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When did Thought lose the power of being able to leap into the saddle behind Action? When did man forget to rush like Tyrtaeus to the combat, a sword in one hand, the lyre in the other? Since the world still has a body, it has a soul."
Sometimes a black Tyrtaeus breaks into a wild lament for the loss of warriors or territory; he taunts the clan with cowardice, reminds them of their slain kindred, better men than themselves, whose spirits cannot rest unavenged in their gory graves, and urges a furious onslaught upon the exulting victor.
This is mentioned by Tyrtaeus in the following verses: "They heard the god, and brought from Delphi home, Apollo's oracle, which thus did say: That over all within fair Sparta's realm The royal chiefs in council should bear sway, The elders next to them, the people last; If they the holy rhetra would obey."
Karnis, that zealous votary of the Muses, stood with Orpheus, on the very top of the barricade throwing lance after lance, while he sang at the top of his voice snatches of the verses of Tyrtaeus, in the teeth, as it were, of the foe who were crowding through the breach; the sweat streamed from his bald head and his eye flashed fire.
But he was yet something more: he could, if he pleased, be a Tyrtaeus; he was no fighter where was there ever a poet that was? but he wrote an ode on a sword, the only warlike piece that he ever wrote, the best poem on the subject ever written in any language.
He made the life of his soldiers miserable by excessive work and privations. He stretched the force of discipline to the point where, at a critical instant, it must break or expend itself on the enemy. Under similar circumstances, a Greek general caused Tyrtaeus to sing. It would have been curious to see two such forces opposed. But discipline alone does not constitute superior tactics.
Karnis, that zealous votary of the Muses, stood with Orpheus, on the very top of the barricade throwing lance after lance, while he sang at the top of his voice snatches of the verses of Tyrtaeus, in the teeth, as it were, of the foe who were crowding through the breach; the sweat streamed from his bald head and his eye flashed fire.
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