# How Meroe the Witch turned diverse persons into miserable beasts explained — The Golden Ass

> Chapter companion for The Golden Ass by Apuleius.

## What happens

Aristomenus recounts how the witch Meroe transformed her lover into a beaver, a wine-seller into a frog, an advocate into a ram, and caused a woman to remain pregnant for eight years. When the townspeople threatened to stone her, she used her enchantments to confine them in their houses for two days, then released them after they swore not to harm her. She also transported the house of the ordinance's author to a distant hilltop town. Socrates and Aristomenus, fearing Meroe's power, decide to flee before dawn.

## Themes in this chapter

### Magic and Sorcery

Meroe's transformations and enchantments demonstrate the pervasive power of witchcraft in the narrative.

### Violence and Cruelty

Meroe's vengeful acts, such as turning a rival into a beaver and threatening the town, highlight cruelty.

### Deception and Appearance

The transformations blur the line between human and animal, questioning true identity.

## Character check-ins

### Meroe

The witch who transforms people into animals and uses enchantments to control the town.

### Socrates

Aristomenus's friend who listens to the tale and agrees to flee with him.

### Aristomenus

The narrator who recounts Meroe's deeds and expresses fear of her power.

## Key lines

> she turned into a beaver, because he loved another woman beside her: and the reason why she transformed him into such a beast is, for that it is his nature, when he perceiveth the hunters and hounds to draw after him, to bite off his members, and lay them in the way, that the hounds may be at a stop when they find them

She changed her lover into a beaver because he loved another woman, and she chose that animal because beavers are known to bite off their own genitals to escape hunters.

_Meroe's transformation is both a punishment and a symbolic emasculation._

> she caused, that the wife of a certain lover that she had should never be delivered of her child, but according to the computation of all men, it is eight years past since the poor woman first began to swell

She cursed her lover's wife to remain pregnant for eight years, never giving birth.

_This prolonged pregnancy is a grotesque display of Meroe's power over life and time._

> she conveyed the principal author of this ordinance about midnight, with all his house, the walls, the ground, and the foundation, into another town, distant from thence an hundred miles

At midnight, she transported the instigator of the stoning decree, along with his entire house and its foundation, to a town a hundred miles away.

_Meroe's magic can relocate entire buildings, showing her immense supernatural strength._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_golden_ass_se/chapters/iv
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_golden_ass_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_golden_ass_se/chapters