Pious Aeneas… The Priest?

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.]

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