Fiesole, Tuscany
I was in Florence last week - model life. At Santa Maria Novella, the railway station, I went for a browse in the Feltrinelli bookshop, Feltrinelli being a famous publishing company with a chain of bookstores throughout Italy. The shop has also its own café, which is of course very handy, especially for travellers in transit, like I was . You know the scenario, it's just like any other metropolitan railway station, Waterstones in London Victoria comes to mind (come to think of it, I do not remember seeing a café there.)I was early for my Milan bound train and wanted something to read, so I began to scan the shelves to find some book that was not a translation of an American/Canadian/English paperback. Then I saw it. It's in Italian, not yet translated into English (though I hope it will be very soon), by Andrea Marcolongo, a wonderful storyteller, and it's called (my translation) "The Clever Language. 9 reasons to love Greek" (La lingua geniale. 9 ragioni per amare il Greco).
Greek of course is ancient Greek.
I just had to buy it. I read the book in one go and could not tear myself away. I know exactly what Andrea Marcolongo is talking about. I too studied ancient Greek in school, I too memorised declensions and paradigms, I too fell under the spell of this extraordinary language and then I too grew disaffected, and could not see the point of studying it, as my teachers kept on expecting tons of homework and translations - oh those versioni, often scribbled late at night, when I just could not make sense of anything (I had other subjects to study too!).
And I too, once I left the liceo (all Italian liceos are named after some famous literary figure and my liceo was the Liceo Classico Socrates - obviously!) burnt my Greek boats, so to speak, and never looked back.
But ancient Greek is always there, lurking beneath the many layers of my linguistic make up and deeply rooted in my soul, my psyche ( a lovely Greek word, of course) . I can still read Greek, I mean the script. I instantly recognise all the words that come from Greek in any European language (yes, it is our so-called European heritage) and can easily tell what they mean.
In her wonderful essay "On not knowing Greek" Virginia Woolf , who was quite besotted with Greek, writes:
"it is the language that has us most in bondage: the desire for which perpetually lures us back. First there is compactness of expression...every ounce of fat has been pared off, leaving the flesh firm. Then spare and bare as it is, no language can move more quickly, dancing, shaking, all alive, but controlled". Ancient Greek is a sleek language!
I recently helped a young philosophy student who was struggling with Aristotle - I do many things and occasionally turn into a tutor - and together we read the annotated translation and commentary by American philosopher Eugene Gendlin (he-of-the- felt-sense) of Peri Psyche, otherwise known by its Latin name De Anima (About the Soul) which discusses the ontology of the nous (mind). My Greek is too rusty to read Aristotle in the original without a word by word translation but while going through Gendlin's (a labour of love which took him thirty years) I did of course glance at the Greek and its terseness, clarity and pragmatic style struck me. By the way I am not doing this on purpose, these words are part and parcel of the English language but I have used 'ontology' and 'pragmatic' which are of course Greek -derived.
Fiesole, Tuscany
Andrea Marcolongo's book is not a grammar, it is the story of her love for ancient Greek. You do not even need to know a single word of ancient Greek to enjoy this book, which tells you, basically, how the ancient Greeks viewed the world. Reading this book, as an adult, you do learn to look at the world differently. The book is available in a host of other languages, including French, but as I said, no English yet. I wonder whether this is because people in England no longer study Greek in school. I regard it as a loss, but then I would, wouldn't I? Thinking back, I believe that engaging with Greek (Latin too, but to a much lesser extent) while I was an adolescent was one of the most formative experiences of my life, despite the tears and the unpleasantness of all that homework. I would not be who I am today, had it not been for ancient Greek. It's difficult to tell why or how, but ancient Greek touched me to the core.
Let me quote Virginia Woolf once again, as a way to end this post. She says
"It is to the [ancient] Greeks that we turn when we are sick of the vagueness, of the confusion, of the Christianity and its consolations, of our own age".
Vagueness and confusion surround us. Still. Time to be rescued by the power of ancient Greek.
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