http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Gaul
This statue captured my attention as a teenager and I still love it. I have always been intrigued by the realistic look of rather stunned pain --I've always wondered what kind of story this statue might tell if it came to life somehow.
The Dying Gladiator
(from "childe harold's pilgrimage")
I see before me the Gladiator lie:
He leans upon his hand - his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his droop'd head sinks gradually low -
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now
The arena swims around him - he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won.
He heard it, but he heeded not - his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother - he, their sire,
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday -
All this rush'd with his blood - Shall he expire
And unavenged? - Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!
George Gordon Lord Byron . 1788-1824
I see before me the Gladiator lie:
He leans upon his hand - his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his droop'd head sinks gradually low -
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now
The arena swims around him - he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won.
He heard it, but he heeded not - his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother - he, their sire,
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday -
All this rush'd with his blood - Shall he expire
And unavenged? - Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!
George Gordon Lord Byron . 1788-1824
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