For his ninth birthday we gave LittleBear a book that had been recommended by one of my colleagues. Said colleague also had an only boy-child, about 15 years older than LittleBear, but one who'd been very similar to him in his younger years. So, I took the recommendation. It was a mighty tome of mythology - Arthurian legends, Ancient Greek, Norse, Roman, the Mabinogeon and the legends of Charlemagne. And, being written in the mid-nineteenth century, it didn't really pull any punches in its language or contents. And LittleBear hoovered it up, and continues to return to it.
We have many family jokes from it now - such as on the frequent appearance of fountains in forests in romantic legend, or the use of the old "bag of wind" ruse in Greek and Roman myths. (Our personal favourite, however, is Rogero being "distracted by an adventure" on his way to the cathedral to marry the long-suffering Bradamante. That's quite some distraction.)
Today, LittleBear was required to dress up as an Ancient Greek for a history day at school, so I made some casual throwaway remark about being wary of Greeks bearing gifts...
LittleBear: Actually Mummy, the quote is that, "I fear the Greeks, even when they are bearing gifts." Laocoon said it.
Me: Was that in Homer? <desperately trying to salvage something from the conversation>
LittleBear: No, it was in the Aeneid. By Virgil.
And now I wish I'd never given him the damn book. Being corrected on a quote from Virgil when I studied the Aeneid at school is pretty bad. Having LittleBear assume that he needed to tell me that it was Virgil who wrote the Aeneid was just a step too far.
Yup. Timeo Danaos et dona ferrentes.
ReplyDeleteMy only shred of relief/dignity is that he didn't quote the Latin at me. (And my only excuse on not knowing the direct quote is that we only translated sections of book 4 of the Aeneid at school, when Aeneas was in Carthage).
DeleteTrying to remember what we read, we spent about a term on it, I'd think. I think it was parts scattered through the whole Aeneid. Definitely the beginning, I also remember the end of Troy and Dido.
DeleteAfter unwisely commenting that primary-school usage of some math term was not quite the same as that of professional mathematicians, my son pointed out that his teacher, after all, knows more math than I do.
In case that helps.
(I greatly admire my son's teacher, but I happen to be a professor of theoretical physics.)