Explore "Development" by Robert Browning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
My Father was a scholar and knew Greek. / When I was five years old, I asked him once / "What do you read about? " / "The siege of Troy. " / "What is a siege, and what is Troy? " / Whereat / He piled up chairs and tables for a town, / Set me a-top for Priam, called our cat / -- Helen, enticed away from home (he said) / By wicked Paris, who couched somewhere close / Under the footstool, being cowardly, / But whom -- since she was worth the pains, poor puss -- / Towzer and Tray, -- our dogs, the Atreidai, -- sought / By taking Troy to get possession of / -- Always when great Achilles ceased to sulk, / (My pony in the stable) -- forth would prance / And put to flight Hector -- our page-boy's self. / This taught me who was who and what was what: / So far I rightly understood the case / At five years old; a huge delight it proved / And still proves -- thanks to that instructor sage / My Father, who knew better than turn straight / Learning's full flare on weak-eyed ignorance, / Or, worse yet, leave weak eyes to grow sand-blind, / Content with darkness and vacuity.
It happened, two or three years afterward, / That -- I and playmates playing at Troy's Siege -- / My Father came upon our make-believe. / "How would you like to read yourself the tale / Properly told, of which I gave you first / Merely such notion as a boy could bear? / Pope, now, would give you the precise account / Of what, some day, by dint of scholarship, / You'll hear -- who knows? -- from Homer's very mouth. / Learn Greek by all means, read the 'Blind Old Man, / Sweetest of Singers' -- _tuphlos_ which means 'blind,' / _Hedistos_ which means 'sweetest. ' Time enough! / Try, anyhow, to master him some day; / Until when, take what serves for substitute, / Read Pope, by all means! " / So I ran through Pope, / Enjoyed the tale -- what history so true? / Also attacked my Primer, duly drudged, / Grew fitter thus for what was promised next -- / The very thing itself, the actual words, / When I could turn -- say, Buttmann to account.