On Greek Prose Composition

4 Notes

Robert F. Murray, A Song of Greek Prose:

Thrice happy are those
Who ne’er heard of Greek Prose
Or Greek Poetry either, as far as that goes;
For Liddell and Scott
Shall cumber them not,
Nor Sargent nor Sidgwick shall break their repose.

But I, late at night,
By the very bad light
Of very bad gas, must painfully write
Some stuff that a Greek
With his delicate cheek
Would smile at as ‘barbarous’—faith, he well might.

I have somehow muddled through without having to write Greek prose at all. This will probably not serve me well.

(via Laudator Temporis Acti, which has the whole thing.)