[B-Greek] re.. Greek: "A Mere Plague and Torment"
Leonard Isaksson
leonardo1orchardcity at mac.com
Fri Jan 11 09:44:31 EST 2008
Thank you for the selection from the antediluvian and curmudgeon.
Leonard Isaksson
On Jan 11, 2008, at 6:51 AM, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
> My morning blog-scan came to the old curmudgeon (Michael Gilleland,
> self-styled Laudator temporis acti, http://tinyurl.com/2p5tv7) and
> lighted upon this interesting citation from Andrew Lang, notable
> elsewise and as a scholar and translator of Homer):
>
> "As to Greek, for years it seemed a mere vacuous terror; one invented
> for one's self all the current arguments against "compulsory Greek."
> What was the use of it, who ever spoke in it, who could find any sense
> in it, or any interest? A language with such cruel superfluities as a
> middle voice and a dual; a language whose verbs were so fantastically
> irregular, looked like a barbaric survival, a mere plague and torment.
> So one thought till Homer was opened before us."
>
> No, not Homer Simpson, but the blind bard of Chios, as tradition
> speaks of him, rightly or wrongly. I suspect that many a seminarian
> would harbor the same notion that ancient Greek is "a mere plague and
> torment." And while the ability to read the NT in its original tongue
> is undoubtedly a prime desideratum for them, I think it remains a
> valid observation that reading Homer, once one has scaled that lofty
> peak, is a sheer joy and delight -- all that Keats found even in
> Chapman's translation.
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Ret)
>
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list