美文欣賞-Gladiator

(Maximus is boosting morale.)

Maximus: 1)Archers, three weeks from now I will be harvesting my crops. Imagine where you will be, and it will be so. Hold the line, stay with me, if you find yourself alone riding in green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled for you are in the Elysium, and you’re already dead. Brothers, what we do alive echoes in eternity!

(Caesar talks with Maximus after a ferocious battle.)

Caesar: Tell me about your home.

Maximus: My house is in the hills above Tiupllo, a very simple place. Pink stones that warm in the sun. A kitchen garden, it smells of herbs in the day, jasmine in the evening. Through the gate is a giant 2)poplar. Figs, apples, pears, and soil mark as black, black as my wife’s hair. Grapes on the south slopes, olives on the north. Wild 3)ponies playing in the house that teach my son, he always wants to be one of them.

Caesar: Remember the last time you were home?

Maximus: Two years 264 days of this morning.

CAESAR: Oh I envy you, Maximus. It’s a good home, worth fighting for. There is one more duty that I ask of you before you go home.

Maximus: What would you have me do, Caesar?

Caesar: I want you to become the Protector of Rome after I die. I will empower you to one end alone, to give power back to the people of Rome, and end the corruption that has 4)crippled it.