BMCR 2008.11.26, Joel C. Relihan, Apuleius. The Golden Ass

Joel C.  Relihan (trans.), Apuleius. The Golden Ass. Or, A Book of
Changes.  Indianapolis/Cambridge:  Hackett, 2007.  Pp. xlv, 277; maps
4.  ISBN 978-0-87220-888-9.  $37.95.  ISBN 978-0-87220-887-2.  $12.95
(pb).

Reviewed by James J. O'Donnell, Georgetown University
([email protected])
Word count:  1236 words
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Of four softcover English translations of the Metamorphoses on my
shelves, Relihan's fresh new version is the only one to offer an image
of a donkey on the cover, and a donkey in a precarious position at
that.  The commoner sources of illustration for Apuleius are either
dreamy representations of the hormonal befuddlement of Cupid and Psyche
or exalted depictions of the high pomposity of Isiac religion.  Relihan
gets it right, as this translation does in many ways.

Relihan, admired for his study on Menippean satire and his translation
(venturesome in ways congruent with but different from this one) of
Boethius's Consolation, is the most serious scholar of Apuleius ever to
make translation the primary focus of his engagement with the text.  (A
separate annotated publication of his version of the Cupid and Psyche
episode in books 4-6 is forthcoming from the same publisher.)  That
makes the translation unusually strong and valuable.  There is ample
evidence that Relihan has worked the text as closely as any
commentator, and of course the student of this work has the Groningen
volumes on which to draw:  but Relihan's special focus is on language
and expression, and the translation benefits at many levels.  The index
presented in the volume, and even more so the fuller index presented
online by the publisher (half again as long as what's in the book) is
effectively a thematic index to the work and to some extent a guide to
translation choices Relihan has made.  Many serious readers of the
original Latin will still profit from using this index as a tool for
exploring the text's language.  (And the index is very happily keyed to
book and paragraph, not to page of this edition, so its use is
portable.)

The distinguishing feature of this translation to my eye is, however,
Relihan's vigorous attempt to bring each line fully and vividly to
life, that is, to capture the rumbustiousness of the original.  So
ingrained are the habits of dignification in modern translators, that
sobriety keeps breaking through in the best-intentioned.  (Even Graves,
who tried to lay on raffishness with a trowel, subsided too often into
merely workmanlike metaphrase.)

The attempt carries costs.  One is mild verbosity, for to capture as
much as he can of the spirit and flavor and nuance (he says he
translates for those who will read the work more than once), a rough
count suggests he doubles the word count of the original.  (So the
standard translators of Caesar's more austere text generally come in
between 1.5 and 1.7 words for each word of the original.)  The other
translations now in the market (more on this below) expose themselves
to criticism much less often, while Relihan sallies forth boldly to
take what is coming.  I can give examples, while regretting the
formulaic need of the review format that compels me to do so.  I take
as sample a passage from Met. 6.14, from the latter pages of Psyche's
travails, which offers several reflections:

dextra laevaque cautibus cavatis proserpunt ecce longa colla porrecti
saevi dracones inconivae vigiliae luminibus addictis et in perpetuam
lucem pupulis excubantibus.  iamque et ipsae semet muniebant vocales
aquae.  nam et 'discede' et 'quid facis? vide' et 'quid agis? cave' et
'fuge' et 'peribis' subinde clamant.

Relihan:  What should she see to the left and right of the spring but
sadistic serpents slithering out of hollows in the rock, their eyes in
the service of their unblinking sentry duty, the pupils of their eyes
in sleepless vigilance, endlessly open in ceaseless sight.  And now the
very waters were singing out, seeking to protect themselves.  For they
cry out forever and a day, Go back!, and What do you think you're
doing?  Watch out! and What are you up to?  Look out! and Run away!
and You are going to die!.

Observe:  (1) for ecce, "What should she see"--though translators
regularly neglect the word entirely, and I might prefer to tie it more
closely to the (atypically overlooked and unrendered by Relihan) words
that follow ("Right and left from rocky hollows there come snaking
forth--look at how they have their long necks extended!--fierce dragons
. . ."): (2) for saevi "sadistic" (defended implicitly by the entry
s.v. in the index, gathering passages with saevi/saevitia:  a good
interpretive point, though English "sadistic" carries a fair amount of
baggage; (3) in a curious conservative choice, serpents and not
dragons; (4) subinde rendered "forever and a day", a colloquialism that
exaggerates more than Apuleius does here--for all that exaggeration is
an Apuleian inclination.  The sentence structure around the reptilian
eyes is somewhat clunky--but so is A.'s--and the alliteration of
"ceaseless sight" connives with the ooh-ing assonance of "pupulis
excubantibus" to remind us of A.'s habits of wordplay.

In sum, here as elsewhere, Relihan pushes the envelope beyond customary
philologist's translation practice.  The examples I have given show him
going about as far as he goes--that is, he is venturesome but I've not
caught him breaking the text's leash entirely.  Every choice can be
defended.  It's just that there are more choices needing defending than
most other translators allow themselves.

The serious competition for this version in the paperback market is
clearly that of E.J. Kenney in the Penguin edition.  By contrast to
both Walsh and Graves (the others I have examined), Kenney is fair and
fluent and clearly gets what Apuleius is saying and manages to
represent that in English; Hanson's Loeb is his equal (and enjoys a
genuinely witty index added by George Goold when death unforgiveably
mistook Art for someone underserving of many more years and deprived
the Loeb volumes of much learning and style).  (Graves sometimes misses
what A. is saying, while Walsh sometimes fails to get it into
intelligible English and settles for accurate translationese.)  Both
Kenney and Relihan provide good annotation and helpful maps.  Relihan's
index (see above) is clearly superior to anything else for this book.

In the end, the choice is one that I have faced in other ancient works,
especially when choosing for the classroom.  Shall I prefer the most
accurate, careful, and precise representation of the original, or shall
I choose the most persuasive and vivid impersonation of the original?
For Augustine's Confessions, for example, where my judgment is the most
considered, Ryan's older and Boulding's newer versions are splendidly
exact, but I confess to having told students at times to prefer
Pine-Coffin's Penguin, which is often more paraphrase than translation,
but which reads well and quickly and effectively.  Relihan is far
better a translator than Pine-Coffin and a far more astute reader of
Apuleius than many scholars who write about him at length, but he takes
chances that some will deprecate.  Those very risks will work to the
considerable advantage of the readers he brings to Apuleius for the
first time.

Relihan's usefulness may be greatest for two ends of the spectrum:
that nai+ve and untutored reader, who simply wants to read a naughty
(or is it pious? is there a difference?) novel from antiquity, and the
serious scholar, who wants to turn over every phrase thoughtfully and
appreciates the provocation and the implicit debate with other
interpretations that Relihan's sophistication brings to bear, while
enjoying the impersonation and relishing the cleverer touches.  In
between those two readers, there will be more conservative souls who
will not be pleased.  Let them select a version with a dreamy or
pompous cover.  I'll take the donkey.