Quotes from The Golden Ass

Quotations follow the Sarah Ruden translation (Yale University Press, 2011) — our recommended edition.

1. 2

   I reached the very gates of death and, treading Proserpine's threshold, yet passed through all the elements and returned. I have seen the sun at midnight shining brightly.

2. 3

   I, who am Nature, the parent of all things, the mistress of all the elements, the primordial offspring of time, the supreme among Divinities, the queen of departed spirits, the first of the celestials, and the uniform manifestation of the Gods and Goddesses.

3. 4

   And with those words she unsealed the jar; but there was never a drop of beauty there, nothing but deathly, truly Stygian sleep.

4. 5

   Look how you've nearly ruined yourself again, poor child, with that insatiable curiosity of yours.

5. 6

   I'd like to string together various tales in the Milesian style, and charm your kindly ear with seductive murmurs.

6. 7

   Thus without knowing it Psyche fell further in love with Love himself, so that now inflamed with desire for Desire, she leaned over Cupid, desperate for him.

7. 8

   It occurred to me it was not for nothing that wise men of old imagined Fortune as blind, and even proclaimed she was born lacking eyes, since she forever favours the evil and undeserving, and never shows justice in dealing with human beings.

8. 9

   At the sight, even the lamp's flame quickened in joy, and the razor regretted its sacrilegious stroke.

9. 10

   Yet blind Fortune, while tormenting you with imminent danger, has brought you, in her unforeseeing malice, to this state of religious blessedness.

10. 11

    From this tale I want you to understand, reader, that what you are reading is not a fable but real history.

11. 12

    You can't know the slippery turns of Fortune; the shifting assaults; the string of reverses.

12. 13

    I judge that nothing's impossible, and whatever the fates decide is what happens to mortal men.