More words!!

Have written in excess of 11,ooo words. Mark has read it and professed it good. I am pleased. In the course of my research into all things Trojan and Spartan, I found this incredible poem.

Spartan Soldier

It is beautiful when a brave man of the front ranks,
falls and dies,
battling for his homeland,
and ghastly when a man flees
planted fields and city
and wanders begging
with his dear mother,aging father, little children and true wife.

He will be scorned in every new village,
reduced to want and loathsome poverty;
and shame
will brand his family line,
his noblefigure.
Derision and disaster will hound him.

A turncoat gets no respect or pity;
so let us battle for our country
and freely giveour lives
to save our darling children.

Young men, fight shield to shield
and never succumbto panic or miserable flight,
but steel the heart in your chests
with magnificence and courage.

Forget your own life
when you grapple with the enemy.

Never run
and let an old soldier collapse
whose legs have lost their power.

It is shocking when an old man lies
on the front line
before a youth:
an old warrior whose head is white
and beard gray, exhaling his strong soul
into the dust, clutching his bloody genitals
into his hands:
an abominable vision,
foul to see: his flesh naked.

But in a young man
all is beautiful when he still
possesses the shining flower of lovely youth.

Alive he is adored by men,
desired by women, and finest to look upon
when he falls dead in the forward clash.

Let each man spread his legs,
rooting them in the ground,
bite his teeth into his lips,
and hold.