Then should be read the four ages of the world, the war with the giants, the deluge, Phaeton (perhaps the most splendid and highly poetical of his efforts), Niobe, and the lovely idyl Philemon and Baucis.
The translation of Ovid should be easy and fluent. The students should be encouraged to translate Ovid into English verse. The study of Greek and Oriental mythology can easily be connected with the study of the Metamorphoses. Father Jouvancy, in an appendix to his edition of select stories from the Metamorphoses, gives a short, but useful account of the various deities.
Nagelsbach thinks it foolish to torment boys of fourteen or fifteen years with the Tristia or Epistolae ex Ponto; as a youthful mind could not take interest in those perpetual lamentations. A few pieces, however, may be read with advantage, v. g. the departure from Rome, or the poet's autobiography (Ep. ex Ponto IV, 10), etc.
Virgil is the Prince of Latin poets" (Jouvancy), the greatest poet of the Augustan age, the most celebrated imitator of Homer, the master and model of Dante,[1] the favorite of Augustus and Maecenas, the friend, whom Horace calls 'the half of my soul',[2] and the anima candida, the stainless soul, the 'Virgin poet', as he was styled in Naples."[3] His language is not as easy and as fluent as that of Ovid, but is grand, noble and stately; but in his ideas and lofty sentiments, Virgil is infinitely superior to Ovid.
In modern times Virgil has been severely censured
