In Book 6 of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, Lucius contemplates his possible death at the hands of the robbers. After one robber threatens to throw him off a cliff, he remarks to himself how easily such an act would kill him (Met. 6.26):

Lucius seems to contradict the description of his metamorphosis at 3.24: pili mei crassantur in setas, et cutis tenella duratur in corium, ‘my hair thickens into bristles and my thin skin hardens into hide’. Met. 6.26 suggests that Lucius’ metamorphosis may not be as complete as it initially seemed: his skin is not the thick hide of an ass but the delicate membrane of a leech. This passage is further complicated by a textual dispute: where all modern editions and most translations read hirudinis, ‘leech’, our earliest and best manuscripts have hirundinis, ‘swallow’.Footnote ¹ I propose that we should restore ‘swallow’ on the testimony of these manuscripts and because it better reflects Lucius’ initial desire for an avian rather than an asinine transformation. My examination of this passage will also highlight the liminal nature of Lucius’ metamorphosis. Despite his apparent physical transformation, he remains caught between the human and the animal worlds in both mind and body.

Our earliest manuscripts of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses are the eleventh-century F (Laur. 68.2) and its twelfth-century copy φ (Laur. 29.2). All other extant manuscripts derive from F or from its copies.Footnote ² While both F and φ read hirundinis (or hyrundinis, in the case of φ),Footnote ³ editors from the early twentieth century onwards—including Giarratano, Helm and Zimmerman—print hirudinis with the apparatus criticus noting variations of ‘hirundinis F, em. ς’ or ‘hirundinis F, corr. v’; the sigla ς and v indicate any manuscript made after φ, any printed edition of the text, and/or conjectures made by early scholars.Footnote ⁴ The only citation of a manuscript attesting hirudinis may be found in Oudendorp's 1796 edition and commentary: he claims that the reading is from the codex Fuxensis, a lost manuscript of uncertain date and quality.Footnote ⁵ Finally, the editio princeps of the Metamorphoses has hirudinis, but subsequent reprints in 1488 and 1493 have hirundinis.Footnote ⁶ Given the later change and the fact that the editio princeps mimics the script of medieval manuscripts, including the abbreviation of un as ũ, I suspect hirudinis was a mistake by a copyist or typesetter who neglected to place a ˜ over the u.

About a century after de Buxis's later editions established hirundinis as the standard, many scholars began to prefer hirudinis.Footnote ⁷ The matter was far from settled, however. The commentaries of Oudendorp (1786) and Hildebrand (1842) offer insight into the debate. Oudendorp prints hirudinis, explaining that earlier editors preferred hirudo ‘quia hirundinis cutis non tenuior, quam aliarum avium’, ‘because the skin of a swallow is no thinner than that of other birds’.Footnote ⁸ He thinks that the word should be hirundinis, however, ‘quae saltem magis accedat ad asini magnitudinem’, ‘because at least [a swallow] is nearer in size to an ass’.Footnote ⁹ Hildebrand, by contrast, prints hirundinis on the authority of the best manuscripts, but prefers hirudinis, because a hairless leech is harmed more easily than a swallow, whose skin is protected by feathers.Footnote ¹⁰ The debate does not seem to have been settled until the twentieth century, when Giarratano and Helm—both drawing on Oudendorp—printed hirudinis.Footnote ¹¹ What Oudendorp and Hildebrand's commentaries make clear is how they and others sought to interpret 6.26 based on their own perceptions of the relative sizes of leeches, swallows and asses and the thinness of their skins.

In antiquity, leeches are never referred to as thin-skinned. In fact, neither their skins nor their bodies are described in detail.Footnote ¹² In Latin, leeches have two qualities: they adhere and they suck blood. These qualities are the focus of medical discussions, where they are frequently referred to as sanguisugae.Footnote ¹³ In literature, hirudo may be used metaphorically to describe greedy men.Footnote ¹⁴ Natural historical works tend to focus on the harm leeches may cause humans or animals if swallowed.Footnote ¹⁵ In Apol. 8, Apuleius relates a well-known anecdote about a bird, the trochilos, that removes leeches from the teeth of crocodiles.Footnote ¹⁶ In Greek texts as well, leeches are predominantly bloodsuckers.Footnote ¹⁷ In fact, one etymologist suggests that βδέλλα, ‘leech’, derives from βδάλλω, ‘to milk’.Footnote ¹⁸ In both Greek and Latin, then, leeches are characterized by their primary activity rather than by their physical appearance.

If Lucius does not have the skin of a leech, does the skin of a swallow work any better? Swallows are no more thin-skinned in Latin than are leeches. The reference in Met. 6.26 to tenue membranulum, however, fits better with winged creatures. Although the neuter diminutive membranulum is rare, membrana is used of the wings of insects, flying fish and bats.Footnote ¹⁹ The imagery of birds and wings is a notable feature of the Metamorphoses: one has only to recall Lucius’ initial desire to be transformed into a bird (3.22–4). Although he envisions himself as an owl or eagle rather than as a swallow, the novel marks an opposition between birds, with their supernatural and divine associations, and the lowly quadruped Lucius becomes. In Book 6, Lucius’ asinine body is twice more contrasted with those of winged creatures. At the beginning of 6.26, when the robber threatens to throw Lucius off a cliff, he races back to their lair, nam timor ungulas mihi alas fecerat, ‘for fear had turned my hooves into wings’. Later, at 6.30, Lucius begins to limp and a robber comments, ‘at paulo ante pinnatam Pegasi uincebas celeritatem’, ‘“But a little while ago you were surpassing the winged speed of Pegasus!”’ The end of Book 6 creates a sustained comparison between winged swiftness and the slowness of Lucius the injured donkey.

The primary comparison in the novel, of course, is between Lucius as human and Lucius as animal. Lucius differentiates his human and animal selves, referring to them as ‘my Lucius’, ‘my former Lucius’, ‘my future Lucius’ and ‘my ass’ (3.23, 3.27, 9.13, 10.29).Footnote ²⁰ In 6.26, he contrasts his animal body and his human mind, exhorting himself to ‘take up your masculum animum’, which may be understood as ‘human intellect’. Yet, this distinction began to blur even before his metamorphosis: after watching Pamphile's transformation, he says, quiduis aliud magis uidebar esse quam Lucius, ‘I seemed to be something other than Lucius’ (3.22). After his metamorphosis he remarks, ego uero, quamquam perfectus asinus et pro Lucio iumentum, sensum tamen retinebam humanum, ‘In truth, though I was a complete ass and beast of burden instead of Lucius, I none the less retained my human intelligence’ (3.26). At other points, he suggests that his mind may have been as affected as his body. To give a single example: at the end of 6.26, Lucius expresses concern that, even if he does flee, no one will take him in, but he dismisses this as haec quidem inepta et prorsus asinina cogitatio, ‘a silly and completely asinine line of reasoning’.Footnote ²¹ His seemingly asinine body also transgresses the human-animal divide, particularly with respect to food and sex.Footnote ²² He expresses sexual desire for both mares and a human woman (7.16, 10.21–2) and prefers human to animal food (4.22, 10.13–17), even suggesting that his stomach cannot digest foods usually eaten by asses (4.1, 4.3). Yet, these factors—intellect, digestion and even sexual desire—are all internal. Met. 6.26 is unique in its suggestion that Lucius’ external body may also exist in a liminal state. It provides an opportunity to re-examine not only the text of the novel but also the nature of its protagonist's transformation. Although Lucius expects his metamorphosis to be entirely physical, it changes his internal sense of identity. And even where his physical transformation seems undisputed, he may not in the end have the skin of an ass but that of a swallow.