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Updated: June 29, 2025
It was a face which recalled a modelling in marble rather than the charming pastel and aquarelle of a young woman's colouring, and somehow I thought of it less as the beauty of a woman than as some sexless emanation of natural things, and this impression was strengthened by her height and the long limbs, slender and strong as those of some youth trained in the pentathlon, subject to the severest discipline until all that was superfluous was fined away and the perfect form expressing the true being emerged.
Still, these public exhibitions are far from being a full exponent of the athletic habits of our people; and there is really more going on among us than this meagre "pentathlon" exhibits. Again, a foreigner is apt to infer, from the more desultory and unsystematized character of our out-door amusements, that we are less addicted to them than we really are.
Again—Pytheas screamed with agony—the Athenian’s clutch seemed weakening. Again—flesh and blood could not stand such battering long. If Lycon could endure this, there was only one end to the pentathlon. “Help thou me, Athena of the Gray Eyes! For the glory of Athens, my father, my wife!” The cry of Glaucon—half prayer, half battle-shout—pealed above the bellowing stadium.
Democrates reddened. He was glad the room was dark. “I am not here to quarrel about the pentathlon,” he said emphatically. “Oh, very well. Leave your dear sparrow to my gentle hands.” The Spartan’s huge paws closed significantly: “Here’s the wine. Sit and drink. And you, Hiram, get to your corner.” The Oriental silently squatted in the gloom, the gleam of his beady eyes just visible.
Men pushed their heads over other men's shoulders, and boys peeped between their fathers' legs to see the Olympic winner. And in that circle of faces Menon stood with his arms about Creon, laughing and crying. And Charmides clung to his brother's hand. But at last Creon whispered to his father: "I must go and make ready. I am entered for the pentathlon, also." Menon cried out in wonder.
“Peace!” ordered Glaucon, as if starting from a long revery, and with a sweep of his wonderful hands; “let the Medes, the Persians, and their war wait. For me the only war is the pentathlon,—and then by Zeus’s favour the victory, the glory, the return to Eleusis! Ah—wish me joy!” “Verily, the man is mad,” reflected the poet; “he lives in his own bright world, sufficient to himself.
But thou, far-darter, ruler of the glorious temple whereto all men go up, amid the glens of Pytho didst there grant this the greatest of joys: and at home before didst thou bring to him at the season of thy feast the keen-sought prize of the pentathlon. My king, with willing heart I make avowal that through thee is harmony before mine eyes in all that I sing of every conqueror.
“Is your friend,” corrected Hermione, thinking only of her husband, “for I have won no pentathlon.” “Ah, makaira, dearest and best,” he answered, looking not on the glorious citadel but on her face, “could I have won the parsley wreath had there been no better wreath awaiting me at Eleusis? And to-day I am gladdest of the glad.
“Poetry doesn’t win the pentathlon,” retorted the king; then suddenly he seized the athlete’s right arm near the shoulder. The muscles cracked. Glaucon did not wince. The king dropped the arm with a “Euge!” then extended his own hand, the fingers half closed, and ordered, “Open.”
Pytheas, beholding his fury, tore out a handful of hair in his mingled hope and dread. No man knew better than the trainer that no trick would conquer Lycon this second time; and Glaucon the Fair might be nearer the fields of Asphodel than the pleasant hills by Athens. More than one man had died in the last ordeal of the pentathlon. The silence was perfect.
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