What if?
I mean, what if?
As Elyot outlined the order of learning, and which authors to read first, I remembered, and ask, “What if?”
What if people had listened to Elyot throughout the centuries?
Learn Greek, then Latin, then Grammar he said, and follow it all with Aesop who has “much variety in words.”
Ah, what if we did that?
Elyot said to continue with Lucian, Aristophanes and of course, “noble Homer.”
Not the Simpson. Just the one we called Homer. Father of the story. Teller of tales of adventure. Teacher of morality.
What if we all knew what Elyot is talking about?
I studied Latin. I read Homer and the others. But, what if I didn’t?
Good Elyot never required “all these works should be read of a child in his time, which were almost impossible.”
His goal was simple, manageable: to take “so much instruction that they may take thereby some profit.”
Be a sponge. Fill up what you can. As long as you can. But fill.
By putting the limit on learning, the answer to my “what if” became clear on this day’s re-reading:
“Then the child’s courage, inflamed by the frequent reading of noble poets daily more and more desireth to have experience in those things that they so vehemently do commend in them that they write of.”
What I did. What I do. Or try to do.
Where are the examples of noble today?
What is the order of learning being following today?
What is frequently being read that we can call “noble?”
Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani.
What if?
Ah, if only…