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Tyrtæus The Spartan - Full English Text Translation |
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Sunday, 09 November 2008 05:46 |
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MARTIAL ELEGY
by: Tyrtæus
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- HOW glorious fall the valiant, sword in hand,
- In front of battle for their native land!
- But oh! what ills await the wretch that yields,
- A recreant outcast from his country's fields!
- The mother whom he loves shall quit her home,
- An aged father at his side shall roam;
- His little ones shall weeping with him go,
- And a young wife participate his woe;
- While scorned and scowled upon by every face,
- They pine for food, and beg from place to place.
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- Stain of his breed! dishonoring manhood's form,
- All ills shall cleave to him: affliction's storm
- Shall blind him wandering in the vale of years,
- Till, lost to all but ignominous fears,
- He shall not blush to leave a recreant's name,
- And children, like himself, inured to shame.
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- But we will combat for our fathers' land,
- And we will drain the lifeblood where we stand,
- To save our children: -- fight ye side by side,
- And serried close, ye men of youthful pride,
- Disdaining fear, and deeming light the cost
- Of life itself in glorious battle lost.
- Leave not our sires to stem the unequal fight,
- Whose limbs are nerved no more with buoyant might;
- Nor, lagging backward, let the younger breast
- Permit the man of age (a sight unblest)
- To welter in the combat's foremost thrust,
- His hoary head disheveled in the dust,
- And venerable bosom bleeding bare.
- But youth's fair form, though fallen, is ever fair,
- And beautiful in death the boy appears,
- The hero boy, that dies in blooming years:
- In man's regret he lives, and woman's tears;
- More sacred than in life, and lovelier far,
- For having perished in the front of war.
| This English translation by Thomas Campbell of 'Martial Elegy' is reprinted from Greek Poets in English Verse. Ed. William Hyde Appleton. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1893. |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 22 March 2010 01:38 )
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