A Handbook for Latin Clubs Part 18

A PLEA FOR THE CLa.s.sICS[1]

A Boston gentleman declares, By all the G.o.ds above, below, That our degenerate sons and heirs Must let their Greek and Latin go!

Forbid, O Fate, we loud implore, A dispensation harsh as that; What! wipe away the sweets of yore; The dear "_amo, amas, amat?_"

The sweetest hour the student knows Is not when poring over French, Or twisted in Teutonic throes, Upon a hard collegiate bench; 'Tis when on roots and kais and gars He feeds his soul and feels it glow, Or when his mind transcends the stars With "_Zoa mou, sas agapo!_"

So give our bright, ambitious boys An inkling of these pleasures, too-- A little smattering of the joys Their dead and buried fathers knew; And let them sing--while glorying that Their sires so sang, long years ago-- The songs "_amo, amas, amat_"

And "_Zoa mou, sas agapo!_"

--Eugene Field

[Footnote in original book (published 1916): Copyright. Used by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons.]

ON AN OLD LATIN TEXT BOOK

I remember the very day when the schoolmaster gave it to me.... And I remember that the rather stern and aquiline face of our teacher relaxed into mildness for a moment. Both we and our books must have looked very fresh and new to him, though we may all be a little battered now; at least, my _New Latin Tutor_ is. It is a very precious book, and it should be robed in choice Turkey morocco, were not the very covers too much a part of the a.s.sociation to be changed. For between them I gathered the seed-grain of many harvests of delight; through this low archway I first looked upon the immeasurable beauty of words....

What liquid words were these: _aqua_, _aura_, _unda_! All English poetry that I had yet learned by heart--it is only children who learn by heart, grown people "commit to memory"--had not so awakened the vision of what literature might mean. Thenceforth all life became ideal....

Then human pa.s.sion, tender, faithful, immortal, came also by and beckoned. "But let me die," she said. "Thus, thus it delights me to go under the shades." Or that infinite tenderness, the stronger even for its opening moderation of utterance, the last sigh of Aeneas after Dido,--

Nec me meminisse pigebit Elissam Dum memor ipse mihi, dum spiritus hos regit artus....

Or, with more definite and sublime grandeur, the vast forms of Roman statesmans.h.i.+p appear: "Today, Romans, you behold the commonwealth, the lives of you all, estates, fortunes, wives and children, and the seat of this most renowned empire, this most fortunate and beautiful city, preserved and restored to you by the distinguished love of the immortal G.o.ds, and by my toils, counsels, and dangers."

What great thoughts were found within these pages, what a Roman vigor was in these maxims! "It is Roman to do and suffer bravely." "It is sweet and glorious to die for one's country." "He that gives himself up to pleasure, is not worthy the name of a man."...

There was nothing harsh or stern in this book, no cynicism, no indifference; but it was a flower-garden of lovely out-door allusions, a gallery of great deeds; and as I have said before, it formed the child's first real glimpse into the kingdom of words.

I was once asked by a doctor of divinity, who was also the overseer of a college, whether I ever knew any one to look back with pleasure upon his early studies in Latin and Greek. It was like being asked if one looked back with pleasure on summer mornings and evenings. No doubt those languages, like all others, have fared hard at the hands of pedants; and there are active boys who hate all study, and others who love the natural sciences alone. Indeed, it is a hasty a.s.sumption, that the majority of boys hate Latin and Greek. I find that most college graduates, at least, retain some relish for the memory of such studies, even if they have utterly lost the power to masticate or digest them.

"Though they speak no Greek, they love the sound on't." Many a respectable citizen still loves to look at his Horace or Virgil on the shelf where it has stood undisturbed for a dozen years; he looks, and thinks that he too lived in Arcadia.... The books link him with culture, and universities, and the traditions of great scholars.

On some stormy Sunday, he thinks, he will take them down. At length he tries it; he handles the volume awkwardly, as he does his infant; but it is something to be able to say that neither book nor baby has been actually dropped. He likes to know that there is a tie between him and each of these possessions, though he is willing, it must be owned, to leave the daily care of each in more familiar hands....

I must honestly say that much of the modern outcry against cla.s.sical studies seems to me to be (as in the case of good Dr. Jacob Bigelow) a frank hostility to literature itself, as the supposed rival of science; or a willingness (as in Professor Atkinson's case) to tolerate modern literature, while discouraging the study of the ancient. Both seem to commit the error of drawing their examples of abuse from England, and applying their warnings to America.... Because the House of Commons was once said to care more for a false quant.i.ty in Latin verse than in English morals, shall we visit equal indignation on a House of Representatives that had to send for a cla.s.sical dictionary to find out who Thersites was?...

Granted, that foreign systems of education may err by insisting on the arts of literary structure too much; think what we should lose by dwelling on them too little! The magic of mere words; the mission of language; the worth of form as well as of matter; the power to make a common thought immortal in a phrase, so that your fancy can no more detach the one from the other than it can separate the soul and body of a child; it was the veiled half revelation of these things that made that old text-book forever fragrant to me. There are in it the still visible traces of wild flowers which I used to press between the pages, on the way to school; but it was the pressed flowers of Latin poetry that were embalmed there first. These are blossoms that do not fade.

--Thomas Wentworth Higginson

SAINT AUGUSTINE'S LOVE OF LATIN

Andrew Lang, in his _Adventures Among Books_, writes:

"Saint Augustine, like Sir Walter Scott at the University of Edinburgh, was 'The Greek Dunce.' Both of these great men, to their sorrow and loss, absolutely and totally declined to learn Greek. 'But what the reason was why I hated the Greek language, while I was taught it, being a child, I do not yet understand.' The Saint was far from being alone in that distaste, and he who writes loathed Greek like poison--till he came to Homer. Latin the Saint loved, except 'when reading, writing, and casting of accounts was taught in Latin, which I held not far less painful or penal than the very Greek. I wept for Dido's death, who made herself away with the sword,' he declares, 'and even so, the saying that two and two makes four was an ungrateful song in mine ears, whereas the wooden horse full of armed men, the burning of Troy, and the very Ghost of Creusa, was a most delightful spectacle of vanity.'"

THE WATCH OF THE OLD G.o.dS

Were the old G.o.ds watching yet, From their cloudy summits afar, At evening under the evening star, After the star is set, Would they see in these thronging streets, Where the life of the city beats With endless rush and strain, Men of a better mold, n.o.bler in heart and brain, Than the men of three thousand years ago, In the pagan cities old, O'er which the lichens and ivy grow?

Would they not see as they saw In the younger days of the race, The dark results of broken law, In the bent form and brutal face Of the slave of pa.s.sions as old as earth, And young as the infants of last night's birth?

Alas! the old G.o.ds no longer keep Their watch from the cloudy steep; But, though all on Olympus lie dead Yet the smoke of commerce still rolls From the sacrifice of souls, To the heaven that bends overhead.

OLD AND NEW ROME

Still, as we saunter down the crowded street, On our own thoughts intent, and plans and pleasures, For miles and miles beneath our idle feet, Rome buries from the day yet unknown treasures.

The whole world's alphabet, in every line Some stirring page of history she recalls,-- Her Alpha is the Prison Mamertine, Her Omega, St. Paul's, without the walls.

Above, beneath, around, she weaves her spells, And ruder hands unweave them all in vain: Who once within her fascination dwells, Leaves her with but one thought--to come again.

So cast thy obol into Trevi's fountain-- Drink of its waters, and, returning home, Pray that by land or sea, by lake or mountain, "All roads alike may lead at last to Rome."

--Herman Merivale

THE FALL OF ROME

Rome ruled in all her matchless pride, Queen of the world, an empire-state; Her eagles conquered far and wide; Her word was law, her will was fate.

Within her immemorial walls The temples of the G.o.ds looked down; Her forum echoed with the calls To greater conquest and renown.

All wealth, all splendor, and all might The world could give, before her lay; She dreamed not there could come a night To dim the glory of her day.

Rome perished: Legions could not save, Nor wealth, nor might, nor majesty,-- The Roman had become a slave, But the barbarian was free.

--Arthur Chamberlain

A CHRISTMAS HYMN

It was the calm and silent night!

Seven hundred years and fifty-three Had Rome been growing up to might, And now was queen of land and sea.

No sound was heard of clas.h.i.+ng wars-- Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain: Apollo, Pallas, Jove and Mars Held undisturbed their ancient reign, In the solemn midnight, Centuries ago.

'Twas in the calm and silent night!

The senator of haughty Rome Impatient, urged his chariot's flight, From lordly revel rolling home: Triumphal arches, gleaming, swell His breast with thoughts of boundless sway: What recked the Roman what befell A paltry province far away, In the solemn midnight, Centuries ago?

Within that province far away Went plodding home a weary boor; A streak of light before him lay, Falling through a half shut stable-door Across his path. He pa.s.sed--for naught Told what was going on within: How keen the stars, his only thought-- The air how calm, and cold and thin In the solemn midnight, Centuries ago!