We finally got around to reading Romulus today but not the Dryden translation from 1683. This was the condensed and easier version available for free at Ambleside Online. It was much easier and shorter and I was enjoying the light flow of it. It also had Catherine scowling at me every time I finished a paragraph.
"He had more ideas of how Rome began then that!"
"Wait! Wasn't there a version where she lived?"
"Mom, I don't like this one."
I finally looked up at that point and asked, "Why Catherine?"
"Because it leaves out too much! Plutarch had more ideas then that!"
"Um. Do you mean you want to go back to the Dryden one?"
"Yes!"
"But it's harder."
"Yeah! But it's...It's the truth!"
She meant of course not that it was more factual but that she thought, from our discussions about it, that it was closer to what Plutarch wrote himself. Yes, the ramblings were distracting but they also gave us a bit more of a sense of the man writing.
"I liked how he told a lot of stuff mom. How he had all the different explanations."
Of course we had to read the condensed version before she realized she missed what the more dense translation offered. When I said our next reading was Theseus and asked one last time if she was sure she wanted to read the Dryden translation her answer was a firm, "Yes!"
I just thought that was cool.
2 comments:
Totally awesome! You've clearly got a future historian (or other academic) on your hands ... it's a noble profession, I can assure you!
Thanks! She's even a little excited that in a few years she might be able to read Plutarch in the original Greek. It's helped her concentrate on her ancient greek lessons a little more
She keeps surprising me on the things she's willing to tackle and her complete lack of any sense of what a nine year old ought to be learning or interested in. I tend to think most kids would surprise us like that I we gave them the opportunity though.
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