0
JKBelieve Posted 21 years ago
Grammar

Another incomprehendable passage ^^

1. 'Little boys at school are taught in their earliest Latin book, that the path of Avernus is very easy of descent. Let us skip over the interval in the history of her downward progress. She was not worse now than she had been in the days of her prosperity - only a little down on her luck.'


I really don't understand what this passage is saying..... -_-
  

Top answer

org/wiki/Avernus "]AVERNUS[/url] is the road to Hades. The path to a sordid life is easy for a person to pursue. This writer is not going to narrate the details of her degeneration; in fact, she is not so bad now, she has just been unlucky.

  • org/wiki/Avernus "]AVERNUS[/url] is the road to Hades.
  • The path to a sordid life is easy for a person to pursue.
  • This writer is not going to narrate the details of her degeneration; in fact, she is not so bad now, she has just been unlucky.
Free · every Monday

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.

2 Answers
0
[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avernus"]AVERNUS[/url] is the road to Hades. The path to a sordid life is easy for a person to pursue. This writer is not going to narrate the details of her degeneration; in fact, she is not so bad now, she has just been unlucky.
0
'Avernus is easy of descent.'

The original phrase is from Virgil: 'facilis descensus Averni'. A schoolboy in Thackeray's day might have found it in his first Latin primer.

MrP

Related Questions