I have not been writing much here in the past few weeks because I have been busy with several other things. One endeavor to which I have been giving a great deal of time lately is the study of Ancient Greek.
I have long been interested in Greek. When I was still an undergraduate studying Mechanical Engineering at the University of Oklahoma, I was envious of the students who majored in Letters, which combined classics, history, and either literature or philosophy. (As an aside, in high school, I had been interested in English, history, and perhaps drama as possible directions for college. Since my parents could give me almost no monetary support, however, I chose my major, Petroleum Engineering, simply because it came with a scholarship from an oil company and the promise of a summer job. After a couple of years, I had the courage to turn down the money from the oil company. I ended up with degrees in Mechanical Engineering, a reliable path into the middle class. Thus began my involvement with technocracy, which took me decades of struggle to extricate myself from.)
Back to Greek. Early in my career, I audited a course at San Francisco State in Latin and Greek elements in English. More importantly, my neighbor Ruth in San Francisco, who obtained her BA in Greek in her 70s gave me her Greek texts when she moved into assisted living. I still have those books and am using several now. A few years ago, I audited a beginning Greek course at Portland State University. I had to miss several classes, however, and ended up dropping the course. Finally, earlier this summer I found someone with whom I could take private lessons, a young man who has studied both Greek and Latin and who teaches Latin. We meet once a week for an hour or so. In between meetings I study on my own.
I am enjoying my exploration of Greek, although it is much more complex than Spanish, which I have studied for years. Ancient Greek is quite different than English which is notorious for its many odd rules of grammar and spelling. Of course, the Greek alphabet (from the Greek letters alpha and beta) is different than the Latin version used in English, Spanish, and most other Western languages. The alphabet is only a small part of the challenge, however. Greek is highly inflected, meaning that grammatical elements such as nouns, verbs, articles, and adjectives have many variations, depending on how they are used in a sentence. For example, nouns can fall into one of five cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and vocative), three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and three numbers (singular, plural, and dual). Verbs are divided into seven tenses, four moods, and three voices, all derived from six principle parts for each verb, in contrast to English whose verbs have three principle parts (e.g., speak, spoke, spoken). The complexity of its grammar is one aspect that makes Greek so interesting, however, because it allows nuances of expression that just don’t exist in English.
So why am I engaging in such an undertaking? After all, Ancient Greek has not been a spoken language in two millennia. It is not like Spanish, French, or Japanese, which I could use in my travels or interactions with people I encounter from other countries (I have picked up several phrases of Swahili from the crossing guard at my grandson’s school, who is from the Congo, and some Polish greetings from a neighbor whom I meet when we are out walking out dogs). By studying Greek, I believe I will be able to increase my own knowledge of grammar in general, which I can use in English and Spanish.
I also recognize our cultural and philosophical legacy from Ancient Greece. Athenian democracy is an obvious example, and we are still struggling with questions Greek thinkers posed two and a half millennia ago. I want to read Homer, Euripides, Thucydides, and Plato in their original language although that might be wildly optimistic given both the difficulty of the language and my distractibility. Already with the help of my young teacher, however, I have begun reading a few verses of the New Testament in Greek. Comparing the English translation with the original Greek is fascinating, particularly given the vast linguistic differences between the two languages. The Word of God is often not nearly as clear as some preachers in polyester suits proclaim to their parishioners
Even if I drift away due to frustration or distraction in the future, I will have had an interesting and stimulating journey, like Cavafy describes in his famous poem, “Ithaka” (an apt title, indeed).
Ithaka
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
Finally, I came across a quote from the Athenian statesman Solon that explains not just why I am studying Greek and doing this blog, but also my attitude toward life in general:
γηράσκω δ᾽ αἰεὶ πολλὰ διδασκόμενος.
“I grow older, ever learning many things.”