When I Was Born

When I was born

One can be poor and be less privileged in many ways, but everyone has a birthday. A birthday is the day which the doctors told your mother to be the day when you were born. It is not all the dates that were told to us that are accurate, some of us were given the not correct dates as our birthdays.  When that day comes, the day which were written on our certificates of birth, people take their time to send to us messages through the different types of communication arenas. Some call us, some send us cards, some meet us and say "happy birthday". It brings a great feeling, you feel like the day is great. "happy birthday", what makes a day happy? I do not know.

Some of us were lucky in their lives, they have celebrated such days, had parties and a host of presents. As for me, it's kind of a new thing, but I appreciate it. I believe the day in which one was born deserves to be celebrated and admired. If not for the day in which one was born one could not be where he or she is. On that day you were lucky, you could have died at birth, but you survived. Is that not enough a celebration? I think it is.

We can not stay away from the truth that some souls misuse the chance of others trying to honour their birrhdays. Some people, especially ladies, have about three to seven birthdays in one year. They aim for presents from different individuals, so bad.

On the twenty eight'th of November I received a lot of great messages from friends from different social media wishing me a happy birthday. Really that was great. I am happy how different individuals sent messages to me. One day I will have a party myself and celebrate with family and friends, celebrate my birthday. I bow.

a letter to my blog

A Letter to My Love

Dear KingBEmpireMorals

As I write this letter my eyes are glassy honey, my heart is leaking blood, and water of course. I have been distanced from you, for days I haven't Fed you even a piece of biscuit. This letter serves as a token of apologies my lovely angel.

Before I made you my sweetheart I went around looking for ways and strategies to take care of you. One advisor told me never to neglect you, for there is no one else who can give you attention and food besides me. If I neglect you a natural death might or will surely succumb you. At your death what will I be? Who will I talk to? Who will I send to talk to the world? Who will listen to me honey? I need you sweety. Please my love, may you be patient with me. Please stay with me regardless of all the bad things I do to you; the neglect, the hurt, the unfaithfulness.

Above all, I love you so much. May I please go away from you for a moment, I will always think about you in my absence. I promise to feed you to obesity when I come back to your loving arms. I already have about seven meals for you in my mind, when I get a breather I will feed you sweety. I love you.

Your loving Empire
King B

Let Us Be Like Colour Pencils

Let Us Be Like Colour Pencils

I suppose that we all got the chance to go to pre-school, or say most of us, that is where we got the chance to use colour pencils the most. We got the chance to be creators, we would create blue people, red people, yellow, green. Maybe we were still pure at mind and heart, no racism, no gender bias no religious bias. All we knew is that we were colouring a human being, the colour did not really matter, that proved our innocence. One thing about colour pencils that brought a challenge to us is the fact that we did not have a chance to erase the colour even if we felt it was not fitting well at some point. That is why sometimes we would have one face with two or three colours, it was fun. Where a colour pencil has been, no one will doubt it has been there.

Maya Angelo said “I’ve learnt that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Come on people, who am I to disagree with Maya? I fully agree with her on this. If you want to stick like the colour of your colour pencil in someone’s life, make sure you bring a strong feeling to their emotions. Funny enough though, the feeling can either be a bad feeling or a great feeling, but people will never forget how you made them feel. I’m a bad person, I really am, I still remember how one lady made me feel embarrassed in 2005, today it is 2015; a good ten years. She brought a strong wave of emotion to me, I still remember it like it was yesterday. Maybe that one is better, I still remember how one fella made fun of my situation of being raised by a single parent, which was in 2000, ouch! Fifteen years ago!

Haven’t I beaten around the bush too much? I feel like I had, I’m very sorry about that. The title is “Let Us Be Like Colour Pencils”, it is just that I do not like long titles, otherwise I would have said “Let Us Be Like Colour Pencils If Not Permanent Makers”. I am trying to say let us make sure that the people we have been with never forget us for the good that we have been to them. Please, I am begging you, do not make them remember you for the emotional sores you left on their souls. Make people remember you for the good that you were to them, make them miss your presence, make them pray that you come back to be with them again. There is only one way to do so, it is to bring smiles to frowned faces.  Have you ever seen a sad scene whereby one is about to reach a group of people chatting and laughing, just when s/he is about to reach them they shake hands and disperse? One reason for that is they know s/he might break the mood. Let that not be me and you.

On the 17th of November 2015 I was tasked to be the Master of Ceremonies of a mini function in my work place. The school was sending off their external examination group, they had finished writing their exams. I love saying things, even unnecessary ones; I asked the learners to think whether the party is a ‘farewell’ party or a ‘throw away’ party? I explained to them that I understand farewell to be ‘heartfelt goodbyes’, and then challenged them to think whether the school was saying ‘goodbye’ or ‘at last, let them go’? The speakers of the day proved that they were happy to at last get rid of the group. During their time in the school, they have lived like colour pencils, but colour pencils which were too sharp, they pierced the paper, and instead of leaving paint they left pores and sores. I implore you, please leave a mark than a hole.

Let us be well sharpened colour pencils if not permanent markers, let us leave a mark where we have passed. Let those we have been with remember us, let them miss us, let them wish to be with us again.

Women Have The Power

Women Have The Power

www.soc.ucsb.edu/sexinfo/article/cheating-and-jealousy

Looking at the picture above one would wonder why is the man in a black t-shirt holding the hand of the lady being embraced by the guy in a shirt. In a married couple this is what we refer to as adultery. Intimacy between a married individual and someone else who is not his or her marriage partner is what we call adultery, the other one who is in an intimate relationship with the married individual can either be married or not. What Jim does in "The Have and the Have Nots" by Tyler Perry. One thing that one would wonder about is who is really to blame for the situation in the picture? The guy in black or the lady?

In most societies, especially in the past, women would suffer the most if they are found guilty of the crime of adultery. In Jewish society, until Jesus stopped it, a woman found guilty of adultery was stoned to death. Jesus Christ Himself proved adultery to be the highest crime, He called it as a crime which is enough to compromise the law of death doing a married couple apart and allowed one to divorce their wives if found guilty of adultery. Even in many African cultures, the wife is sent off her marital home if found guilty of adultery. One thought that has pushed me to pen this partucular piece is the 'unfair' nature of the punishment of adultery. Why do women suffer more than men in cases of those found guilty of adultery?


Can Themba authored "The Suit" and showed us clearly the situation whereby a man guilty of adultery walks free. In that story, Matilda, Philemon's wife is caught red handed by her husband, she is caught in the act of adultery. What Philemon does is allow the man to go free and then punish his wife in a more psychological than physical manner.Philemon orders his wife, Matilda to take care of a coat the adulterous partner left in their house as a visitor. He orders Matilda to dish the coat, take the coat for a walk among other things. Only Matilda suffers here, not the man who was caught in the act with her. At the end of it Matilda takes her own life. Most things are inherently done in societies, just like the punishment of one culprit in adultery, that is to say are done without any explanation. So, one who gives him/herself time to think and have an internal deliberation of the issues may come up with a notion of why somethings are done in a particular fashion.  On the issue at hand, I have deliberated in the issue with myself and with my friends, the conclusion was that society knows in a way that women have the power to clear themselves from any form of adulterous acts. It is the Lady who has to agree for an adultery to take place. If they can set their foot or maybe both feet down and say "No! I'm married" or "No! You are married" adultery can die a natural death.

That being said, let me try to paint to you a picture of men when it comes to their sexual appetite. There is one friend of mine whom I always label as 'pevert', whenever I say that he's always like "man, Im straight". By straight in this situatiin he means ' not gay',thus arguing that having feelings towards women is expected from him, appreciating their assets is expected of him. Every straight man is expected to be touched when a well asseted lady is at his view. This puts men at a position wherby they say "I love you" to a lot if women, or they just try to spark conversations with a lot of women. Most men, straight men, enjoy talking to a sweet lady, not neccessarily to beg for love, but just the chat. As a result of that men need a lot of courage to win against a lady who is availing herself to them. As well as they need a lot of courage to stay away from telling nice words to ladies, men enjoy making any women smile, whether they know the lady or not. Lately my friends, and maybe me, that is if my gurlfriend won't see this post; we complain that we no more enjoy the privilledge of testing our charming abilities. We lost this privilledge because once you say to a lady "how are you, is that a smile or you are just beautiful?", that lady is already in the list of your girlfriends. That's bad, please ladies, give us the chance to prove whether we are serious or not.

Not in an intention to support gender based injustices, I am one person who has respect for women, one reason for my respect is the fact that I was raised by a women alone .  I am one soul who prefers "gender harmony", I'm fully behind the equal chances regardless of gender. Back to tbe adultery issue, I believe the powerful creatures, women, have the power to ensure that adultery comes to and end. They have the power to say "No", even much better now that patriachy is long dead. Women have the power not to engage in any intimate relationship with a married man, also to be clean of any intimate relationship besides their husbands. It is women who say "Yes" to a married man, as well as it is they who say "Yes" to another man while they are married. They hold the keys, they are the drivers if the ship, they choose who to allow in or not. Men are always willing to sneak around scooping sugar from any open bowl.

Please, get me right here. I am not trying to encourage promiscuity in men, and I am not trying to justufy their horny rabbit habits. Instead, I am imploring my fellow sisters to take it to their hands and ensure that no other women cries the pillow wet no more, ensure that all women are given the deserved quality time by their spouses. Women, you have the power to stop the cry, stop the single parenting by women, stop the bitterness in other women's lives. Say "NO" to a married man and say "NO" to a man who wants to ruin your marriage.

Maybe, Just Maybe!

MAYBE, JUST MAYBE!

And I keep having this dream. In it I find myself in the middle of a deep river. The water is so quiet that one might be tempted to believe it is not moving at all. Strangely enough though, they have enough power to draw me down, and when I am just about to sink and die, I wake up from the dream. I have many times heard that the devil works with water, snakes and fire, so I am quick to believe these are works of the so bad devil. As a result, I always shout “Jesus!” when I wake up from this dream. To say it does not work, to say His name does not work the wonders it is supposed to, would be to set a bull’s eye on my back1, as that would be an insult to the Lord Jesus.  I then decide to say maybe I’m too unclean to attract His attention.  One other thing which is as constant as this dream is the thoughts about my lovely and sweet Nomsa after waking up from this dream. Oh! My lovely Nomsa, if I could get a chance to ask just one favour from the Almighty God - to free my Nomsa out of those walls they have locked her in. He shall grant me immediately.

I met Nomsa at the University of Swaziland. We were both students there during that time; she was studying B. Eng, and I was pursuing my diploma in Law. I will no doubt tell you that she is the most beautiful lady I have ever seen in this world; one cannot resist smiling at seeing her oval dimpled face. Even now that I am telling you about her, I can’t restrain myself... believe me, you as well would smile at her sight.  That place where they are keeping her is far from being a good place for such an angeless; I swear the heavens are frowning over this. It was none of her fault - any living human would have done what she did under the circumstances that my family put her in.  Yes she had angelic looks, but she was no Goddess. Even heaven’s greatest enemy was once heaven’s most favoured angel, thus it is normal of humanity to fall to traps.

When we found out that Nomsa was pregnant, we were shocked. But later it came to our minds that the ways of the Almighty are beyond our understanding as humans, so we accepted the situation and vowed to stand for all hardships that may befall us as a result of the pregnancy.
   In May, three months after we had found out about what had caught us, we had to go home as the University academic year was elapsing. We had to take a bus to Mliba where we come from. And this meant a new phase in our lives, revealing this to our parents, and church especially for me. My parents have brought me up under strong Christian rules: the church always comes first; you can miss whatever you want to, even school, but not church. From my upbringing, there is one Christian law that I loved so much. This is not to say I hated the others, but to say this one was deep in my spinal cord; spinal cord, yes for me things do not stay in the heart, but they stay in my spinal cord. ‘Do unto others as you would love them to do unto you’. I really loved this law; actually, I still do even to this here date. My wish is that if every living human would adopt this law, I assure you, my Nomsa would still be with me even today.

To my surprise, my mother already knew about the secret. Just when I arrived, she could not even let me put down my bag. She burst like some cough that she has been holding for more than two hours. “Her family is not of the prestige that could bear a grandchild for me and your father!”, she shouted. “It just cannot happen! We have worked way hard that a family of lazy mites can just wake to find themselves swimming in our wealth,” she continued, and I just knew what she was talking about. I was tongue-tied. I failed even to say ‘hello’ to her; I just passed-by to my room. There I lay on my bed and rolled a mass of thoughts around my mind.

Evening came. My little sister knocked at my door to deliver a message that mom and dad were calling me. I woke up and went to the sitting room where they were. It was our first encounter with dad since he was not in when I arrived. “Son, how are you doing? How are studies going?”, dad asked. I responded to that, and even before I finished, my mom popped in. “We won’t be wasting time asking you if you are the one who impregnated Nomsa. We called you here to give you orders of how you should handle the case. You are going to take that money and go to Dr. Hakim in Manzini. He will do the job for you, and you will wipe away the shame that you are about to throw on our faces”, she said. My father could say nothing other than to nod as his wife related to me the orders to follow.

That same night I called Nomsa and asked her to meet me by the road which passes behind her homestead. I went to her to deliver the new developments. She was happy about our meeting as she would also have the opportunity to tell me her parents’ reactions. “My family was disappointed Mandla, but my father was quick to mention that spilled water can never be recollected from the ground. Let us learn to live with it”, Nomsa said.
For a moment, I stood unmoved. Nomsa’s words kept reverberating in my ears and mind. Her father’s reaction made my news even heavier to deliver to her now. It would have been better if her father had gotten very angry at her that he even chased her. As for now, how do I start? “M...mmm...my parents wa... want us to get ri...”
Nomsa did not wait for the rest. Like an impala escaping the fierce anger of a hungry lion, she disappeared from my sight. I could only hear her quick footsteps in the dark as she vanished into the still darkness. I was left blaming myself for what I had said.
But that was it.
My mom could not bear the news that Nomsa was not accepting the abortion idea. “These people are so wicked! They aim to tame you into rescuing them from their poverty through attributing to you a pregnancy that you are not responsible for,” she said when I told her about Nomsa’s response. How I wished I could explain to my mom. But she did not ask me even one question. She had all the answers.
   My mom went to Nomsa’s home to tell her mother that she should tell her “wicked” daughter to stop her “weird” plans and just do what she is offered, as that would save them a lot of trouble. She threw all sorts of insults to their family, calling them termites that eat mud and live in it. Due to anger from what my mom had done to them, Nomsa’s parents changed their attitude towards Nomsa. They would always lament about how she went to reap them trouble from the gods of the land. They had become the family of witchcraft in the community. Consequently, they ended up buying the abortion idea with the hope that they would do away with the mosquito which always rang in their ears.


Even to them, Nomsa did just what she did to me- she ran. Nobody knew where she had gone. She no more wanted anything that had to do with me, and she wouldn’t even pick my calls. The search began: I, her family, and mine, all taking different directions. We could not make one team because we all had different intentions. I prayed that team her family gets her first than team my family, I was afraid my mom would even go the mile of taking Nomsa’s life. When a huge task like this one is underway, time has the tendency to fly. The two months of university vacation were over, and now we were in a study break to prepare for our first semester examinations. I decided to go home to observe the situation regarding Nomsa’s search. A lot had been tried then: the police, the radio, and even traditional diviners by her family. They were told she was still alive, and that was the source of the little hope that was still pumping.

The day after Christmas, I was resting under a tree near Nomsa’s homestead. It was under the hot summer sun; one would swear thunder would burst in the next forty five minutes. But the sun was already setting, and still, no sign of rain. I stood up and stretched myself. At a far distance, I noticed a slowly trotting small sickly creature heading towards the home next to the road. It was a figure of a person holding a parcel in its arms, holding it with care like a fragile object.  The figure was moving so slow that one would wonder if the fierce heat of the sun had any effect on it. I sat down again as I found out it was still hot for me to walk home; maybe I should wait thirty more minutes. As I was sitting there, my ears were hit by a loud cry from the home next to the road. I thought to myself that though I was not a favourite to that family, but I could not let a soul be lost, mostly because the enmity was not my wish. I stood up and ran in the direction where the sound came from. When I got there, I got the shock of my life. It was Nomsa. I had to be happy beyond explanation; for all this time, I had so much wished to see her. Even as I sat under that tree, wishes for our reunion were running through my mind.  But for some reason, I could not scream for joy as you would expect me to. I went closer to her hoping to get a hug. She stood motionless holding the parcel towards me.  I felt the stench of a dead body. I thought maybe it was some dead donkey, wild cat or dog hit by a car.  But I didn’t look sideways to see what it was; I didn’t want anything distracting my eyes from the sight which I had for so long longed for. I took the parcel from the motionless Nomsa and held it tight in my bosom. The more I did so, the more the stench troubled me.  This time, I stopped looking into Nomsa’s eyes and slowly unwrapped the parcel.  I could not believe what I saw. It was the body of a baby, decaying.
   I looked at the body, and then at Nomsa, and to the body again, still in my arms. As I continued doing so, Nomsa’s lips opened, and she started to talk for the first time since I came. She wasn’t audible enough, but I did hear her whisper: “It is this that brought all the unbearable pain to my life, to my family, to my love, so I decided to take it back to where it came from, maybe, just maybe I could get back my life as it was, happy”.

Let Us Stop Filling Bins

Let us Stop Filling Bins

https://www.pinterest.com/clen1/true-love/


We may not know what really inspired the people of the era in the picture to fix broken things, but they surely did. Nowadays we are disposable oriented, we do not want to use, wash and use again. From the things we use to the things we own as well as to our partners. The number of marrying people is going down and that of divorcing individuals is growing. I for one can not be sure of the reason behind, what I can only do is try to analyse the situation. Doing an analysis of human habits, behaviour, languages is my interest if not one of my hobbies.

In the past, before me and you, societal values were different from the ones we have now. During the time of our parents it was a fulfillment of life to have a life partner and be married. Marriage was rather a simple stage of growth just like puberty, no one would want to escape puberty. Marriage was known to come to the life of every individual at a certain point in time, there was no hesitation or doubt over that. Marriage fulfilled one's life, just like puberty.

As we have likened marriage to puberty, we all wish we could go back to the times before puberty befell us, we wish to go back and live that stress free life. Unfortunately, we can not turn back the hands of time, the knowledge that there is no turning back enforces us to come up with ways to handle the challenges which befell us when puberty reached us.  This is the same as marriage of the times of our fathers and mothers, failure was an enemy during those times. During the times of our parents it was a taboo to go in and out of marriage.  It proved failure of that individual, that is where the fixing of broken relationships emanated from.

As opposed to the past times, today finding a good paying job and being self sufficient fulfills our lives. Nowadays there is nothing as stressful as marriage, having someone to explain to why you do A and B.  Freedom as got into the blood of every individual now, we all want to live a life without conformity. Funny enough though, we do get into marriage, the only difference is that we find pride in moving out of marriage. Marriage still is a stage of life that we know we should pass through, just that nowadays we just want to be initiated and then move out again. We just want to say "I tried". Failure has lost its sting in this era, rather it has become a gate to "freedom".

One possible reason why we do not try to fix things is because we get in waiting for the time of our partner's slippery to come, when it comes we rock the 'happy dance' on our way out. We get into marriage knowing that our marriage is a disposable item, once it proves to be faulty we throw it away. It does not mean that our fathers and mothers were all perfect, No, but they had the wish to keep their marriages for ever.

Another possible reason behind the disposal of marriages is the position which money has taken lately. Money can buy you 'everyting' nowadays; a companion, even intimacy. Intimacy is among the major things that two individus marry to enjoy, so what about an era where intimacy can be paid for just like ice cream? The love of money has become stronger, stronger than the love humanity gives to one another.

Let us go back and get our spanners; these spanners are in the form of patience and hope, let us fix broken things than dispose them.

Sometimes I Do Verse

Sometimes I do Verse

In as much as I'm so talkative that I much prefer prose, but sometimes I do opt for verse and end up having poems. Whenever I do so I condense my feelings and emotions into a short string of verses. One lecturer from the University of Swaziland once impressed me, he gave me the reason why poetry is so complicated sometimes. He said "poetry is subjective...through a poem the author conveys his or her immediate emotions and experiences as well as ideas, the author conveys these without elaborating on them" Lukhele (2013). I loved hearing those words, they relieved me, I was like "no wonder one reader thinks that and another thinks that, that is because nobody really knows what the author was feeling at the time of writing". To try and unpack a poem then, we try to fit into the feelings of the author through the emotions triggered by the diction and devices used in the poem. We do not dare make absolute statements, instead we say "I think by this line the author meant this because of this nature of the words in the line". O.k, I know I might have just confused you here, but do not worry we will make examples as we go on.

The subjective nature of poetry has later been proven to me by my own poems, I sometimes write a poem and those I give to read would bring a whole lot of ideas that never crossed my mind when I wrote the poem. I write emotional poems, through my poems I can paint you my past experiences and my own views that I feel nobody else can understand.  A writer uses the diction, style and literay devices to convey his or her immediate emotions through a poem. One funny thing though, or at least for me, I never plan on which device, style and kind of diction am I going to use for a poem in order to clearly pass my thoughts. What happens is I would then hear someone reading say "the use of this particular word makes clear this idea", and I be like 'o.k!' To be honest, now that I no more am studying poetry I am forgetting some of the leteray devices, but they still appear in my works.

For the reason that I do not have my "Crossings of Africa" with me in this shack of mine, today I will only concentrate on unpacking and illumination of the subjective nature of poetry. And I will try to show how I suggest that we treat poetry to derive its meaning; that is the ideas conveyed and the feelings involved.  Let me recite to you this poem, below.

           
               A Dilemma

There is this wall
This so Strong wall
It bounds around our hearts
It keeps them safe
Safe from arrows from bows


In the process of safety
Pain is enclosed inside
It grows everyday
The wall aids in safety
But also aids in pain


So fragile
Yet so willing
So willing
Yet so fragile
Is our hearts

Break it?
We are prone from the arrows
Keep it?
The blisters of pain grow inside
At a time they will burst

Love
What a wonder you are
A double edged sword
Heals and hurts
Titilates and cuts

      By B. Dlamini

What is the author talking about in this poem? What is this wall? Who is shooting with the bows and arrows? These are questions that came into my mind after reading the verses above. The only person who clearly knows answers to my questions is the so called B. Dlamini. But then, because I have read the poem, let me try to use my feelings to explain what B. Dlamini might have possible meant to convey to us.

In the first stanza the author brings to our attention 'a wall', a wall which helps to poretect 'our' hearts from arrows shot from bows. One thing we can note is the use of a 'wall' than a shield which we know to be widely used in battles to protect one from objects aimed at soldiers. The use of the 'wall' might mean that the protected one is not fighting back, but is just inside the wall wondering why is she or he being shot at. The author uses "our" in the line where we are told what the wall does, "It keeps our hearts safe". This tells us that the voice behind is not the only one helped by the wall, but also the audience, thus the use of inclusive "our".  In the next stanza we are introduced to a second function of the wall, notably though, now the word 'help' is not used, but 'enclosed' is rather used. "In the process of safety pain is enclosed inside". This may mean that the second function of the wall is not the intended one, but it is a package with the intended one. This can be collected even fronm the line "But also...". The use of the "but" tells us that this is not an appreciated function of the wall.


The third stanza brings in a confusion of emotions, the juxtaposation of willingness and fragilety brings to us the confusion. The author also decides to use "Is" followed by a plural lexical item while normaly we would expect "are our hearts". The reason for that might be that regardless of the plurality of the hearts, but they are one in nature, they feel the same way.


The confusion and "Dilemma" as said by the tittle gets even clearer in the fourth stanza. Question marks are used there, and notably the first panctuation of the whole work, "Break it?". I suppose "it" refers to the wall in this case. The author brings consequences of breaking it and those of keepping it, and this shows the indecisiveness of the voice.

The last stanza brings a completely new noun, "love". Love is personified in this case, and the voice is talking to it like a person, "what a wonder you are". The author then gives attributes of love, what love is, the use of a metaphor, "double egded sword" takes our minds back to the two functions of the wall. Even more when we meet the line "heals and hurts, titilates and cuts", just like the wall aids both in pain and in protection.

These being said, I think the poet is in a dilemma whether to fall in love or not, and when he or she looks at it she or he concludes that either way there is pain. The wall talked about here might be fear, the fear stops one from falling in love, the fear of being hurt. That is where the voice says "safe from arrows from bows", that same fear though keeps one lonely inside, and that is the "pain enclosed" by the wall. The title "A Dilemma", paints the state the voice is in, the voice is at crossroads whether to fall in love or not. The author leaves even the audience in the same dilemma that she or he has, because we are never told whether he or she ends up getting in or staying away. And the inclusion "our" drags us into the dilemma as well. The message here is love is an aspect of life that we cannot escape, why would one stay away and be hurt without some glimpses of joy? The dilemma of the voice tells us that she or he has already tasted both sides if the sword.