They offered violence. It's an offer I can't help but accept.

But this much is clear: The Great Library of Alexandria was a bid toward immortality, a stay against annihilation. In the ancient world, Alexandria was a remnant of Alexander the Great's empire and a major cultural and trading center. Ships that sailed into the harbor were forced to hand over their scrolls to the library, where scribes made copies. The library gave the copies to the scrolls' owners in place of the originals, which became part of the Great Library's collection. The collection held works of only of drama and poetry and philosophy, but also scientific texts, works of mathematics, astronomy, medicine and mechanics. The library was the known world, past and present, under one roof: the ultimate empire.

A young writer at your door, / you made no excuses for / the empty bottles, the debris / of loneliness and bygone times,