Test of Valor

Fülszöveg

TEST OF VALOR "Deeds without risk are not worthy of honor," Nicias had said when he declared his intention to fight the brutal Ajax. And now the time was almost upon him. Nicias felt a kind of exhilaration as the final event of the Olympic Games, the pancration, approached. This was the hour toward which for more than a month he had looked forward. Greater and more important to him than his triumph in the pentathlon was the effort he was soon to make. He had tried to understand his motives in this, and at first they had seemed very confused. But gradually he was coming to feel that this contest challenged him especially because it provided him with an ideál worth fighting for. The greatest achievements of Athens had been gained in the generation of those who had withstood fearlessly the Persian might. He remembered a favorité axiom of his teacher: "Great strength may be used either for or against freedom, but the victory will ultimately go to those who fight for freedom. The real... Tovább

Fülszöveg

TEST OF VALOR "Deeds without risk are not worthy of honor," Nicias had said when he declared his intention to fight the brutal Ajax. And now the time was almost upon him. Nicias felt a kind of exhilaration as the final event of the Olympic Games, the pancration, approached. This was the hour toward which for more than a month he had looked forward. Greater and more important to him than his triumph in the pentathlon was the effort he was soon to make. He had tried to understand his motives in this, and at first they had seemed very confused. But gradually he was coming to feel that this contest challenged him especially because it provided him with an ideál worth fighting for. The greatest achievements of Athens had been gained in the generation of those who had withstood fearlessly the Persian might. He remembered a favorité axiom of his teacher: "Great strength may be used either for or against freedom, but the victory will ultimately go to those who fight for freedom. The real test of valor is whether we have the courage to fight when the odds are overwhelmingly against us, as did our fathers at Marathon and Salamis, and as did all the heroes of both history and myth." The real test of valor, Nicias thought grimly. Fighting against overwhelming odds. That would always be the test of valor. It was the test he was to face. And it was the thrill of this realization, he now knew, that made it seenTto him a much greater challenge than the pentathlon. This contest would be like a meeting again of civilized man against brute force. Vissza