Gezichten van Alexander

By the clear lake of Lychnidis, the mud of combat settled, pike and eels picked clean the drifting dead. The crushed lilies slept to spout green another year; the white acacia-flowers fell like snow in the next fresh wind, and hid the blood. Widows mourned, maimed men fumbled at former skills, orphans knew hunger who had never lacked before. The people bowed to fate, as to a murrain on the cattle, or untimely hail stripping the olive-trees. They went, even the widows and orphans, to make thank-offerings at the shrines; the Illyrians, notorious pirates and slavers, might have won. Their gods, regarding their offerings kindly, kept from them the knowledge that they had been a means and not an end. In grief more than in joy, man longs to know that the universe turns around him.

Mary Renault, Fire from Heaven (1969)

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He needed love as a palm tree needs water, all his life long: from armies, from cities, from conquered enemies, nothing was enough.

Mary Renault, The Persian Boy (1972)

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He was a man touched by a god; we were only men who had been touched by him; but we did not know it. We too had performed miracles, you see.

Mary Renault, Funeral Games (1981)