from Book 11 of
About the first watch of the night I was aroused
by sudden panic. Looking up I saw the full orb of the Moon shining with
peculiar luster and that very moment emerging from the waves of the sea.
Then the thought came to me that this was the hour of silence and
loneliness when my prayers might avail. For I knew that the Moon was the
primal Goddess of supreme sway; that all human beings are the creatures of
her providence; that not only cattle and wild beasts but even inorganic
objects are vitalized by the divine influence of her light; that all the
bodies which are on earth, or in the heavens, or in the sea, increase when
she waxes, and decline when she wanes. Considering this, therefore, and
feeling that Fate was now satiated with my endless miseries and at last
licensed a hope of salvation, I determined to implore the august image of
the risen Goddess.
So, shaking off my tiredness, I scrambled to my
feet and walked straight into the sea in order to purify myself. I
immersed my head seven times because, according to the divine Pythagoras,
that number is specially suited for all ritual acts; and then, speaking
with lively joy, I lifted my tear-wet face in supplication to the
irresistible Goddess:
"Queen of Heaven, whether you are fostering
Ceres the motherly nurse of all growth, who, gladdened at the discovery of
your lost daughter, abolished the brutish nutriment of the primitive acorn
and pointed the way to gentler food, as is yet shown in the tilling of the
fields of Eleusis; or whether you are celestial Venus who in the first
moment of Creation mingled the opposing sexes in the generation of mutual
desires, and who, after sowing in humanity the seeds of indestructible
continuing life, are now worshiped in the wave-washed shrine of Paphos; or
whether you are the sister of Phoebus, who by relieving the pangs of
childbirth travail with soothing remedies have brought safe into the world
lives innumerable, and who are now venerated in the thronged sanctuary of
Ephesus; or whether you are Proserpine, terrible with the howls of
midnight, whose triple face has power to ward off all the assaults of
ghosts and to close the cracks in the earth, and who wander through many a
grove, propitiated in divers manners, illuminating the walls of all cities
with beams of female light, nurturing the glad seeds in the earth with
your damp heat, and dispensing abroad your dim radiance when the sun has
abandoned us - O by whatever name, and whatever rites, and in whatever
form, it is permitted to invoke you, come now and succour me in the hour
of my calamity. Support my broken life, and give me rest and peace after
the tribulations of my lot. Let there be an end to the toils that weary
me, and an end to the snares that beset me. Remove from me the hateful
shape of a beast, and restore me to the sight of those that
love me. Restore me to Lucius, my lost self. But if an offended god
pursues me implacably, then grant me death at least since life is denied
me."
Having thus poured forth my prayer and given an
account of my bitter sufferings, I drowsed and fell asleep on the same
sand-couch as before. But scarcely had I closed my eyes before a god-like
face emerged from the midst of the sea with lineaments that gods
themselves would revere. Then gradually I saw the whole body, resplendent
image that it was, rise out of the scattered deep and stand beside me.
I shall now be so brave as to attempt a
description of this marvelous form, if the poverty of human language will
not altogether distort what I have to say, or if the divinity herself will
deign to lend me a rich enough stock of eloquent phrase. First, then, she
had an abundance of hair that fell gentle in dispersed ringlets upon the
divine neck. A crown of interlaced wreaths and varying flowers rested
upon her head; and in its midst, just over the brow, there hung a plain
circlet resembling a mirror or rather a miniature moon - for it emitted a
soft clear light. This ornament was supported on either side by vipers
that rose from the furrows of the earth; and above it blades of grain were
disposed. Her garment, dyed many colors, was woven of fine flax. One
part was gleaming white; another was yellow as the crocus; another was
flamboyant with the red of roses. But what obsessed my gazing eyes by far
the most was her pitch-black cloak that shone with a dark glow. It was
wrapped around her, passing from under the right arm over the left
shoulder and fastened with a knot like the boss of a shield. Part of it
fell down in pleated folds and swayed gracefully with a knotted fringe
along the hem. Upon the embroidered edges and over the whole surface
sprinkled stars were burning; and in the center a mid-month moon breathed
forth her floating beams. Lastly, a garland wholly composed of every kind
of fruit and flower clung of its own accord to the fluttering border of
that splendid robe.
Many strange things were among her accoutrements.
In her right hand she held a brazen sistrum, a flat piece of metal curved
like a girdle, through which there passed some little rods - and when with
her arm she vibrated these triple chords they produced a sharp shrill cry.
In her left hand she bore an oblong golden vessel shaped like a boat, on
the handle of which, set at the most conspicuous angle, there coiled an
asp raising its head and puffing out its throat. The shoes that covered
her ambrosial feet were plaited from the palm, emblem of victory.
Such was the goddess as breathing forth the spices
of pleasant Arabia she condescended with her divine voice to address
me.
"Behold, Lucius," she said, "moved
by your prayer I come to you - I, the natural mother of all life, the
mistress of the elements, the first child of time, the supreme divinity,
the queen of those in hell, the first among those in heaven, the uniform
manifestation of all gods and goddesses - I, who govern by my nod the
crests of life in the sky, the purifying wafts of the ocean, and the
lamentable silences of hell - I, whose single godhead is venerated all
over the earth under manifold forms, varying rites, and changing names.
Thus, the Phrygians that are the oldest human stock call me Pessinuntia,
Mother of the Gods. The aboriginal races of Attica call me Cecropian
Minerva. The Cyprians in their island-hhome call me Paphian Venus. The
archer Cretans call me Diana Dictynna. The three-tongued Sicilians call me
Stygian Proserpine. The Eleusinians call me the ancient goddess Ceres.
Some call me Juno. Some call me Bellona. Some call me Hecate. Some call me
Rhamnusia. But those who are enlightened by the earliest rays of that
divinity the sun, the Ethiopians, the Arii, and the Egyptians who excel in
antique lore, all worship me with their ancestral ceremonies and call me
by my true name, Queen Isis. . . . "
- Lucius Apuleius
(trans. Jack Lindsay)