Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Coronavirus / Corona Virus

I waited a while to write. I was hoping I had misunderstood.

Instead, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom meant exactly what he said: "Get used to losing your loved ones".

Boris Johnson graduated from Oxford with a thesis on ancient history. He is a scholar of the classical world, passionate about the history and culture of Rome, on which he wrote an essay. He even proposed the reintroduction of Latin into English public schools.

Mr. Johnson, listen carefully. We are Aeneas who carried Anchises, his old and paralysed father, on his shoulders, to save him from the fire of Troy, who protects his terrified son Ascanio, and who founded that Rome, which you love so much.

We are Virgil who gave that story to the world.

We are Gian Lorenzo Bernini who, twenty-two years old, carved that message for eternity, in marble.

We are dwarves, perhaps, but sitting on the shoulders of those giants and thousands of other giants who have made the great beauty of Italy available to the world.

You, Mr. Johnson, are simply someone who has studied us. Not understanding or learning anything, however.

Take care.

We, Italians.

---- that's how Philippe Daverio thinks, eating, out of solidarity with the British, Stilton cheese while drinking gin and tonic (in modest quantities, as my doctor Hugo recommends)