My name is
Apuleius, the distinguished
rhetorician. Perhaps you've heard of me? You probably know me best from
a little book I wrote which I modestly titled Metamorphoses, but
which has had a much better sale since that fellow Augustine reported
people were calling it The Golden Ass.
Mind you, if only somebody would make a movie of it, and I really can't
imagine why they don't, then I'd really be rolling in fame. I'm really a
fine-looking fellow, even if I am a little vain about my hair.
I'm kind of new at this Internet business, so I'll just do for the
moment what I see everybody else doing, which is giving you a few of my
favorite links. I hope in this way you'll get to know me better and come
to enjoy a few of my favorite things:
Enough about me, let's talk about my books! Some of
my works, of course, have modestly made their way to the Internet, such as
the English translation of The Golden Ass,
or the Latin text of the Cupid and Psyche episode
-- which that rather unusual man C.S. Lewis turned into a
novel called Till We
Have
Faces. (Those dear fellows Burne-Jones
and Morris got the story about right, if you ask me, and Frederick
Leighton's painting of the
"Bath of Psyche" has a certain je ne sais quoi about it.) But
my proudest site on the net is the elegant and stylish presentation of my
Apology, in which I defended myself
against that utterly baseless charge of being a murderer and a
magician. The nerve of those tacky, tasteless people! Imagine:
me! a magician! Why, if I were a magician, I would have worked my
own magic and assured myself of endless life -- then I could be sure of
living into the twentieth century and getting my own home page on the
Internet!
A few of my favorite sites!
No, I'm not a magician, but I wouldn't go anywhere
without a good mirror -- but though
my sight depends on mirrors, my site doesn't have a mirror yet. Is that a
paradox? There is mystery to all this
somehow.
My religion means everything to me, you know that.
How could it not? But the transformations of the worship of Isis nowadays are just amazing.
My literary taste, of course, is impeccable. The
extraordinary dexterity with which I go back and forth between Greek and Latin literature is well
worth your praise, but my tastes are entirely catholic, and I might
encourage you to look at the little history of Latin literature contained
in the third chapter of À
Rebours by J.-K. Huysmans -- a little, well, you might say
decadent, but a man after my own heart. He is very kind to me, I
mean, my dears, just read this!
And then, well, there are our fellow travelers in
this world. We live in a world surrounded by intelligences whom we little
understand. What did that
little man say, "und die findigen Tiere merken es schon, daß wir
nicht sehr verläßlich zu Haus sind in der gedeuteten Welt" --
exactly! Well, of course, as you know, I've been one very special sort of
critter myself and retain a special fondness for them and all their
kin.
Now those of you who read my little novel may not
know what an utterly marvelous orator I was, and how dazzlingly skilled in
every department of the art of rhetoric,
which dreary pedants can make just as boring today as it was when I was
young, but believe me, when you've heard a really great speech, you
know it right down deep inside, I mean it just makes you want to say, "Oh, hey!" And don't you believe for a
moment what that
Maud Gleason says about us, that rhetoric was just a thing about
masculinity -- yeah, right! I'll bet if she were a guy, she
wouldn't say things like that!
I'm not a magician, you understand, but some of my
best friends are magicians, and I'm quite sure I wouldn't want my sister
to marry one, but I hope she wouldn't get any of them angry,
either! I know only too well what can happen when you run afoul of spells and wizardry.
Now as those of you who have read the Apology know, there's nothing I like more
than a
good trial, especially when dazzling advocates gain
acquittal for their clients. I mean, acquittal is a sure sign of
innocence, don't you think? That's what scholars have always
thought about my case, and why should I argue with them?
There are some other links I can throw in here, to
some of my favorite places, Africa and Florida.
Of course, I do have some vices. I'm quite fond of a
little fish now and then, even perhaps without cooking it. Something
fishy about that? And I've always thought highly of older women, no matter what people
may think about me for it.
Well, my friends, that's all for now. If you have some suggestions
about sites I'd like, all you have to do is
send me some e-mail!
