News at Eleven: Reading this book reminds me of how much

I enjoyed the encounter with something that was great, old and different. Its difficulty was part of its pleasure. It gave one the illusion of intelligence. Much more important, it brought moments of recognition. Each person lives in what WH Auden called "the prison of his days". How wonderful to escape to another time, and hear, in another tongue, Horace inviting his patron to drink the wine he makes and bottles himself or Vergil describing how, in spring, the ploughshare "rubbed by the furrow, begins to shine". It feels so near, and yet so far.

from The Telegraph: Latin inspired the standard for all poetry

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