hope that we too one day, when we have proved our mettle, may win and
wear for ourselves and for our city the threefold ornament of wealth,
of happiness, of honour. [10] And if there should be some who have
worked hard all their lives and suddenly old-age, they find, has
stolen on them unawares, and taken away their powers before they have
gathered in the fruit of all their toil, such men seem to me like
those who desire to be thrifty husbandmen, and who sow well and plant
wisely, but when the time of harvest comes let the fruit drop back
ungarnered into the soil whence it sprang. Or as if an athlete should
train himself and reach the heights where victory may be won and at
the last forbear to enter the lists--such an one, I take it, would but
meet his deserts if all men cried out upon him for a fool. [11] Let
not such be our fate, my friends. Our own hearts bear us witness that
we, too, from our boyhood up, have been trained in the school of
beauty and nobleness and honour, and now let us go forward to meet our
foes. They, I know right well, when matched with us, will prove but
novices in war. He is no true warrior, though he be skilled with the
javelin and the bow and ride on horseback with the best, who, when the
call for endurance comes, is found to fail: toil finds him but a
novice. Nor are they warriors who, when they should wake and watch,
give way to slumber: sleep finds them novices. Even endurance will not
avail, if a man has not learnt to deal as a man should by friends and
foes: such an one is unschooled in the highest part of his calling.
[12] But with you it is not so: to you the night will be as the day;
toil, your school has taught you, is the guide to happiness; hunger
has been your daily condiment, and water you take to quench your
thirst as the lion laps the stream. And you have that within your
hearts which is the rarest of all treasures and the most akin to war:
of all sweet sounds the sweetest sound for you is the voice of fame.
You are fair Honour's suitors, and you must needs win your title to