Explanation: Rome was a very story-oriented culture, but not necessarily in the same way later literary cultures were. While reading is associated with silence in many later European cultures, as part of the wider monastic and religious tradition of Christian contemplation integrated into even processing secular literature, the Romans were all about reading aloud. Fancy dinner parties often included a younger relative showing their skill at recitation - or a specialized slave with the same skill (less prestigious, but just as fun for the listeners) - reciting lines from poetry or literature while the guests ate. The equivalent of putting on a movie during dinner!

I had to memorize a passage from Julius Cesar about 15 years ago and still remember it pretty well I think. In it, Brutus is confronting the rest of the conspirators towards the end of the play and calling them out for their reasons of killing Julius.

“Remember March, the ides of March remember? Did not great Julius bleed for Justice’s sake. What villain did stab and not for justice? What shall one of us who struck the foremost man but for harboring based bribes with as much as may be grasped thus? I had rather be a dog and bay the moon than such a roman”

I’m surprised I remember so much even 15 years later though I’m sure I messed up the line somewhere.

Some of y’all didn’t grow up Baptist and it shows.

10th grade, soliloquy from Macbeth. It hits me harder every year I grow older:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

“If life transcends death, then I will seek for you there. If not, then there too.”

He who has seen everything, I will make known to the lands.
I will teach about him who experienced all things,
Anu granted him the totality of knowledge of all.
He saw the Secret, discovered the Hidden,
he brought information of (the time) before the Flood.

If i’m going to memorize a story it’s going to be the first story. Everything else is derivative.

Henry V, when the Dauphin sends him tennis balls, but Kenneth Branagh’s version:

We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us.

His present and your pains we thank you for.

When we have matched our rackets to these balls, We will in France, by God’s grace, play a set

Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.

And we understand him well, How he comes o’er us with our wilder days,

Not measuring what use we made of them.

But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state, Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness When I do rouse me in my throne of France,

And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his Hath turned his balls to gun-stones, and his soul Shall stand sore chargèd for the wasteful vengeance That shall fly with them; for many a thousand widows

Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands, Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down; And some are yet ungotten and unborn That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin’s scorn.

It’s hard reciting anything when you’re full of ketamine.