Quote of the Week

"I know you think war is glorious, Arthur, but it is not. There is little glory in bodies cut in half. It is not even butchery. It's not a clean slice to the neck or a killing hammer blow. There is no clean gutting, no decorous and beautiful fallen. In death, men lose dominion over their bowels. The fetor of battle is the smell of shit, and then of rot. And during and after battle, there are hosts of men halfway dead and halfway alive. They cry piteously to be dragged to one margin or the other, to be saved or killed. Living men missing half their bodies and losing more each moment to the creeping work of gangrene. Dying men with bodies whole but for a single slender stab to the gut, enough to kill slowly but certainly. It is seeing them, speaking to them, bearing water to them, clutching their hands as inexpert men with axes or saws or torches do their best to stay the spread of death--that is war. The moment's glory is followed by decades of torment and regret. That is war . . . "

"This, Arthur . . . this is history."

--Merlin, Ulfius, in Mad Merlin, by J. Robert King