The Golden Ass

Apuleius · c. 170 CE · Novel · Roman · Classical

Lucius, travelling in Thessaly and curious about witchcraft, talks his way into a sorceress's ointments and applies the wrong one. As a donkey he is stolen, beaten and sold on through bandits, millers, cooks and cultists, collecting their stories as he goes, among them Cupid and Psyche. The only Latin novel to survive entire.

Open The Golden Ass in the archive — filters, lineage graph and full facet browsing.

Lineage

• takes its title from ↑ Metamorphoses
  Ovid · 8 CE · Poem
• ↓ Beauty and the Beast
  Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont · c. 1756 CE · Folktale — influenced by this
• ↓ Cupid and Psyche
  Roman myth · c. 170 CE · Myth / Legend — contained in this
• ↓ Daphnis and Chloe
  Longus · c. 200 CE · Novel — parallels this
• ↓ The Decameron
  Giovanni Boccaccio · c. 1353 CE · Short Story — influenced by this

Attributes

Closest analogues

• Journey to the West
  Wu Cheng'en · 1592 CE · Novel

  55% · 12 shared
  NovelComedyAdventureTransformationTemptationFaith & DoubtTricksterMetamorphosisThe BeastThe Journeyvs SelfComic
• Metamorphoses
  Ovid · 8 CE · Poem

  45% · 11 shared
  TransformationClassicalTricksterShapeshifterFrame NarrativeMetamorphosisThe BeastFlowersvs Fate / Godsvs SelfRoman
• The Adventures of Pinocchio
  Carlo Collodi · 1883 CE · Novel

  41% · 10 shared
  NovelTransformationTemptationTricksterPicaresqueMetamorphosisThe Beastvs SelfComicAllegorical
• O Brother, Where Art Thou?
  Coen Brothers · 2000 CE · Film

  41% · 9 shared
  ComedyAdventureTemptationEverymanTricksterThe BeastThe Journeyvs Fate / GodsComic
• A Midsummer Night's Dream
  William Shakespeare · c. 1595 CE · Play

  41% · 9 shared
  ComedyTransformationTricksterShapeshifterFrame NarrativeMetamorphosisFlowersvs SelfComic
• Gil Blas
  Alain-René Lesage · 1715 CE · Novel

  39% · 10 shared
  NovelComedySatireAdventureEverymanTricksterPicaresqueThe Journeyvs SelfComic