“And
this is to be our reward for braving destitution, fire, sword, and pestilence,
for fleshing our swords in the enemy’s blood and going ourselves starved into
battle. This, then, is the famous peace
we dreamed of, when we tore the grass from the crannies in the walls to eat;
when in our ignorance we often by mistake ate poisonous weeds, indiscriminately
plucking them with livid hands of starvation, hardly less green than they. For all these proofs of our devotion, it
would seem we are to be made a sacrifice.
If
it be so, may you live to blush for a peace without either honour or advantage.”
(from Patricians
and Emperors by Ian Hughes)
.
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