unlusty sleep I was constrained to lie still.




THE SIXTEENTH CHAPTER


How Fotis brought Apuleius to see her Mistresse enchant.

On a day Fotis came running to me in great feare, and said that her
mistresse, to work her sorceries on such as shee loved, intended the
night following to transforme her selfe into a bird, and to fly whither
she pleased. Wherefore she willed me privily to prepare my selfe to see
the same. And when midnight came she led me softly into a high chamber,
and bid me look thorow the chink of a doore: where first I saw how shee
put off all her garments, and took out of a certain coffer sundry kindes
of Boxes, of the which she opened one, and tempered the ointment therein
with her fingers, and then rubbed her body therewith from the sole of
the foot to the crowne of the head, and when she had spoken privily with
her selfe, having the candle in her hand, she shaked the parts of her
body, and behold, I perceived a plume of feathers did burgen out, her
nose waxed crooked and hard, her nailes turned into clawes, and so she
became an Owle. Then she cried and screeched like a bird of that kinde,
and willing to proove her force, mooved her selfe from the ground by
little and little, til at last she flew quite away.

Thus by her sorcery shee transformed her body into what shape she would.
Which when I saw I was greatly astonied: and although I was inchanted by
no kind of charme, yet I thought that I seemed not to have the likenesse