The Benefits, and Pain, of a Latin Education

My mother could translate the dactylic hexameter of Virgil’s ‘Aeneid’ as if she were reading her grocery list.

Regarding Melik Kaylan’s review of “Et Tu, Brute? The Best Latin Lines Ever” by Harry Mount and John Davie (Bookshelf, March 24): Latin was my favorite high-school class. Sixty years later, I remember sitting at the table while the Michigan winter roared outside. My mother would be working in the kitchen nearby as I haltingly translated the “dead language.” A four-year student of Latin herself, she was an excellent tutor and could translate the dactylic hexameter of Virgil’s “Aeneid” as if she were reading her grocery list. My father would occasionally pass by and say, “Did you get to ‘Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres’ yet?”

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