Wednesday, August 30, 2023
Remember Virgil
Thomas Flanagan, The Year of the French (1979; rpt. New York: New York Review Books, 2004), p. 51:
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He felt a hand on his arm. Ferdy O'Donnell.
"Would you like me to walk a bit of the way with you, Owen?"
"And why should you wish to do that?" MacCarthy asked, drawing his arm free. "I know the way. We will construe Virgil these long summer evenings, Ferdy. I am a very fine scholar."
"I know that, Owen."
"You are not. You have that low, seminary Latin. You will never see how meaning curls and curves through a line. Still, we must do our best for you. Better than nothing, Ferdy. Better than nothing."
"Much better," O'Donnell said, standing with him at the open door.
"You did not quarrel with those fellows, did you?"
"Which of them deserves to quarrel with me? They are a low lot, Ferdy, a low lot. You must hold yourself apart from that lot, now mind that. Remember Virgil. That lot in there, Virgil wouldn't have given them the sweat off his balls."
