This little book contains six of Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. I had forgotten how enjoyable they are to read. Editor Roberts followed them with commentaries on the life of Macaulay and his poetic presentation. The book concludes with Macaulay's Essay on the Lays and a prose presentation of some of the stories by Livy. Back in the 1920s, et seq, English teachers must have praised the publishers for devising the Kings Treasuries as useful teaching materials. They are still delightful. ( )

An endless list of people I never heard of and never want to hear of, written in a meter that makes you feel seasick. Who could ever have had the taste for this sort of thing? ( )

With weeping and with laughter
Still is the story told

This free Kindle edition does not have Ivry or the Armada. You might as well get a version that includes those, too. Also, there is an 1887 illustrated edition that you might find used; I have not seen it reproduced. ( )

Hermes Child: Thousands of years ago, there was Sparta!
—Uh huh. Of course.
Hermes Child: (stamps his foot because he thinks you’re not listening) Thousands of years ago!

It’s identifiably a masculine Victorian piece, you know; classical wars and bits of scientific history, and old-fashioned verse. But whatever it is, it’s rather nice, isn’t it; I actually rather prefer it to most of the nature-poetry, as the wars of the ancient man gives it a plot to steady it, and just enough panic and disorder to make it seem familiar to my human mind. (Of course, animals also have panic and disorder sometimes, but it’s usually less obvious.) And actually Babbie Mac is often in something like nature poetry, you know; I guess when you join the army you get out in the sun, at least in the old days.

And as for the attitude that tended to go with Greece-y stuff in the old days—My name is Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and I’m reading Thomas Babington Macaulay, because I am intent on becoming the King’s Prime Minister!—I’d say not to get too upset about all that. It can be disappointing to look back at what we were, but you don’t know all the stuff like that way back when when you were just starting out and there was no one to teach you, and that, you did not realize, right—but it’s all gone by the end, all the dross that goes with it, all these things, right.

Hermes Child: He ran up to the hill, and all in the sun—he killed, Mommy, he killed!
—Ah, doesn’t quite rhyme with hill; do it over.
Hermes Child: I’m sorry, Mommy. I’ll try again.

…. In the old age of the world, men were very physical, and poetry was always in form.

…. This is a book from the older age of the world. How much of it was good, how much of it was well, I do not know; I say only that you can read the snobbish old poetry sometimes, and then, when you come to something more childish from the land of the intensely, augustly boyish, you will know that you exchanged one for the other from choice, and not because of limitation or inferiority.

…. I thought that “Virginia” was going to be a romance—silly me—political! Of course, I don’t know. I guess in Rome as elsewhere power broadened and included, to some extent, the common man for the sake of strength in war—a great, if mixed, inheritance.

…. ‘You Roman men should do your own thing, a thing not done in Greece. A man must honor his own ways, his own race. And besides, the Greeks are far better than you.’

Men are strange when they write about the history of the races, you know.

…. “Oh, and there was a girl, sure; but she died, so it’s okay. Men won. (spits out bones) The kind with no feelings: the noble brute, the Romans.” “Oh good.” “Thank you.” “Yeah; fuck you, exactly.” “Exactly…. Wait a minute.”

…. Note to self: read more bad fiction; it’s truer than good literature. 😸

Can you imagine if that Court of Thorns and Roses chick wrote crap like this? She’d have to be ill, most like. “Die, peasant! For the crime of /being raped/, I purge your sin! Vengeance for such a terrible crime! /kills/ /blood everywhere/

Okay, go to bed now, children! 😸

👹

…. And, last but not least—a prophecy! A vision! And there is but one outstanding issue the prophet has not resolved! One deep question the visionary has not answered! And it’s important! “Alright; let’s have it.”

—Yankees, or Mets? 😛

…. I mean, do you remember, in “The Bluest Eye”, how the codependent freak wife who believes “not in Christ the Redeemer, but in Christ the Judge”, is fighting with the useless alcoholic husband puttering around in a drunken stupor, and finally the wife beats him unconscious, and the son says, Kill him! (For getting drunk! Oh my god! 😹). And the wife’s like, Shut your face.

Ah, my god.

And can you believe that His Pomopousness, Lord Spencer, /memorized/, /all/, of this excrement, and probably went around like God’s gift to the children, like he’d done a public service, you know.

It’s like, You write half, or two-thirds, or three-quarters frilly pompous shit, maybe I can feel you, but like—that was all, that was aaaall!

Oh my god, Victorian poets, right.

It’s like: you’ve got to live in the real world /sometimes/, buttercup.

—But before I realized how hysteric it is about pride, it was kinda fun. When it seemed just, middle-pompous, you know. In the beginning. I’ll let it stay. It’s not full-bad; it’s middle-bad. You don’t always have to regret reading middle-bad, you know.

…. After-word: I’m not sure I’d repeat the line about human-centric, if you like, poetry with a plot, even if from wars and dross, being better than nature poetry—but I do kinda get the idea; I read part of a Willy Wordsworth book and although it was pleasant and everything—it wasn’t bad in that sense—it can be hard at least, or maybe merely especially, for a post-industrial Christian or atheist or whatever to get a sense of it, to feel like one has some idea or sense of the thing, in the absence of a plot and the record of the sick goings on of crazy minds, (wars, etc.), right—so perhaps Boys’ Club poetry like this is better, at least than ~polite~ nature poetry: at least for some people. ¿Quién sabe, Señor Gringo?

Gave up on it after about 25% of way through. Accompanying text too hard to follow, too "scholarly", and the lays themselves not that interesting. Just thought I'd try it, after seeing the book in the movie, "Oblivion", starring Tom Cruise. ( )