until they rest in Thee.

I began, as yet a boy, to pray to Thee, that I might not be beaten at
school; but I sinned in disobeying the commands of parents and teachers
through love of play, delighting in the pride of victory in my contests.
I loved not study, and hated to be forced to it. Unless forced, I did
not learn at all. But no one does well against his will, even though
what he does is good. But what was well came to me from Thee, my God,
for Thou hast decreed that every inordinate affection should carry with
it its own punishment.

But why did I so much hate the Greek which I was taught as a boy? I do
not yet fully know. For the Latin I loved; not what my first masters,
but what the so-called grammarians taught me. For those first
lessons--reading, writing, and arithmetic--I thought as great a burden
and as vexatious as any Greek. But in the other lessons I learned the
wanderings of Æneas, forgetful of my own, and wept for the dead Dido
because she killed herself for love; while, with dry eyes, I endured my
miserable self-dying among these things, far from Thee, my God, my life.

Why, then, did I hate the Greek classics, full of like fictions to those
in Virgil? For Homer also curiously wove similar stories, and is most
pleasant, yet was disagreeable to my boyish taste. In truth, the
difficulty of a foreign tongue dashed as with gall all the sweetness of
the Greek fable. For not one word of it did I understand, and to make me
learn I was urged vehemently with cruel threats and stripes. Yet I
learned with delight the fictions in Latin concerning the wicked doings
of Jove and Juno, and for this I was pronounced a helpful boy, being
applauded above many of my own age and class.