King Menander's question.(Poem)

 
KING MENANDER'S QUESTION 
(Milindipandha, India, 150 BC) 
 
   Zenodotus, hail. Greetings. I send you by this letter 
   A nothing I've had written up to set down a debate 
   I've just had with a local man, a sophist who preaches 
   The dialectic of the teacher Gautama, Buddha 
   As they call him; the title means he expounded something 
   Like the Logos; the details escape me; I'm just a king. 
   What I never learned about philosophy would fill up 
   Books, libraries, even your own in Alexandria. 
   When you've finished with, my dialogue, please shelve it somewhere 
   Close by Alexander s colloquy with that Persian sage. 
   We all live in His shadow, myself most of all who moves 
   In these lands beyond the Hindu Killers, so far from Greece, 
   So near the Sun's rising, surrounded by barbarians,  ...