Opening of the book
ТО
STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ
THIS METAMORPHOSIS OF
AN ANCIENT DECADENT
Introduction
Apuleius —His style —His debt to Lucian —The Sermo Milesius —The book’s touch with life —The dramatis personae —The witches of
Thessaly —Cupid and Psyche —The macabre element —Apuleius the man —Autobiography —His Apology —Modern parallels —Adlington —
His purism —His simple diction —Coined words —The imagery shirked —
His rare ornament —His ignorance of Latin —The ideal translation —
Adlington’s English —His mastery of phrase —His sustained rhythm —A model of prose —Two
French
versions —Guillaume
Michel —His
misleading of Adlington —Adlington the man —His morality —His love of allegory.
The Golden Ass of Apuleius is, so to say, a beginning of modern literature. From this brilliant medley of reality and romance, of wit and pathos, of fantasy and observation, was born that new art, complex in thought, various in expression, which gives a semblance of frigidity to perfection itself. An indefatigable youthfulness is its distinction. As it was fresh when Adlington translated it “out of Latin” three centuries since, so it is familiar today, and is like to prove an influence tomorrow. Indeed, it is among the marvels of history that an alien of twenty-five and Apuleius was no more when he wrote his Metamorphoses should have revolutionised a language not his own, and bequeathed us a freedom which, a thousand times abused, has never since been taken away.
A barbarian born, a Greek by education, Apuleius only acquired the Latin tongue by painful effort. Now, a foreigner, not prejudiced by an inveterate habit of speech, seldom escapes a curiosity of phrase. Where the language is the same, whether written or spoken, art is wont to lapse into nature. But there was no reason why
Apuleius, who could not but be conscious of his diction, should ever
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