Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Swilling and Boozing
R.G. Collingwood (1889-1943), An Autobiography and Other Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 12-13:
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Going up to Oxford was like being let out of prison. In those days, before the anthology habit infected Classical Moderations, a candidate for honours was expected to read Homer, Vergil, Demosthenes, and the speeches of Cicero more or less entire, in addition to a special study of other texts, among which I chose Lucretius, Theocritus, and the Agamemnon. This was not only leading the horse to the water, but (hardly less important) leaving him there. The happy beast could swill and booze Homer until the world contained no Homer that he had not read. After long years on a ration of twenty drops a day, nicely medicated from a form-master's fad-bottle, I drank with open throat.
