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The Speaking Book: The Prologue to Apuleius' Metamorphoses*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

S. J. Harrison
S. J. Harrison
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Oxford
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Extract

at ego tibi sermone isto Milesio varias fabulas conseram auresque tuas benivolas lepido susurro permulceam, modo si papyrum Aegyptiam argutia Nilotici calami inscriptam non spreveris inspicere. figuras fortunasque hominum in alias imagines conversas et in se rursum mutuo nexu refectas, ut mireris, exordior. ‘quis ille?’ paucis accipe. Hymettos Attica et Isthmos Ephyrea et Taenaros Spartiatica, glebae felices aeternum libris felicioribus conditae, mea vetus prosapia est; ibi linguam Atthidem primis pueritiae stipendiis merui, mox in urbe Latia advena studiorum Quiritium indigenam sermonem aerumnabili labore nullo magistro praeeunte aggressus excolui. en ecce praefamur veniam, si quid exotici ac forensis sermonis rudis locutor offendero. iam haec equidem ipsa vocis immutatio desultoriae scientiae stilo quern accessimus respondet. fabulam Graecanicam incipimus. lector intende: laetaberis.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , December 1990 , pp. 507 - 513
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1990

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References

1 On the connection between Apuleius' prologue and that of‘Lucius of Patrae’ cf. Scobie, A., Apuleius: Metamorphoses I (Meisenheim, 1975), p. 65Google Scholar. Apuleius himself is proposed as the prologue-speaker by Riefstahl, H. (Der Roman des Apuleius (Frankfurt, 1938), p. 22)Google Scholar, Lucius by most editors, and especially Burger, K. (Hermes 23 (1888)Google Scholar, 489–98). A combination of the two is suggested by Rohde, E., RhM 40 (1885), 66–91Google Scholar and Leo, F., Hermes 40 (1905), 605–6Google Scholar. There is further bibliography and a useful summary of the history of the question by Dowden, K., CQ n.s. 32 (1982), 427–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar and in the recent treatment by Harrauer, C. and Römer, F., Mnem. 38 (1985), 353–72Google Scholar.

2 For similar uses of ‘exordior’ with direct object cf. Met. 1.5 ‘quod inchoaveram porro exordiar’, Petronius, Sat. 61.5 ‘talem fabulam exorsus est’, Gellius 4.9.5 ‘rem quampiam novam exordiri’.

3 For this element cf. Scobie, , op. cit. (n. 1), p. 71Google Scholar, and id., Aspects of the Ancient Romance and its Heritage (Meisenheim, 1969), pp. 37–54.

4 Cf. Apuleius, , Apol. 4Google Scholar with Butler, and Owen's note, and Apol. 24Google Scholar. The extant epigraphic record of Madauros contains only four Greek inscriptions (two of which have a Latin version appended) and 795 items in Latin(Gsell, S., Inscriptions latines de l'Algérie (Paris, 1922), pp. 181–266Google Scholar; pp. 181–2 give a good account of the history and high degree of Romanization of Madauros). The influence of Greek, though felt in the cosmopolitan sea-port of Carthage, seems not to have reached far inland — cf. Rössler, O. in Neumann, G., Untermann, J. (edd.), Die Sprachen im romischen Reich der Kaiserzeit (Cologne, 1980), pp. 267–84Google Scholar.

5 This view of the prologue as a dialogue between Apuleius and Lucius is that of Calonghi, F., RIFC 43 (1915), 209–36Google Scholar.

6 The view of Dowden, loc. cit. (n. 1).

7 That the opening of the Met. was viewed as a comic prologue as early as the Middle Ages is shown by the fact that in B.M. Harleianus 4838, written before 1400 by Coluccio Salutati, it is divided into (bad) iambic lines; Salutati adds comments beginning ' hie autem autor comicus fuit1 (for this and the attributioncf. Mare, A. de la, The Handwriting of Italian Humanists (Oxford, 1973), p. 42)Google Scholar. The prologue was defended as metrical in the editions of scholars as distinguished as P. Beroaldus (1500) and J. J. Scaliger (anonymous reviser of the edition of Vulcanius, 1600).

8 By Warren Smith, S., TAPA 103 (1972), 513–34Google Scholar. This notion has been taken up by Dowden (loc. tit., n. 1), Tatum, J., Apuleius and the Golden Ass (Ithaca, 1979), pp. 25–7Google Scholar, and Winkler, J. J., Actor and Auctor: A Narratological Reading of Apuleius' Golden Ass (Berkeley, 1984), pp. 183–203Google Scholar.

9 Conveniently collected by McKeown, J. C., Ovid Amoves, II: A Commentary on Book One (Liverpool, 1989), pp. 1–2Google Scholar. For the personified book in classical literature more generally, cf. N. M. Kay on Martial 11.1.

10 Cf. Winkler, op. cit. (n. 8), passim.

11 On such captationes, Janson, cf. T., Latin Prose Prefaces (Stockholm, 1964), pp. 124–48Google Scholar.

12 Apuleius, , Ap. 95Google Scholar, Cicero, , Brutus 167Google Scholar, Orator 110.

13 Cf. Balsdon, J. P. V. D., Romans and Aliens (London, 1979), pp. 68–9Google Scholar.

14 Cf. Lewis, N., Papyrus in Antiquity (Oxford, 1974), pp. 3–5Google Scholar.

15 Cf. Panegyrici Latini 12.1–2, Macrobius, Sat. pref. 11–16, Janson, , op. cit. (n. 11), 130–2Google Scholar.

16 Cf. esp. Smith, art. cit. (n. 8), p. 516.

17 Met. 3.11.1, 6.23.4, 8.2.5, 9.35.3, 10.18.1; Ap. 18; De Deo Socr. 23.

18 For a recent view and useful survey of the question of Apuleius' Greek source(s) in the Metamorphoses cf. Mason, H. J. in Aspects of Apuleius' Golden Ass, edd. JrHijmans, B. L., Paardt, R. Th. van der (Groningen, 1978), 1–15Google Scholar.

19 Cf. Fraenkel, E., Horace (Oxford, 1957), pp. 356–9Google Scholar.

20 Cf. Menander Rhetor 1.342.2ff. Spengel, Kienzle, E., Der Lobpreis von Städten und Ländern in der älteren griechischen Dichtung (Kallmunz, 1936), pp. 39–40Google Scholar, 49–57.

21 Kienzle, , op. cit., pp. 68–79Google Scholar.

22 In the ‘false preface’ wrongly attached in the MSS. tradition of Apuleius to the De Deo Socratis, a passage made part of the Florida by Thomas and Fragment 5 by Beaujeu: ‘tempus est in Latium demigrare de Graecia.’

23 Cf. Lucretius 1.117–19 ‘Ennius ut noster cecinit, qui primus amoeno / detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam / per gentis Italas hominum quae clara clueret’, Vergil, G. 2.176 ‘Ascraeumque cano Romana per oppida carmen’, 3.10–11 ‘primus ego in patriam mecum, modo vita supersit, /Aonio rediens deducam vertice Musas.’

24 Cf. the passages cited in n. 23, and Horace, Odes 3.1.2–4 ‘carmina non prius / audita Musarum sacerdos / virginibus puerisque canto’, 3.30.13–14 ‘princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos / deduxisse modos’, Ep. 1.19.32–3 ‘hunc quoque, non alio dictum prius ore, Latinus / vulgavi fidicen’, Propertius 3.1.3–4 ‘primus ego ingredior puro de fonte sacerdos / Itala per Graios orgia ferre choros.’

25 Lucretius 1.136–42 ‘nee me animi fallit Graiorum obscura reperta / difficile illustrare Latinis versibus esse, / multa novis verbis praesertim cum sit agendum / propter egestatem linguae et rerum novitatem; / sed tua me virtus tamen et sperata voluptas / suavis amicitiae quemvis efferre laborem / suadet.’

26 Cf. Janson, loc. cit. (n. 11).

27 Tristia 3.1.1–2 ‘missus in hanc venio timide liber exulis urbem: / da placidam fesso, lector amice, manum.’

28 Met. 9.30.1, 10.2.4, 11.23.5.