The Golden Ass

with dainty morsels, I gathered together my flesh, my skin waxed soft, my hair began to shine, and was gallant on every part, but such fair and comely shape of my body, was cause of my dishonour, for the baker and cook marvelled to see me so slick and fine, considering I did eat no hay at all.” True, the word “slick” (aptly suggested by nitore) is, so to say, a highlight; but the beauty still depends upon the rhythm, to which Adlington’s ear is ever attuned. In brief, whatever defects of scholarship and restraint mar the translation, it remains a model of that large, untrammelled prose which, before the triumph of common sense, seemed within the reach of all. But is it not the strangest paradox of literary history that they who lived in the golden age of translation sought their original at second hand, or fumbled for their meaning in the dark?

One advantage at least was enjoyed by Adlington. He studied Apuleius in the native Latin, using, we may believe, the famous folio of 1500 (Cum Beroaldi Commentariis), prefaced by that “Vita Lucii Apuleii Summatim Relata,” which he paraphrased in English with his accustomed inaccuracy. Howbeit, he did not “so exactly pass through the author, as to point every sentence according as it is in Latin:” for so, he adds, “the French and Spanish translators have not done.” Nor is there any doubt that he attempted to amend his ignorance of Latin by the aid of a French version. It is some proof of the early popularity of The Golden Ass that Spain, Italy, and France had each its translation into the vulgar tongue, before Adlington undertook the work. In 1522 there appeared a tiny quarto versions bearing this legend upon its titlepage: “Lucius Apuleius de Lasne dore⁠ ⁠… On les vend a Paris en la grand rue St. Jacques, Par Philippe le noir.” It was by one Guillaume Michel; and though before the English translation was a-making there had appeared another version by Georges de la Bouthiere (Lyons, 1553), adorned with cuts in the manner of Bernard Salmon, the earlier book was a guide, and too often a blind guide, unto Adlington’s footsteps. The Frenchman, indeed, was the riper scholar, but not only did ne indulge the tiresome habit of commenting by the way, and without warning, upon his text, but he was also guilty of the most ingenious blunders, which Adlington, as though his own errors were not sufficient, too readily followed. A comparison of the versions sets the matter beyond uncertainty. If again and again the same inaccuracy glares in English and French, it is obvious that the one was borrowed from the other. At the very outset there is a clear clue. Guillaume Michel, according to his habit of expansion, paraphrases haec me suadente in half a dozen lines; and Adlington, turning his invigilant eye from the Latin, is guilty of the like unwarranted prolixity. Moreover, when Apuleius by a quip says of Meroe, sic reapse nomen ejus tune Jubulis Socratis convenlre sentiebam, you are puzzled by the ingenuity of Adlington’s rendering: “being so named because she was a taverner,” until you turn to the French and find in taverniere the source of error. Again, Diophanes, the magician in Milo’s story, is consulted by a certain merchant, Cerdo by name. (The Latin is unmistakable: Cerdo quidam nomine negotiator.) Now, Adlington boldly translates “a certain cobbler,” and instantly the Frenchman’s quelque savatier explains the blunder. Toutfoys mon cheval et tautre beste lasne de Milo ne me voulurent souffrir avec eulx paistre: so Michel at the beginning of the Fourth Book. And thus Adlington: “but mine own horse and Milo’s ass would not suffer me to feed there with them, but I must seek my dinner in some other place.” The renderings agree precisely in a gross inaccuracy, and the Latin nec me cum asino vel equo meo compascuus coetus attinere potuit adhuc insolitum alioquin prandere foenum is involved enough to explain Adlington’s reliance upon the French. Another passage is even more convincing. Ad quandam villam possessoris beati pervemunt, writes Apuleius, whom Adlington translates: “we fortuned to come to one Britunis house”; nor would it appear who this Britunis might be, unless you turned to Michel’s French and read, en aucun village chiez ung rich laboureur nomme Brulinus. This strange correspondence in error might be enforced by countless examples. But by this it is evident that, although Adlington did not, like Angel Day, Sir Thomas North, George Nichols (translator of Thucydides), render his author from the French openly and without shame, he consulted the French as well as the Latin, and fared rather the worse therefor.

If for a judgment of Adlington the writer there is ample material, of Adlington the man we know nothing more than he vouchsafes himself. That six editions appeared in some seventy years is proof of the book’s popularity. But its only mention is in the Register of the Stationers’ Company, where it figures “In the entering of copies” between the 22nd July 1565 and the 22nd July 1566⁠—something earlier than the date of the dedication. “Wekes. Received of Henry Wekes,” thus it runs, “for his license for printing of a book entitled The Whole Book of Lucius Apuleius of Ye Golden Ass, six shillings and eight pence.” The epistle dedicatory to Thomas, Earl of Sussex, is dated “from University College in Oxenford, the 18th of September, 1566.”3 But whether or no he was a graduate of that seat of learning is still uncertain. His name does not appear in the Register of the University, and in vain you consult the common sources of information. He presents his book to his patron in the customary terms of extravagant eulogy: “The which if your honourable Lordship shall accept,” writes he of his