I'll be totally honest. Although I had a good public school education, and a decent university education (complete with honors humanities, psychology and business courses), I really don't know much. I got good grades and did my school work well. But I don't really know anything. I'm the worst trivial pursuit player ever. Knowing stuff is just not my gig. I can, however, learn pretty well.
Now I'm pretty certain that in the aforementioned humanities course, among the 100+ books we read over two years, was Virgil's The Aeneid. But when I checked it out from our local library last week, it was as though I was seeing it for the first time. I learned a few things about this epic (in every sense of the word) poem that really inspired me as I prepared to share it with my 6th grade daughter.
We are embarking on the study of Ancient Rome over the course of 3-4 weeks. My task as history teacher is to give a picture of the true essence of the time. I'm not trying to fill my daughter's brain with facts. I want her to be able to see the people, to smell the land, to taste their foods, to conceive of their honor of law, their lust for battle. We will study individuals whose characters help shape her growing sense of an ancient people. A people with whom we are vastly connected in our modern existence.
The Aeneid is an ancient text. Just touching the pages of a translated copy of the work connects me to Virgil himself. He was a tall, dark-skinned man, who spoke very slowly. I can imagine him reading to Augustus and Octavia 2,000 years ago.
The Aeneid was studied by Romans and by Medieval students. People for centuries were educated on this amazing poem which documents the travails of Aeneas, the Trojan who escaped Troy. He was intercepted over and over by Juno, who did not want him to find a new homeland. But the gods knew his fate was to ultimately lay his roots in what would be known forever as Rome.
The Aeneid was so revered that it was considered an oracle. People used to open the book to a random passage and read it to know what lay in their future.
I have chosen to read books two and six aloud to my daughter. It's a beautiful thing to take the time to read this work out loud. The words flow sweetly, rhythmically, and make me wonder what it would be like to learn Latin and read the original work. Thank god for a lovely translation!
And now, I'm off to research Dactylic hexameter....
