8 h 59 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if your hunger for magic leaves you with a donkey’s body—and a clear view of everyone’s secrets?
In The Golden Asse by Apuleius, Lucius travels to Thessaly eager to see real witchcraft. Warnings only sharpen his curiosity. With help from Fotis, a quick-witted maid and his lover, he reaches for a chance to change his shape. He hopes to fly as a bird. Instead, he becomes a donkey.
Now a beast of burden, Lucius passes through a world of robbers, priests, millers, cooks and cheating wives. Nobody thinks to hide anything from an animal. His adventures mix laughter with cruelty, while stories open inside other stories. At their center lies the fairy tale of Cupid and Psyche, where beauty and curiosity bring dangers of their own.
What you’ll discover
- Curiosity with a cost Follow a man whose need to see forbidden things puts his human shape at risk.
- Secrets before a donkey See what people reveal when they think the creature watching cannot tell their stories.
- Magic in the kitchen Meet Fotis, whose teasing warmth draws Lucius closer to her mistress’s dangerous spells.
- Cupid and Psyche Step into a fairy tale of beauty, envy and curiosity within Lucius’s rough adventures.
- Laughter with sharp edges Explore the Roman world through a restless tale where mischief and cruelty travel together.
Who will love it
For lovers of wild adventure, comic tales and stories inside stories, and for anyone curious about how ancient Rome entertained itself with magic, mischief and fairy tale.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A traveller rides into the land of witches
- A miserly host and a warning from family
- Love, wine and a trial that is a joke
- The wrong ointment changes everything
- A donkey among thieves
- The tale of Cupid and Psyches
- An escape begins with a broken halter
- A captive with no voice to defend himself
- What the tale is really about
Who’s who
- LuciusA curious young traveller of good family who longs to see magic and ends up wearing the shape of a donkey.
- FotisMilo's lively maid, who becomes Lucius's lover and helps him spy on her mistress.
- PamphilesMilo's wife, a feared enchantress who turns into an owl with the help of an ointment.
- MiloLucius's rich and tight-fisted host in Hippata, who lends money and hoards his wealth.
- ByrrhenaLucius's wealthy relative, who warns him against the witchcraft of Milo's house.
- CharitesA young bride kidnapped by robbers on her wedding day, who longs to return to her husband.
- PsychesThe beautiful heroine of the tale told in the robbers' cave, who loves a husband she may not see.
- VenusThe goddess of love, who burns with jealousy over Psyches and sets her cruel tasks.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 8 h 59 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 7 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Read and hear L’Âne d’or in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
L’Âne d’or
by Apulée · 170
A curious young man rubs on the wrong ointment and becomes a donkey who still thinks like a man.
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In short
What happens when curiosity about magic gets the better of a clever young man? Apuleius, a writer from Roman North Africa, tells the story of Lucius, who longs to see a witch at work and pays for it in the shape of a donkey.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A traveller rides into the land of witches
The story opens as Lucius, a young man of good family, rides into Thessaly on business. This region has a name across the Roman world for witchcraft, and Lucius is the kind of man who cannot resist a marvel. On the road he joins two travellers, and one of them scoffs at the other for telling lies.
The storyteller is Aristomenus, and he insists his tale is true. He found his old friend Socrates begging in rags, ruined by a night with Meroe, a wine seller who is also a witch. Meroe turns an unfaithful lover into a beaver, a rival wine seller into a frog and an advocate who speaks against her into a ram. That night two witches burst into the room where the friends sleep, and Aristomenus hides under his bed and sees terrible things.
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What is The Golden Asse about?
It follows Lucius, a young man who wants to see magic, and who is accidentally turned into a donkey. He travels through many hands, listens to stories, and hopes to find roses that can make him human again.
Who wrote The Golden Asse and when?
It is by Apuleius, a Roman author from North Africa. It is also called the Metamorphoses, which means transformations.
What is the story of Cupid and Psyches in the book?
It is a fairy tale told by an old woman to a captive girl. Psyches, a mortal of great beauty, marries the god Cupid without seeing him, then loses him through curiosity and must win him back.
The author
Apuleius
125–170 · Ancient Roman novelist and philosopher
2nd-century Numidian Latin-language writer, rhetorician and philosopher.
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