Thursday, March 29, 2018
Learning Greek
Euripides, Ion. Translated with Notes by H.D. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1937), p. 12 (H.D.'s note):
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We may relegate the boy, Ion, to the dust heap and parse his delicate phrases till we end in a mad house. It will bring us no nearer to the core of Greek beauty. Parse the sun in heaven, distinguish between the taste of mountain air on different levels, feel with your bare foot a rock covered with sea-weed, one covered with sand, one washed and marbled by the tide. You can not learn Greek, only, with a dictionary. You can learn it with your hands and your feet and especially with your lungs.
