Read the excerpt from The Odyssey. The wind that carried west from Ilium
brought me to Ismarus, on the far shore,
a strongpoint on the coast of Cicones.
I stormed that place and killed the men who fought.
Plunder we took, and we enslaved the women,
to make division, equal shares to all—
but on the spot I told them: 'Back, and quickly!
‘Out to sea again!' My men were mutinous,
fools, on stores of wine. Sheep after sheep they
butchered by the surf, and shambling cattle,
feasting,—while fugitives went inland, running
to call to arms the main force of Cicones.
This was an army, trained to fight on horseback
or, where the ground required, on foot. They came
with dawn over that terrain like the leaves
and blades of spring. So doom appeared to us,
dark word of Zeus for us, our evil days.
My men stood up and made a fight of it—60
backed on the ships, with lances kept in play,
from bright morning through the blaze of noon
so holding our beach, although so far outnumbered;

Which central idea should be included in a paraphrase of this excerpt?

kenny´s more than 25 years of relevant public service. in the army for two decades, as official representative for four years, and now for the department of state, as ambassador. this career clearly demonstrates great capacities in the public sector.

word count 168

serve the people! ,” smoothly translated by julia lovell, offers an initial sample of yan lianke’s writing to an english-speaking audience. a bluntly drawn, mildly erotic fable, it teases mao zedong by poking fun at a true believer who obeys the chairman’s precepts too literally. to a western sensibility, the broad strokes of yan lianke’s humor would seem to pose little risk of inciting rebellion, whether of the flesh or of the body politic. but then, part of the book’s attraction is that it doesn’t have a western sensibility. it lets the reader see — or rather, intuit — what jokes chinese officials don’t consider funny, and how very little it takes for a writer to be branded an incendiary in 21st-century china, more than three decades after the death of mao, a decade after the death of deng xiaoping and seven years since china entered the world trade organization, a move that would seem to signal a willingness (however wary) to mingle with the rest of the world.