Page:The Golden Ass of Apuleius.djvu/13



HE 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 Latine' three centuries since, so it is familiar today, and is like to prove an influence to-morrow. 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