THE GOLDEN ASS, OR METAMORPHOSES

BOOK 8

Tragic deaths of Charite and Tlepolemus -- their slaves decamp in panic with the animals -- misadventures on the way -- Lucius sold to the priests of Atargatis -- their scandalous activities -- another death sentence

That night at cockcrow a young man arrived from the city who looked to me like a slave of Charite's, the girl who had suffered along with me at the hands of the robbers. He brought strange and dreadful news: she was dead and her whole house destroyed. He told his tale sitting by the fire with all his fellow slaves clustered around him: 'Grooms, shepherds, cowherds: our mistress Charite is no more; the poor child has perished by the cruellest of fates, but when she went down to the realm of ghosts it was not alone. But so that you may know the whole story, let me tell you everything that happened from the beginning; it deserves to be written down and shaped into a formal narrative by some scholar on whom Fortune has conferred the gift of literary style.

'There lived in the city next to ours a young man of very distinguished family, a prominent figure on that account and very wealthy, but a confirmed debauchee, gourmandizing, whoring and drinking all day. This life-style had led him into bad company, and he was in league with gangs of robbers, and his hands were stained with human blood. Thrasyllus was his name, and he lived up to his reputation. When Charite came of marriageable age, he was one of her principal suitors, and he put everything he knew into his wooing. However, though he outranked all his noble competitors and tried to win over her parents by rich gifts, they objected to his character, and he had to suffer the humiliation of being turned down. And even after my masters' daughter had been wedded to the excellent Tlepolemus, Thrasyllus, still obviously nursing the love that had been brought so low and brooding resentfully on the marriage that had been denied him, never ceased to watch for the chance of a bloody revenge. Finally he hit on a convenient opportunity of being on the spot, and made his preparations for the crime that he had been planning for so long. On the day when Charite had been rescued from the deadly swords of the robbers by her astute and valiant husband, he drew attention to himself by his exuberant behaviour as he mingled with the crowd who had come to offer their congratulations, expressing his delight at seeing the newly-married couple safely rescued, and at the prospect of children to come. In honour of his distinguished family, he was received into our house as one of the principal guests and treacherously masqueraded as a faithful friend while all the time dissembling his wicked purpose. He constantly frequented their society and was often invited to dine and drink with the family; so he had become by degrees ever more dear to them and had gradually and insensibly plunged into a deep abyss of desire. What else was to be expected? The first warmth of cruel Love, while his flame is still small, is delightful; but when it is fed by habit it flares up and consumes us in its uncontrollable blaze.

'Thrasyllus was for a long time perplexed. He could discover no opportunity for a secret meeting and saw that the possible openings for an adulterous intrigue were being increasingly blocked off: the couple's new and growing affection constituted a bond that had become unbreakable, and even if, which was inconceivable, the girl were willing, she was too closely guarded for any attempt at seduction to be practicable. Nevertheless it was this impossible goal to which his destructive passion drove him on, as if it were possible. What at first he had thought difficult, now, as his love daily grew in strength, seemed easy to accomplish. See, all of you, mark, learn, and inwardly digest, the lengths to which the frenzy of desire can drive a man.

A day came when Tlepolemus took Thrasyllus with him to hunt wild beasts, if roe deer may be so described; for Charite would not let her husband go after anything with teeth or horns. They had come to a thickly wooded hill where the dense foliage hid the quarry from their sight, and sent in the hounds, specially bred for scenting, to flush the deer from where they lay couched. At once, faithful to their careful training, the dogs divided up and covered all the approaches; at first there was only the odd whimper, then on a sudden signal they gave tongue and filled the wood with their wild and discordant barking. But it was not a roe deer or a panic-stricken fallow deer or a hind, meekest of all animals, that started up, but a wild boar, a fearsome animal -- nothing like it had ever been seen before. Its muscles bulged under its tough hide, its coat was thick and rough, the bristles stood erect along its hairy spine; it foamed at the mouth as it loudly whetted its tusks, its eyes glared blazing menace, and the savage onrush of its ravening jaws was like a thunderbolt. Such of the more daring hounds as closed with it, it mangled and killed with sideways thrusts of its tusks, then it trampled down the nets which had slowed its first charge, and took off.

'The rest of us were all panic-stricken, being used to hunting only harmless animals and having no means of offence or defence, and hid ourselves in the undergrowth or behind the trees for protection. Thrasyllus, however, saw this as an opportunity to carry out his treacherous plan, and appealed artfully to Tlepolemus: "Why are we standing here in amazement and groundless panic like these grovelling slaves or timorous women? Are we going to let this choice prize slip from our grasp? Quick! Let's mount and go after him! Here, you take a boar-spear and I'll take a lance." The next moment they had leapt on to their horses and were off in hot pursuit. The boar, following its fighting instincts, turned to bay, hot with savage rage, and stood eyeing them, undecided which to charge and gore first. Tlepolemus took the lead and hurled his spear at the beast's back. Thrasyllus ignored the boar and with a thrust from his lance hamstrung Tlepolemus' horse. Unable to help itself: it collapsed and lay wallowing in its blood, throwing its master to the ground. In a moment the maddened boar was on him as he lay, repeatedly savaging first his clothes, then Tlepolemus himself as he tried to rise. So far from his good friend's feeling any remorse for his wicked exploit, his cruelty was not appeased by the sight of his victim in this mortal danger. That by no means satisfied him; as Tlepolemus, in his desperation at the boar's attacks, was trying unavailingly to protect his lacerated legs and calling piteously for help, Thrasyllus speared him in the right thigh, reckoning confidently that a spear-thrust would be indistinguishable from the wounds inflicted by the boar. Then he likewise adroitly dispatched the boar itself.

'So young Tlepolemus was dead, and we all came out of hiding. Sadly his household gathered at the spot; Thrasyllus, though delighted to have achieved his purpose and to see his enemy laid low, dissembled his joy, put on a mournful expression, and feigned grief. Lovingly embracing the corpse that was of his own making, with scrupulous hypocrisy he performed all the observances of mourning -- only the tears would not come. So he produced an imitation of our real grief: fastening the blame for his own crime on the boar.

'The evil deed was scarcely done before Fame spread the report of it abroad. It found its way first to the house of Tlepolemus, where it fell on the ears of his ill-starred bride like a thunderbolt: beside herself at the news, the worst she was ever to hear, she launched out madly, like a Bacchante, on a wild course through the crowded city streets and the countryside around, proclaiming her husband's fate with frenzied shrieks. Groups of mourning citizens assembled, and all who met her followed her, sharing her grief; the city was emptied of its people, so eager were they to see. And now her husband's corpse appeared; fainting she threw herself on it and very nearly gave up to him then and there the life she had vowed to him. However, she was with much ado torn away by her attendants and reluctantly stayed alive, while the body was carried in solemn procession and escorted to its resting-place by the entire population.

'Thrasyllus meanwhile threw off all restraint. He cried and lamented, and shed the tears -- no doubt of joy -- that he had not been able to command in his first demonstration of grief. Truth herself might have been hoodwinked by the profusion of his endearments: this was the friend he had grown up with, his comrade -- in his mourning invocations he even added the name of brother. He was constantly with Charite, restraining her from beating her breast, calming her grief: quieting her lamentations, blunting the pangs of bereavement with soothing words, and consoling her by citing a string of examples to show that nobody is immune from misfortune. But all these kindnesses and this pretended friendship were merely an excuse to caress the girl, and his perverse attempts to please her only fed his odious love. However, directly the funeral rites had been performed, Charite was at once eager to join her husband in the world below, and tried every way she knew, especially the gentle and peaceful one which requires no weapons but resembles tranquil sleep. So the poor girl starved and neglected herself: hiding away in darkness and squalor and bidding farewell to the light of day. But Thrasyllus, partly by his own continued persistence, and partly working through other friends and relatives, not least her parents, forced her in the end, when she was deathly pale, filthy, and on the verge of collapse, to revive herself with a bath and food. Being the dutiful daughter that she was, she submitted, though unwillingly, to the demands of filial piety, and went about the business of life as they bade her, looking not exactly cheerful but somewhat less disturbed. Deep down inside, however, in the inmost core of her being, she was eating her heart out with grief and sorrow. All her days and nights were passed in mourning her loss; she had images of the dead man made as the god Liber, which she worshipped with divine honours, giving herself wholly over to this service -- a consolation that was itself a torment.

'But Thrasyllus, always hasty and as rash as his name, could not wait for her to weep away her grief: for her distraction and frenzy to subside, and for her sorrow to exhaust itself by its very excess. While she was still lamenting her husband, still rending her clothes, still tearing her hair, he had the hardihood to propose marriage to her, and the imprudence to reveal the inmost secrets of his heart and his unspeakable treachery. Charite recoiled in loathing from these hideous disclosures; like one struck by a thunderclap or a meteor or Jupiter's lightning she collapsed bodily in a dead faint. After a short while she gradually came to, crying out repeatedly like a wounded animal; and now that she saw through the wicked Thrasyllus' plot, she put off her eager suitor to give herself time to perfect a plan. Meanwhile the ghost of the foully murdered Tlepolemus, his face bloodstained, pale and disfigured, appeared to his wife as she lay chastely asleep. "Wife," he said, "I call you by the name which only I have a right to use, if any memory of me still remains in your heart. But if my untimely death has caused you to forget the ties of our love, marry whom you will and be happier than I could make you; only do not accept Thrasyllus' impious hand. Have nothing to do with him, shun his bed and board. Fly from the bloodstained hand of my assassin; do not enter into marriage with a murderer. The wounds from which you washed the blood with your tears are not those of the boar's tusks; it was Thrasyllus' spear that took me from you" -- and he told her the rest, revealing the whole enactment of the crime.

'For a time Charite slept on, with her face pressed into the pillow and the tears streaming down her face, just as when she had first dropped off in her grief. Then, starting up in torment from her unrestful rest, she broke into fresh lamentations and prolonged wailing, tearing her nightdress and beating her shapely arms with savage blows. She told nobody of her dream but kept the information of the crime entirely to herself: resolving, secretly to punish the wicked murderer and to put an end to her own life of suffering. Now once more the odious Thrasyllus, still recklessly pursuing his pleasure, appeared to thrust his proposal of marriage on her deaf ears. This time she rebuffed his approach gently, responding to his pressing endearments and humble solicitations with a remarkably clever piece of acting. "Until now," she said, "the fair face of your brother and my dearest husband has lingered before my eyes; I still sense the balmy fragrance of his heavenly body, and beautiful Tlepolemus still lives in my heart. Your most considerate course, therefore, will be to grant an unhappy woman the period of mourning that is necessary and customary, and to wait until a year is up. That will safeguard my honour and also your own interests and safety; by marrying too soon we might stir up my husband's vengeful ghost to destroy you in his just resentment."

'So far from being sobered down by her words or comforted by this temporizing promise, Thrasyllus persisted in pressing his shameless blandishments on her, going on and on until finally Charite pretended to yield. "But one thing, Thrasyllus,' she said, "I must earnestly ask, and you cannot refuse me: for the time being, until the rest of the year has passed, our lovers' meetings must be a secret known only to ourselves and to nobody else in our families." Thrasyllus, outmanoeuvred, assented to her crafty proposal, willingly agreeing to keep their lovemaking secret. Forgetting everything else in his single-minded eagerness to possess her, he could not wait for night and the cover of darkness. "Now listen," said Charite. "Cover yourself completely in your cloak and bring nobody with you. Come to my door at nightfall without making a sound, and whistle just once, then wait for my nurse -- you know her -- who will be waiting just inside the door for you to arrive. She will open up and let you in, then she will bring you to my room, and there will be no lamp to share our secret."

'Thrasyllus was pleased with the arrangements for his fatal wedding. He suspected nothing, but on edge with anticipation complained only that the day was so long and evening so slow in coming. When the sun finally gave place to night, he appeared dressed in accordance with Charite's instructions, and entrapped by the nurse's watchful craft entered the bedroom in eager hope. Then, following her mistress's orders, the old woman slyly produced wine cups and a jar of wine mixed with a narcotic drug. Cajoled by her he thirstily drank off cup after cup, suspecting nothing, while she explained that her mistress was delayed by having to sit up with her father, who was ill. So it was easy for her to lay him to rest; then, as he lay sprawled there exposed to whatever anyone might do to him, she summoned Charite, who flew at the murderer, raging with manlike spirit and deadly intent. Standing over him, "Look at you," she said, "there you lie -- my husband's loyal comrade, the noble hunter, my dear betrothed. This is the hand that shed my blood, this the breast which contrived those treacherous schemes for my ruin, these the eyes in which I have found an unholy favour -- eyes that already anticipate the coming punishment as they begin to experience the darkness that awaits them. Sleep well! Sweet dreams! It is not the sword, not cold steel, that I shall take to you; perish the thought that in the manner of your death you should be my husband's equal. You will live, but your eyes will die, and only asleep shall you see. I shall have seen to it that your enemy's death seems more fortunate to you than your life. This is your fate: you will never again see the light, you will need an attendant to lead you, you will not have Charite, no happy marriage will be yours. You will neither rest in the peace of death nor enjoy the pleasures of life, but you will be a ghost wandering uncertainly between hell and heaven. You will forever search in vain for the hand that put out your eyes, and your worst misfortune of all will be that you will never know whom to blame. With your eyes' blood I shall pour a libation at the tomb of my Tlepolemus, and your sight shall be an offering to appease his sainted shade. But why this delay? Why grant you a respite from the torment that you deserve, while you perhaps are dreaming of my fatal embraces? Quit now the darkness of sleep and awaken to another darkness, that of your punishment. Raise your empty eyes, know your doom, understand your calamity, reckon up your sufferings. This is how you have found favour with a chaste woman, this is how the marriage-torches have lighted your bridal chamber. Your matrons of honour shall be the avenging Furies, and blindness your best man, and the prick of conscience will haunt you to eternity."

'So she prophesied; then, taking a hairpin from her head, she plunged it deep into both eyes, leaving him totally blinded. While this as yet uncomprehended pain was shaking him out of his drunken sleep, she seized the naked sword that Tlepolemus had always worn and rushed off through the city, setting her frenzied course straight for her husband's tomb, obviously intent on some dreadful deed. We, indeed the whole population, all left our houses and followed her as fast as we could, urging each other to wrest the sword from her maddened grasp. But Charite stood by Tlepolemus' coffin and kept us all off with her gleaming blade. Then, seeing us all weeping profusely and lamenting, "No tears!" she cried. "They have no place here. No grieving! Grief has nothing to do with what I have accomplished. I have taken vengeance on my husband's bloodstained assassin, I have punished the murdering ruffian who destroyed my marriage. Now it is time for me to seek with this sword the way down to my Tlepolemus." And then, having related everything that her husband had told her in her dream and the ruse with which she had ensnared Thrasyllus, she ran herself through under the right breast and collapsed; lying in a pool of her own blood she muttered some incoherent words and breathed out her manly spirit. Her attendants quickly washed the unhappy Charite's body with great care and restored her to her husband to lie with him in the same tomb as his wife forever. Thrasyllus, when he had heard everything that had happened, thinking immediate extinction an inadequate punishment and knowing that even death by the noose could not match the heinousness of his crime, went of his own accord to the tomb. Crying repeatedly "You angry ghosts, here is a willing victim for you", he shut the doors tightly behind him, resolved to put an end by starvation to a life on which he himself had passed sentence of execution.'

That was his story, told with many deep sighs and tears. His rustic audience were profoundly moved by it, and in their heartfelt grief at their masters' domestic calamities and their fear of what a change of ownership might bring about, they decided to decamp. The head stableman, he to whose care I had been consigned with such pressing recommendations, loaded on to me and the other pack-animals everything of value that he had stored in his house, and left his home taking it all with him. We were carrying children, women, fowls, cage-birds, kids, puppies -- anything that might have slowed down our flight because it was weak on its own feet was conveyed on ours. The weight of my load, huge as it was, did not trouble me: I was too glad to get away from that awful fellow who was proposing to castrate me.

After negotiating a steep pass over a wooded mountainside and traversing a wide and remote plain, we came as evening was closing in on us to a large and prosperous village. The inhabitants tried to discourage us from going on that night or indeed the next day, telling us that the whole countryside around was infested by great packs of wolves, beasts of monstrous size and savage ferocity that were accustomed to plundering at their pleasure. It had got to the point where, just like bandits, they lay in ambush at the roadside and set on travellers; mad with ravening hunger they actually took the neighbouring farmhouses by storm, and human beings now found themselves threatened with the same fate as their defenceless flocks. Why, all along the road we should have to take there were lying half-eaten human bodies and whitening bones denuded of their flesh. This, they said, should be a warning to us. We should never relax our guard and take particular care not to travel until it was broad day and the sun was well up and shining brightly. In that way we should avoid their concealed ambushes, since the aggressive instincts of these fearsome beasts were blunted by daylight. Also we should not straggle on the march but move in a compact phalanx. With these precautions we ought to be able to negotiate the hazards safely.

However, our absconding leaders, damn them, were in too much of a blind hurry and too fearful of possible pursuit to heed these salutary warnings. Not even waiting for daylight they loaded us up and drove us on our way while it was still dark. I got as nearly as I could into the middle of the crowd, since by unobtrusively ensconcing myself in among the mass of animals I reckoned I would protect my behind from the attacks of the wolves. Everybody was amazed to see the pace I set, outstripping even the horses. That, however, was a symptom of fear rather than zeal: I thought to myself that it was fear that made a flier out of the great Pegasus and that it made sense for him to be represented with wings, seeing that it was in terror of the jaws of the fire-breathing Chimaera that he went bounding aloft to heaven itself. Meanwhile the herdsmen who were leading us had armed themselves in warlike fashion. One carried a lance, one a hunting-spear, another a javelin; some had clubs, some stones, of which there was a plentiful supply along our rocky route, and some brandished sharpened stakes; most relied on flaming torches to keep off the wolves. We only needed a trumpeter to complete the military picture.

But though these fears turned out to be quite baseless, we now became involved in a much more serious predicament. The wolves, possibly deterred by the noise from our serried ranks or more probably by the blaze of light, or possibly because they were on the rampage elsewhere, did not attack us, and indeed did not put in an appearance. However, the workers on an estate which we happened to be skirting, thinking from our numbers that we were bandits, in their anxious concern for their property were thrown into a state of panic, and set their dogs on us with hunting cries and a general hullabaloo. These were ferocious great animals, as savage as any wolf or bear, specially reared as guard-dogs. Fierce as they were by nature, they were now further enraged by the uproar made by their masters, and flew at us, attacking from all quarters, tearing at beasts and men alike, until at length their violence had left most of our company down on the ground. The sight was not so much memorable as miserable: this great pack of infuriated dogs, some seizing on those who tried to escape, some grappling with those who stood their ground, some standing over the fallen, rending and ranging through the length and breadth of our caravan. This was bad enough, but worse was to follow. From the rooftops and from a hill nearby the peasants began to hurl down at us a barrage of stones, so that we were hard put to it to know which danger to beware of more, the dogs at close quarters or the stones at long range. One of the latter indeed suddenly hit the woman who was riding me on the head. Her tears and cries of pain immediately brought her husband, the head groom, to her aid. He loudly invoked the gods, and as he wiped away her blood he protested at the top of his voice: 'What is this barbarity? Why attack and stone distressed travellers, human beings like yourselves? What plunder are you hoping for? What wrongs have you to avenge? You aren't wild animals or savages, denizens of caves or rocks, that you should take pleasure in shedding human blood.'

He had scarcely uttered these words when the rain of stones stopped, the fierce dogs were called off, and the tumult died down. Then one of the villagers called out from the top of a cypress: 'We're not brigands and we don't want to plunder you -- we thought you were, and that was the danger we were trying to beat off. Now you can go on your way safely in peace.' That was all very well, but it was with heavy casualties all round that we set out again, some bruised by stones, some displaying bites -- nobody had escaped injury. After we had gone some distance we came to a grove of tall trees and green grass, a pleasant spot, where our leaders decided to rest and recuperate for a time while they attended carefully to their various injuries. First they all collapsed and lay on the ground to recover from their fatigue; then they set about applying appropriate remedies to their wounds. One was washing off the blood with water from a nearby stream, another was putting a vinegar compress on his bruises, another was bandaging an open wound. So each man took thought for his own welfare.

Meanwhile an old man was watching us from the top of a neighbouring hill, obviously a shepherd, for there were goats grazing around him. One of our men asked him whether he had any milk for sale, either fresh or in the form of new cheese. For a long time he merely shook his head. At last, ' Are you thinking,' he asked, 'of food or drink or any kind of refreshment now? Haven't you any idea where you've chosen to stop?' And so saying he rounded up his flock, turned about, and left the scene. His words and his disappearance greatly alarmed our herdsmen. Panic-stricken, they were anxiously asking each other what sort of a place this was and finding nobody to tell them, when there appeared on the road another old man, this one tall but bowed down by age; leaning heavily on a staff and wearily dragging his feet, and weeping profusely. When he saw us he burst out crying, and supplicating each man in turn he uttered the following appeal:

'I implore you by your Fortunes and your Guardian Spirits, if you hope to reach my age in health and happiness, come to the aid of an old man in his bereavement, rescue my little boy from death and restore him to his white-haired grandfather. My grandson, my darling travelling-companion, was trying to catch a bird that was singing in the hedgerow, and fell into a yawning pit in the bottom of the thicket. Now he is in peril of his life; I know he is alive, for I can hear him crying and calling "Grandfather" over and over again, but as you see I am too feeble in body to be able to rescue him. But you are young and strong, and it will be no trouble to you to help a poor old man and to restore to me this child, the last of my line and all the family I have left.'

As he uttered this plea and tore his white hair, everybody pitied him. Then one of them, braver and younger and stronger than the rest, the only one who had come off unscathed from the recent battle, jumped up eagerly and asked where exactly the boy had fallen in. The old man pointed out a thicket not far away, and the volunteer went off briskly with him. After a while, when we animals had grazed and the men had seen to themselves and felt restored, they all began to pack up and get ready to move off. First of all they called the volunteer by name, with loud and repeated shouts; then alarmed by the prolonged delay they sent a messenger to find him and warn him that it was time to leave, and bring him back. Almost immediately the messenger reappeared, deathly pale and terrified, with dreadful news of his fellow servant. He had found him lying half-eaten, with a monstrous serpent crouched over him and devouring him, and of the poor old man not a sign anywhere. Hearing this and recollecting what the old shepherd had said, they realized that this indeed was the fierce denizen of the region that he had been threatening them with, and at once quitted the pestilential place and fled precipitately, urging us animals on with continual beating. So after a long stage at top speed we came to a village where we rested for the night. At this place there had been perpetrated a deed that was so memorable that I propose to put it on record.

It concerned a certain slave to whom his master had confided the whole management of his household and who was the steward of the large estate where we had stopped. He had as his consort another slave from the household, but he was madly in love with somebody else, a free woman who was not a member of the family. His wife was so enraged by his infidelity that she made a bonfire of all her husband's account-books and the entire contents of the barns and storehouses. Then, not thinking this enough of a revenge for the affront to her marriage-bed, she turned her fury against her own flesh and blood: passing a noose around her neck, with the same rope she tied to herself the little boy that she had had by her husband, and threw herself down a deep well, dragging the child down with her. Their master, greatly upset by her death, arrested the slave whose lust had been the cause of such a crime, had him stripped naked and smeared all over with honey and lashed tightly to a fig-tree. This had in its hollow trunk an ants' nest, swarming and seething with their multitudinous comings and goings. Directly they sensed the sweet honeyed scent of the man's body they battened on it with their tiny jaws, nibbling endlessly away in their thousands until after many days of torture they had devoured him completely, entrails and all, leaving his bones bare; only his gleaming white skeleton, stripped of flesh, was left fastened to the fatal tree.

Leaving its inhabitants in deep mourning we quitted this abominable place and set out again across the plain. At evening we arrived tired out at a certain large and famous city. Here the herdsmen decided to take up permanent residence; they thought it a secure refuge from even the most determined pursuit, and, an added attraction, provisions were good and plentiful. They allowed three days for feeding us animals up, so as to be more saleable, and then they took us to market. The auctioneer called out the price of each animal in a loud voice, and the horses and the other asses were knocked down to prosperous buyers; I alone was left, contemptuously passed over by nearly everybody. In the end I became tired of being handled by people trying to calculate my age from my teeth, and when one of them started scraping my gums with his filthy fingers, I clamped my jaws on his dirty stinking hand good and hard. After that none of the bystanders would venture to make an offer for such a savage animal. So the auctioneer, at the top of his voice and to the detriment of his vocal chords, started to make fun of me and my unfortunate condition. 'How long,' he shouted, 'have I got to waste my time trying to sell this clapped-out old hack? Look at him: his hooves are so worn he can hardly stand, he's deformed by ill-treatment, he's as vicious as he's idle, he's nothing but a sieve on four legs. All right: I'll make a present of him to anybody who doesn't mind wasting fodder.'

With jokes of this kind the auctioneer kept the crowd in fits of laughter. But now my cruel Fortune, whom, though I fled never so far afield, I had not been able to escape or appease by all that I had suffered, once again turned her blind eyes on me and, wonderful to relate, produced a buyer who could not have suited my unhappy circumstances more perfectly. Let me describe him: he was a real old queen, bald apart from a few grizzled ringlets, one of your street-corner scum, one of those who carry the Syrian Goddess around our towns to the sound of cymbals and castanets and make her beg for her living. He was keen to buy me and asked the auctioneer where I came from. He pronounced me to be a genuine Cappadocian and quite a strong little beast. Then he asked my age; the auctioneer answered humorously: 'Well, an astrologer who cast his horoscope said he was in his fifth year, but the beast himself could tell you better from his tax return. I know I'd be liable to the penalties of the Cornelian law if I sold you a Roman citizen as a slave, but here's a good and deserving servant who can be of use to you both at home and abroad. Won't you buy him?' But my tiresome purchaser persisted with one question after another, wanting particularly to know if he could warrant me tractable. 'Why,' said the man, 'this here isn't a donkey, it's an old bell-wether: he's placid, will do anything you want, he doesn't bite or kick -- you'd think it was a well-behaved man dwelling in an ass's skin. You can easily find out -- put your face between his thighs, and you'll soon discover the extent of his patience.'

These witticisms at the old guzzler's expense were not lost on him, and putting on a great show of indignation he retorted: 'You zombie, you stuffed dummy, damn you and your auctioneer's blether, may the almighty mother of all, she of Syria, and holy Sabadius and Bellona and the Idaean Mother and queen Venus with her Adonis strike you blind for the coarse buffoonery I've had to take from you. You bloody fool, do you think I can entrust the goddess to an unruly beast who might suddenly upset the divine image and throw it off; leaving its unfortunate guardian to run about with her hair all over the place looking for a doctor for her goddess lying on the ground?' When I heard this I wondered if I shouldn't suddenly start bucking as if possessed, so that seeing me in a savage temper he would break off the negotiation. However, he was so anxious to buy me that he paid the price down on the nail and nipped that idea in the bud. My master, I suppose, was so pleased to see the last of me that he readily took seventeen denarii for me, and handed me over with a bit of rope for bridle to Philebus, that being my new owner's name.

Taking delivery of this new member of the family he led me off home, where as soon as he got indoors he called out: 'Look, girls, at the pretty little slave I've bought and brought home for you.' But these 'girls' were a troupe of queens, who at once appeared jumping for joy and squealing untunefully in mincing effeminate tones, in the belief that it really was a human slave that had been brought to serve them. When they saw that this was not a case of a hind substituting for a maiden but an ass taking the place of a man, they began to sneer and mock their chief; saying that this wasn't a servant he'd brought but a husband for himself.' And listen,' they said. 'You're not to gobble up this nice little nestling all on your own -- we're your little dovvies too, and you must let us have a share sometimes.' Exchanging badinage of this sort they tied me up next to the manger. They also had in the house a beefy young man, an accomplished piper, whom they had bought in the market from the proceeds of their street collections. Out of doors he tagged along playing his instrument when they carried the goddess around, at home he was toyboy in ordinary to the whole establishment. As soon as he saw me joining the household, without waiting for orders he served me out a generous ration of food and welcomed me joyfully. 'At last,' he said, 'here's somebody to spell me in my loathsome duties. Long life to you! May you please our masters and bring relief to my exhausted loins!' When I heard this I began to picture to myself the ordeals that lay ahead of me.

Next day they all put on tunics of various hues and 'beautified' themselves by smearing coloured gunge on their faces and applying eye-shadow. Then they set forth, dressed in turbans and robes, some saffron-coloured, some of linen and some of gauze; some had white tunics embroidered with a pattern of purple stripes and girded at the waist; and on their feet were yellow slippers. The goddess, draped in silk, they placed on my back, and baring their arms to the shoulder and brandishing huge swords and axes, they capered about with ecstatic cries, while the sound of the pipes goaded their dancing to frenzy.  After calling at a number of small houses they arrived at a rich man's country estate. The moment they entered the gates there was bedlam; they rushed about like fanatics, howling discordantly, twisting their necks sinuously back and forth with lowered heads, and letting their long hair fly around in circles, sometimes attacking their own flesh with their teeth, and finally gashing their arms with the weapons they carried. In the middle of all this, one of them was inspired to fresh excesses of frenzy; he began to gasp and draw deep laboured breaths, feigning madness like one divinely possessed -- as if the presence of a god sickened and enfeebled men instead of making them better!

Anyway, let me tell you how heavenly Providence rewarded him. Holding forth like some prophet he embarked on a cock-and-bull story about some sacrilegious act he accused himself of having committed, and condemned himself to undergo the just punishment for his crime at his own hands. So, seizing a whip such as these effeminates always carry about with them, its lashes made of twisted wool ending in long tassels thickly studded with sheep's knuckle-bones, he laid into himself with these knotted thongs, standing the pain of the blows with extraordinary hardihood. What with the sword-cuts and the flogging, the ground was awash with the contaminated blood of these creatures. All this worried me a good deal: seeing all these wounds and gore all over the place I was afraid that, just as some men drink asses' milk, this foreign goddess might conceive an appetite for asses' blood. Finally, however, exhausted or sated with lacerating themselves, they gave over the carnage, and started to stowaway in the roomy folds of their robes the coppers, indeed the silver money, that people crowded round to bestow on them -- and not only money but jars of wine and milk and cheeses and a quantity of corn and wheat; and some presented the bearer of the goddess with barley. They greedily raked in all this stuff, crammed it into the sacks that they had ready for these acquisitions, and loaded it on my back, so that I was carrying a double load, a walking barn and temple combined.

In this way they roved about plundering the whole countryside. In one village they enjoyed a particularly lavish haul and decided to celebrate with a banquet. As the price for a fake oracle they got a fat ram from one of the farmers, which they said was to be sacrificed to appease the hungry goddess. Having made all the arrangements for dinner they went off to the baths, whence having bathed they brought back with them to share their dinner a robust young peasant, finely equipped in loin and groin. Dinner was hardly begun and they had scarcely started on the hors-d'oeuvre when the filthy scum became inflamed by their unspeakable lusts to outrageous lengths of unnatural depravity. The young man was stripped and laid on his back, and crowding round him they made repeated demands on his services with their loathsome mouths. Finally I couldn't stand the sight and tried to shout 'Romans, to the rescue!'; but the other letters and syllables failed me and all that came out was an 'O' -- a good loud one, creditable to an ass, but the timing was unfortunate. It so happened that some young men from the next village were looking for an ass that had been stolen that night and were conducting a thorough search of all the lodging-houses. Hearing me braying inside and believing that their quarry was hidden away there, they burst in unexpectedly in a body to reclaim their property then and there, and caught our friends red-handed at their vile obscenities. They immediately called all the neighbours to witness this shocking scene, ironically praising the priests for their spotless virtue.

Demoralized by this scandal, news of which soon spread and naturally got them loathed and detested by one and all, they packed up everything and left the place surreptitiously at about midnight. By sunrise they had covered a good many miles, and by the time it was broad day they found themselves in a remote and desolate area. There they stopped and held a long discussion, as a result of which they prepared to kill me. They removed the goddess from my back and placed her on the ground, stripped me of all my accoutrements, and tied me to an oak-tree; then with that whip with its bone-studded thongs they scourged me almost to death. One of them threatened to hamstring me with his axe for having (he said) made a shameful conquest of his unblemished honour; but the rest of them, thinking not so much of my welfare as of the goddess lying there on the ground, voted for sparing my life. So they loaded me up again, and threatening me with the flat of their swords, they arrived at a certain important city. There one of the principal citizens, an extremely devout and godfearing man, came running out to meet us, roused by the clash of cymbals and the beating of tambourines and the seductive strains of the Phrygian music; being under a vow to welcome and receive the goddess, he allowed us to camp in the precincts of his large house and laid himself out to propitiate her godhead with pious worship and rich sacrifices.

It was in this place, I remember, that I had the narrowest of all my escapes from death. It happened that one of the tenants had been hunting and sent his master the fat haunch of a fine stag as his share of the kill. This was carelessly left hanging up within reach near the kitchen door, where one of the dogs, itself a hunter, got at it unnoticed and hastily made off in triumph with his booty without anybody spotting him. When the cook discovered his loss he cursed himself for his carelessness and wept many unavailing tears; then when his master started to ask when dinner would be ready, he said goodbye to his little son, took a rope, and was preparing to hang himself. When his faithful wife grasped her husband's desperate intention, she tore the fatal noose out of his hands. 'Are you out of your mind?' she demanded. 'Has this calamity unnerved you so much that you can't see the remedy that divine Providence is offering out of the blue? If this misfortune hasn't left you too dizzy to see sense, snap out of it and listen to me. Take this ass that's just arrived to somewhere out of the way and slit his throat. You can cut off a haunch to match the one we've lost, and if you cook it skilfully and season it well with savoury herbs you can serve it to the master instead of the venison.' The brute approved this plan to save his life at the expense of mine, damn him, and loudly praising his consort's ingenuity he began to sharpen his knives for the intended butchery.

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