Thursday, February 02, 2006
Winter projects
Every winter I take on some big project that consumes many of the long dark months. I wish this year it had been starting to learn Latin, which has been on my mind for a while, but it wasn't. Of course, it's been writing, this winter, both in this blog and on paper. So I read in translation. I was reading Virgil's Eclogues (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1999, translated by David Ferry) last night, and came across this, on writing:
A very early phrasing of the "write what you know" tenet. And how lovely...
"When I began to write, my Muse did not
Disdain to play Sicilian games nor did
She blush to live in the woods, and when I thought
Of singing of kings and battles, the god Apollo
Tweaked my ear and said to me, 'A shepherd
Should feed fat sheep and sing a slender song.'"
A very early phrasing of the "write what you know" tenet. And how lovely...
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