Alas, Hellas!

As I wrote last October about Greek vs. Latin, "In all honesty, if I could only learn one, Greek would win hands down."

Also last autumn, I posted to my (much-neglected) commonplace journal about Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and Latin. This was my favorite quotation:

More [Victorian] students could read Greek with some fluency, though the lazy or thick of mind had to help as Greek works began to be buffered by translations - into Latin. (Apparently, if one couldn't read Latin, he had no business trying to drink at the springs of Hellas anyway) [127].

My dear husband, who studied Latin for four years, thought that was hilarious. Why yes, we are geeks. Amusement aside, this excerpt spoke to me:

Greek is a more supple language than Latin; the tongue of Plato doesn't tend to lay marble slabs and erect domes the way that of Cicero and Virgil can. But its suppleness makes it more elastic. It stretches. A Greek sentence breathes in a way a Latin one rarely does. To say that the poetic mind prefers Greek while the prosaic one opts for Latin would be simplistic - and in some signal cases badly wrong - though some so claim, and a truth may lie somewhere amid the dregs. Greek nouns chime a bit more brightly; prose rhythm is smoother and usually swifter. Sounded from clear pipes, the melody of Greek intoxicates (180).

And before I forget, here's the opening paragraph from Learn Ancient Greek:

Talk about learning ancient Greek and someone is bound to ask 'Ancient Greek? What use is that?' The answer, I suppose, depends on whether you think pleasure is useful. Being a joie de vivre man myself, I can think of few things more useful than pleasure, but I do not want to stop anyone being as miserable as sin if they so choose.

Well said!