The Last Samurai (16 page)

I said This is just to get you started reading the words, yes? I’ll give you some words and you can use one of my Schwan Stabilo highlighters that I use for my Arabic. Which colour would you like to use?

And he said Green.

So I gave him a Schwan Stabilo 33 & I picked some words that turned up a lot, but because I remembered Roemer and the something in the something with the something I tried to make sure they were not all prepositions & articles & connectives.

Then I realised that I had forgotten to go over the long vowels & diphthongs.

I did not want to go over the long vowels & diphthongs. I don’t want to go over them now. But I knew of course that if I did not L would be interrupting & pestering me to explain them within the hour, and if I do not explain them again I know what will happen: the poet Keats will haunt my dreams. Bearing in one hand Chapman’s Homer in the other the Oxford Classical Text, he will gaze at me fixedly with an expression of inexpressible sorrow before opening the Chapman with a piteous sigh. A Connery lookalike pacing through the mists will look up in silent indignation and stalk off without a word. Well—long e has its own letter, η, like the e of bed stretched out; long o has its own letter ω, like the o of hot stretched out; παι rhymes with pie, παυ pow δει day βοι boy μου moo—I explained this in a manner which I leave to the imagination & returned to the words.

How would you say this? πολλ
ς. Pollas? Terrific. That means many.

And this? ψυχ
ς Psukhas. YES. That’s something like souls or spirits.

And what about these?
ρ
ων θε
ν
νδρ
ν. Heeroooon theoon androon. Right. They mean, of heroes, of gods, of men. Now all I want you to do is go through as much as you can and colour in all the places where you see those words. We’ll worry about the grammar later. OK?

And he said OK.

So I handed over the pages and said There you go.

We have come all the way around to Blackfriars. L is up to the pentekaipentekontapus under the admiring & indulgent eyes of people who get on and are able to get off again after a few stops.

He looked at the pages and he looked at me.

I said It isn’t as hard as it looks. Look carefully and show me one of your words.

& he looked at the page and he found πολλ
ς. in line 3 & I said That’s right, so colour that green & look for the rest, OK?

& he said OK.

OKTOkaipentekontapus ENNEAkaipentekontapus HEXEKONTApus

[Well anyway]

I turned again to
Iliad
6 and in two minutes Baby Driver was back. He said he was going to colour in the names of people because he could read them & he was not finding very many words to colour. I said that was a very good idea & he went away & I turned my attention to Hector & Andromache & he was back again. He said θεο
ς looked like θε
ν and could he count it because he was not finding many words to colour.

I was not looking forward to simplifying and explaining even the simplest points of grammar to a 4-year-old & I can’t say I am looking forward to going through it all again now but I said I would so I

HEKkaiHEXeKONtapus HEPtakaiHEXeKONtapus OKTOkaiHEXeKONtapus

will.

I am finding it rather hard to concentrate however so may salve conscience by just touching on highlights like Sound of Music cutting from Doe A Deer to seven-part harmony or heptaphony as some people (naming no names) would probably call it.

I said Yes you can and I said Do you remember what θε
ν meant and he said Of gods, I said Right, well θεο
ς means to gods or by gods & do you remember what
ρ
ων and
νδρ
ν meant & he said Of heroes and of men & I said But there’s no separate word meaning ‘of’, is there, it’s all in the word so there must be a bit of the word that means ‘of’ & what do you think that would be & I don’t know about you but I am about ready for The hills are alive (A-a-a-ah).