Captain Science just started his first memorization exercise. I read it aloud twice and then he read it aloud twice. I could tell when he read that he’d already learned part of just from hearing it twice. This is one of the blessings of having a gifted learner (I can also tell you about all the curses) — gotta love that photographic memory! He seems to have a good feel for the meter of the poem. I think he’ll have this learned and ready to recite to others in short order, then onward to something more difficult.
PROMETHEUS AMID HURRICANE AND EARTHQUAKE (from “Prometheus Bound”)
by: Aeschylus
EARTH is rocking in space!
And the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar,
And the eddying lightnings flash fire in my face,
And the whirlwinds are whirling the dust round and round–
And the blasts of the winds universal leap free
And blow each other upon each, with a passion of sound,
And æther goes mingling in storm with the sea!
Such a curse on my head, in a manifest dread,
From the hand of your Zeus has been hurtled along!
O my mother’s fair glory! O Æther, enringing
All eyes with the sweet common light of thy bringing,
Dost see how I suffer this wrong?
This English translation, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, of ‘Prometheus Amid Hurricane and Earthquake’ is reprinted from Greek Poets in English Verse. Ed. William Hyde Appleton. Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1893.
I love this poem.