Vanguard Saga of Heroes
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Vanguard Saga of Heroes

Friends, Telonians, community, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Vanguard, not to praise it.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Vanguard. The noble Smed
Hath told you Vanguard was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Vanguard answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Smed and the rest--
For Smed is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men--
Come I to speak in Vanguard's funeral.
VG was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Smed says VG was ambitious;
And Smed is an honourable man.
VG hath brought many captives home to Telon
Whose ransoms did the games coffers fill:
Did this in Vanguard seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Vanguard hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Smed says VG was ambitious;
And Smed is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Roadmap
Roadmap thrice presented VG a kingly crown,
Which lack of support did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Smed says VG was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Smed spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love Vanguard once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for it?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Vanguard,
And I must pause till it come back to me.


-- William Shakespear (with some help)

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