Ruins of Hazell

Hazell is the legendary Great Poet of ancient Nef—by textual evidence judged to have been female, despite the paucity of other evidence that women were allowed to be educated or to perform at that time in antiquity. From one of her best-known poem-songs— "sung in the stadium"— readers and listeners have long imagined that Hazell described her own home in the lyric:

unless, like me, you are blessed with such a love as mine,

and live in some simple place by the sea,

and sail alone to the city, and then quick home to your own love. . . .

The legend of Hazell the female sailor—in part due to the titilation of such an androgynous imagery— attached itself to the ruins of an ancient fishing village across the lower bay from the ancient city (the "Old City") of Nef.