the Ai\,
21 Narratology, sy!items of, xii N:urator, not untrustworthy, ~ Natura, )74, \77, W
Manin, R., 29ft .1Hl:l62
Ne(hcpso.~
Ma~n.
Ncktancbos, 72n, 2iiO Nl-w Critici!om,lli Nexus: cnsla\'Cmcnt for debt, 188-94: of
H.) .• 2tr4. 286n15
M:aster (Mic;tress}: choice of text as, 7 -H, 1J.319; .author Js, 194; sla\"e talk 'I b:.ck to, 2!:!2 ....,q3: ~uhmi"i'-iion tn divine~. 2.ll.. 21 i -2"\· submission to !io&distic, 175 -7~. 191 -92 Stt .t/s(J Nexus Mazzarino, A., 1..2.1u.2! Mdanchthon, P.• l97rt30 Mdvill~.
I:L.. 208u.l
Menander, !Uw65
Mend ilow, A. A., ':ll..JJ«:J
Asiniuo; to l.lJcl\t!l, 2\R-19: of Mithr.a Empiricus, 125 Sh.:arazadc, 2bti Skepticism: and religious knowledge, 179: as intcrpreliVt" method lor reading· AA, ~difficulty of maintainin((, 123: in detective stories, ~ in L.ifo "./ At