MORATURI TE SALUTAMUS

A soldier, wearing the paint-chipped/muddy helmet,
The ragged, half-unraveled leggins of the Infantry--
That sluttish "Queen of Battle"--
Stood alone, a tiny atom, looking upward
From the deep dark of the bowels of the Colosseum...
He was part, one single drop, of the tidal wave of battle
That had swept up roaring from the South--
To engulf and drown old Rome, and then roll on.

The Colosseum is an old, old man who has outlived his time,
Who lives sadly in the memories of glories of his past.
The soldier, as he looked about him, felt these things:
This reluctant resignation to a useless, deathless life:
This humiliation at being far too old, and an object
For the curious gaze of avid-eyed and brainless tourists.
The soldier felt a sympathetic bond with this old relic.
For the soldier, too, had outlived his own beliefs.

"This soldier, trying by thinking to clear his addled head,
Looked up and saw a Thracian who approached him.
Rattling his greaves, the Thracian spoke:
"I am Marcus the Greek."

Once a student of the philosophies--
Later a mighty gladiator, foremost of the Thracians.
I fought here in the arena:
That the "emperor might gain favor with the people:
That the people might forget their hunger;
I did not like it."

"Why did you fight then?" asked the soldier.

"I fought that I might hide from men the fact that I was afraid to fight.
I fought for honor and for fame--and because I was told to fight."

"But that is silly!" protested the soldier.

"So it is," agreed the Thracian. "Why do you fight?"

"I fight for an Ideal!" quoth the soldier proudly.

The Thracian smiled: "I will not argue.

But let me tell you this:
Ideals are all abstractions;

Fighting is reality;

One cannot be an 'dealist and a Realist.

Wine and women are realities--

And so they go with fighting.

Temperance and morals are abstractions--

And so they with Ideals.

Let those who fight stop philosophizing.

Let those who think refrain from fighting.

Water and oil will never mix."

The Thracian left the soldier then.

The soldier stared after him and smiled a bitter smile.

"Moraturi te salutamus." said the soldier.

After the reading (so) Shara.