In modern Greek, phi sounds like вЂњf,вЂќ but it is usually transliterated from ancient Greek as вЂњph.вЂќ Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, was Philippos in Greek: lover ( phГlos) of horses ( hГppos). Like many Americans, I didnвЂ™t encounter Greek until I went to college and was puzzled by the symbols attached to the faГ§ades of fraternity houses: a gigantic X (chi), a bold ОЁ (psi), an impenetrable О¦ (phi). The Greeks also added consonants for sounds they needed that the Phoenicians didnвЂ™t have. They rounded out the alphabet with omega (О©), вЂњbig O,вЂќ the shape of which is open at the end. Ayin, which was round like an eye, became omicron-literally, вЂњsmall O.вЂќ Later, the Greeks added upsilon, which probably had the sound of вЂњuвЂќ (oo) but has evolved into an вЂњeвЂќ (ee) sound in modern Greek. The Greek eta looks like our letter вЂњHвЂќ and today represents a long вЂњeвЂќ sound (ee), as opposed to the short вЂњeвЂќ sound of epsilon. It creates the hitch in вЂњuh-oh.вЂќ Other Phoenician вЂњgutturalsвЂќ gave the Greeks names for some of their vowels. Alpha was adapted from aleph, the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, the sound of which was barely a sound at all-it was more like the brief redirection of breath known to linguists as a glottal stop. The GreeksвЂ™ genius was to take the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted of twenty-two consonants, and add vowels to it. Inscribed randomly on a shard of pottery, even without being arranged into a name or a coherent thought, they could be presented as an offering at the temple of Zeus. Aeschylus had a different version of events, attributing the alphabet to Prometheus: writing, like fire, was a gift from the gods. Cadmus, a prince of Phoenicia, was the legendary founder of Thebes, a city peopled by warriors who sprang up after he sowed the earth with the teeth of a dragon, on instructions from Athena. The Phoenicians were seagoing traders from the eastern Mediterranean, who needed a system of writing to keep track of the merchandise they ferried throughout the ancient world. The English alphabet is descended, via the Latin, from the Greek alphabet, which, according to Herodotus, was adapted from the Phoenician alphabet in the time of Cadmus. Fortunately, I like blocks, and I love the alphabet. Compared with Woolf, I was an overgrown child with a set of wooden alphabet blocks. I never did get around to Latin, and came to Greek only when I was in my thirties. The best an English translation can do is to transliterate the Greek letters-вЂњOtotototoiвЂќ-or go with something like вЂњWoe is me!вЂќ or вЂњAlas!вЂќ For these reasons, Woolf writes, reading Greek in translation is вЂњuseless.вЂќ Woolf did not know Greek the way bees do not know pollen. Both the chorus and Clytemnestra compare CassandraвЂ™s lament to birdsong. In AeschylusвЂ™ вЂњAgamemnon,вЂќ for instance, the first utterance of Cassandra-the seer brought to Mycenae from Troy as war booty, fated never to be believed-is not just untranslatable but unintelligible: бЅЂП„ОїП„ОїП„ОїП„ОїО№М‘ is not even a word, just inarticulate syllables that represent the barbarian princessвЂ™s howl of despair. вЂњWe can never hope to get the whole fling of a sentence in Greek as we do in English,вЂќ she writes. For Woolf, вЂњnot knowing GreekвЂќ meant that it was impossible truly to know what the playwright meant, partly because we donвЂ™t know what the ancient language sounded like. Though she did not enter the academy, she had private tutorials for several years with Miss Janet Case, who, as a student at Cambridge, had played Athena in an 1885 production of вЂњThe EumenidesвЂќ of Aeschylus. She started studying ancient Greek for fun, at home, when she was about fifteen, later taking classes at KingвЂ™s College London while her brother Thoby was studying at Cambridge. Well, apparently I had read only the title of the essay. I pictured young Virginia Stephen sulking in a room of her own, an indecipherable alphabet streaming through her consciousness, while her father and her brother, downstairs in the library, feasted on Plato and Aristotle. When I was about ten years old, my father, a pragmatic man, had refused to let me study Latin, and for some reason I assumed that вЂњOn Not Knowing GreekвЂќ was about how WoolfвЂ™s father, too, had prevented his daughter from studying a dead language. A few years ago, in the Frankfurt airport on the way home from Greece, I bought a copy of Virginia WoolfвЂ™s вЂњThe Common Reader,вЂќ which includes her essay вЂњOn Not Knowing Greek.вЂќ I already had the book at home, but I was impressed that anything by Woolf was considered airport reading.

Ancient greek letters to english