Tuesday
Last week I cited A. E. Housman’s poem about the Battle of Thermopylae as I looked at the Ukrainian stalwarts striving to hold off the superior Russian forces in the city of Mariupol. Upon reading the post, my friend and tennis partner Walter Kurtz, a (mostly) retired judge and bronze star recipient for his service in Vietnam, alerted me to Greek poet C.P. Cavafy’s poem about the famous battle.
He says he carries it around with him, and I can see why. After all, we want our judges to be
in all things virtuous,
But never so hardened by virtue as not to be
Compassionate, available to pity…
In Walter’s case, the invading Persian hoards would be threats to the cause of justice. Cavafy wants us all, like the Greeks warriors, to stay focused on our sacred mission, never allowing ourselves to be “distracted from what is right to do, and right to be.” I imagine Walter holding himself to those standards as he listens to cases and makes rulings.
But back to the actual battle. The Greeks were finally defeated when a traitor, Ephialtes, betrayed his countrymen by showing the Medes and the Persians a goat path around the mountain passage that the Greeks were defending. In the end, the Greeks were slaughtered because they were attacked from the front and the back both. Cafavy is saying that we must stick to our principles and fight the good fight, even though we know it is only a matter of time before we will be betrayed and experience defeat. Even though we know we live in a world where scoundrels often prevail over the virtuous, we can’t surrender in our own private Thermopylaes—which is to say, we can’t sell out what is right and true as we encounter life’s challenges. Here’s the poem:
Thermopylae
By C.P. Cavafy
Translated by David Ferry
Honor is due to those who are keeping watch,
Sentinels guarding their own Thermopylae;
Never distracted from what is right to do,
And right to be; in all things virtuous,
But never so hardened by virtue as not to be
Compassionate, available to pity;
Generous if they’re rich, but generous too,
Doing whatever they can, if they are poor;
Always true to the truth, no matter what,
But never scornful of those who have to lie.
Even more honor is due when, keeping watch,
They see that the time will come when Ephialtes
Will tell the secret to the Medes and they
Will know the way to get in through the goat-path.
The Ukrainian holdouts may not encounter betrayal (except for Russia’s broken promises of safe passage for the remaining civilians), but they must know that they are on the verge of losing everything.
Everything, that is, but their honor.