See the hand that nursed the serpent. The fine hasped pipes of her fingerbones. The skin bewenned and speckled. The veins are milkblue and bulby. A thin gold ring set with diamonds. That raised the once child's heart of her to agonies of passion before I was. Here is the anguish of mortality. Hopes wrecked, love sundered. See the mother sorrowing. How everything that I was warned of's come to pass.

If only my heart were stone.

She said that these were things all women knew yet seldom spoke of. Lastly she said that if women were drawn to rash men it was only that in their secret hearts they knew that a man who would not kill for them was of no use at all.

If people knew the story of their lives, how many would then elect to live them?

He can give me what you cannot. Death is not a lover. Oh yes, he is.

You say you can't? Then don't do it. That's all.

The passing of armies and the passing of sands in the desert are one.