Her name is Nada. She descended from the dessert and she is in love with poetry. This poetry is her palate of dreams. She is in love with all kinds of poetry. Just as shown below: -

Skew

A day full derke and slanting rain in ropes
Hang from the sky, it's gabled cloud as always scaled
The soft stone terre-à-terre.

I turned to the opening west and saw
Those bands of shadow drawn across the grey beyond
The water's mass evanishing in air.

As if against indifference their firmer hue
Arose behind the river mouth - that fjord, channel,
Sound, the straits of anywhere:

A little row of flats, the transverse
Gradients of waves were cables taut between their posts,
And still the sky remained - a shield, the arch obscure.

IAIN GALBRAITH

From Cold calls (War Music continued) by Christopher Logue

Hector has driven the Greeks across the plain of troy and behind the palisade protecting their ships. They are as good as dead. They ask Achilles to save them. He refuses to do so.

Silence.

A ring of lights.

Within

Immaculate

In boat-cloaks lined with red

King Agamemnon's lords -

The depression of retreat,
The depression of returning to camp.
Him at the centre of their circle
Sobbing,
Then shouting:

"We must run for it!"

Dark glasses in parked cars.

"King Agamemnon of Mycenae,
God called, God raised, God recognized,
You are a piece of shit," Diomed said.

Silence again.

"Let us praise God," lord Ajax said,
"That hector stopped before he reached the ships."

Silence again.

Then

Nestor
(Putting his knee back in):

"Paramount Agamemnon, King of kings,
Lord of the shore, the Islands and the Sea
I shall begin, and end, with you.

Greece needs good words. Like them or not, the credit will be yours.
Determined. Keen to fight, that is our Diomed -
As I should know. When just a boy of 10 I fought
Blowback of Missolonghi, a cannibal, drank blood,
He captured you. He buggered you, you never walked again.
But Diomed lacks experience.
God has saved us, momentarily.
God loves Achilles.
You took, and you have kept, Achilles' ribband she."

"I was a fool!"

"And now you must appease him, Agamemnon.
Humble words. Hands shaken. Gifts."

The King - wiping his eyes:

"As usual,
Pylos has said the only things worth hearing.
I was mad to take the she.
I shall pay fitting damages.
Plus her, I offer him
The Corfiot armour that my father wore."

The sea.

In whispering.

" To which I add; asset of shields.
Posy, standard, ceremonial.
The last, cut from the hide of a one ton Lesbian bull."
Silence.

The sea.

"And… a chariot!
From my own équipe!
They smoke along the ground…
They ride its undulations like a breeze…"

The sea.

"Plus: six horses - saddled, bridled and caparisoned,
Their grooms and veterinarians…
… And six tall shes:
Two good dancers, two good stitchers, two good cooks.
All capable of bearing boys…

"Oh, very then: twenty loaves of gold,
The same of silver, and the same of iron."

Masks. Lights.
Behind the lords
Some hundreds from the army have walked up.

Lord Nestor smiles.
Lord Menelaos smiles.

"Plus -
Though it may well reduce your King to destitution:
A'kimi'k?riex,
My summer palace by the Argive sea,
Its lawns, its terraces, its curtains in whose depths
Larks dive above a field of waving lilies
And fishscales-breakers shatter on blue rocks.
Then, as he draws their silky heights aside,
Standing among huge chests of looted booty,
Long necked, with lowered lids, but candid eyes,
My living daughter, Fphaniss, a diamond
Big as a cheeseball for her belly stud.
His wife to be! Minus - I need not say - her otherwise huge bride-price".

"More!"
"More!"
"More!"

Lord Ajax almost has to hold him up.

"The whole of eastern Pel'po' nesia -
An area of outstanding natural beauty -
Its cities, Epi'dàvros, Tr?w'ézen,
Their fortresses, their harbours and their fleets,
Their taxpayers - glad to accept his modesty ways -
All this, the greatest benefaction ever known,
If he agrees to fight. And he admits I am his King."

Instantly, Nestor:

"An offer God himself could not refuse.
All that remains to say is:
Who shall take it to Achilles?"

Agamemnon: "You will."

Starlight.

The starlight on the sea.

The sea.

Its whispering

Mixed with the prayers
Of Ajax and of Nestor as they walk
Along the shore towards Achilles' gate.
…

King Nestor (for his life):

"You know why we are here.
We face death.
The mass choose slavery.
Mycenae has admitted he was wrong to wrong yourself.
In recompense he offers you
The greatest benefaction ever known.
Take it, and fight. Or else Hector will burn the ships
Then kill us randomly.
Remember what your Father said
The day when Ajax and myself drove up to ask
If you could come with us to Troy?
That you should stand among the blades where honour grows.
And secondly, to let your anger go.
Spirit, and strength, and beauty have combined
Such awesome power in you
A vacant Heaven would offer its throne.
Think of what those who will come after us will say.
Save us from Hector's god, from Hector, and from Hector's force.
I go down on my knees to you, Achilles."

"I must admire your courage, father friend,
For treating me as if I was a fool.
I shall deal with Hector as I want to.
You and your fellow countrymen will die
For how your King has treated me.

I have spent five years fighting for your king.
My record is: 10 coastal and 10 inland cities
Burned to the ground. Their males, massacred.
Their cattle, and their women, given to him.
Among the rest, Briseis the Beautiful, my ribband she.
Not that I got her courtesy of him.
She joined my stock in recognition of
My strength, my courage, my superiority.
Courtesy of yourselves, my Lords.
I will not fight for him.
He aims to personalise my loss.
Briseis taken from Achilles - standard practice:
Helen from Menelaos - war.
Lord Busy Busy, building his palisade, mounting my she,
One that I might have picked to run my house,
Raising her to the status of a wife.
Do I hate him? Yes, I hate him. Hate him.
And should he be afraid of me? He should.
I want to harm him. I want him to feel pain.
In his body, and between his ears.

I must admit,
Some of the thigns that you have said are true.
But look what he has done to me! To me!
The king on whom his kingliness depends!
I will not fight for him.
Hearing your steps, I thought: at last,
My friends have come to visit me.
They took their time about it, true -
After he took my she none of you came -
Now, though - admittedly they are in trouble,
Serious trouble - they have arrived as friends,
And of their own accord.
But you have not come here as friends.
And you have not come of your own accord.
You came because your king told you to come.
You came because I am his last resort.
And incidentally, your last resort.
At least he offers stuff.

All you have offered is advice:
'Keep your temper…
Mind your tongue…
Think what the world will say…'
No mention of your king's treatment of me.
No sign of love for me behind your tears.
I will not fight for him.
I can remember very well indeed
The day you two grand lords came visiting my father's house,
How I ran out to you, and took your hands -
The greatest men that I have ever seen:
Ajax, my fighting cousin, strong, brave, unafraid to die;
Nestor, the King of Sandy Pylos, wisdom's sword.
And then, when all had had enough to eat and drink
And it was sealed that I should come to Troy,
Then my dear father said that lordship knows
Not only how to fight; and when to hold its tongue,
But of the differences between a child enraged
And honour bound lords.
I will not fight for him.
There is a king to be maintained. You are his lords.
My fighting powers prove my inferiority.
Whatever he, through you, may grant,
I must receive it as a favour, not of right,
Go back to him with downcast looks, a suppliant tone,
Acknowledge my transgressions - I did nto
Applaud his sticky fingers on my she's meek flesh.
My mother says I have a choice:
Love as a happy backwood king
Or give the world an everlasting murmur of my name,
And die.
Be up tomorrow sharp
To see me sacrifice to lord Poseidon and set sail.
Oh, yes, his gifts:
'The greatest benefaction ever known.'
If he puts Heaven in my hand I would not want it.
His offers magnify himself.
Likewise his child.
I do not want to trash the girl.
She is like me. Bad luck to have poor friends.
Bad luck to have his kingship as your sire.
My father will select my wife.
Each spring a dozen local kings drive up
And lead their daughters naked round our yard.
Some decent local girl. My father's worth
Is all the wealth we require.
You Greeks will not take Troy.
You have disintegrated as a fighting force.
Troy is your cemetery. Blame your King.
The man who you say has done all he can.
The man who has admitted he was wrong.
Or not to me.
I want him here, your king.
His arms straight down his sides, his shoulders back,
Announcing loud and clear that he was wrong to take my she.
Apologising for that wrong, to me, the son of Péleus.
Before my followers, with you, Pylos and Salamis,
Crete. Sparta. Tyrins, Argos, Calydon, the Islands, here,
Stood to attention on either side of him.
That is my offer. Take it, or die.

Nestor may stay the night.
You, dear cousin Ajax, tell you King what I have said,
Preferably, in front of everyone."
Who said,
As my Achilles lifted his guitar:

"Lord, I was never so bethumped with words
Since first I called my father Dad."

The sea.
Their feet along the sand to Agamemnon's gate.
And in starlit air
The Trojans singing.

DR.HASHIM S.H. BEHBEHANI