The metamorphosis, or golden ass, and philosophical works, of Apuleius [A. on the God of Socrates; A. on the habitude of the doctrines of Plato] / Translated from the original Latin, by Thomas Taylor.

  • Apuleius
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The metamorphosis, or golden ass, and philosophical works, of Apuleius [A. on the God of Socrates; A. on the habitude of the doctrines of Plato] / Translated from the original Latin, by Thomas Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    my members in a cold sweat, and my bowels began to shake with fear; so that the bed also being agitated and restless, leaped up and down on my back through my palpitation. c* But O sister, said the good Panthia, shall we first dilacerate this man after the manner of the Bacchse11*, or, binding his limbs, shall we amputate his genital parts? To this Meroe replied; for I then perceived that her name accorded in reality with the narrations of Socrates: Bather let him live, in order that he may cover with a little earth the body of this miserable creature [Socrates.] And immediately after, having moved the head of Socrates to the other side, she plunged the whole of the sword into his body up to the hilt, through the left part of the neck, and diligently received the emission of the blood in a small vessel placed under it, so that no drop of it might ever be perceived. These things I beheld with my own eyes. The good Meroe, however, inserting her right hand through the wound, as far as to the most inward parts of the body, and exploring them ; lest (as I think) she should at all deviate from the rites pertaining to a victim; drew out the heart of my unhappy companion; while he in the interim, his windpipe being cut by the force of the sword, emitted through the wound a voice, or rather a stridulous uncertain sound, and, with the bubbles of blood, poured forth his soul. But Panthia stopped the whole orifice of the wound with a sponge, and said, Beware, O sponge, born in the sea, that you do not pass through a river. Having thus said, and lifted my bed from the ground, they entirely drenched me with the moisture of the most filthy urine. “ Afterwards, they had scarcely passed over the thresh- old, wdien the doors rose again entire to their pristine state; the hinges settled in their receptacles; the bars m i. e. As the Baccbas formerly dilacerated Pantheus and Orpheus. See Ovid. Met am. lib. iii. and xi. i
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