Reading The Aeneid

At my high school (I fell like many of my posts are going to start with something about my high school...), I have been taking Latin since I was a freshman. Now I'm in Latin IV and we are currently reading Vergil's The Aeneid.

Just some burning cities, no big deal.

For those who don't know, The Aeneid is an epic about this guy called Aeneas, son of Venus, survivor of the Trojan War and founder of what would one day become Rome. It tells of his seven year journey to Carthage, the underworld, and many other places, and finally to Italy, where he,  as I'm sure you guessed, founded Rome.

We're supposed to have the first two books (aka: chapters) read by tomorrow and I've only read the first one so far (No worries, I'm going to read the second one after I finish this). We actually have a quiz to take over the first two books tomorrow, even though I will be the only person in class. It's definitely going to be an interesting class period tomorrow!

Anyway, so far I've actually enjoyed reading it. Some people find it a bit difficult to read this because of how it's written or whatever, but I actually really like it. It takes a bit more thought than most modern books, but it's still enjoyable. To make sure I'm understanding what I'm reading, after every paragraph or so, I go over what just happened in my own words (so, for example:  "Aeneas stood there resplendent in the bright light of day with the head and shoulders of a god. His own mother had...given beauty to his hair and the sparkle of joy to his eyes, and the glow of youth shone all about him." (1.588-591) translates to "He was really hot."). It's a really useful tool to make sure I'm remembering everything. Plus, sometimes it's funny to think about what the text would have looked like, had it been written in modern times. It also helps that I'm actually fairly interested in mythology, so this tends to keep my interest.

Anyway, short post tonight.

Have a wonderful day!

-Morgan