OFF THE BATHROOM SHELF
David Thomas
Live entertainment sales and marketing | Ambassador for The Arts and Culture Network
In the bathroom pride of place goes to an extremely tattered copy of Thucydides “History of The Peloponnesian War,” translated by Rex Warner, whose “Greeks And Trojans” has fired so many imaginations across the decades. Today The History opened by chance in the middle of Pericles’ Funeral Oration, from 431 BC,* and although it was written to honour the war-dead of Athens, 2,400 years ago, it is really about things that should be honoured always and everywhere ...including bathrooms
“So and such they were, these men -worthy of their city. We who remain behind may hope to be spared their fate, but must resolve to keep the same daring spirit against the foe. It is not simply a question of estimating the advantages in theory. I could tell you a long story (and you know it as well as I do) about what is to be gained by beating the enemy back. What I would prefer is that you should fix your eyes every day on the greatness of Athens as she really is, and should fall in love with her. When you realize her greatness, then reflect what made her great was men with a spirit of adventure, men who knew their duty, men who were ashamed to fall below a certain standard. If they ever failed in an enterprise, they made up their minds that at any rate the city should not find their courage lacking to her, and they gave her the best contribution that they could. They gave up their lives, to her and to all of us, and for their own selves they won praises that never grow old, the most splendid of sepulchres -not the sepulchre in which their bodies are laid, but where their glory remains eternal in men’s minds, always there on the right occasion to stir others to speech or to action. For famous men have the whole earth as their memorial: it is not only the inscriptions on their graves in their own country that mark them out; no, in foreign lands also, not in any visible form but in people’s hearts, their memory abides and grows. It is for you to try to be like them. Make up your minds that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous…”
*Every year the people of Athens gave a public funeral to honour those who were the first to die in war.