We spent the next few nights in the same delightful way, and then one morning Fotis ran into my room, trembling with excitement, and told me that her mistress, having made no headway by ordinary means in her affair with the Boeotian, intended that night to become a bird and fly in at his bedroom window, and that I must make careful preparations if I wished to watch the performance.
At twilight, she led me on tip-toe, very, very quietly, up the tower stairs to the door of the cock-loft, where she signed to me to peep through a chink. I obeyed, and watched Pamphil? first undress completely and then open a small cabinet containing several little boxes, one of which she opened. It contained an ointment which she worked about with her fingers and then smeared all over her body from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head. After this she muttered a long charm to her lamp, and shook herself; and, as I watched, her limbs became gradually fledged with feathers, her arms changed into sturdy wings, her nose grew crooked and horny, her nails turned into talons, and soon there was no longer any doubt about it: Pamphil? had become an owl. She gave a querulous hoot and made a few little hopping flights until she was sure enough of her wings to glide off, away over the roof-tops.
Not having been put under any spell myself, I was utterly astonished and stood frozen to the spot. I rubbed my eyes to make sure that I was really Lucius, and that this was no waking dream. Was I perhaps going mad? I recovered my senses after a time, took hold of Fotis's hand and laid it across my eyes. 'Dearest love,' I said, 'I beg you, by these sweet breasts of yours, to grant me a tremendous favour-one which I can never hope to repay-in proof of your perfect love for me. If you do this I promise to be your slave for ever more. Honey, will you try to get hold of a little of that ointment for me? I want to be able to fly. I want to hover around you like a winged Cupid in attendance on his Goddess.'
'H'm,' she said, 'so that is your game, is it, my darling? You want to play me a foxy trick: handing me an axe and persuading me to chop off my own feet? That's all very well, but it hasn't been so easy for me all this time to keep you safe from the she-wolves of Thessaly. You would have been easy meat if I hadn't protected you with my love. Now if you become a bird, how shall I be able to keep track of you? And when will I ever see you again?'
I protested: 'All the gods in Heaven forbid that I'm such a scoundred as you make out. Listen: if I became an eagle and soared across the wide sky as Jupiter's personal courier, his thunderbolt proudly grasped in my claws, do you really suppose that even such winged glory as that would keep me from flying back every night to my love-nest in your arms? By that enchanting knot of hair on your head in which my soul lies helplessly entangled, I swear that I'm incapable by nature of loving any other woman in the whole world but my dearest Fotis. And anyhow, when I come to think of it, if that ointment really does turn me into a bird, I'll have to steer clear of the town; owls are such unlucky birds that when one blunders into a house by mistake, everyone does his best to catch it and nail it with outspread wings to the doorpost. Another thing, if I played truant from you and made love to the ladies in my owl disguise, what sort of a jolly welcome do you think they would give me? But that reminds me: once I'm an owl, what is the spell or antidote for turning me back into myself?'
'You need not worry about that,' she said. 'My mistress has taught me all the magical formulas. Not, of course, because she has a kindly feeling for me, but because when she arrives home from one of her adventures I have to prepare the necessary antidote for her to use. It really is extraordinary with what insignificant herbs one can produce a total transformation: tonight, for instance, she will need only a little anise and laurel leaves steeped in spring-water. She will drink some of the water, wash herself with the rest, and be a woman again at once. You can do the same after your flight.'
I made her reassure me on this point several times before she went, twitching with fear, up the tower stairs and brought me out one of the boxes from the casket. Hugging and kissing it I muttered a little prayer for a successful flight. Then I quickly pulled off my clothes, greedily stuck my fingers into the box and took out a large lump of ointment which I rubbed all over my body.
I stood flapping my arms, first the left and then the right, as I had seen Pamphil? do, but no little feathers appeared on them and they showed no sign of turning into wings. All that happened was that the hair on them grew coarser and coarser and the skin toughened into hide. Next, my fingers bunched together into a hard lump so that my hands became hooves, the same change came over my feet and I felt a long tail sprouting from the base of my spine. Then my face swelled, my mouth widened, my nostrils dilated, my lips hung flabbily down, and my ears shot up long and hairy. The only consoling part of this miserable transformation was the enormous increase in the size of a certain organ of mine; because I was by this time finding it increasingly difficult to meet all Fotis's demands upon it. At last, hopelessly surveying myself all over, I was obliged to face the mortifying fact that I had been transformed not into a bird, but into a plain jackass.
I wanted to curse Fotis for her stupid mistake, but found that I could no longer speak or even gesticulate; so I silently expostulated with her by sagging my lower lip and gazing sideways at her with my large, watery eyes.
When Fotis saw what had happened she beat her own face with both hands in a frenzy of self-condemnation. 'Oh, this is enough to kill me!' she wailed. 'In my flurry and fear I must have mistaken the box; two of them look exactly alike. Still, my poor creature, things are not nearly so bad as they seem, because in this case the antidote is one of the easiest to get hold of; all that you need do is to chew roses, which will at once turn you back into my Lucius. If only I had made my usual rose-garlands this evening! Then you would have been spared the inconvenience of being an ass for even a single night. At the first signs of dawn I promise faithfully to go out and fetch what you need.' Over and over again she cursed her own stupidity and carelessness, but though I was no longer Lucius, and to all appearances a complete ass, a mere beast of burden, I still retained my mental faculties. I had a long and furious debate with myself as to whether or not I ought to bite and kick Fotis to death. She was a witch, wasn't she? And a very evil one, too. But in the end I decided that it would not only be dangerous but stupid to kill the one person who could help me to regain my own shape. Drooping my head and shaking my ears resignedly, I swallowed my rage for the time being and submitted to my cruel fate. I trotted off to the stable, where I would at least have the company of my white thoroughbred who had carried me so well while I was a man.
He was there with another ass, the property of my host-my former host-Milo, and really I did expect that, if dumb beasts have any natural feelings of loyalty, my horse would know me and take pity on my plight, welcoming me to his stable with as much courtesy as if I were a foreign ambassador on a visit to the Imperial Court at Rome. But-O Hospitable Jupiter and all the Gods of Faith and Trust!-my splendid horse and Milo's horrible ass put their heads together at once, suspecting that I had designs on their food, and formed an alliance against me. The moment I approached their manger they laid their ears back, wheeled round, and started kicking me in the face. My own horse! What gratitude! Here was I, driven right away from the very barley which only a few hours before I had measured out for him with my own hands.
As I stood in my lonely corner, banished from the society of my four-footed colleagues and deciding on a bitter revenge on them next morning as soon as I had eaten my roses and become Lucius again, I noticed a little shrine of the Mare-headed Mother, the Goddess Epona, standing in a niche of the post that supported the main beam of the stable. It was wreathed with freshly gathered roses, the very antidote that I needed. I balanced hopefully on my hindlegs, pushed my forelegs as far up the post as they would go, stretched my neck to its fullest extent and shot out my lips. But by a piece of really bad luck, before I could eat any of the roses, my slave who was acting as groom happened to catch me at work. He sprang up angrily from the heap of straw on which he was lying and shouted: 'I've had quite enough trouble from this damned cuddy. First he tries to rob his stablemates and now he plays the same trick on the blessed gods! If I don't flog the sacrilegious brute until he's too lame to stir a hoof…' He groped about until he found a bundle of faggots, picked out a thick knobbly one, the biggest of the lot, and began unmercifully whacking my flanks.
A sudden loud pounding and banging on the outer gate. Distant cries of 'Thieves! Thieves!' The groom dropped his faggot and ran off in terror. The next moment, the courtyard gate burst open and armed bandits rushed in. A few neighbours hurried to Milo's assistance but the bandits beat them off easily. Their swords gleamed like the rays of the rising sun in the bright light of the torches that they carried. They had axes with them, too, which they used to break open the heavily barred door of the strong room in the central part of the house. It was stuffed with Milo's valuables, all of which they hauled out and hastily divided into a number of separate packages. However, there were more packages to carry than robbers to carry them, so they had to use their wits. They came into our stable, led the three of us out, loaded us with as many of the heavier packages as they could pile on our backs, and drove us out of the now ransacked house, threatening us with sticks. Then they hurried forward into trackless hill-country, beating us hard all the way. But one of them stayed behind as a spy; he was to follow later and report what steps were taken by the authorities to deal with the crime.
The hills were steep, my load heavy, and the journey interminable; soon I felt more dead than alive. As a Roman citizen I decided to notify the civil power and rescue myself from my dreadful predicament by appealing to the Emperor. It was already broad daylight when, as we passed through a large village where a fair was in progress, I tried to invoke the august name of Caesar in the presence of a crowd of Thessalians. I managed to shout 'O' loudly and distinctly, but that was all; I was unable to pronounce the word 'Caesar'. My discordant bray so annoyed the bandits that they whacked and poked at my miserable hide until it felt hardly fit even to make one of those leather sieves for bolting corn.
At last Jupiter the Deliverer generously offered me a chance to escape. After we had passed several farm buildings and large country houses I saw a charming little garden full of many different sorts of flowers, among them budding roses still wet with the morning dew. I gasped for joy and quickened my pace, and had almost come up to the roses, my mouth watering hopefully, when at the last moment I thought better of my project. If I suddenly ceased to be an ass and became Lucius again, the bandits would be sure to kill me, either because they took me for a wizard or for fear that I might inform against them. For the present I must lay off roses and put up with my misery a little longer by champing my bit like the beast I was.
About midday under a scorching sun, we turned off the road and presently came to a hamlet where we stopped at a private house. Two or three old men came out. Any ass could have seen from the exchange of greetings and embraces and the long conversation which followed that these were friends of the bandits, who gave them some of the plate from a package on my back and whispered what must have been a warning to keep quiet about it. When my horse and Milo's ass and I had all been unloaded, we were turned out to graze in the next paddock, but I was not gregarious enough to enjoy the company of my fellow-beasts, especially as I had not yet got accustomed to eating grass. Feeling half-starved I boldly jumped into a small vegetable patch behind the stable, where I filled my stomach with greens. When I had finished I silently invoked all the gods of Heaven, and had a good look around me. There might happen to be a flowering rose-tree in one of the gardens near by, and this was such a secluded place, well away from the road and hidden by fruit-trees, that if I could find the antidote to my four-footedness and regain my upright posture, it was unlikely that anyone would witness the transformation. While I was excitedly weighing my chances of escape, I saw, a good distance off, what looked like a dip in the ground enclosed by a small plantation of ornamental trees, and against the variegated background of leaves I made out the bright red of roses. In my imagination, which was far from being that of a mere beast, I pictured the place as a grove of Venus and the Three Graces, with the lovely colours of their royal flower glowing from a central shrine. Breathing a silent prayer to the God of Luck I galloped off at such speed that I felt more like a heavily backed race-horse than an ass. But even with this remarkable turn of speed I could not out-distance the fate that dogged my heels; for when I reached the place it was not a dip in the ground after all, but a concealed stream with thickly wooded banks, and the roses were not your fresh tender roses, dripping with honey-dew, that happily laugh at you from their thorny twigs. They were what country people call rose-laurels: cup-shaped red blossoms, growing from a long-leaved bush resembling a laurel, which have no scent at all and are deadly poison to all cattle. Finding myself still entangled in bad luck I resolved, in my despair, to commit suicide by eating these mock-roses.
As I walked hesitantly towards the bush, a young man who must have been the owner of the vegetable patch ran angrily at me with a big stick. He beat me so hard in revenge for the damage I had done that he might have killed me if I had not had the sense to defend myself by raising my rump and letting out with my hind legs. I got my own back with a succession of such hard kicks that I left him lying helpless on the slope of the hill. Then I bolted.
Unfortunately his wife-at least, I suppose she was his wife-happened to be standing higher up on the same hillside and saw him lying below her half-dead. She rushed to his rescue, shrieking: 'Kill that wicked ass! He's nearly murdered my husband!'
Her neighbours at once unchained their dogs and set them at me with: 'Sick him, boy, sick him! Tear him to bits!' It looked as if my last hour had come, because there were several of these dogs, huge mastiffs of the sort used in the amphitheatre for baiting bulls and bears. I took what seemed my last chance of survival: instead of running farther away, I doubled back to the stable as fast as I could. The villagers called off their dogs, but had great difficulty in keeping them away from me. I was tied to a staple with a strong leather strap and fiercely beaten again. That would certainly have been the end of me but for my stupidity in gorging myself on those raw greens: the blows raining on my stomach had the effect of squirting out its half-digested contents in my tormentors' faces. I was terribly loose, and the stench was so disgusting that everyone ran out, cursing and choking.
That same afternoon the bandits loaded us up again, taking care to give me by far the heaviest load to carry. I was exhausted by the long journey and the great weight on my back, my sides ached from the beatings and I could hardly walk because my unshod hooves were worn down to the quick. When we had come a good distance farther I began planning a new way of escape. We were following a road that wound along a valley above a ravine and I decided to fall down with my legs doubled under me and not to budge another inch, though the bandits beat me with sticks or even pricked me with their swords. Surely that would make them realize that I had been over-driven and was now three parts dead? Why shouldn't they grant me an honourable discharge on the grounds of ill-health? I knew that they could not afford any delay and calculated that when they had done their worst to make me get up they would naturally divide my load between the horse and the other ass and then push on, leaving me there by way of further punishment as a prey for the wolves and vultures.
This splendid plan was thwarted by my usual bad luck. Milo's ass somehow guessed what I had in mind and forestalled me: he pretended to be completely worn out, fell sprawling on the road with all his load, and lay there as though dead. He made no attempt to rise in spite of whacks and sword-pricks, not even when the bandits made a concerted effort to haul him up by all four legs, both ears and the tail. Realizing that the case was hopeless they decided after a short discussion not to delay their flight a moment longer for the sake of a foundered ass. 'The brute is as good as dead,' they told one another. They divided his load between the horse and myself, hamstrung him with a sword, dragged him off the road and toppled him down into the ravine.
The fate of my unlucky comrade scared me. I decided to play no more clever tricks and make no more splendid plans, but to show my masters that I was an honest and hard-working ass. Besides, they had been encouraging one another by saying that they were quite near their mountain cave and that their hard journey would soon be over.
One more hill, not a very steep one, and there at last we were at our destination. My horse and I were unloaded and all the treasures stowed safely away in the cave. For want of water, I lay down and rolled in the dust to refresh myself.
Here I must give a close description of the cave and its immediate surroundings. This will be a test of my literary powers and at the same time allow you to judge whether or not I was an ass as regards my ability to size up a situation. To begin with the mountain, then. It was rugged and very high, a powerful natural fortress, covered with dark woods and cut by irregular bramble-choked gullies that ran obliquely across its slopes and were flanked by inaccessible cliffs. From near the peak a spring burst out and ran shining down the sides, breaking into a number of small streams that flooded the meadows below with large sheets of standing water. The cave opened near the foot and above it rose a tall fort, built of wattles fastened on a timber frame. The lower storey was extended on all four sides into a roomy pen for stolen sheep. A quick-set hedge, instead of a wall, surrounded the cave entrance, providing the bandits with a sort of reception hall. There were no other buildings near except a small thatched hut which, as I afterwards found, was used as a listening post. Sentries, chosen by lot, were posted there every night.