This is my first posting here. I do hope that no rules are being broken, and that I will not be booted off on my first visit. First things first: I am a devotee of the Greek and Latin Classics, having studied both these at Unisa (University of South Africa), and having being drawn to them more strongly ever since. I have built up my own small library of Classical books – lexicons and grammars, and of course the texts themselves – far too many to digest in one lifetime, sad to say, but not as many as may dissuade me from forever hunting after ‘just one more’: Cicero’s In Verrem Vol.1 in the Loeb Classical Library is my next paper prey.
Why then Textkit, and what do I hope to gain here? Well, I hope to be able to share in some way with one who may likewise identify with my wonderful affliction for the classics. The oxymoron is well expressive of the agony and the ecstasy of the involvement: the agony of never having sufficient resources, either of time or of money, to indulge this fancy to the fullest; and the ecstasy of meeting, even for a brief moment every now and then, the mind of a Homer at work in the forge of thought.
I would love to be able to help someone with a grammatical or related issue, but am not so haughty as to disdain any such help for myself. I would not say that I am an expert (horrible word!) in Greek or Latin grammar, but I can tell a hawk from a handsaw, and I can rattle off the principal parts of aisthanomai to chraomai. Words, words, words. I do confess to having a partiality for Greek grammar, as I believe this to be the handmaiden of all expressed thought, and a most indispensable crutch on the rocky road to Parnassus.
I once befriended, per e-mail, a person in the UK who cherished a similar love for the Classics. We used to hold up to each other the ‘candle’ of Classical enlightenment, and each letter of correspondence would conclude with this metaphor. But alas! Paul has since passed on, and the light of our exchanges has been extinguished forever. But the glorious Classics lives on, and I for one am eager once more to hold up the torch – if not yet to pass it on, yet to light another’s way, and be lighted by that other.
Regards, Grant.
In medias res
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- Location: Cape Town, South Africa