Robert Fitzgerald, who often worried that his translations of such ancient classics as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey were of little interest to younger readers, was heartened one day not long before his death by an incident related to him by his wife:

Two young women were wheeling their bicycles ahead of her through a college campus when, just before they left the path, one turned to the other. "You know what I said to him?" she asked. "I said, 'You know that scene where Hector got dragged by his ankles through the blood and the dust? 'Well,' I said, 'I hope that happens to you!'"