Vos têtes! Quel dommage.

One of the pleasures of studying a "classical" language--here, "classical" just means "nobody talks it anymore"--is the example sentences in the textbooks. You study French, it's all Monique and Jean-Claude and Jean-Pierre and Jean-Luc deciding whether to meet at la bibliotheque or la piscine. My first Japanese textbook (excellent, but from the 1960s) was mostly Tanaka-san and Yamamoto-san and White-san and Black-san asking each other how many city blocks to the bank (which was on the left, next to the library, it turned out). Sometimes Brown-san would show up and ask how much a chair cost. More recent Japanese textbooks are enlivened by part-time jobs at restaurants and bringing back souvenirs from Osaka.

Study a dead language, though, you're in different territory. Start high school Latin and you'll probably be talking about spears and slaves and Gauls and wild animals in the forest on Day 1. The only thing I remember from classical Greek is απολολα: "I am ruined, utterly." (I'm not sure I actually remember the word, but I remember the translation.) Anglo-Saxon, you're awash in blood and endless sorrow and alliteration before you've finished writing your name in the front of the book. (I'm assuming.)

Anyway, in Classical Japanese: A Grammar by Haruo Shirane, just 30 pages in we find this:

頭　蹴わられ、腰践みおられて、おめけ叫ぶ物おほかりけり。Kashira KE-wara-re, koshi fumi-ora-re-te, omeki-sakebu mono ookari-keri.

There were many (ookari-keri) who had their heads (kashira) kicked and split open (ke-wara-re-te), whose hips (koshi) were stomped on and broken (fumi-ora-re-te), and who screamed (omeki-sakebu). (Heike, vol. 5, Fujikawa, NKBT 32:374.) (Ke-wara-re is the ren'yokai of keru, the mizenkei of waru, "to split open," creating a compound verb, and the ren'yokei of the passive auxiliary verb ru.)

And it's not like some big reading lesson, either, it's just to illustrate a verb conjugation. You study French, it's like three semesters before you learn how to talk about heads getting kicked open. IF THEN.