Friday, May 12, 2023
Oaths
Excerpt from the Boer Oath, in Howard C. Hillegas, The Boers in War (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1900), p. 34:
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As by a thief in the night has our free republic been stolen from us. We can not suffer this, and we may not. It is the will of God that the unity of our fathers and our love to our children should oblige us to deliver unto our children, unblemished, the heritage of our fathers.Cf. this excerpt from the Athenian ephebic oath (tr. P.J. Rhodes and Robin Osborne):
I shall fight in defence of things sacred and profane and I shall not hand the fatherland on lessened, but greater and better both as far as I am able and with all.
ἀμυνῶ δὲ καὶ ὑπὲρ ἱερὼν καὶ ὁσίων καὶ οὐκ ἐλάττω παραδώσω τὴν πατρίδα, πλείω δὲ καὶ ἀρείω κατά τε ἐμαυτὸν καὶ μετὰ ἀπάντων.
