A few sonnets I like from the 16th and 17th centuries

I’ve never been much of a poetry person. I thought Shakespeare would be my gateway into poetry, but no. Or rather, I do like dramatic and epic poetry—it’s lyric poetry that I struggle with, except for Shakespeare’s sonnets and some poems here and there by Donne, Milton, Keats, Tennyson, etc. I like stories, that’s the thing, and I like characters (my love for Shakespeare’s sonnets is possibly because I read them as part of a sequence, and there are characters). 

Anyway, that’s why I picked up The Oxford Book of Sonnets, to try to get into poetry. Here are some sonnets I like from the 16th and 17th centuries that were not by Shakespeare (in the same order as in the book).  

Edmund Spenser 

Amoretti LXXV

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves and washed it away:

Again I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

“Vain man,” said she, “that dost in vain assay,

A mortal thing so to immortalise;

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eke my name be wiped out likewise.”

“Not so,” (quoth I) “let baser things devise

To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:

My verse your virtues rare shall eternise,

And in the heavens write your glorious name:

Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,

Our love shall live, and later life renew.”

Amoretti LXXVII

Was it a dream, or did I see it plain,

A goodly table of pure ivory:

All spread with junkets, fit to entertain

The greatest prince with pompous royalty.

’Mongst which there in a silver dish did lie

Two golden apples of unvalued price:

Far passing those which Hercules came by,

Or those which Atalanta did entice.

Exceeding sweet, yet void of sinful vice,

That many sought yet none could ever taste,

Sweet fruit of pleasure brought from paradise

By love himself, and in his garden placed.

Her breast that table was so richly spread,

My thoughts the guests, which would thereon have fed.

Sir Philip Sidney 

Astrophil and Stella 39 

Come Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,

The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,

The poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release,

Th’ indifferent judge between the high and low.

With shield of proof shield me from out the press

Of those fierce darts despair at me doth throw:

O make in me those civil wars to cease;

I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.

Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,

A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light,

A rosy garland and a weary head:

And if these things, as being thine by right,

Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,

Livelier than elsewhere, Stella’s image see.

Samuel Daniel 

Delia 45 

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,

Brother to Death, in silent darkness born:

Relieve my languish, and restore the light,

With dark forgetting of my cares, return;

And let the day be time enough to mourn

The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth:

Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn,

Without the torment of the night’s untruth.

Cease dreams, th’ imagery of our day-desires,

To model forth the passions of the morrow;

Never let rising sun approve you liars,

To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow.

Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain;

And never wake to feel the day’s disdain.

John Donne 

I am a little world made cunningly

Of elements and an angelic sprite,

But black sin hath betray’d to endless night

My world’s both parts, and oh both parts must die.

You which beyond that heaven which was most high

Have found new spheres, and of new lands can write,

Pour new seas in mine eyes, that so I might

Drown my world with my weeping earnestly,

Or wash it, if it must be drown’d no more.

But oh it must be burnt; alas the fire

Of lust and envy have burnt it heretofore,

And made it fouler; let their flames retire,

And burn me O Lord, with a fiery zeal

Of thee and thy house, which doth in eating heal.

At the round earth’s imagin’d corners, blow

Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise

From death, you numberless infinities

Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go;

All whom the flood did, and fire shall o’erthrow,

All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,

Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you whose eyes

Shall behold God and never taste death’s woe.

But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space,

For if above all these my sins abound,

’Tis late to ask abundance of thy grace

When we are there; here on this lowly ground

Teach me how to repent; for that’s as good

As if thou’hadst sealed my pardon with thy blood.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurped town to another due,

Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,

But am betrothed unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

William Habington 

To Castara. Upon Beauty

Castara, see that dust, the sportive wind

So wantons with. ’Tis happ’ly all you’ll find 

Left of some beauty: and how still it flies,

To trouble, as it did in life, our eyes.

O empty boast of flesh! Though our heirs gild

The far fetch Phrigian marble, which shall build

A burthen to our ashes, yet will death

Betray them to the sport of every breath.

Dost thou, poor relic of our frailty, still

Swell up with glory? Or is it thy skill,

To mock weak man, whom every wind of praise

Into the air, doth ’bove his centre raise.

If so, mock on. And tell him that his lust

To beauty’s madness. For it courts but dust.

John Milton 

Sonnet 19 

When I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

And that one Talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide;

“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”

I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need

Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and wait.”

Sonnet 23 

Methought I saw my late espoused saint

Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave,

Whom Jove’s great son to her glad husband gave,

Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint.

Mine, as whom wash’d from spot of child-bed taint

Purification in the old Law did save,

And such as yet once more I trust to have

Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,

Came vested all in white, pure as her mind;

Her face was veiled, yet to my fancied sight

Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined

So clear as in no face with more delight.

But Oh! as to embrace me she inclined,

I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.

Aphra Behn 

Epitaph on the Tombstone of a Child, the Last of Seven that Died Before

This little, silent, gloomy monument, 

Contains all that was sweet and innocent;

The softest prattler that e’er found a tongue,

His voice was music and his words a song,

Which now each listening angel smiling hears,

Such pretty harmonies compose the spheres;

Wanton as unfledged cupids, ere their charms

Has learned the little arts of doing harms,

Fair as young cherubins, as soft and kind,

And though translated could not be refined,

The seventh dear pledge the nuptial joys had given,

Toiled here on earth, retired to rest in heaven, 

Where they the shining host of angels fill,

Spread their gay wings before the throne, and smile.

In praise of Satoshi Kon

It was last year when I discovered Satoshi Kon. He’s now one of my favourite directors, and guess what, you should watch his films too, even if you’re prejudiced against anime (as I was). 

Perfect Blue (1997): First one I saw and still my favourite. The film is about a member of a Japanese idol group who leaves the music industry in order to pursue an acting career. She soon finds herself stalked and threatened by an obsessive fan unhappy with her decision to leave the group (I don’t think you would want to join the Japanese showbiz after this); as things escalate and gruesome murders take place, she slowly loses her grip on reality (like Lady Macbeth). It’s a serious film and a great film, blurring the line between reality and fantasy and fiction—three layers. Black Swan clearly got ideas stolen from Perfect Blue, but Perfect Blue is much better. 

Millennium Actress (2001): Two documentary filmmakers come to interview a famous actress decades after her retirement from the film industry and she tells them about the love of her life. On a personal level, I don’t like the film as much as the other three by Satoshi Kon (as I find her love story stupid); but on a technical level, it is an impressive film as Kon again blurs the line between reality and cinema. I also like that Millennium Actress references Kurosawa, Ozu, etc.  

Tokyo Godfathers (2003): This one is quite unusual as it’s a comedy drama and (largely) realistic. Three homeless people—a middle-aged alcoholic, a trans woman, and a teenage runaway—find an abandoned baby in the trash on Christmas’s Eve and set out to find the parents. With such a storyline and such a set of characters, it could easily become sentimental and corny, but it isn’t—it’s funny and moving and the characters are full of life. Roger Ebert calls it “a story that will never, ever, be remade by Disney” (which should appeal to some of you). Might watch it again at Christmas.

Paprika (2006): His last film. A group of scientists create a device that allows people to view someone else’s dreams. The device however gets stolen and shit happens—people lose control of their minds and dreams merge and nightmares flood into the real world. Do I understand Paprika? Not the Jungian and Freudian ideas, no. But it’s a fascinating film nevertheless, and the rich and colourful and utterly bizarre dreamworld of Paprika makes me realise how drab and boring dream sequences in most films are. I can’t decide if this one or Perfect Blue is Satoshi Kon’s greatest film. 

Online I’ve come across some people who think literature is a greater art form than cinema. I don’t agree. I think they’re different art forms with different ways of telling a story and different strengths. Cinema can do certain things that literature (or some other art forms) can’t—when a film is like a dream, or when it blurs the line between reality and fantasy and fiction—we see that in Ingmar Bergman, we see that in Federico Fellini, and we see that in Satoshi Kon. 

Pity he died so soon. 

Reading the Bible: Daniel, Jonah

1/ My summary of the second chapter of the Book of Daniel: 

The king: Interpret my dream.

People: What’s the dream?

The king: I don’t remember, interpret it.

People: Tell us the dream, we will. 

The king: Can’t remember. Fuck you! Interpret my dream. 

It’s a good story, though, about the tyranny of the king: this is Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, who besieges Jerusalem. He later orders his people to throw some Israelites into a burning furnace, for not worshipping the same god. 

“Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, came forth of the midst of the fire.

And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king’s counsellors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.” (Daniel 3:26-27) 

It’s a story about how the God of the Israelites is more powerful than the god of Babylon. I am however more interested in the depiction of a tyrant. 

2/ Daniel is one of the Israelites raised and educated in the palace. Having insight into visions and dreams, Daniel interprets dreams and foretells the future and lives through different kings of Babylon—over and over again, the Book of Daniel depicts the God of Daniel and the Israelites (Yahweh) as stronger and more powerful than the god of Babylon. I suppose it’s meaningful to people of faith; it doesn’t mean much to me. Reading the Book of Daniel is mainly useful for me to know about the fiery furnace, the writings on the wall, Daniel in the lions’ den, the dream of the four beasts, etc.

There are some strange images, such as Daniel’s vision of the four beasts that come up from the sea: 

“The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man’s heart was given to it.

And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.

After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.

After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.

I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.” (Daniel 7:4-8) 

Ten horns sounds very crowded.

If only the whole of the Bible were as good as the Book of Job, or the Books of Samuel, though. I’d like to think of myself as an Appreciationist and often see literary merit even in classics I don’t personally enjoy, but the Bible can be tough. 

3/ The Book of Jonah is important because of the iconic image of Jonah in the belly of a big fish (a whale?), but my interest is mainly because of its influence on Moby-Dick: it’s quoted in Extracts; chapter 9 “The Sermon” is about the Book of Jonah; chapter 83 is titled “Jonah Historically Regarded”; there are numerous other references throughout the novel. 

“‘With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further flouts at God, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a ship made by men will carry him into countries where God does not reign, but only the Captains of this earth. […] See ye not then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee world-wide from God?’” (Moby-Dick, ch.9) 

Father Mapple tells the story of Jonah to preach about defiance and sin and repentance. There are some parallels between Jonah at the beginning and Captain Ahab: Ahab also defies Heaven, defies God, but does not repent—even to the last. 

“‘I turn my body from the sun. […] Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale!...’” (ch.135) 

Ahab may be seen as a kind of anti-Jonah. 

Is it not interesting though that something like Moby-Dick was written by someone not religious, someone who’s not a believer? 

4/ There are echoes of Jonah in Hamlet: Hamlet boards a ship to England and escapes death and returns a different man. 

“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, 

Rough-hew them how we will.” 

(Act 5 scene 2) 

He is calmer, but more fatalistic.

I’m going to take a break from the Bible to read other stuff, then I’ll decide whether to read Psalms or go straight to the New Testament. 

Reading the Bible: Judges, Ruth

1/ Judges and Ruth precede the Books of Samuel—I’ve been reading the Bible in the wrong order, I know, but then I don’t think Christians read the Bible from cover to cover, so…

Like the Books of Kings, the Book of Judges is drearily repetitive: the clause “And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD” appears over and over again. The narrative is a cycle of the children of Israel betraying God and being punished and getting saved and again betraying God, over and over again. One interesting thing I’ve noted however is the use of the phrase “went a whoring”—nothing to do with whoredom/ prostitution/ promiscuity—to mean betraying God (Yahweh) and worshipping Baal/ Baalim. 

There are some violent images. 

“Then Jael Heber’s wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.” (Judges 4:21) 

That’s disturbing, no? 

“She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen’s hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.

At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead.” (Judges 5:26-27) 

Christians probably won’t like that I say this, but reading the Bible out of interest in its influence on Western culture and literature means that one has to wade through lots of tedious stuff and violent stuff. 

“And a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech’s head, and all to brake his skull.

[…] Thus God rendered the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did unto his father, in slaying his seventy brethren:

And all the evil of the men of Shechem did God render upon their heads: and upon them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal.” (Judges 9:53-57) 

2/ The highlight of the Book of Judges—so people say—is the story of Samson. I can see that there are striking and iconic images—Samson killing a young lion with his bare hands and eating honey from its carcass, Samson killing 1000 men with an ass’s jawbone, Samson pulling down the pillars and killing the Philistines together with himself, and so on—but the story of him and Delilah is plain silly. Look at it: three times Delilah asks about his weakness; three times she tries it and delivers him to the Philistines; and yet he not only stays with her but also tells her the truth so that he loses his superhuman strength and falls into the hands of the Philistines? It’s on him, I’m afraid. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; etc. 

This is not a story about a woman’s treachery, but about a man who thinks with his other head. My complaint is that the Bible doesn’t depict his passion and doesn’t give us their thoughts—I don’t know what goes through Samson’s (stupid) mind when he decides to tell Delilah his weakness after all she has done.  

3/ The Book of Judges also contains the story of the Levite’s concubine, which is brutal and horrific—from the gang rape of the concubine, to the war afterwards between the children of Israel and the children of Benjamin. 

This is especially disturbing: 

“But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go.

[…] And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel.” (Judges 19:25-29) 

It’s odd though that the Levite and his concubine aren’t named; it’s also odd that the Bible doesn’t quite explain why the concubine leaves him at the beginning of the story and returns to her father.  

4/ The Book of Ruth I do like much better, as it’s about the relationship between Naomi and her daughter-in-law Ruth. Naomi, having lost her husband and then both her sons, decides to return home and urges the daughters-in-law to go back to their own parents, but Ruth refuses. 

“And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:

Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.” (Ruth 1:16-17)

It is so moving.  

This is also moving, when Naomi returns to Bethlehem: 

“And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.

I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the LORD hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?” (Ruth 1:20-21) 

I didn’t know the meanings of Naomi (pleasant, sweet, delightful) and Mara (bitter), but I could guess—I could feel her anguish in the lines. 

5/ I must thank Himadri (Argumentative Old Git) for reminding me of these lines in “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats: 

“Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

         Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

                She stood in tears amid the alien corn…” 

I have always liked Keats. Must read more. 

Reading the Bible: Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations

1/ One of the joys of reading the Bible is going “So that’s where it came from!”. Ecclesiastes is full of phrases and lines I recognise: 

“Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” (Ecclesiastes 1:2) 

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9) 

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2) 

“All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” (Ecclesiastes 3:20) 

“He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.” (Ecclesiastes 5:10)

This image is also familiar: 

“As he came forth of his mother’s womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand.” (Ecclesiastes 5:15)

But I think this phrasing is quoted more: 

“And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” (Job 1:21) 

It’s also cool to realise that the title of Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth comes from “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.” (Ecclesiastes 7:4) 

2/ Compare: 

“All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” (Ecclesiastes 3:20) 

And Hamlet: 

“We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service—two dishes but to one table. That’s the end.” (Act 4 scene 3) 

“Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust…” (Act 5 scene 1)

Hamlet also calls man “this quintessence of dust”. 

Compare: 

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9) 

And Shakespeare’s Sonnet 59: 

“If there be nothing new, but that which is

Hath been before, how are our brains beguil’d,

Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss

The second burthen of a former child!

O, that record could with a backward look,

Even of five hundred courses of the sun,

Show me your image in some antique book,

Since mind at first in character was done!...” 

The Ecclesiastes is my favourite of these three books, something I imagine I can read and reread. 

3/ I read Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon so long ago that I remember nothing and have no idea how the book in the Bible relates to it. 

Can’t say much about the Song of Solomon in the Bible either. 

“Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them.

Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks.

Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men.

Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.” (Song of Solomon 4:2-5) 

The similes are strange. 

“His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set.

His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh.

His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires.

His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold: his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars.” (Song of Solomon 5:12-15) 

Very strange. 

The Song of Solomon is (apparently) meant to celebrate human love, narrating an intense love story between a woman and her lover, but to me, the imagery is utterly strange and alienating.  

4/ The Book of Lamentations is a collection of poetic laments for the destruction of Jerusalem. 

This is an interesting sentence: 

“He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.” (Lamentations 3:15) 

Some of you might like these verses: 

“Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach.

Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.” (Lamentations 5:1-2)

Reading the Bible: Job

1/ Does anyone read the Book of Job without feeling disturbed by the cruelty and callousness of God? Why does God, for no reason, take everything away from “one that feared God, and eschewed evil” and make him suffer? 

But the writing—on the sentence level—is magnificent.

“Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?

Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?

For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,

With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves;

Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver:

Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.

There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.

There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.

The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.

Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;

Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures;

Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?

Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?

For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.

For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.” (Job 3:11-26) 

I can see how the Book of Job resonates with Christians who are going through a tough time and longing for death and finding God unjust. 

“Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me?

When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint;

Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions:

So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life.

I loathe it; I would not live alway: let me alone; for my days are vanity.

What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?

And that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment?

How long wilt thou not depart from me, nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle?

I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself?

And why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away mine iniquity? for now shall I sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.” (Job 7:12-21) 

The Book of Job is very quotable, and depicts well the bitterness of a man who suffers and can’t understand why he has to suffer. 

“The earth is given into the hand of the wicked: he covereth the faces of the judges thereof; if not, where, and who is he?” (Job 9:24)

This reminds me of The Brothers Karamazov, especially Ivan’s talk about returning the ticket and rejecting God—the rereading is going to be a very different experience when I have known the Bible.

Like some other parts of the Bible, the Book of Job could be repetitive, but it doesn’t matter because I love the prose, the rhythm of the prose: 

“I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem.

I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame.

I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out.

And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.

Then I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand.

My root was spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon my branch.

My glory was fresh in me, and my bow was renewed in my hand.” (Job 29:14-20)

2/ I don’t have a lot to say, so I’m just poking at it from different angles. 

“He putteth my feet in the stocks, he marketh all my paths.” (Job 33:11)

Was that line in Shakespeare’s mind when he had Cornwall place Kent in the stocks in King Lear?

Job and Lear both lose everything. Job and Lear both experience extreme suffering. Job and Lear both question existence. 

“How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?” (Job 25:6) 

That reminds me of: 

“Is man no more than this? Consider him well.—Thou ow’st the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha, here’s three on’s are sophisticated. Thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.” (King Lear, Act 3 scene 4) 

Not only King Lear, Job also makes me think of Timon of Athens: together with the change in his fortunes is the change in others’ attitudes. Timon and Lear however are much angrier, and the gods are absent. 

“As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods;

They kill us for their sport.” 

(King Lear, Act 4 scene 1) 

Funnily enough, in the Book of Job, God does appear and restore Job’s fortunes but doesn’t answer the questions. 

3/ Ingmar Bergman, who made a few films about human suffering and the silence of God and a crisis of faith, must have loved the Book of Job. 

“But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?

Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living.” (Job 28:12-13) 

The entire chapter is magnificent. For someone who reads the Bible as a literary—rather than religious—text, the Book of Job is a great read, because of the prose and because of the depiction of someone in great suffering who’s questioning God. It’s more literary than some other parts of the Bible I have read, and in the form of a dialogue between Job and his accusing friends. 

4/ Moby-Dick begins and ends with the Book of Job. 

The second quote in Extracts is “Leviathan maketh a path to shine after him; One would think the deep to be hoary,” which comes from Job 41:32. 

The Epilogue quotes “I only am escaped alone to tell thee”, which recurs 4 times in the first chapter. 

I suppose Melville wants to contrast the humility and patience of Job with the hate and anger of Ahab. 

“There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.” (Moby-Dick, ch.96) 

Can’t help wondering if Melville, when he wrote that sentence, was thinking of the poem on wisdom in the Book of Job. 

Reading Lovers’ Vows as a fan of Mansfield Park

Here I am again reading something nobody reads, but it seemed amiss, did it not, that I never read Lovers’ Vows before when Mansfield Park is my favourite Austen novel?

Let’s see what the fuss is about. 

Lovers’ Vows 

An adaptation of August von Kotzebue’s Das Kind der Liebe, the play was first performed at Covent Garden in 1798, about 2 decades after Sheridan’s most celebrated plays. Jane Austen was 23 (if she saw it onstage, though she might have just read the text).

The first thing I’m going to say is that I’m not surprised the play was a hit: it’s got premarital sex and a son born out of wedlock and star-crossed lovers, etc. The second thing is that I’m not surprised it’s rarely read or staged today and mostly known as the play featured in Jane Austen’s novel. It’s not a great play—sometimes even ridiculous (luckily it’s quite short). 

Lovers’ Vows has two plotlines that aren’t entirely separate. In one plot, a soldier named Frederick returns home to find his mother Agatha ill, penniless, and on the streets, and then he discovers himself to be the result of an affair between her and Baron Wildenhaim, who long ago left the country. 

In the other plot, Baron Wildenhaim, recently back in Germany after his wife’s death, is trying to find out if his daughter Amelia wants to accept the marriage proposal from the affected Count Cassel. She however is in love with her tutor, poor Mr Anhalt. 

At some point, the desperate Frederick, tired of begging, tries to rob two rich men and gets imprisoned, but one of the two men turns out to be the Baron. This is the stuff of romance! The play is full of coincidences and nonsense and melodrama. The idea that things are not as they seem—a favourite theme of Jane Austen and Shakespeare—is not to be found here: the characters are quite straightforward. A greater playwright may have increased the stakes or made things a bit difficult: here the knots are quickly untied. 

However, to be fair, Lovers’ Vows is not without a few things of interest. Amelia is very forward, for a young lady in the 18th century. 

“MR ANHALT […] The subject I came to you upon was marriage.

AMELIA A very proper subject from the man who has taught me love, and I accept the proposal [curtsying].

MR ANHALT Again you misconceive and confound me.

AMELIA Ay, I see how it is—You have no inclination to experience with me “the good part of matrimony:” I am not the female with whom you would like to go “hand in hand up hills, and through labyrinths”—with whom you would like to “root up thorns; and with whom you would delight to plant lilies and roses.” No, you had rather call out, “O liberty, dear liberty.”” 

(Act 3 scene 2)

Amelia alludes to—and confesses—her feelings first. None of Jane Austen’s heroines would speak in such a way. 

The class issues—both the depiction of the lower class as noble and the upper class as base, and the unequal marriages—are interesting. Elizabeth Inchbald (and perhaps von Kotzebue in the original?) had clear messages about marrying for love, treating women properly, and atoning for past mistakes, which Jane Austen must have liked. Dramatically, the confrontation scene between Baron Wildenhaim and Count Cassel is interesting: the Count acknowledges his own villainy and turns it against the Baron, forcing him to examine himself. 

Now you’re going to ask if there are parallels between Lovers’ Vows and Mansfield Park. There are a few. Mr Anhalt is a clergyman, like Edmund Bertram’s going to be. Agatha is taken from her poor family and placed with a rich family, like Fanny Price. Count Cassel is a cad, like Henry Crawford. Agatha is seduced and has sex outside marriage, like Maria Bertram. But these similarities only emphasise the startling differences between the play and Mansfield Park: Jane Austen’s novel is much deeper, subtler, and more sophisticated.  

Lovers’ Vows in Mansfield Park 

Look at the scene in Mansfield Park where the characters argue about which play to perform: 

“All the best plays were run over in vain. Neither Hamlet, nor Macbeth, nor Othello, nor Douglas, nor The Gamester, presented anything that could satisfy even the tragedians; and The Rivals, The School for Scandal, Wheel of Fortune, Heir at Law, and a long et cetera, were successively dismissed with yet warmer objections.” (Ch.14) 

I only just read The School for Scandal—imagine if the characters picked Sheridan’s play! 

One must ask, does Jane Austen pick Lovers’ Vows because she likes it, or because she thinks it’s a stupid play that demonstrates the bad taste of Mr Yates and emphasises the impropriety of staging such a play in Sir Thomas’s absence? I don’t think there’s anything to indicate that Jane Austen personally thinks it’s a great play. Either way, many (obtuse) readers complain about Mansfield Park and call Fanny Price a priggish bore partly because they impose modern thinking on the novel (saying what’s wrong with staging a play at home?), but mainly because they don’t know Lovers’ Vows. Fanny isn’t fond of the plan to act when Sir Thomas’s away, but she becomes strongly opposed to the play only when she reads it: 

“Her curiosity was all awake, and she ran through it with an eagerness which was suspended only by intervals of astonishment, that it could be chosen in the present instance, that it could be proposed and accepted in a private theatre! Agatha and Amelia appeared to her in their different ways so totally improper for home representation—the situation of one, and the language of the other, so unfit to be expressed by any woman of modesty, that she could hardly suppose her cousins could be aware of what they were engaging in; and longed to have them roused as soon as possible by the remonstrance which Edmund would certainly make.” (ibid.) 

Read the play and you’ll see why. 

Apart from that, rereading the theatrical episode in Mansfield Park is now much more interesting when I know the characters they’re playing. It’s quite a joke that the dim-witted Mr Rushworth plays Count Cassel, who is a cad, though they’re both foppish. There’s also something rather funny about the way Maria and Julia Bertram fight to play Agatha, when Henry Crawford plays Frederick, her son, and the role of Agatha’s former lover, Baron Wildenhaim, goes to Mr Yates—Henry and Maria flirt with each other whilst playing mother and son (hello, Jane?). But of course the way Austen sets it up is perfect: Agatha and Baron Wildenhaim only have a couple of lines together at the end whereas she and Frederick have relatively long scenes together—scenes that involve touching. As Mary Crawford says to Fanny: 

“… I looked in upon them five minutes ago, and it happened to be exactly at one of the times when they were trying not to embrace, and Mr Rushworth was with me. I thought he began to look a little queer…” (Ch.18) 

Funnily enough: 

“As far as [Fanny] could judge, Mr Crawford was considerably the best actor of all: he had more confidence than Edmund, more judgment than Tom, more talent and taste than Mr Yates. She did not like him as a man, but she must admit him to be the best actor, and on this point there were not many who differed from her.” (ibid.)

I wonder if Jane Austen’s suspicious of actors—ironically, it’s whilst being an actor that Henry drops his act towards Julia and makes obvious his preference for her sister. 

So what about Edmund and Mary Crawford? Edmund plays Mr Anhalt and Mary plays Amelia. Now when I have read Lovers’ Vows, I can see better Fanny’s pain as she watches Edmund and Mary Crawford rehearse the love scene, especially when Fanny has grown up with Edmund the way (I think) Amelia has grown up with Mr Anhalt. 

Regardless of Jane Austen’s judgement of the literary merit of Lovers’ Vows, she uses it to great effect in Mansfield Park, moves the plot forward, and reveals a lot about every single character in her novel—knowing Elizabeth Inchbald’s play deepens my understanding and appreciation of the novel. 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan: The Critic and The School for Scandal

This is a bit of a jump: Sheridan’s the most successful playwright in English theatre in the 18th century—The Critic premiered in 1779 and The School for Scandal in 1777. For context, Frances Burney published Evelina anonymously in 1778; the other 18th century novels I read (Defoe, Fielding, Swift, Charlotte Lennox) were all decades earlier. 

The Critic 

Don’t we all love plays within plays? The Critic is a comedy about the rehearsal of a tragedy by Puff (who likes to—wait for this—write puff pieces about himself). The rehearsal is attended by theatre critics Dangle and Sneer. 

It’s very funny. 

“SNEER Pray, Mr Puff, how came Sir Christopher Hatton never to ask that question before?

PUFF What, before the play began? How the plague could he?” 

(At 2 scene 2) 

Sheridan makes fun of terrible playwrights. 

“DANGLE Mr Puff, as he knows all this, why does Sir Walter go on telling him?

PUFF But the audience are not supposed to know anything of the matter, are they?” 

(ibid.) 

Even if the kind of tragedies Sheridan satirises is no longer in vogue, his mockery of awkward exposition—as well as vanity and puffing and plagiarism—never gets outdated. 

“BEEFEATER Perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee.

SNEER Haven’t I heard that line before?

PUFF No, I fancy not.—Where, pray?

DANGLE Yes, I think there is something like it in Othello.

PUFF Gad! now you put me in mind on’t, I believe there is—but that’s of no consequence—all that can be said is, that two people happened to hit upon the same thought—and Shakespeare made use of it first, that’s all.” 

(Act 3 scene 1) 

Shakespeare is everywhere! There are also two other Shakespeare references in the play. 

One of the funny things in The Critic—presumably Sheridan’s deliberate joke—is that he creates a character named Sir Fretful Plagiary but it’s Puff who’s the plagiarist. 

Entertaining play. 

The School for Scandal 

I was wondering why The School for Scandal, performed earlier, was placed after The Critic in the Penguin collection (of three plays), then I understood: The School for Scandal is longer, more substantial, more biting. 

Sheridan must have been familiar with the plays of Molière—The School for Husbands, The School for Wives—but I would say he doesn’t quite have the warmth of Molière. 

“MRS CANDOUR They’ll not allow our friend Miss Vermillion to be handsome.

LADY SNEERWELL Oh, surely she is a pretty woman…

CRABTREE I am very glad you think so, ma’am.

MRS CANDOUR She has a charming fresh colour.

CRABTREE Yes, when it is fresh put on. 

LADY TEAZLE O fie! I’ll swear her colour is natural: I have seen it come and go. 

CRABTREE I dare swear you have, ma’am: it goes of a night, and comes again in the morning.

SIR BENJAMIN True, uncle, it not only comes and goes but what’s more, egad—her maid can fetch and carry it—” 

(Act 2 scene 2)

What a malicious and vindictive world. 

The play has at its centre two contrasting brothers who are under Sir Peter Teazle’s informal guardianship: Joseph Surface (a socially respectable but calculating and duplicitous man) and Charles Surface (a profligate who nevertheless has a good and open nature). Both desire Maria (Sir Peter’s ward) but she seems to prefer Charles and Lady Sneerwell has the hots for Charles, so she and Joseph shake hands in their scandalmongering plots to separate Charles and Maria.   

Maria is the “good and intelligent heroine” type, similar to Angelica in Congreve’s Love for Love or Millamant in The Way of the World. 

“JOSEPH [rising with Maria] Maria, I see you have no satisfaction in this society.

MARIA How is it possible I should? If to raise malicious smiles at the infirmities or misfortunes of those who have never injured us be the province of wit or humour, Heaven grant me a double portion of dullness!

JOSEPH Yet they appear more ill-natured than they are—they have no malice at heart—

MARIA Then is their conduct still more contemptible, for, in my opinion, nothing could excuse the intemperance of their tongues but a natural and ungovernable bitterness of mind.” 

(ibid.) 

She’s not a priggish bore though—she is witty: 

“MRS CANDOUR Ah, Maria, child! What, is the whole affair of between you and Charles? His extravagance, I presume? The town talks of nothing else. 

MARIA Indeed! I am very sorry, ma’am, the town is not better employed.” 

(Act 1 scene 1) 

There’s also a storyline about Sir Peter Teazle and his wilful young wife—though it’s not quite detached to be a subplot.

In terms of plotting, The School for Scandal is (more or less) perfect, with all the schemes and counter-schemes and overhearing and discoveries. It’s interesting to note that the contrast between the two brothers is at the centre of the play but we don’t see Charles till Act 3, which means that Sheridan makes us put the pieces together from what other characters have said and form some preconceptions about Charles before we see him, as Sir Oliver, the uncle and benefactor of the brothers, also does. And when we meet him, we see him get tested by Sir Oliver. The contrast of the brothers is the contrast of values at the heart of the play, and Sir Oliver is the voice of the play when he says “if Charles has done nothing false or mean, I shall compound for his extravagance.” 

It’s a funny, delightful play. Sheridan doesn’t come across as cynical as William Congreve: he depicts several malicious and conniving and cruel characters, but he also gives us Charles and Maria and Sir Oliver and Rowley. And Sir Peter Teazle and his wife finally reconcile with each other.  

PS: I like that there are constant allusions to Shakespeare in both plays. 

The Golden Ass and bowdlerisation

Having learnt that I read a bowdlerised translation of The Golden Ass (William Adlington), I got hold of the Penguin translation by E. J. Kenney and checked out a few chapters and have now realised that Apuleius’s original novel is much more graphic, much more sexual and brutal than the version I read. 

If people think Shakespeare’s plays*—compared to classical plays—are lowbrow because they have silly puns and sexual innuendos and filthy jokes, The Golden Ass is much more vulgar. In fact, it may be the crudest, most vulgar of the classic literary works I’ve read. But I never would have known, because I read the 1924 edition—not only was The Golden Ass tamed down by William Adlington in 1566, it was further expurgated by the editor F. J. Harvey Darton. 

Let me give you an example, from the story of the lascivious and evil woman who desires her stepson: 

“For by and by she sent a messenger after her husband to tell him the great misfortune which happened after his departure. And when he came home the wicked woman declared that his son had poisoned his brother because he would not consent to his will, and told him divers other leasings, adding in the end that he threatened to kill her likewise because she discovered the fact.

Then the unhappy father was stricken with double dolour of the death of his two children, for on the one side he saw his younger son slain before his eyes, on the other side he seemed to see the elder condemned to die for his offence.” (Adlington and Darton) 

Versus: 

“She immediately sent a courier to find her husband and announce to him the ruin of his house; and when he returned, which he did at once, she put on a breathtakingly bold front and charged her stepson with the crime of poisoning her son. This was not totally untrue, in so far as the one boy had anticipated the death meant for the other; but she pretended that her stepson had made away with his younger brother because she had refused to yield to his criminal lust and resisted his attempt to rape her. Even these monstrous lies did not satisfy her: she added that he had also threatened her with his sword for denouncing his crime. The wretched father, reeling from the loss of two sons, was tossed to and fro on a stormy sea of suffering. His younger son he had to see buried before his eyes, and the elder must inevitably, it seemed, be condemned to death for incest and fratricide.” (Kenney) 

By censoring the rape accusation (why?), they’re cutting what is a clear reference to the Phaedra and Hippolytus myth. 

Lots of things are removed: a stepmother’s accusation that her stepson, whom she unrequitedly desired, attempted to rape her is cut; a husband’s punishment of his wife’s lover by raping him is scrubbed; the scene of the fake priests having a romp with a “robust young peasant, finely equipped in loin and groin” (Kenney’s translation) is expurgated, etc. I compared the 1639 text (on Gutenberg, presumably not much different from the first edition in 1566) and the 1924 text against Kenney’s 2004 text (revised from his own translation in 1998).  

With the double censorship, the entire bestiality episode is thrown out of the window, but all the passages about the master’s spectacle plan and the story of the woman condemned to be thrown to the beasts are removed. The bowdlerisation presents The Golden Ass as a very different book! Apuleius depicts all the hardships and suffering experienced by a donkey, which range from physical abuse (such as exploitation and starvation and beatings and torture) to sexual abuse—the 1924 edition gets rid of the sexual abuse. It also removes some brutal passages, but they are part of Apuleius’s depiction of the world, part of his vision of humanity. 

But don’t think that I only picked up Kenney’s translation to look for the smutty passages (all right, you caught me)—I also reread the final chapter and now see the conversion in a different light. Now I see why Robert Graves calls The Golden Ass a religious novel, as the entire story is about how “in the unsteadiness of [his] green youth [Lucius] lowered [himself] to servile pleasures and reaped a bitter reward for [his] ill-starred curiosity” (Kenney), about how Lucius grows spiritually—through suffering and through witnessing the depravity and cruelty of mankind—and finally turns to the goddess of Isis. The final chapter is in a different tone, even if Lucius hesitates at first. 

And yet, I agree with Kenney when he writes in the introduction: 

“That glory of revelation and rebirth tails off into a workaday account of successive initiations and the shifts to which Lucius has to resort to meet the necessary expenses.” 

And: 

“Will he fare any better as a devotee of Isis than he did as a devotee of witchcraft?”

That is also my question. 

“Is he as much of an ass as ever?” 

How effective is The Golden Ass as a religious novel? I’m rather curious about the contemporary reception. To modern readers, the main moral messages that resonate are probably about the treatment of animals and the conditions of workers and servants. The Golden Ass has survived since the 2nd century because it’s a delight, because it’s funny** and inventive and captivating. 

*: isn’t it funny that the word “bowdlerise” we now use—to remove or change words from a book/ play/ film that are considered vulgar or offensive—come from Thomas Bowdler, who was doing that with Shakespeare? 

**: I should add a few good words about William Adlington. Despite the expurgations, it’s a funny and charming translation. His phrasing is funnier than Kenney’s. 

The Golden Ass: “I had seen the experience of many things, and was become more wise” [updated]

1/ I generally read classic literature in modern translations (for obvious reasons), so one fascinating thing about reading William Adlington’s 1566 translation of The Golden Ass (when Shakespeare was 2 years old) is coming across many phrases that I thought were just the language of the King James Bible: “it comes to pass”, “play the harlot”, “yield/ give up the ghost”, etc. 

2/ As written in the previous blog post, at roughly mid-point, Apuleius interrupts the main story to tell the story of Cupid and Psyche, which is about 50 pages or so. 

I’m surely not the only one who read that story and thought Psyche’s biggest problem was that she’s overly curious and couldn’t obey orders—I understand wanting to find out the husband’s identity, but why on earth does she have to open Persephone’s box for Venus? 

That however is something she shares with Lucius, the narrator of the main plot: both are overly curious; both must endure many trials; both are transformed at the end. 

3/ Apuleius’s novel and Ovid’s narrative poem are both named Metamorphoses—the name Asinus aureus (The Golden Ass) came from Augustine of Hippo and Apuleius’s novel is known by that name to this day. 

I don’t read Latin and can’t tell who’s better on the sentence level, but Apuleius’s Metamorphoses is more like my thing for multiple reasons. 

Firstly, as Ovid moves from one myth to another—over 250 myths in the book—there is no sense of forward movement and sometimes it drags (probably doesn’t help that I read it in translation). This is not a problem with Apuleius: he meanders; he digresses; he once interrupts the story for about 50 pages or so; but there is one character in the centre of the book and the story moves forward, with a clear goal that Lucius must transform back to being a human. 

Secondly, it’s funnier and bawdier (though I’m going to have to reread it in a different translation, as I suspect our Elizabethan translator to have bowdlerised it a bit). 

Thirdly, Ovid retells Greek/ Roman mythology and depicts many types of transformations (generally gods putting on disguises, or human beings getting turned into things, bodies of water, trees, animals, the other sex, or gods) and there are physical metamorphoses in The Golden Ass (witches changing shape, hapless Lucius getting accidentally transformed into a donkey, some animal hides getting turned into men through enchantment, and so on), but more importantly, the novel depicts a spiritual metamorphosis. As a donkey, Lucius experiences the suffering of animals and also meets many kinds of people that he otherwise may not have met—he meets thieves and murderers and charlatans and adulterers and sadists, etc.—and changes as a person. 

(The quote in the headline comes from B.9, ch.39) 

As I have written before, every single Shakespeare play features some kind of disguise and transformation: it could be literal (women disguising as men, kings pretending to be commoners…) but it could also be figurative (Iago acting like an honest and concerned friend as he poisons Othello’s ear, Richard III putting on various masks, Edmund playing a role and deceiving his brother and his father…)—the latter interests me more, because I’m interested in human nature. And The Golden Ass also has both.   

4/ The Golden Ass has a rather strange and puzzling ending: is it a genuine religious conversion, or does Lucius, having escaped the servitude of a donkey, now enter another servitude as a priest for the goddess Isis? I do not know—it’s hard to tell about a literary work written in the 2nd century.

However, (I can’t help that) I am modern, so I’m going to note that: a) Lucius hesitates and doesn’t seem particularly religious (to me) in the final part of the book; b) we see lots of witches and enchantresses throughout the story but the gods seem absent for the large part; c) when Lucius accidentally turns into a donkey (instead of a bird as he wishes), Fotis already says roses are the antidote, and there’s no indication that he wouldn’t be able to transform back to his human shape by eating the roses, without any intervention from Isis. 

I’m going to have to think some more about it, but The Golden Ass is probably my favourite work so far that was originally written in Latin. 

Addendum on 19/8: Now that I’ve finished reading Apuleius’s novel, I’ve realised that it was bowdlerised. How irritating! Gonna have to find another translation.