Three years ago, had you told me I would read the entire Iliad in Greek before I graduated from high school, I would have stared at you, resisted the impulse to laugh, and then deliberately mind my own buisness. At that time, I thought learning a foreign language was a mysterious skill which only special people have, a notion which was put in my head by my mother since she hated learning languages herself and was doing everything possible to delay me from studying a foreign language. Ancient Greek was rumored to be especially rigourous, and I thought I would never have the capacity to learn such an austere language.
Two years ago, had you have told me that I would read the entire Iliad in Greek before I graduated from high school, I would have smiled, and then prompty ignore you. I was studying French at that time, and was remarkably good for somebody who had been studying French for less than a year, but studying Ancient Greek really hadn’t crossed my mind, and I would not have believed I learn Greek fast enough to read the entire Iliad before I graduated from high school.
One year ago, had you have told me that I would read the entire Iliad in Greek before I graduated from high school, I would have sighed. I think I had just finished going through Pharr’s book, and the thought of reading the entire Iliad within a year would have exhausted me.
And this morning, I finished reading the last book in the Iliad after over a year of reading it from start to finish unabridged. My eyes were watery, both because of the touching ending, and because I am going to miss this epic.
