004 - Bravery and Cowardice
A knife in the darkness, it is true, is cowardly. To stab a man at night, while he sleeps, is cowardly. But that is not what I am. That is not what I have done.
Any man, be he coward or no, can kill another. What bravery is there on the battlefield? Verses are written of courageous deeds done there, in the heat of war, but there is little truth in any of them. Any war, from this we fight against our enemy Ottoman, to those of days passed; soldiers fighting under Caesar’s eagle or valiant Greeks laying siege against Trojan gates to restore lovely, stolen Helen to her place at Menelaus’ side are all the same. There is no bravery in battle, though the men who fight it may say otherwise, when all is done. At its very basest, a battle is naught but a man desperate to survive the bloody fray. He thinks not of country and king when he fights, only of making it out of the fight ere losing his life.
No. What I have done is brave. What I have done requires strength of will to rival Heracles. I have stared, neigh smiled, down the beast. I have felt the Moor’s hands at my throat and faltered none. Not a crack hath shown in this my deception, not a sour note hath been heard in the tune I’ve sung, when a man of lesser constitution, a coward indeed, would have let all his well-laid plots come to ruination.
Is it not courage that propels me? So easily could I end it, and lose nothing. But still I go on. I am there, so close to the lion that any minute he may turn and have his teeth upon my throat should it please him. I am there to offer him such soft, deceitful soothing words and murmurings to calm him. Though one hand strokes, the other sharpens the sword with which I’ll kill the animal and take his hide.
Still, am I coward?
Let you lie with lions too, and we shall see who is the braver man.
Any man, be he coward or no, can kill another. What bravery is there on the battlefield? Verses are written of courageous deeds done there, in the heat of war, but there is little truth in any of them. Any war, from this we fight against our enemy Ottoman, to those of days passed; soldiers fighting under Caesar’s eagle or valiant Greeks laying siege against Trojan gates to restore lovely, stolen Helen to her place at Menelaus’ side are all the same. There is no bravery in battle, though the men who fight it may say otherwise, when all is done. At its very basest, a battle is naught but a man desperate to survive the bloody fray. He thinks not of country and king when he fights, only of making it out of the fight ere losing his life.
No. What I have done is brave. What I have done requires strength of will to rival Heracles. I have stared, neigh smiled, down the beast. I have felt the Moor’s hands at my throat and faltered none. Not a crack hath shown in this my deception, not a sour note hath been heard in the tune I’ve sung, when a man of lesser constitution, a coward indeed, would have let all his well-laid plots come to ruination.
Is it not courage that propels me? So easily could I end it, and lose nothing. But still I go on. I am there, so close to the lion that any minute he may turn and have his teeth upon my throat should it please him. I am there to offer him such soft, deceitful soothing words and murmurings to calm him. Though one hand strokes, the other sharpens the sword with which I’ll kill the animal and take his hide.
Still, am I coward?
Let you lie with lions too, and we shall see who is the braver man.