On Looking Into Heaney’s Virgil
The Preface takes me back. The
great poet, Seamus Heaney, Nobel Laureate, writes fondly of his “A” level Latin
teacher in the 1950s, who was disappointed that the class’s set book was Aeneid
Book IX – “Och, boys, I wish it were Book
VI”. That was a signpost for Heaney, who came to treasure, and finally
translate, Book VI.
