classical roman poetry and the end of childhood innocence

It was the dulcet Autumn of 1982.
RP Bennett our Latin teacher gazed around the room serenely.
"Get out the little green Ovids," he instructed.
A brisk wind was blowing up from the river Liffey stirring fallen leaves among the forlorn prefabs that housed the Fifth Year boys of Oldbridge College.
RP's injunction about little green Ovids referred to our books of Latin poetry written millennia ago by one P Ovideus Naso, which had been presented to us by the wonders of modern technology in lurid snot green covers.
We produced and then opened them as instructed.
There was a certain weariness observable in the ritual.
Fifth Class at Oldbridge College did not contain many Ovid fans.
RP regarded us owlishly.
"You'll like it this week," he mused. "There's a lot of sex in it."
In many ways we were simple children and his remark sent a buzz of polite expectation through our ranks.
RP continued.
"This poem is about the last man and woman left on earth after a flood has wiped out the rest of the human race. The last man and woman have come to the mystic Oracle at Themis to ask how they should repopulate the globe."
He paused.
"They were a bit innocent you see."
No other teacher could have made this remark and maintained order.
RP could do it because we were afraid at any given moment that if the mood took him he might kill us.
Let me put it this way.
His wit wasn't the only thing deadly about him.
Egg shaped he may have been but he could kill a man at fifty paces with a blow from a little green Ovid.
With straight faced whimsy our egg shaped professor began to translate from the book.
The tale unfolded.
The last man and woman were now kneeling before the stone Oracle, which was apparently a talking statue, and were asking it how they could reconstitute the human race.
RP had translated up to this with scant inflections in tone. For the next three lines he raised his voice to a dramatic crescendo.
"The Oracle spoke:
Go into a dark place.
Take off your clothes..."
The sense of expectation in our classroom became palpable.
RP flicked a page.
"It gets good here," he murmured conversationally.
The serried ranks of titillated children strained with earnest concentration.
RP's dull Dublin drawl seemed to have become quite sensuously suggestive.
"Then the Oracle spoke again:
When you stand in the darkness together,
Do not hasten to your task..."
He looked up briefly and his voice suddenly switched to a light dismissive cadence.
"...This is what you must do.
Take boulders from the earth and throw them over your shoulders.
In this way you will create a new race of man."
RP closed the book. He removed his spectacles and began to polish them.
"Well I don't know about you," he said absently, "but personally I prefer the more conventional method for propagating the species. I can't stop you of course. Only, when you leave this school and enter adult life, I do advise you to be careful where you go throwing old stones around."
Goulie Walsh, a mop headed youth in the back row, excited by all the sex talk was swept with a certain seditious confidence and stuck up his hand.
"Sir," he demanded all businesslike, "what's the conventional method?"
RP Bennett let out a glorious snort of bemusement.
"Arrah," he harrumphed, "ask your mother."