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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
British writers on peace and war
William Shakespeare: Selections on war and peace
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William Shakespeare
From Timon of Athens
Follow thy drum;
With man’s blood paint the ground, gules, gules:
Religious canons, civil laws are cruel;
Then what should war be?
…
But if he sack fair Athens,
And take our goodly agèd men by th’beards,
Giving our holy virgins to the stain
Of contumelious, beastly, mad-brained war.
…
ALCIBIADES
…Dead
Is noble Timon: of whose memory
Hereafter more. Bring me into your city,
And I will use the olive with my sword,
Make war breed peace, make peace stint war, make each
Prescribe to other as each other’s leech.
Let our drums strike.
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From The Tempest
GONZALO
All things in common nature should produce
Without sweat or endeavor.
Treason, felony,
Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,
Would I not have.
But nature should bring forth
Of its own kind all foison, all abundance,
To feed my innocent people.
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