THE FORTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER
How the parents and friends of Apuleius heard news that he was alive and
in health.
N the mean season newes was carried into my countrey (as swift as the
flight of birds, or as the blast of windes) of the grace and benefit
which I received of the goddesse, and of my fortune worthy to be had in
memory. Then my parents friends and servants of our house understanding
that I was not dead, as they were falsely informed, came towards me with
great diligence to see me, as a man raised from death to life: and
I which never thought to see them againe, was as joyfull as they,
accepting and taking in good part their honest gifts and oblations that
they gave, to the intent I might buy such things as was necessarie for
my body: for after I had made relation unto them of all my pristine
miserie, and present joyes, I went before the face of the goddesse and
hired me a house within the cloister of the temple to the end I might
continually be ready to the service of the goddesse, and ordinarily
frequent the company of the priests, whereby I would wholy become devout
to the goddesse, and an inseparable worshipper of her divine name:
It fortuned that the goddesse appeared to me oftetimes in the night
perswading and commanding me to take the order of her religion, but I,
though I was indued with a desirous good will, yet the feare of the
same withheld me considering her obeysance was hard and difficile, the
chastitie of the Priests intolerable, and the life fraile and subject to
manie inconveniences. Being thus in doubt, I refrained my selfe from all
those things as seemed impossible.
On a night the great priest appeared unto me, presenting his lap full of treasure, and when I demanded what it signified, he answered, that it was sent me from the
