The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of MadauraApuleius
Philosophy
The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura
Apuleius
Apuleius -- Translations into English; Speeches, addresses, etc., Latin -- Translations into English
possess, and when this boastful piper had been defeated in the contest
and had been skinned as though he were a two-footed bear, they left
him with his entrails torn and exposed to the air. Thus did Marsyas
sing for his own undoing, and such was his fall. As for Apollo he was
ashamed of so inglorious a victory.
_The piper Antigenidas._
4. There was a certain piper named Antigenidas, whose every note made
honeyed harmony. He had skill, too, to make music in every mode,
choose which you would, the simple Aeolian or the complex Ionian, the
mournful Lydian, the solemn Phrygian, or the warlike Dorian. Being
therefore the most famous of all that played upon the pipe, he said
that nothing so tormented him, nothing so vexed his heart and soul, as
the fact that the musicians who played the trumpet at funerals were
dignified by the name of pipers. But he would have endured this
identity of names with equanimity, had he ever seen the performance of
mimes; for he would have noted that the magistrates, who preside in
the theatre, and the characters on the stage, who come in for a good
cudgelling, are clad in practically the same purple garments. So too,
had he ever watched our games! For he would have seen one presiding,
another fighting, yet both of them sharing the same common humanity.
He would have noted that the Roman toga is worn alike by him who
performs a vow to heaven and by him that lies dead upon the bier, that
the Grecian pallium serves to shroud the dead no less than to clothe
the philosopher.
_Fragment from the opening of a discourse delivered in a theatre._
5. You have, I feel assured, come to this theatre with the best will
in the world. For you know that the importance of an oration does not
depend on the place in which it is delivered, but that the first thing
that has to be considered is, 'What form of entertainment is the
theatre going to provide?' If it is a mime, you will laugh; if a
rope-walker, you will tremble lest he fall; if a comedian, you will
applaud him, while, if it be a philosopher, you will learn from him.
_India and the Gymnosophists._
6. India is a populous country of enormous extent. It lies far to the
east of us, close to the point where ocean turns back upon himself and
the sun rises, on that verge where meet the last of lands and the
first stars of heaven. Far away it lies, beyond the learned Egyptians,
beyond the superstitious Jews and the merchants of Nabataea, beyond
the children of Arsaces in their long flowing robes, the Ityreans, to
whom earth gives but scanty harvest, and the Arabs, whose perfumes are
their wealth. Wherefore I marvel not so much at the great stores of
ivory possessed by these Indians, their harvests of pepper, their
exports of cinnamon, their finely-tempered steel, their mines of
silver and their rivers of gold. I marvel not so much that in the
Ganges they have the greatest of all rivers which
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