And Ulysses answered, “King Alcinous, it is a good thing to hear a
bard with such a divine voice as this man has. There is nothing better
or more delightful than when a whole people make merry together,
with the guests sitting orderly to listen, while the table is loaded
with bread and meats, and the cup-bearer draws wine and fills his
cup for every man. This is indeed as fair a sight as a man can see.
Now, however, since you are inclined to ask the story of my sorrows,
and rekindle my own sad memories in respect of them, I do not know how
to begin, nor yet how to continue and conclude my tale, for the hand
of heaven has been laid heavily upon me.
  “Firstly, then, I will tell you my name that you too may know it,
and one day, if I outlive this time of sorrow, may become my there
guests though I live so far away from all of you. I am Ulysses son
of Laertes, reknowned among mankind for all manner of subtlety, so
that my fame ascends to heaven. I live in Ithaca, where there is a
high mountain called Neritum, covered with forests; and not far from
it there is a group of islands very near to one another—Dulichium,
Same, and the wooded island of Zacynthus. It lies squat on the
horizon, all highest up in the sea towards the sunset, while the
others lie away from it towards dawn. It is a rugged island, but it
breeds brave men, and my eyes know none that they better love to
look upon. The goddess Calypso kept me with her in her cave, and
wanted me to marry her, as did also the cunning Aeaean goddess
Circe; but they could neither of them persuade me, for there is
nothing dearer to a man than his own country and his parents, and
however splendid a home he may have in a foreign country, if it be far
from father or mother, he does not care about it. Now, however, I will
tell you of the many hazardous adventures which by Jove’s will I met
with on my return from Troy.
  “When I had set sail thence the wind took me first to Ismarus, which
is the city of the Cicons. There I sacked the town and put the
people to the sword. We took their wives and also much *****, which we
divided equitably amongst us, so that none might have reason to
complain. I then said that we had better make off at once, but my
men very foolishly would not obey me, so they stayed there drinking
much wine and killing great numbers of sheep and oxen on the sea
shore. Meanwhile the Cicons cried out for help to other Cicons who
lived inland. These were more in number, and stronger, and they were
more skilled in the art of war, for they could fight, either from
chariots or on foot as the occasion served; in the morning, therefore,
they came as thick as leaves and bloom in summer, and the hand of
heaven was against us, so that we were hard pressed. They set the
battle in array near the ships, and the hosts aimed their
bronze-shod spears at one another. So long as the day waxed and it was
still morning, we held our own against them, though they were more
in number than we; but as the sun went down, towards the time when men
loose their oxen, the Cicons got the better of us, and we lost half
a dozen men from every ship we had; so we got away with those that
were left.
  “Thence we sailed onward with sorrow in our hearts, but glad to have
escaped death though we had lost our comrades, nor did we leave till
we had thrice invoked each one of the poor fellows who had perished by
the hands of the Cicons. Then Jove raised the North wind against us
till it blew a hurricane, so that land and sky were hidden in thick
clouds, and night sprang forth out of the heavens. We let the ships
run before the gale, but the force of the wind tore our sails to
tatters, so we took them down for fear of shipwreck, and rowed our
hardest towards the land. There we lay two days and two nights
suffering much alike from toil and distress of mind, but on the
morning of the third day we again raised our masts, set sail, and took
our places, letting the wind and steersmen direct our ship. I should
have got home at that time unharmed had not the North wind and the
currents been against me as I was doubling Cape Malea, and set me
off my course hard by the island of Cythera.
  “I was driven thence by foul winds for a space of nine days upon the
sea, but on the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus-eater,
who live on a food that comes from a kind of flower. Here we landed to
take in fresh water, and our crews got their mid-day meal on the shore
near the ships. When they had eaten and drunk I sent two of my company
to see what manner of men the people of the place might be, and they
had a third man under them. They started at once, and went about among
the Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the
lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring
about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened
to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the
Lotus-eater without thinking further of their return; nevertheless,
though they wept bitterly I forced them back to the ships and made
them fast under the benches. Then I told the rest to go on board at
once, lest any of them should taste of the lotus and leave off wanting
to get home, so they took their places and smote the grey sea with
their oars.
  “We sailed hence, always in much distress, till we came to the
land of the lawless and inhuman Cyclopes. Now the Cyclopes neither
plant nor plough, but trust in providence, and live on such wheat,
barley, and grapes as grow wild without any kind of tillage, and their
wild grapes yield them wine as the sun and the rain may grow them.
They have no laws nor assemblies of the people, but live in caves on
the tops of high mountains; each is lord and master in his family, and
they take no account of their neighbours.
  “Now off their harbour there lies a wooded and fertile island not
quite close to the land of the Cyclopes, but still not far. It is
overrun with wild goats, that breed there in great numbers and are
never disturbed by foot of man; for sportsmen—who as a rule will
suffer so much hardship in forest or among mountain precipices—do not
go there, nor yet again is it ever ploughed or fed down, but it lies a
wilderness untilled and unsown from year to year, and has no living
thing upon it but only goats. For the Cyclopes have no ships, nor
yet shipwrights who could make ships for them; they cannot therefore
go from city to city, or sail over the sea to one another’s country as
people who have ships can do; if they had had these they would have
colonized the island, for it is a very good one, and would yield
everything in due season. There are meadows that in some places come
right down to the sea shore, well watered and full of luscious
grass; grapes would do there excellently; there is level land for
ploughing, and it would always yield heavily at harvest time, for
the soil is deep. There is a good harbour where no cables are
wanted, nor yet anchors, nor need a ship be moored, but all one has to
do is to beach one’s vessel and stay there till the wind becomes
fair for putting out to sea again. At the head of the harbour there is
a spring of clear water coming out of a cave, and there are poplars
growing all round it.
  “Here we entered, but so dark was the night that some god must
have brought us in, for there was nothing whatever to be seen. A thick
mist hung all round our ships; the moon was hidden behind a mass of
clouds so that no one could have seen the island if he had looked
for it, nor were there any breakers to tell us we were close in
shore before we found ourselves upon the land itself; when, however,
we had beached the ships, we took down the sails, went ashore and
camped upon the beach till daybreak.
  “When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, we admired
the island and wandered all over it, while the nymphs Jove’s daughters
roused the wild goats that we might get some meat for our dinner. On
this we fetched our spears and bows and arrows from the ships, and
dividing ourselves into three bands began to shoot the goats. Heaven
sent us excellent sport; I had twelve ships with me, and each ship got
nine goats, while my own ship had ten; thus through the livelong day
to the going down of the sun we ate and drank our fill,—and we had
plenty of wine left, for each one of us had taken many jars full
when we sacked the city of the Cicons, and this had not yet run out.
While we were feasting we kept turning our eyes towards the land of
the Cyclopes, which was hard by, and saw the smoke of their stubble
fires. We could almost fancy we heard their voices and the bleating of
their sheep and goats, but when the sun went down and it came on dark,
we camped down upon the beach, and next morning I called a council.
  “‘Stay here, my brave fellows,’ said I, ‘all the rest of you,
while I go with my ship and exploit these people myself: I want to see
if they are uncivilized savages, or a hospitable and humane race.’
  “I went on board, bidding my men to do so also and loose the
hawsers; so they took their places and smote the grey sea with their
oars. When we got to the land, which was not far, there, on the face
of a cliff near the sea, we saw a great cave overhung with laurels. It
was a station for a great many sheep and goats, and outside there
was a large yard, with a high wall round it made of stones built
into the ground and of trees both pine and oak. This was the abode
of a huge monster who was then away from home shepherding his
flocks. He would have nothing to do with other people, but led the
life of an outlaw. He was a horrid creature, not like a human being at
all, but resembling rather some crag that stands out boldly against
the sky on the top of a high mountain.
  “I told my men to draw the ship ashore, and stay where they were,
all but the twelve best among them, who were to go along with
myself. I also took a goatskin of sweet black wine which had been
given me by Maron, Apollo son of Euanthes, who was priest of Apollo
the patron god of Ismarus, and lived within the wooded precincts of
the temple. When we were sacking the city we respected him, and spared
his life, as also his wife and child; so he made me some presents of
great value—seven talents of fine gold, and a bowl of silver, with
twelve jars of sweet wine, unblended, and of the most exquisite
flavour. Not a man nor maid in the house knew about it, but only
himself, his wife, and one housekeeper: when he drank it he mixed
twenty parts of water to one of wine, and yet the fragrance from the
mixing-bowl was so exquisite that it was impossible to refrain from
drinking. I filled a large skin with this wine, and took a wallet full
of provisions with me, for my mind misgave me that I might have to
deal with some savage who would be of great strength, and would
respect neither right nor law.
  “We soon reached his cave, but he was out shepherding, so we went
inside and took stock of all that we could see. His cheese-racks
were loaded with cheeses, and he had more lambs and kids than his pens
could hold. They were kept in separate flocks; first there were the
hoggets, then the oldest of the younger lambs and lastly the very
young ones all kept apart from one another; as for his dairy, all
the vessels, bowls, and milk pails into which he milked, were swimming
with whey. When they saw all this, my men begged me to let them
first steal some cheeses, and make off with them to the ship; they
would then return, drive down the lambs and kids, put them on board
and sail away with them. It would have been indeed better if we had
done so but I would not listen to them, for I wanted to see the
owner himself, in the hope that he might give me a present. When,
however, we saw him my poor men found him ill to deal with.
  “We lit a fire, offered some of the cheeses in sacrifice, ate others
of them, and then sat waiting till the Cyclops should come in with his
sheep. When he came, he brought in with him a huge load of dry
firewood to light the fire for his supper, and this he flung with such
a noise on to the floor of his cave that we hid ourselves for fear
at the far end of the cavern. Meanwhile he drove all the ewes
inside, as well as the she-goats that he was going to milk, leaving
the males, both rams and he-goats, outside in the yards. Then he
rolled a huge stone to the mouth of the cave—so huge that two and
twenty strong four-wheeled waggons would not be enough to draw it from
its place against the doorway. When he had so done he sat down and
milked his ewes and goats, all in due course, and then let each of
them have her own young. He curdled half the milk and set it aside
in wicker strainers, but the other half he poured into bowls that he
might drink it for his supper. When he had got through with all his
work, he lit the fire, and then caught sight of us, whereon he said:
  “‘Strangers, who are you? Where do sail from? Are you traders, or do
you sail the as rovers, with your hands against every man, and every
man’s hand against you?’
  “We were frightened out of our senses by his loud voice and
monstrous form, but I managed to say, ‘We are Achaeans on our way home
from Troy, but by the will of Jove, and stress of weather, we have
been driven far out of our course. We are the people of Agamemnon, son
of Atreus, who has won infinite renown throughout the whole world,
by sacking so great a city and killing so many people. We therefore
humbly pray you to show us some hospitality, and otherwise make us
such presents as visitors may reasonably expect. May your excellency
fear the wrath of heaven, for we are your suppliants, and Jove takes
all respectable travellers under his protection, for he is the avenger
of all suppliants and foreigners in distress.’
  “To this he gave me but a pitiless answer, ‘Stranger,’ said he, ‘you
are a fool, or else you know nothing of this country. Talk to me,
indeed, about fearing the gods or shunning their anger? We Cyclopes do
not care about Jove or any of your blessed gods, for we are ever so
much stronger than they. I shall not spare either yourself or your
companions out of any regard for Jove, unless I am in the humour for
doing so. And now tell me where you made your ship fast when you
came on shore. Was it round the point, or is she lying straight off
the land?’
  “He said this to draw me out, but I was too cunning to be caught
in that way, so I answered with a lie; ‘Neptune,’ said I, ’sent my
ship on to the rocks at the far end of your country, and wrecked it.
We were driven on to them from the open sea, but I and those who are
with me escaped the jaws of death.’
  “The cruel wretch vouchsafed me not one word of answer, but with a
sudden clutch he gripped up two of my men at once and dashed them down
upon the ground as though they had been puppies. Their brains were
shed upon the ground, and the earth was wet with their blood. Then
he tore them limb from limb and supped upon them. He gobbled them up
like a lion in the wilderness, flesh, bones, marrow, and entrails,
without leaving anything uneaten. As for us, we wept and lifted up our
hands to heaven on seeing such a horrid sight, for we did not know
what else to do; but when the Cyclops had filled his huge paunch,
and had washed down his meal of human flesh with a drink of neat milk,
he stretched himself full length upon the ground among his sheep,
and went to sleep. I was at first inclined to seize my sword, draw it,
and drive it into his vitals, but I reflected that if I did we
should all certainly be lost, for we should never be able to shift the
stone which the monster had put in front of the door. So we stayed
sobbing and sighing where we were till morning came.
  “When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, he again
lit his fire, milked his goats and ewes, all quite rightly, and then
let each have her own young one; as soon as he had got through with
all his work, he clutched up two more of my men, and began eating them
for his morning’s meal. Presently, with the utmost ease, he rolled the
stone away from the door and drove out his sheep, but he at once put
it back again—as easily as though he were merely clapping the lid
on to a

When the companies were thus arrayed, each under its own captain,
the Trojans advanced as a flight of wild fowl or cranes that scream
overhead when rain and winter drive them over the flowing waters of
Oceanus to bring death and destruction on the Pygmies, and they
wrangle in the air as they fly; but the Achaeans marched silently,
in high heart, and minded to stand by one another.
  As when the south wind spreads a curtain of mist upon the mountain
tops, bad for shepherds but better than night for thieves, and a man
can see no further than he can throw a stone, even so rose the dust
from under their feet as they made all speed over the plain.
  When they were close up with one another, Alexandrus came forward as
champion on the Trojan side. On his shoulders he bore the skin of a
panther, his bow, and his sword, and he brandished two spears shod
with bronze as a challenge to the bravest of the Achaeans to meet
him in single fight. Menelaus saw him thus stride out before the
ranks, and was glad as a hungry lion that lights on the carcase of
some goat or horned stag, and devours it there and then, though dogs
and youths set upon him. Even thus was Menelaus glad when his eyes
caught sight of Alexandrus, for he deemed that now he should be
revenged. He sprang, therefore, from his chariot, clad in his suit
of armour.
  Alexandrus quailed as he saw Menelaus come forward, and shrank in
fear of his life under cover of his men. As one who starts back
affrighted, trembling and pale, when he comes suddenly upon a
serpent in some mountain glade, even so did Alexandrus plunge into the
throng of Trojan warriors, terror-stricken at the sight of the son
Atreus.
  Then Hector upbraided him. “Paris,” said he, “evil-hearted Paris,
fair to see, but woman-mad, and false of tongue, would that you had
never been born, or that you had died *****. Better so, than live to
be disgraced and looked askance at. Will not the Achaeans mock at us
and say that we have sent one to champion us who is fair to see but
who has neither wit nor courage? Did you not, such as you are, get
your following together and sail beyond the seas? Did you not from
your a far country carry off a lovely woman wedded among a people of
warriors—to bring sorrow upon your father, your city, and your
whole country, but joy to your enemies, and hang-dog shamefacedness to
yourself? And now can you not dare face Menelaus and learn what manner
of man he is whose wife you have stolen? Where indeed would be your
lyre and your love-tricks, your comely locks and your fair favour,
when you were lying in the dust before him? The Trojans are a
weak-kneed people, or ere this you would have had a shirt of stones
for the wrongs you have done them.”
  And Alexandrus answered, “Hector, your rebuke is just. You are
hard as the axe which a shipwright wields at his work, and cleaves the
timber to his liking. As the axe in his hand, so keen is the edge of
your scorn. Still, taunt me not with the gifts that golden Venus has
given me; they are precious; let not a man disdain them, for the
gods give them where they are minded, and none can have them for the
asking. If you would have me do battle with Menelaus, bid the
Trojans and Achaeans take their seats, while he and I fight in their
midst for Helen and all her wealth. Let him who shall be victorious
and prove to be the better man take the woman and all she has, to bear
them to his home, but let the rest swear to a solemn covenant of peace
whereby you Trojans shall stay here in Troy, while the others go
home to Argos and the land of the Achaeans.”
  When Hector heard this he was glad, and went about among the
Trojan ranks holding his spear by the middle to keep them back, and
they all sat down at his bidding: but the Achaeans still aimed at
him with stones and arrows, till Agamemnon shouted to them saying,
“Hold, Argives, shoot not, sons of the Achaeans; Hector desires to
speak.”
  They ceased taking aim and were still, whereon Hector spoke. “Hear
from my mouth,” said he, “Trojans and Achaeans, the saying of
Alexandrus, through whom this quarrel has come about. He bids the
Trojans and Achaeans lay their armour upon the ground, while he and
Menelaus fight in the midst of you for Helen and all her wealth. Let
him who shall be victorious and prove to be the better man take the
woman and all she has, to bear them to his own home, but let the
rest swear to a solemn covenant of peace.”
  Thus he spoke, and they all held their peace, till Menelaus of the
loud battle-cry addressed them. “And now,” he said, “hear me too,
for it is I who am the most aggrieved. I deem that the parting of
Achaeans and Trojans is at hand, as well it may be, seeing how much
have suffered for my quarrel with Alexandrus and the wrong he did
me. Let him who shall die, die, and let the others fight no more.
Bring, then, two lambs, a white ram and a black ewe, for Earth and
Sun, and we will bring a third for Jove. Moreover, you shall bid Priam
come, that he may swear to the covenant himself; for his sons are
high-handed and ill to trust, and the oaths of Jove must not be
transgressed or taken in vain. Young men’s minds are light as air, but
when an old man comes he looks before and after, deeming that which
shall be fairest upon both sides.”
  The Trojans and Achaeans were glad when they heard this, for they
thought that they should now have rest. They backed their chariots
toward the ranks, got out of them, and put off their armour, laying it
down upon the ground; and the hosts were near to one another with a
little space between them. Hector sent two messengers to the city to
bring the lambs and to bid Priam come, while Agamemnon told Talthybius
to fetch the other lamb from the ships, and he did as Agamemnon had
said.
  Meanwhile Iris went to Helen in the form of her sister-in-law,
wife of the son of Antenor, for Helicaon, son of Antenor, had
married Laodice, the fairest of Priam’s daughters. She found her in
her own room, working at a great web of purple linen, on which she was
embroidering the battles between Trojans and Achaeans, that Mars had
made them fight for her sake. Iris then came close up to her and said,
“Come hither, child, and see the strange doings of the Trojans and
Achaeans till now they have been warring upon the plain, mad with lust
of battle, but now they have left off fighting, and are leaning upon
their shields, sitting still with their spears planted beside them.
Alexandrus and Menelaus are going to fight about yourself, and you are
to the the wife of him who is the victor.”
  Thus spoke the goddess, and Helen’s heart yearned after her former
husband, her city, and her parents. She threw a white mantle over
her head, and hurried from her room, weeping as she went, not alone,
but attended by two of her handmaids, Aethrae, daughter of Pittheus,
and Clymene. And straightway they were at the Scaean gates.
  The two sages, Ucalegon and Antenor, elders of the people, were
seated by the Scaean gates, with Priam, Panthous, Thymoetes, Lampus,
Clytius, and Hiketaon of the race of Mars. These were too old to
fight, but they were fluent orators, and sat on the tower like cicales
that chirrup delicately from the boughs of some high tree in a wood.
When they saw Helen coming towards the tower, they said softly to
one another, “Small wonder that Trojans and Achaeans should endure
so much and so long, for the sake of a woman so marvellously and
divinely lovely. Still, fair though she be, let them take her and
go, or she will breed sorrow for us and for our children after us.”
  But Priam bade her draw nigh. “My child,” said he, “take your seat
in front of me that you may see your former husband, your kinsmen
and your friends. I lay no blame upon you, it is the gods, not you who
are to blame. It is they that have brought about this terrible war
with the Achaeans. Tell me, then, who is yonder huge hero so great and
goodly? I have seen men taller by a head, but none so comely and so
royal. Surely he must be a king.”
  “Sir,” answered Helen, “father of my husband, dear and reverend in
my eyes, would that I had chosen death rather than to have come here
with your son, far from my bridal chamber, my friends, my darling
daughter, and all the companions of my girlhood. But it was not to be,
and my lot is one of tears and sorrow. As for your question, the
hero of whom you ask is Agamemnon, son of Atreus, a good king and a
brave soldier, brother-in-law as surely as that he lives, to my
abhorred and miserable self.”
  The old man marvelled at him and said, “Happy son of Atreus, child
of good fortune. I see that the Achaeans are subject to you in great
multitudes. When I was in Phrygia I saw much horsemen, the people of
Otreus and of Mygdon, who were camping upon the banks of the river
Sangarius; I was their ally, and with them when the Amazons, peers
of men, came up against them, but even they were not so many as the
Achaeans.”
  The old man next looked upon Ulysses; “Tell me,” he said, “who is
that other, shorter by a head than Agamemnon, but broader across the
chest and shoulders? His armour is laid upon the ground, and he stalks
in front of the ranks as it were some great woolly ram ordering his
ewes.”
  And Helen answered, “He is Ulysses, a man of great craft, son of
Laertes. He was born in rugged Ithaca, and excels in all manner of
stratagems and subtle cunning.”
  On this Antenor said, “Madam, you have spoken truly. Ulysses once
came here as envoy about yourself, and Menelaus with him. I received
them in my own house, and therefore know both of them by sight and
conversation. When they stood up in presence of the assembled Trojans,
Menelaus was the broader shouldered, but when both were seated Ulysses
had the more royal presence. After a time they delivered their
message, and the speech of Menelaus ran trippingly on the tongue; he
did not say much, for he was a man of few words, but he spoke very
clearly and to the point, though he was the younger man of the two;
Ulysses, on the other hand, when he rose to speak, was at first silent
and kept his eyes fixed upon the ground. There was no play nor
graceful movement of his sceptre; he kept it straight and stiff like a
man unpractised in oratory—one might have taken him for a mere
churl or simpleton; but when he raised his voice, and the words came
driving from his deep chest like winter snow before the wind, then
there was none to touch him, and no man thought further of what he
looked like.”
  Priam then caught sight of Ajax and asked, “Who is that great and
goodly warrior whose head and broad shoulders tower above the rest
of the Argives?”
  “That,” answered Helen, “is huge Ajax, bulwark of the Achaeans,
and on the other side of him, among the Cretans, stands Idomeneus
looking like a god, and with the captains of the Cretans round him.
Often did Menelaus receive him as a guest in our house when he came
visiting us from Crete. I see, moreover, many other Achaeans whose
names I could tell you, but there are two whom I can nowhere find,
Castor, breaker of horses, and Pollux the mighty boxer; they are
children of my mother, and own brothers to myself. Either they have
not left Lacedaemon, or else, though they have brought their ships,
they will not show themselves in battle for the shame and disgrace
that I have brought upon them.”
  She knew not that both these heroes were already lying under the
earth in their own land of Lacedaemon.
  Meanwhile the heralds were bringing the holy oath-offerings
through the city—two lambs and a goatskin of wine, the gift of earth;
and Idaeus brought the mixing bowl and the cups of gold. He went up to
Priam and said, “Son of Laomedon, the princes of the Trojans and
Achaeans bid you come down on to the plain and swear to a solemn
covenant. Alexandrus and Menelaus are to fight for Helen in single
combat, that she and all her wealth may go with him who is the victor.
We are to swear to a solemn covenant of peace whereby we others
shall dwell here in Troy, while the Achaeans return to Argos and the
land of the Achaeans.”
  The old man trembled as he heard, but bade his followers yoke the
horses, and they made all haste to do so. He mounted the chariot,
gathered the reins in his hand, and Antenor took his seat beside
him; they then drove through the Scaean gates on to the plain. When
they reached the ranks of the Trojans and Achaeans they left the
chariot, and with measured pace advanced into the space between the
hosts.
  Agamemnon and Ulysses both rose to meet them. The attendants brought
on the oath-offerings and mixed the wine in the mixing-bowls; they
poured water over the hands of the chieftains, and the son of Atreus
drew the dagger that hung by his sword, and cut wool from the lambs’
heads; this the men-servants gave about among the Trojan and Achaean
princes, and the son of Atreus lifted up his hands in prayer.
“Father Jove,” he cried, “that rulest in Ida, most glorious in
power, and thou oh Sun, that seest and givest ear to all things, Earth
and Rivers, and ye who in the realms below chastise the soul of him
that has broken his oath, witness these rites and guard them, that
they be not vain. If Alexandrus kills Menelaus, let him keep Helen and
all her wealth, while we sail home with our ships; but if Menelaus
kills Alexandrus, let the Trojans give back Helen and all that she
has; let them moreover pay such fine to the Achaeans as shall be
agreed upon, in testimony among those that shall be born hereafter.
Aid if Priam and his sons refuse such fine when Alexandrus has fallen,
then will I stay here and fight on till I have got satisfaction.”
  As he spoke he drew his knife across the throats of the victims, and
laid them down gasping and dying upon the ground, for the knife had
reft them of their strength. Then they poured wine from the
mixing-bowl into the cups, and prayed to the everlasting gods, saying,
Trojans and Achaeans among one another, “Jove, most great and
glorious, and ye other everlasting gods, grant that the brains of them
who shall first sin against their oaths—of them and their children-
may be shed upon the ground even as this wine, and let their wives
become the slaves of strangers.”
  Thus they prayed, but not as yet would Jove grant them their prayer.
Then Priam, descendant of Dardanus, spoke, saying, “Hear me, Trojans
and Achaeans, I will now go back to the wind-beaten city of Ilius: I
dare not with my own eyes witness this fight between my son and
Menelaus, for Jove and the other immortals alone know which shall
fall.”
  On this he laid the two lambs on his chariot and took his seat. He
gathered the reins in his hand, and Antenor sat beside him; the two
then went back to Ilius. Hector and Ulysses measured the ground, and
cast lots from a helmet of bronze to see which should take aim
first. Meanwhile the two hosts lifted up their hands and prayed
saying, “Father Jove, that rulest from Ida, most glorious in power,
grant that he who first brought about this war between us may die, and
enter the house of Hades, while we others remain at peace and abide by
our oaths.”
  Great Hector now turned his head aside while he shook the helmet,
and the lot of Paris flew out first. The others took their several
stations, each by his horses and the place where his arms were
lying, while Alexandrus, husband of lovely Helen, put on his goodly
armour. First he greaved his legs with greaves of good make and fitted
with ancle-clasps of silver; after this he donned the cuirass of his
brother Lycaon, and fitted it to his own body; he hung his
silver-studded sword of bronze about his shoulders, and then his
mighty shield. On his comely head he set his helmet, well-wrought,
with a crest of horse-hair that nodded menacingly above it, and he
grasped a redoubtable spear that suited his hands. In like fashion
Menelaus also put on his armour.
  When they had thus armed, each amid his own people, they strode
fierce of aspect into the open space, and both Trojans and Achaeans
were struck with awe as they beheld them. They stood near one
another on the measured ground, brandis

You may talk o’ gin and beer
When you’re quartered safe out ‘ere,
An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot it;
But when it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ‘im that’s got it.
Now in Injia’s sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin’ of ‘Er Majesty the Queen,
Of all them blackfaced crew
The finest man I knew
Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.
      He was “Din! Din! Din!
  You limpin’ lump o’ brick-dust, Gunga Din!
      Hi! slippery hitherao!
      Water, get it!  Panee lao!
  You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din.”

The uniform ‘e wore
Was nothin’ much before,
An’ rather less than ‘arf o’ that be’ind,
For a piece o’ twisty rag
An’ a goatskin water-bag
Was all the field-equipment ‘e could find.
When the sweatin’ troop-train lay
In a sidin’ through the day,
Where the ‘eat would make your bloomin’ eyebrows crawl,
We shouted “Harry By!”
Till our throats were bricky-dry,
Then we wopped ‘im ‘cause ‘e couldn’t serve us all.
      It was “Din! Din! Din!
  You ‘eathen, where the mischief ‘ave you been?
      You put some juldee in it
      Or I’ll marrow you this minute
  If you don’t fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!”

‘E would dot an’ carry one
Till the longest day was done;
An’ ‘e didn’t seem to know the use o’ fear.
If we charged or broke or cut,
You could bet your bloomin’ nut,
‘E’d be waitin’ fifty paces right flank rear.
With ‘is mussick on ‘is back,
‘E would skip with our attack,
An’ watch us till the bugles made “Retire”,
An’ for all ‘is ***** ‘ide
‘E was white, clear white, inside
When ‘e went to tend the wounded under fire!
      It was “Din! Din! Din!”
  With the bullets kickin’ dust-spots on the green.
      When the cartridges ran out,
      You could hear the front-files shout,
  “Hi! ammunition-mules an’ Gunga Din!”

I shan’t forgit the night
When I dropped be’ind the fight
With a bullet where my belt-plate should ‘a’ been.
I was chokin’ mad with thirst,
An’ the man that spied me first
Was our good old grinnin’, gruntin’ Gunga Din.
‘E lifted up my ‘ead,
An’ he plugged me where I bled,
An’ ‘e guv me ‘arf-a-pint o’ water-green:
It was crawlin’ and it stunk,
But of all the drinks I’ve drunk,
I’m gratefullest to one from Gunga Din.
      It was “Din! Din! Din!
  ‘Ere’s a beggar with a bullet through ‘is spleen;
      ‘E’s chawin’ up the ground,
      An’ ‘e’s kickin’ all around:
  For Gawd’s sake *** the water, Gunga Din!”

‘E carried me away
To where a dooli lay,
An’ a bullet come an’ drilled the beggar clean.
‘E put me safe inside,
An’ just before ‘e died,
“I ‘ope you liked your drink”, sez Gunga Din.
So I’ll meet ‘im later on
At the place where ‘e is gone—
Where it’s always double drill and no canteen;
‘E’ll be squattin’ on the coals
Givin’ drink to poor ****** souls,
An’ I’ll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!
      Yes, Din! Din! Din!
  You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
      Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,
      By the livin’ Gawd that made you,
  You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

From the depression of the distances with respect to the horizontal and the planes that separated them from the surface, below the references that came against, single sediment had been destined towards the high eminence, before the fossal of megatons of aldehyde below the bilges of the final base, where the seventh rings of the goat ibex were perforated, all in the antipode of the Constellation of Capricornus; where the goats were enraptured in the binary of Wonthelimar, behind the floods of absorption that took the Diadocos far from where they should never have left, in order to extrasolar wishes and never to come. From the node of the supreme and poked aldehyde of the horn of Amalthea, with the bizarre analogy of Zeus and Wonthelimar, both mammals with milk from goat's udders, one from goat from Mount Ida and the other from Aldaine in the Alps, with milk from ibex and In the face of Amalthea that appeared in the fossal, all the Seleucid generals had already vanished, starting from the Viper Typhon, who in the retracting sub-mythology of Capricornus was transmigrated to Wonthelimar, swollen with the aldehyde transmuted into this alcohol and into the udder milk of the Ibix that He lactored, while they were all carried away as in the chambers of Auschwitz, in distant lanterns and lamps of the Calypso that he dismissed them, leaving them with the escorts of the ibex or goatfish in laudable stratagems, which vanished them away from their desires from a new polis or Nostos Patrída, sprinkling them with goatskin and flourishing essences of the kashmar of Zeus' nurse; Amaltheum or Amalthea.

The Iberian rings from the medrones in advance reached the two final ring nodes, here Wonthelimar intimidated them with an accurate adjacent bleat of the kashmar that rubbed their back, before the newest and last lux of Amalthea that vanished into herbaceous fruits that always He carried the barefoot medron with him, to start with the antlers dumbbells and re-transport them defeated to the species of snake that frightened the pastoral god Pan who shepherded, and then he submerged in the water after becoming Capricornus Ibex Fish. Being aware of this and of those who refused to continue listening, Ibics rings were unleashed until the seventh medron, feeding back with Wonthelimar who ad libitum created Venus in triads of Zeus. Wonthelimar and Amalthea were remote in the eighth and ninth medron of the antlers, they appropriated to each the portion of the Parasha or Parashot of the Torah, and of the thirteenth Shemot so that their dualities and fumes from the unbreathable fossa would remain under the possessed surface of the pendular property balance and positive-negative gender correspondence. Right here Amalthea transmuted her mercy to save the world with her lactation of syrup and honey that was not in short supply, and that was extrapolated into a future abundance of food and nectar, making up for crusts that were uneven in average terms. From this bezel, both beings of the goat genome contributed to the pole of goodness for each one at the end of the benevolent cuirassiers of prospering, and not from the opposite that would lead them, even though they were dissimilar causes, towards a retrograde event that was not a consequence of the becoming of the plagues, and of the malignancy that does not flourish with the Shemot of the Parasha, to agree and lavish themselves on blessed virtues or deliberate wicked ones.

The meaning of a relative synchronic and factotum coexisting does not redeem the disintegration of an existential relativism in Skalá, the Hexagonal Primogeniture from one of its angular visions, metaphysically transfers from its temporary contingencies after its arrival on Patmos, while the temporary Seleucid temporality vanishes, It was affirmed from a contradiction since its truth was distended in the arena of Skalá not implying being welcomed, rather it was victimized by the absurd political dimorphism in a meta spiritual state, abdicating its dispersed retrospective, and now contemplating a compromise of the Hellenic genre, to gradually rebuke the virtues of their banners, twice as good for the purpose of reinforcing the will to accede, and not perish in the attempt to lead Alexander the Great. The criticism of founding the memories are of a revived past where it was not, marking the anthropological fact and false truth judgment, in meaning and contradiction in the polarity of both axiomatic genres, but that is saved when quantifying in who has to defend himself, if seeks to abrogate itself, in the entity that is characterized by induction and attraction of egonies and not of exo-egonies, thus describing it in the theme of "Do not support egos that recriminate other characters of frustration and empowerment of a Vernarthian logic split into Vern-narth. Vern has etymology of Bern or Bern olive tree of Gethsemane and narth of the ordinal scale that speculates its nickname in millions of northern sections of its origin, which subsumes the truth and the criterion of apocalyptic parapsychology, re-life of quantum historicity of the metaphysical and sub-block. -Mythological of Vernarth in his identical.

Everything seemed a strange self-annulment from a clear and understandable limit, but Wonthelimar rose to the surface of the Állos kósmos, finding himself in atmospheres of truth and reality of a Cantabile, who decided about the horse Kanti coming with him towing him from the Erebo de Chauvet Bilocated. As a musical and festive ending, he received them on the upper plate of the happened gestures, where a cabaletta rendered parts of a Cantabrian aria, in sulfurous and remorseful cavatina married with the cross emotions of a finale who sponsored expressions and festive Templar tales, with the descendants of Zeus or minor children, or grandchildren after this had to give him milk and honey but with báchkoi. Among the couplets that received him, some came about the smoke of terror that was confused with the dustbin of a Cavallo or horse acclaimed Kanti, with gasping bustling from a cardex, containing all the repertoires of a cantabile if this scene were to be repeated in The same epic allusion, and in random consequences, that go after a cavalcade that is not abstracted in real characters, but more in conformity with the well-deserved place of epic imaginative beings or in the operatic psychotropic of a duet, which would go flagellating in individuality and in each which is not content from another section of the Cantabrian.

The Universality of emotion and feeling is a tragic Parodo emulating voices of all those who sing from a cantabile galloping in their voices to the beat of the heart in some, and at the same time chanting stanzas and antistrophe in reverse epic and tragic lines, for the purposes of the coliseum that diametrically obstructs the Hellenic choir, which is attached to the intervention of the Hexagonal Primogeniture that was already beginning to rise in height, and in the prayers of Saint John, the Apostle and Prochorus from the captaincy and the ode that would begin to stanza, from the west to this and the antistrophe would follow with Vernarth, Wonthelimar and Alexander the Great from east to west. Ad libitum of their enjoyments, they were eating Greek snacks or Katogorias on the way in bases of Almonds, cinnamon, olive oil, sugar, and sweet wine that they carried on their backs in Rhytas shaped like the horns of Zeus and the Ibix of Wonthelimar, which the same Procorus carried on his golden back. The meaning is affirmed as a meaningless infringement of laws of temporality, and truthfulness at the expense of short evidence, and of facts that vanish in the light haze of causalism and not of effectism, when the adjective or noun is made of a strong verb in the Metabasis and in the imprecations that Vernarth gave.

Vernarth's metabasis: “the verse and the adjective will be subsidized by the noun in the construction of Állos Kosmo Megarón, from where mathematics will immaterially explain sap suckers under the noun in liquid milk of the color white and of the high nutritional value in female lactated, and of mammals to feed their goats or ibex. The soul of this prerogative implies that the verb will be to promote species rather than a nutritious milky elixir for Zeus, and the candor of his **** will tend to the bipedal or quadruped subject self-procreating from a Milky Specie. (Milky species).  Being ****** into milk by self-procreating snitches. Vernarth says (give me some milk, and I will be the son of Zeus, perhaps as a means in everything and not a whole of which I never thought...!)

Amalthea in rituals and relics from prospects of demigods was purposely cordoning them off in Mycenaean deities, from a contemporary Westerner comforting them near a hippocampus; with signs of ibex Capricornus, rapt at the nymph that spoke from Mount Ida in Crete and that she made congruent with the constellation of Capricornus, more precisely in the Cornucopia making this heraldry of Wonthelimar with Fortune, Abundance, Occasion, Liberality, Prudence and Joy. In a woman sitting on a throne, a young nymph with a flower crown, a naked woman with one foot on a wheel and the other unstable, a woman with sunken eyes and an aquiline nose dressed in white, two faces from the past and future, a woman happy with the exuberance of the Cornucopia with children and a palm leaf. Being the abundance that in serial Amalthea bordered all the ladies in different esoteric and Mycenaean prosperity, constantly shining with radiations on the present in the Unicorn Ibix, which Zeus left after breaking its antlers, unleashing kindness and plethora in fruit buds, and vegetables that were appropriated in the Fortune of Wonthelimar reissuing what in their domains they can do, and now in Patmos with its Cornupia being transferred from that liquefied shaft honey and milk cultivated with attributes of herbs contributing to the leisure, peace, and relaxation of the cosmic world that ascended in Wonthelimar as Ibix in advance of Capricornus, from where the Auriga always broke into his expeditions with a trajectory towards the eighth cemetery of Messolonghi, where he brought it from the Capella Star for the femurs of the Diplodocuses who seconded Drestnia to watch over the hydraulic pits of the Koumeterium from Messolonghi, before traveling to Tangier.

The entire herd went back to an ancient promontory that was halfway up the mound towards the black styes or abscesses, in the central intuition of the fossa that began to dissipate towards their backs. Amalthea extends into the Állos Kósmos, which came in zoomorphic receptacles collecting the announced blood of the animals that flowed in black planks from the vortex of the fossal, towards the liminal or transitory sleeper of the fossal that oozed acetosities of the Aldehyde to be transmigrated after the bilocation of the Chauvet cavern. All wore willow halos on the crowns or diadems of their caps, including the proliferation of phantasmagoric Allies that went in rows from 780 to 680 BC. C., with fortunes of the Cornucopia that arched in magical arches due to the dissociative changes of the universe, as well as the circumstantial creed of some omnipotence that will cause emotional transgenerational transgression, in the rain vessels that they made fall from the Ombrio de Zeus, in a daily latticework closing the spaces, and only leaving for some intruders and onlookers to see his flashing Astrepé. Right here the diádoc fossal vanished, when it rose above the horizontal that poured into the Chronic Vernagrams of parapsychological personalities of ingenuity classicism and in Astro-concomitance, which would rethink everything that is past and future from a Vernagram, which is more than a compression of a mere future of the quantum spaces and the sacred medrones of the Ibixes with their direct relationship with Capricornus. Diverse capital moments were treasured in the breeze of the Vas Auric that was traced from the opposing moraine that fell in lapse-time, through the labyrinth in storms and thunderings that became planetary with the Lynothorax cuirass that Alexander the Great accommodated in the festoon border of his Aspis Koilé, kicking copiously as a sign of shaking the head of the gods who deceived him to be alive, and who was now reborn in the faith of Saint John the Apostle, favorite of the Mashiach and where he will have to wipe his face with the shroud of Veronica Before entering the Állos Kósmos Megaron that everyone built, in favor of a Panagia or Temple, unlocking the majolica that seeped out from the rest of the transmigration, and his own in the configuration of a corpse with a tricolor gesture.

The presumptive eradicated the side of the forearm rots that was being restored in Wonthelimar's laps, which helped him get up and catch his breath while the Katogorias snack filled his mouth with nectar and almonds with Macedonian Psiloi combat tactics with serum and flames of Alcohol dripped from her nostrils and sinuses in the sweet wine, which in pompous dilemma defied the judges of her life in the choir of the Bilocated Epidary Theater on Patmos, and in the ***** dry Kashmar of the orchard with the pale faces of the grotesque, that rested in the memory or Mnmosyne and in the fauna of the Thracian and Thessalian helmets.

Alexander the Great says: “here I agonized and now in the fresh waters of the springs of the Lerna, I will also marry the glorious mystay and bákchoi, in the memories of Vernarth seeing him besieged by Achaemenides in the stooped position of Dario III, to come purifying and sustaining of my limbs, learning to walk and speak in Neolithic techniques, which extruded me from the Lerna by barriers of the moon that shone from the bronze of my Leonatus helmet. Thus I could see that Vernarth, fought alone against thousands throwing fire through his mouth and his eyes, separating the waters of the Falangists, who plowed like ships deforesting the Persians, and leaving them in their mud, imposing glorious Hypaspists who unbolted from their back some arrows with heads of snakes and Hydras.

Vernarth watched as everyone climbed the Profitis Ilias mound, two hundred and sixty-nine meters above sea level, where the monastery of San Juan is located; here he was suspended in his solitude after everything that happened at the end of the moat that definitely I would return without the Diádocos, with a hint and its functionalities. From here Helios became genealogical, who snatched him from the kingdom of dead flowers, which were to be assumed from the Olympian where he will join him to the essential of Aïdoneus; immaterializing in the darkness of dizzies and the flowers that died in the genealogy of a new species. The scenic swept its cognitive and ferns with more than three hundred frank species that frowned like the enemy of an evil friend, with seedlings that expectorated from the resonance of the bushes that invited to thrive in the salty ripples that made a dreamer fall asleep on top of the kerchiefs or brambles that memorialized Gethsemane, burning his face and hands with psalms, telling him about his Baba. For when it is a luminary by night and by day, they will compare it with the white grayish drupes and mops, like those of the Bern orchard of Olives, in aqueous and resinous colloidal, which was crowned in harmony and syntropia in Vernarth activating intellectual conscious plantations, which will restructure its balance of ultra Hoplite, in metabolism of the Lentiscus flowers, with great brotherhood in the Olives that each time exercised the gift of bending their oleaginous self-species, towards planes of the Cornicabra olives, with large branches and high tree altitude that fruit within of the Cornucopia that he now carried on his back, supported by an oiko spin, juxtaposed with the fibula on the right shoulder of his lymphoma, which with large branches and high tree altitude fruit within the Cornucopia that he now carried on his back, supported by an oiko line juxtaposed with the fibula on the right shoulder of his lymphoma, and with polyphenols in scale geothermal energy that still leveled the Ponto Sea towards the tectonic plate to give it the flavor that was owed from remote prehistoric times.

Patmos was aborted from an immanent consent and new force of the impending enemy in Pythagorean perorations and an offending thought. From this prerogative is born the generalized punishment of sub-mythological ethics in favor of legacies of allusions to reorder or defragment the enslaving and demolished bio culture, which would begin from the establishment of the Vas Auric found in Limassol, which took possession from Rhodes with clean scenes from Tsambika monastery. The epic ran like icy cold down the shoulders of all those who sweated for the generation of cops, and in domestic evasions in superior lordships to Hades or Wonthelimar itself, both sons of flocks and goats that nourished them by providing them with a mountain perspective, as a magnetic pole towards gothic energy that ruled more in the Magnetic North Pole, and the geographic oversize that reviled latitudes in riches that would dismiss Borker and Zefian, as masters distributors of the ethics of the Áullos Kósmos of Patmos, redeploying thousands of dead from pre-Hellenic times, so that they recirculate through the roots of the Kashmar, re-sulfurizing cinnabar saps as the germ of the subterranean Acheron, which consecrates the living and the dead in the eternity of the infinite Duoverse Universe. The order will lie in semi-shadows that even in the dark provide the pleasant warmth of camphor, with advanced Horcondising formulas, which will appeal to hungry souls by suppressing gifted energies, and by inseminating them with ovules without originally conceived organisms.

From Hylates, Cyprus; Zefian came by order of Vernarth, assisted with the extension of the earthly laborers of the Attic Calendar on the twenty-first of September, from the device of Apollo at the site of Boeotia, and especially of the Boedromion. The arrows that Zefian brought had an instant Boedromion crossing the lines from spring to winter, with seven arrows that Zefian threw into the sky and never fell, but if portentously received in the virginity of animals. The flora with seven golden arrows of the Chauvet de Wonthelmar cavern, condoned the exhaustive end of the fossal where they still remained, in a gesture of tenderness and relative Mycenaean genealogy, from Crete the contravention of Apollo and Artemis towards an olive tree was approaching, originating in the Zefian's arrows, to mark the new cardinal points, begin with the first two arrows that they put on the string of the bow, each one flying north and south trajectories and the other two that were once again attacked with the east bow, to shoot the arrows of east-west with southern magnetism limits. Zefian's imagination was of proportions that were not limited without wandering from their phalanxes when they pulled the string, like joys of a ghostly existence that pushed him in each bolt, presuming that where they fell would be the beginning of the storms that would originate the Állos Kósmos Megarón, for belated courts imposed from a cosmos, which he led by insisting on his will and from a doubtful Vestal god advocating the association of the hospitable Canephores, such as Vestal Virgins of Roman bilocation, and quantum parapsychological of the feared inter-tale alive that rebels in the arrows that they had not yet fallen and did not know their whereabouts. As plates or serial hosts, they were evoked from where the origin of the Universe was broken, to open towards the organic, vigorous, and anti-burn contravened Duoverse to the divine celestial origin as a parameter of *****-ovule, rather in aeonic instances in the fireplace of Hestia, running in eternities towards vast volumes of light-years, where eternity has no measure, let alone the existence that begins and ends born from a homozygous arising without a Universe, to hatch from the branch of the Heterozygous Duoverse, bringing different unions of eternal cells by universal divine decree, and not the union of disparate cells. The science of the Mashiach came in these divine arrows that marked the points of the cardinal in the numinous and exclamatory expansions of the exiled universe of Vernarth, towards the perenniality in itself, but being heterozygous for a world that would begin to live in non-organic cells, but yes of divine composition, over saturating the limits of the origin, and destiny of syntropy of the conscious actions of the metabolism of the Alma Mater and of the great doors when losing the bodyweight of the physical-ether, but yes from the platform of the Mashiach that will take them hands without leaving them abandoned, showing them that they were no longer children born of ovule-*****, but rather in the luminous matter, envisioning expansions of prayers beyond from the universe, where it will accompany them in a multidimensional plane..., and will have no end from a human scientific conception.

Wonthelimar says: “Since the omphalos was swallowed by Cronos, Hera's elegy was unleashed, for not raising her son Zeus in free clumps of goats and Ida's honey. I in the Alps went to the herd of the Ibix like a Zeus saved from the darkness of Chauvet in the mountains of Gaul. There are chisels that cut stones in beautiful whirlwinds, but I know that a lot of cosmology would not speak of the Mediterranean Cornicabra and its olive drupe, nor less of the Cornucopia that sinks with sumptuous and ephebian flavors in the fruit, and the greenish heraldry of the binominal that is disturbed in its phalanges eating and sipping honey, in antler pots with pride of the Ida and the Vercors massif”

Mie Takuye Oyasin
A Poem by Eclipsing Moon-blood red


we are all related in NA sioux language.transcendental look at relationships...



Words of the creation, softly ,jaggedly, tumbled from my mouth...



Blindingly Lit by the Cosmotic forces, thunderingly struck ...





As a two headed drum of goatskin, beats the primal rhythm...



Twump...pa Thump...resoundingly beckoning all spirit matter to proclaim....



I am worthy ...We are worthy ..We are all related in creation..

.

I stumbled against you at the bazaar in Alexandria one day,
   a stroke of accidental closeness as we brushed hands,
and my heart shivered like the old man on the corner of Divisadero street.

And then you vanished from my mind as a dead leaf from branch,
   till I saw you again in a tavern by the docks,
quill in hand and the world on your back.

We share that same dusty look, that obvious stride
   that wanderers from everywhere can so easily surmise
to belong to one in kind.

The day after you were at the well by the caravanserai,
   and I recognized your goatskin shoes as those
of a mariner from the North, the land of the Majus, my kin.

The boy-king wanted to incinerate
A fell and meretricious thryrus.  
His grandfather would venerate
The same staff, terrified of curses.  
His mother’d slandered the drunk god,
But regretting feckless blasphemy
She counseled them to spare the rod,
Until they heard the divine decree.  
Once the summoned prophet had appeared,  
Blind, and clad in a frayed, goatskin cloak,  
The monarch sputtered “It’s cursed, weird,
And wrong, burn it down to ash and smoke!”
The former monarch begged, “Appease
Bromius with primeval rite,  
A lord who smites his enemies
A lord too terrible to fight.”
The daughter next, “His worshipers
Run mad, and slaughter their own kin,
Even children.   The god massacres
Those who dispute his origin”
The prophet lifted up the staff
And tore the ivy from its tip.  
“Rites, massacres, don’t make me laugh,
And immolation’s sponsorship.”
He swung the staff to test its heft,
And said, “I need a walking stick,  
The drunkard has no bacchics left,
****** the goatish lunatic.”
At this, the grandfather turned pale,
And the repentant mother winced.  
Matched severity cannot avail
If fear and butchery convinced.  
A proverb soothes the quondam king
And the dowager, “He frightens you,  
But moderation in each thing,
And that in moderation too.”

In the glass where through reflections can pass, there's an oasis.

I drink deep of the goatskin I carry and feel again pure as if water's the cure for what ails me.

Here in the desert where the hot sun assaults me and the scorpions though friendly revolt me
I sink and I swim and each grain of sand that I move only moves to begin to move once again,

I liken this to the drunkards kiss.

Miss me I miss me and reach out to touch me, in the glass what do I see? me reaching out for perfection in the garbled reflection and I do not understand the glass nor the sand.

It's all trial and error,
a patience where the terror stands still.

Offer me a look in the glass and next time I think that I'll pass and watch the reflections as they wander on by.

Once upon Afor market day,
Goatskin bags, red caps and Isi agu congregated.
Conjured the gods;
give us a breed
The strength of a lion
The legs of a cheetah
The brains of a tortoise
As meek as a dove
Years down the lane
Dreams down the grain
16th of April
My ancestors' dream came through
Happy birthday to me.