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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
British writers on peace and war
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Philip Massinger
From The Picture (1630)
…I have observed,
When horrid Mars, the touch of whose rough hand
With palsies shakes a kingdom, hath put on
His dreadful helmet, and with terror fills
The place where he, like an unwelcome guest,
Resolves to revel, how the lords of her, like
The tradesman, merchant, and litigious pleader,
And such like scarabs bred in the dung of peace,
In hope of their protection, humbly offer
Their daughters to their beds, heirs to their service,
And wash with tears their sweat, their dust, their scars:
But when those clouds of war, that menaced
A bloody deluge to the affrighted state,
Are, by their breath, dispersed, and overblown,
And famine, blood, and death, Bellona’s pages,
[Are] Whipt from the quiet continent to Thrace…
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