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
100. Give me the will which was made in the interests of so unfilial a
son by his mother. Each word of it was preceded by an entreaty from
myself, whom my accusers speak of as a mere robber. Order the tablets
to be broken open, Maximus. You will find that her son is the heir,
that I get nothing save some trifling complimentary legacy inserted to
avoid the non-appearance of my name, the husband's name, mark you, in
my wife's will, supposing she succumbed to any of the ills to which
this flesh is heir. Take up your mother's will. You are right, in one
respect it is undutiful. She excludes her devoted husband from the
inheritance in favour of her most unfilial son? Nay, it is not her son
to whom she leaves her fortune; she leaves it rather to the greedy
Aemilianus and the matchmaking Rufinus and that drunken gang, that
hang about you and prey upon you. Take it, O best of sons! Lay aside
your mother's love-letters for a while and read her will instead. If
she ever wrote anything while not in her right mind, you will find it
here, nor will you have to go far to find it. 'Let Sicinius Pudens, my
son, be my heir.' I admit it! he who reads this, will think it
insanity. Is this same son your heir, who at his own brother's funeral
attempted with the help of a gang of the most abandoned youths to shut
you out of the house which you yourself had given him, who is so
deeply and bitterly incensed to find that his brother left you co-heir
with himself, who hastened to desert you when you were plunged in
grief and mourning, and fled from your bosom to Aemilianus and
Rufinus, who afterwards uttered many insults against you to your face,
and manufactured others with the help of his uncle, who has dragged
your name through the law-courts, has attempted by using your own
letters publicly to besmirch your fair fame, and has accused upon a
capital charge the husband of your choice, with whom, as Pudens
himself objected, you were madly in love! Open the will, my good boy,
open it, I beg you. You will find it easier then to prove your
mother's insanity.
Why do you draw back? Why do you refuse to look at it, now that you
are free from all anxiety about the inheritance of your mother's
fortune?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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