The Confessions of Saint Augustine (Outler)/Book I/Chapter XIV


 * Why he disliked Greek, and easily learned Latin.

Why then did I hate the Greek language in which like songs are sung? For Homer also was skilful in weaving the like fables, and is most sweetly-vain, yet was he bitter to my boyish tastes. And so I suppose would Virgil be to Grecian children, when forced to learn him as I was the other. Difficulty, in truth, the difficulty in learning a foreign tongue, sprinkled, as it were, with gall all the sweetness of Grecian fables. For I knew none of the words, and to make me know them, I was urged vehemently with cruel threats and punishments. Time was also (as an infant) I knew no Latin; but this I learned without fear or torture, by mere observation, amid the caresses of my nurses, the jests of smiling friends, and the delights of those that played with me. This I learned without any burden of punishment to urge me on, for my heart urged me to give birth to its conceptions, which I could only do by learning words not of teachers, but of talkers; in whose ears also I gave birth to the thoughts, whatever I conceived. It is quite clear then, that a free curiosity has more power to make us learn these things than a terrifying obligation. Only this obligation restrains the waverings of that freedom by Thy laws, O my God, Thy laws, from the master's rod to the martyr's trials, for Thy laws have the effect of mingling for us certain wholesome bitters, which recall us to Thee away from that pernicious blithesomeness, by means of which we depart from Thee.