Ephraim LYTLE A Narratological Argument for the Apuleian Authorship of the Spurcum Additamentum (Met. X.21)

Spurcum Additamentum is the modern and unwarranted designation of a much abbreviated passage appearing in the margin of the 14^th century manuscript _ of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses in the Laurentian Library. Concerning as it does the peculiar and, some have argued, unnecessarily graphic details of bestiality, Hildebrand, in his 1842 Opera Omnia, declared that the additamentum (Met. X, 21) does not belong to Apuleius, “qui nefariam turpitudinem in his verborum involucris non tulit” (1968, v. I, 930). Subsequent scholars occasionally renewed the debate, the majority agreeing with Fraenkel that the additamentum is the work of a “pedant” who “pursued his queer sport” (Eranos 1953, 153). These arguments against Apuleian authorship are, for the most part, strictly philological, although less than convincing, and in them and one can often see, to butcher a metaphor, the ‘morality’ horses pulling the ‘stylistic’ cart. As a result the additamentum is largely ignored, while its true complexity within the narrative structure remains thoroughly misunderstood. Stated plainly, the thesis of this presentation is that a number of distinctly Apuleian narrative techniques converge in the additamentum with a harmony that precludes any authorship other than Apuleian. Furthermore, the additamentum fills a vital hole in a scene that Apuleius’ audience is expected to recognize from its parallel in the breeding barn, the precise details of which can be discovered in the texts of Varro and Columella.

Of the narrative techniques Apuleius employs, one emerges as paramount: Apuleius roots his narrator firmly in an abundance of carefully observed animal behavior, for which his audience could summon immediate, visual coefficients. After all, asses, Columella tells us, were household fixtures, necessaria, in antiquity (De re rust. 7.1.3). Concurrent with this abundant detail, Apuleius creates doubts for the reader about the reliability of his narrator, Lucius, whose first-person explanations of his own behavior are often wildly inappropriate and always humorous. Lucius’ unreliability thereby forces the reader to rely exclusively on his or her own knowledge of animal behavior as a foundational standpoint for understanding what is occurring in the narrative. Apuleius forces the reader to “see” a narrative reality that is radically different than Lucius’. A brief examination of this technique, illustrated by abundant examples from the text, provides an excellent introduction to the narratological framework underlying Metamorphoses X, 20-22, a scene that has been generally misinterpreted.

Far from being a “most tender and touching scene” in which “our shock may be mediated by the realization that Lucius is not actually a beast” (E. Finklepearl, 1998, 155), the scene actually parallels step-by-step the difficult process of mating an ass with a mare. Apuleius’ audience is intended to “see” the narrative reality and immediately recognize the absurdity of Lucius’ untrustworthy narration, in which, for example, Lucius describes the secretions of a jenny applied to his nostrils (Columella 2.7.8) as perfume. An unnatural and physically manipulated encounter requiring the careful attention of a handler is described by Lucius in the misplaced language of love. In light of this interpretation of the scene as a whole, a close examination of the additamentum unveils a narrative reality obscured by our relative unfamiliarity with animal behavior. Furthermore, the additamentum is discovered to fill perfectly what is otherwise a significant gap in Apuleius’ narrative, in a narrative voice and language perfectly consistent with the work as a whole.