Ezra Pound, The ABC of Reading:
“A plain sailor man took a notion to study Latin, and his teacher tried him with Virgil; after many lessons he asked him something about the hero.
-Said the sailor: ‘What hero?’
-Said the teacher: ‘What hero, why, Aeneas, the hero.’
-Said the sailor: ‘Ach, a hero, him a hero? Bigob, I t’ought he waz a priest.’ ”
[According to Pound, this was W.B. Yeats’ favorite anecdote.]
