Do you consider this poem inspirational? really easy 10 points!?

if so, explain your answer please : )

鈥淎 Call to Arms鈥?br> By: Callinus
translated by Richmond Lattimore

How long will you lie idle, and when will you find some courage,
you young men? Have you no shame of what other cities will say,
you who hang back? You think you can sit quiet in peacetime.
This is not peace, it is war which has engulfed our land.

A man, as he dies, should make one last throw with his spear.
It is a high thing, a bright honor, for a man to do battle
with the enemy for the sake of his children, and for his land
and his true wife; and death is a thing that will come when the spinning
Destinies make it come. So a man should go straight on
forward, spear held high, and under his shield the fighting
strength coiled ready to strike in the first shock of the charge.
When it is ordained that a man shall die, there is no escaping
death, not even for one descended from deathless gods.
Often a man who has fled from the fight and the clash of the thrown
spears
goes his way, and death befalls him in his own house,
and such a man is not loved nor missed for long by his people;
the great and the small alike mourn when a hero dies.
For all the populace is grieved for the high-hearted warrior
after his death; while he lives, he is treated as almost divine.
Their eyes gaze on him as if he stood like a bastion before them.
His actions are like an army鈥檚, though he is only one man.

If I were the person it's addressed to -- a young man living in a Greek city-state or Roman city, which is being attacked -- I would find the poem inspiring. After all, who could resist a call to arms to defend home and hearth when you're being attacked? In that case, defense is necessary, just and theater for heroism. A young man might easily see that taking up arms and fighting is in his interest, and the interest of his loved ones.

But a contemporary American lives in a far more complicated world. We have learned from bitter experience that all wars aren't just, and you can be just as dead sacrificing yourself for an unjust was as a just war. Parades, and honors aren't compensation for a pointless death in pursuit of a dubious national goal.

I believe it is. It serves the solider. That fight that saves the weak when he lays down his life for them, he is glorified in his act of courage.

That is quite good. I find it very inspirational. I think you should publish it on a blog or a free website.

Yes, and it is a message that needs to get out there to the general population. I liked your reference to those that sit back as if we are in peacetime, ignoring what the real situation is.

it's interesting. however i wouldn't say inspirational.
it conveys good meaning and all, however i do not find myself drawing inspiration after reading it.

I don't think "inspirational" in the strict sense is how I'd define the piece. Certainly as in the battle at Thermopolae, it ENCITES the outnumbered to a cause, even one that's hopeless.

Then there are thousands of historical examples and quotes that relate, such as those interpreted in the movie BraveHeart, or the poem stating, "Into the Valley of Death rode the 600", OR "I shall not go blindly into the night; I shall not give up without a fight", etc.

Obviously there are factions historically and currently that Consider death, especially in battle, a way to achieve things like Martyrdom, Eternity, a fast track to GOD, etc.

Steven Wolf