by Kenneth Paul White
The learned men of old, I reflected, knew what they were talking about when they envisaged and portrayed Fortune as totally blind; It is invariably on the wicked and undeserving, I thought, that she bestows her favours; her choices are never grounded on reason, indeed she goes out of her way to frequent the company of those she ought to avoid like the plague if she could see. And the worst of it is that she distributes reputation so capriciously, indeed downright perversely: the evildoer glories in the character of a man of virtue and the innocent is punished like a criminal. Here was I, cruelly attacked and transformed by her into the shape of a beast, and one of the lowest sort at that, reduced to a condition which might inspire grief and pity in my worst enemy, accused of robbing a dear friend and host -- indeed parricide would be a more accurate name for it than robbery. And I was not in a position to defend myself or to utter a single word of denial. However, I thought that if I stayed silent when such a heinous charge was brought against me in my presence, it might seem that I assented to it because I had a guilty conscience. This I could not endure, and I tried at least to call out 'No, I didn't do it!' The 'No' I did utter again and again at the top of my voice, but the rest I couldn't manage; try as I might to round out the vigorous vibration of my hanging lips, I couldn't get beyond the first word and just went on braying 'No, no'. But what is the point of stringing out complaints against the perversity of Fortune? ...
However, Fortune's appetite for tormenting me was unappeased, and she now visited me with a fresh plague. I was told off to carry wood down from the mountain, and the boy who was put in charge of me was without question the most objectionable specimen of boyhood there ever was. Not only did I exhaust myself climbing the steep slopes of the mountain and wear out my hooves traversing its sharp-edged rocks; I was so incessantly thrashed by blow after blow from his stick that the pain of the cuts penetrated the marrow of my bones. By perpetually aiming his blows at one particular place on my right flank he split the skin and opened up a gaping sore -- a pit, a crevasse; and still went on beating the wound until it ran with blood. He piled such a weight of faggots on my back that you'd have thought it a load for an elephant rather than an ass. And whenever the load became unbalanced and slipped sideways, instead of relieving me by removing some faggots from the heavier side and so taking off some of the pressure, as he should have done, or at least evening up the load by transferring them to the other side, his remedy for the imbalance was to pile stones on top. As if these tribulations were not enough, the size of my load still did not satisfy him; huge though it was, when we had to cross the stream which ran alongside the road, to save his boots from a wetting he would jump up and perch on my back -- a trivial addition, I suppose he thought, to my enormous burden. The river bank was muddy and slippery, and from time to time I would overbalance under my load and go down in the mire. A good driver would have lent a hand, would have held me up by the bridle or hauled me up by the tail, or at least taken off some of my vast load until I could get to my feet again. Not he: so far from offering to help me in my exhaustion, he would beat every inch of me with his great stick, starting at my head and not forgetting my ears, until his blows acted as a kind of medical treatment to get me up again.
Yet another torture did he devise for me. He made up a bunch of thorns with formidably sharp and poisonous prickles and fastened it to my tail to hang there and torment me, so that as I walked it would swing about and hurt me cruelly with its deadly spikes. So either way I was in trouble. If I put on speed to escape his savage blows, the thorns pricked me harder than ever; and if I slowed down for a moment to ease the pain, I was thrashed into a gallop once more. This detestable boy seemed to have no other object in life but to finish me off one way or another, and indeed he more than once threatened and swore to do just that. Then something happened to goad his abominable malice to fresh lengths. One day he was behaving so outrageously that my patience gave way and I let fly at him with a vigorous kick. This was what he then planned to do to me. He loaded me with a large bundle of tow which he roped tightly to my back, and then drove me on to the road. He then helped himself to a burning coal from the first farm he came to and pushed it into the middle of my load. In a moment the loose mass had ignited and burst into flame, enveloping me in its lethal heat with no apparent hope of escaping from the fatal menace or of saving my life; a fire like that allows no delay or time to think things over. In this calamity Fortune for once smiled on me; no doubt she was saving me for future dangers, but now at least she delivered me from instant and certain death. Catching sight of a muddy pool of water from yesterday's rain by the roadside, without stopping to think I plunged into it head over ears. Then, when the flames were finally extinguished, I emerged, relieved of my load and delivered from destruction. But that dreadful boy had the effrontery to blame his vile deed on me, telling all his fellow herdsmen that I had stumbled on purpose when passing the neighbour's stove and had deliberately set myself on fire, adding with a laugh, 'So how long are we going to go on wasting fodder on this salamander of an ass?'
Only a few days later he played an even worse trick on me. Having sold the wood I was carrying at a nearby cottage he was leading me back unloaded when he started to proclaim that he could no longer cope with my wicked ways and that he had had enough of such a thankless task. This was the style of the complaint that he had concocted: 'Look at this ass -- lazy, idle, too asinine to be true. On top of all the other shocking things he's done, now he's getting me into fresh trouble and danger. Every time he sees a passer-by, whether it's a pretty woman, a young girl, or a handsome boy, in a second he's sent his load flying, and often his saddle as well, and makes a mad rush at them -- a lover like this in search of a human mate! Slavering with desire, he hurls them to the ground as he attempts to indulge his unlawful pleasures and unspeakable lusts, urging them to bestial unions while Venus looks away in horror. He even distorts his shameless mouth into a parody of a kiss as he butts and bites his victims. These goings-on are likely to involve us in serious lawsuits and quarrels, and probably criminal prosecutions as well. Only just now, catching sight of a respectable young woman, he threw off his load of wood and scattered it all over the place, went for her in a frenzy and had her down in the mud, did Our merry philanderer, and then and there in full view of everybody did his level best to mount her. It was only because some passers-by were alarmed by her screams and rushed to the rescue that she was freed and pulled out from right under his hooves; otherwise the unhappy woman would have been trampled and torn apart -- an agonizing end for her and the prospect of the death penalty as her legacy to us.'
These lies he interspersed with all sorts of other stories, all the more galling to me because I had to stay modestly silent. They aroused in the herdsmen a violent determination to do for me. 'Let's make a sacrifice of this public husband,' said one, 'this adulterer to the community; that's what his monstrous marriages deserve. Come on, young fellow,' he added, 'cut his throat here and now, throw his guts to the dogs, and keep the meat for the workforce's dinner. We'll sprinkle his skin with ash and dry it to take back to our masters; we can easily pretend that he was killed by a wolf.'
Without more ado my delinquent accuser constituted himself executioner of the herdsmen's sentence, and gleefully mocking my misfortunes and still resenting my kick -- how I regretted that it hadn't been more effective! -- started to whet a sword. But one of the rustics in the crowd intervened. 'It would be a shame,' he said, 'to kill such a fine ass and lose his labour and valuable services by passing this sentence on his amatory excesses. If we castrate him, that will put paid to his lovemaking for good and relieve you of all fear of danger, and he'll be much the stouter and stronger for it. I've known not merely many idle asses but lots of very unruly horses with an excessive sexual drive which made them wild and unmanageable, but after this operation they at once became tame and docile, quite suitable as pack-animals and submissive to any other kind of work. So, unless you strongly disagree, give me a day or two -- I've got to be at the next market meanwhile -- to fetch the instruments I need for the operation from home and come straight back to you; then I'll whip this nasty brute of a lover's thighs open and take out his manhood, and you'll find him as meek and mild as an old bell-wether.'
By this decision I was snatched from the hands of Orcus, but only to be reserved for a fate almost worse. I began to lament and mourn myself as dead -- for that was what I should be without my latter end. So I started to look round for ways of destroying myself, by a hunger-strike or jumping off a cliff -- I'd still be dead, but at least I'd be dead in one piece. I was still undecided about my choice of ending when the next morning that assassin of a boy once more led me up the mountain by the usual route. He tied me to a branch that hung down from a huge ilex, while he climbed a little way up above the path with a hatchet to cut the wood he had to fetch. At that moment there emerged from a nearby cave the huge towering head of a deadly she-bear. The instant I saw her I panicked; terrified by this sudden apparition I reared back with the whole weight of my body on my hind legs and my head high in the air, snapped my tether, and took off at top speed. Headlong and hell for leather downhill I went, hurling myself bodily through the air with my feet hardly touching the earth, until I reached the level ground below; all I wanted was to escape that monster of a bear and that even worse monster of a boy.
-- The Golden Ass, or Metamorphoses, by Apuleius, translated by E.J. Kenney
Table of Contents:
1. Hey, Did Somebody Say Something Was Going On With The Oatmeal? (6/12/12)
2. How Dare You! That's The Wrong Kind of Bullying! (6/13/12)
3. The Oatmeal v. FunnyJunk, Part III: Charles Carreon's Lifetime-Movie-Style Dysfunctional Relationship With the Internet (6/15/12)
4. The Oatmeal v. FunnyJunk, Part IV: Charles Carreon Sues Everybody (6/17/12)
5. The Oatmeal v. FunnyJunk, Part V: A Brief Review of Charles Carreon's Complaint (6/19/12)
6. The Oatmeal v. FunnyJunk, Part VI: The Electronic Frontier Foundation Steps In (6/21/12)
7. Update: Charles Carreon Files First Amended Complaint (6/25/12)
8. The Oatmeal v. FunnyJunk: Request For Pro Bono Help In Bay Area (6/27/12)
9. The Oatmeal v. FunnyJunk, Part VII: Charlie The Censor Files A Motion (6/30/12)
10. Oatmeal v. FunnyJunk, Part VIII: Charles Carreon Gets Sued, Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen Joins The Fray (7/2/12)
11. Oatmeal v. FunnyJunk, Chapter IX: Charles Carreon Dismisses His Lawsuit (7/3/12)
12. The Oatmeal v. FunnyJunk, Part X: Philanthropy > Douchebaggery (7/9/12)
13. Innocently, And With No Intent To Cause Any Mischief Whatsoever (7/26/12)
14. The Oatmeal v. Funnyjunk, Part XI: What Remains (9/10/12)
15. The Oatmeal v. FunnyJunk, Part XII: Brave Sir Charlie Ran Away (10/18/12)
16. In Which Charles Carreon Says Mostly True Things About Me In A Footnote (3/20/13)
17. Charles Carreon Encounters Actual Legal Consequences (4/12/13)
18. In Which I Offer Apologies (8/3/13)
19. An Open Letter to Charles Carreon (8/7/13)
20. Comments