At the door of the town hall-schoolhouse, a German officer politely makes way for my wife. He hesitates, then suddenly says in passable French, “You are afraid of us, madame?”
“Afraid? No, monsieur. But as long as you wear that suit (she points at his uniform) here, you are my enemy.”
(Léon Werth: 33 Days)
An estimated 10 million people, including up to 80% of the population of Paris, fled south from the German advance to seek safety beyond the River Loire in what became known in history as l’Exode – the Exodus.
Se estima que 10 millones de personas, incluido hasta el 80% de la población de París, huyeron hacia el sur del avance alemán para buscar la seguridad más allá del río Loira en lo que se conoció en la historia como l’Exode: el Éxodo.
Continue reading “Exodus (Éxodo)”
If you have such a passion for unspeakable war, Rome, turn your hand against yourself only when you have put the whole world under Latin laws: you have not yet run out of enemies.
Lucan: On the Civil War
Si tamañas ansias tienes, Roma, de una guerra impía, una vez sometido el orbe a las leyes latinas, vuelve tus manos contra ti: pero hasta el momento no te han faltado enemigos en el exterior.
Marco Anneo Lucano: Farsalia: De la guerra civil
Si tantus amor belli tibi, Roma, nefandi, totum sub Latias leges cum miseris orbem, in te uerte manus: nondum tibi defuit hostis.
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus: De bello civili (Pharsalia)
Each burst of a machine gun or a rapid-fire cannon shot forth hundreds of these phosphorescent bullets that followed one another like the beads of a rosary. A thousand elastic rosaries strung themselves out towards the plane, drew themselves out to the breaking point, and burst at our height. When, missing us, the string went off at a tangent, its speed was dizzying. The bullets were transformed into lightning.
And I flew drowned in a crop of trajectories as golden as stalks of wheat. I flew at the centre of a thicket of lance strokes. I flew threatened by a vast and dizzying flutter of knitting needles. All the plain was now bound to me, woven and wound round me, a coruscating web of golden wire.
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