Title by translator C. Potter.

Before this sword a thousand men have died;
Before these eyes a thousand thousands have found their end.
Yet here I stand, and You are too mighty for me;
Here I kneel, and You overcome me.
My hands have been washed in the blood of an old man and a child, 
The able warrior and the woman whom he loved, but they are not clean.
Why does man hope to trample you and the young man to bring you torment? 
Why do the wicked cry, “Aha, my hand has wounded him!” when behold
Their swords cut only themselves and their words rend only their own flesh?
For this day You are God and no other;
This hour You are Almighty and my terror.
My flesh therefore shrivels before You,
And my teeth are rotten within my gums.
Whose arm is mighty but the Lord’s?
Whose hand is unmatched save my God’s?
In you I might rout all the armies of the world;
Before You I am but a grain of sand in the wind.
Be not far from me, oh Messiah of mankind’s hope,
And avert Your eyes, that I might live.”
~ Attributed to an Unknown Conqueror.

The poem above translated was discovered carved by an unskilled but practiced hand into the foreground of the single remaining carving which testifies to the author’s achievements. His identity is unknown, though some speculate that he originates from the elusive Ascamenid dynastic line. Dating is, unfortunately, still inconclusive.

Finished 2/1/22.