Fragment 10

For it is fine to die in the front line,
a brave man fighting for his fatherland,
and the most painful fate's to leave one’s town
and fertile farmlands for a beggar's life,
roaming with mother dear and aged father,
with little children and with wedded wife.
He'll not be welcome anywhere he goes,
bowing to need and horrid poverty,
his line disgraced, his handsome face belied;
every humiliation dogs his steps.
This is the truth: the vagrant is ignored
and slighted, and his children after him.
So let us fight with spirit for our land,
die for our sons, and spare our lives no more.
You young men, keep together, hold the line,
do not start panic or disgraceful rout.
Keep grand and valiant spirits in your hearts,
be not in love with life -- the fight's with men!
Do not desert your elders, men with legs
no longer nimble, by recourse to flight:
it is disgraceful when an older man
falls in the front line while the young hold back,
with head already white, and grizzled beard,
gasping his valiant breath out in the dust
and clutching at his bloodied genitals,
his nakedness exposed: a shameful sight
and scandalous. But for the young man, still
in glorious prime, it is all beautiful:
alive, he draws men's eyes and women's hearts;
felled in the front line, he is lovely yet.
Let every man then, feet set firm apart,
bite on his lip and stand against the foe.

- by Tyrtaeus (oh yes, he sure was a Spartan....)