Tekenen met woorden

This contribution aims to inspire teachers to teach their pupils some of the insights on ekphrasis that are presented in this volume. It presents an assignment that invites second year pupils ‘to translate the verbal into the visual’.1 That is, they draw parts of the shield and attempt to construct it, on the basis of a Dutch translation of Vergil’s text. This drawing will teach the pupils to analyse a literary translation of a classical text and they will learn that a Dutch translation also requires attentive reading and the use of reference books. Together with their teacher, they interpret the role of Aeneas’ shield as a means for the narrator to keep his promise to Augustus to celebrate Rome, although it did not yet exist in Aeneas’ time.