Midterm - Apuleius, Metamorphoses Prologue

Apuleius' Metamorphoses is the major work being studied in my class this semester. We read all of Relihan's translation of it in English, and we are reading select passages in Latin.

The Golden Ass is a traditional name for Apuleius' work,

although he called it the Metamorphoses, which is more descriptive of the theme and plot.

My midterm is this afternoon, and there is also homework due. Book III only arrived last night, so I'm not completely ready. I'll spend my lunch hour at work looking over what I need, and maybe I'll guess correctly.
This will be, sadly, a literal translation. It will not be poetic. Perhaps in future posts, I will do both a literal and a poetic translation.

Latin	Vocabulary	Translation
At ego tibi sermone isto Milesio varias fabulas conseram auresque tuas benivolas lepido susurro permulceam — modo si papyrum Aegyptiam argutia Nilotici calami inscriptam non spreveris inspicere — , figuras fortunasque hominum in alias imagines conversas et in se rursus mutuo nexu refectas ut mireris. Exordior. "Quis ille?" Paucis accipe. Hymettos Attica et Isthmos Ephyrea et Taenaros Spartiatica, glebae felices aeternum libris felicioribus conditae, mea vetus prosapia est; ibi linguam Atthidem primis pueritiae stipendiis merui. Mox in urbe Latia advena studiorum Quiritium indigenam sermonem aerumnabili labore nullo magistro praeeunte aggressus excolui. En ecce praefamur veniam, siquid exotici ac forensis sermonis rudis locutor offendero. Iam haec equidem ipsa vocis immutatio desultoriae scientiae stilo quem accessimus respondet. Fabulam Graecanicam incipimus. Lector intende: laetaberis.	perculeam spreveris exordior indigenam aggressus aerumnabili excolui praefamur equidem immutatio desultoriae lector	But I will join together various tales for you in that Melisian speech and I will please your friendly ears with a sugary whisper - only if you do not scorn to look closely at an Egyptian papyrus having been written with a sharp Nilotician pen - the figures and fortunes of men having been turned into other images and rebuilt in turn into themselves again so that you might marvel. I commence. "Who is that man?" Accept these few details. I am from Hymettos in Athens, and the isthmus at Ephyrea and the Taenaros in Sparta; these are my family and homelands of old, rich blobs of soil sowed eternally with richer books; here I in my first studies of boyhood I conquered the Attic language. Soon in the foreign Latin city, a foreigner to zeal of the Quirites, I improve my native the study of the Romans, I attack and improve my native speaking with distressing labor and no teacher guiding.  And behold, we mention in advance your indulgence, if I as the speaker will offend with the strange and rude speeches of the Roman forum. Now  indeed, this change of voice with a pen which we come near corresponds to actions of circus riders, leaping back and forth. We begin the Greekish story. Reader, start your engines: you will be blown away.