The Dream – Apuleius (Born ca. 125 A.D.)
Lucius Apuleius, author of The Golden Ass, was born and educated in northern Africa. He practised law, was an indefatigable traveller, a ceaseless investigator into religious ceremonies and mysteries, and a writer of considerable skill and imagination. Many stories, including Cupid and Psyche and The Dream, are introduced into the rambling narrative of his celebrated romance. Like many other literary men, he was publicly accused of writing indecent literature. Like Pliny s Haunted House, The Dream is one of those lurid ghost-stories which apparently pleased the readers of the early Christian era. They continue to do so.
The Dream – And imagination. Many stories, including Cupid and Psyche and The Dream, are introduced into the rambling narrative of his celebrated romance. Like many other literary men, he was publicly accused of writing indecent literature. Like Pliny s Haunted House, The Dream is one of those lurid ghost-stories which apparently pleased the readers of the early Christian era. They continue to do so.
The present text is a modernized version of the classic translation by Adlington, which first appeared in 1566. There is no title in the original.
The Dream (From The Golden Ass)
But I could in no wise sleep for the great fear which was in my heart, until it was about midnight, and then I began to slumber. But, alas! behold suddenly the chamber doors broke open, and locks, bolts, and posts fell down, that you would verily have thought that some thieves had presently come to have spoiled and robbed us. An my bed whereon I lay, being a truckle-bed, fashioned in the lorm ol a cradle, and one of the feet broken and rotten, by violence was turned upside down, and I likewise was overwhelmed and covered lying in the same.
