Thucydides Θουκυδίδης
c. 400 BC · Athens, ancient Greece · From the funeral speech which, he writes, Pericles gave for the soldiers who died in the first year of the war (431 BC)
For of famous men the whole earth is the tomb.
ἀνδρῶν γὰρ ἐπιφανῶν πᾶσα γῆ τάφοςHistory of the Peloponnesian War, book 2, chapter 43
In the same thread
Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus
23 BC · Rome
It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. Death hunts down even the man who runs.
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori:
mors et fugacem persequitur uirumOdes 3.2
Wilfred Owen
1917 (published 1920) · Britain · the front in France · After seeing a soldier go down in a gas attack
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
"Dulce et Decorum Est"
Yosano Akiko 与謝野晶子
1904 · Meiji–Showa Japan · Thinking of her younger brother, with the army besieging Port Arthur in the Russo-Japanese War
O my brother, I weep for you. You must not die. You were the last born, and so our parents loved you most. Did our parents put a blade in your hand and teach you to kill people? Did they raise you to twenty-four to kill people and then die?
弟よ、君を泣く、
君死にたまふことなかれ。
末に生れし君なれば
親のなさけは勝りしも、
親は刄をにぎらせて
人を殺せと教へしや、
人を殺して死ねよとて
廿四までを育てしや。"You Must Not Die" (Kimi shinitamau koto nakare), in the Complete Poems of Akiko
Du Fu 杜甫
c. 751 · Tang China · On seeing a column of soldiers being marched off to the front
Carts rumble, horses neigh, and the men marching have bows and arrows at their waists. Fathers, mothers, wives and children run to see them off, and the dust hides the Xianyang Bridge.
車轔轔，馬蕭蕭，行人弓箭各在腰。
耶孃妻子走相送，塵埃不見咸陽橋。"Song of the War Carts"
Bak Inro 朴仁老
summer 1605 · Joseon Korea · Seven years after the Imjin War ended, sent at forty-five to guard the sea off Busan again
They send this old, sick body to the navy, and in the summer of the year eulsa I come down to the eastern garrison. On ground so vital to the frontier, shall I sit idle because my sickness is deep? A long sword slung at my side, I make myself board the warship
늘고 병(病)든 몸을 주사(舟師)로 보ᄂᆡ실ᄉᆡ
을사 삼하(乙巳三夏)애 진동영(鎭東營) ᄂᆞ려오니
관방 중지(關防重地)예 병(病)이 깁다 안자실랴
일장검(一長劍) 비기 ᄎᆞ고 병선(兵船)에 구테 올나"Seonsangtan" (Lament Aboard Ship), the opening, in Nogye jip
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