The Nature of War & Peace

Seona Anderson, 12th November 2023

Domestic fury and fierce civil strife

Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;

Blood and destruction shall be so in use

And dreadful objects so familiar

That mothers shall but smile when they behold

Their infants quartered with the hands of war,

All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:

And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,

With Ate by his side come hot from hell,

Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice

Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war,

ANTONY: Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1

Shakespeare, as far as we know, never went to war or experienced full scale civil war at first hand but he lived under the shadow of recent conflict and with the threat of invasion and social violence. War and rebellion, ancient and recent, are recurrent themes in his works and he uses natural metaphors to capture the terror and chaos which conflict brings with it. Antony’s image of Caesar’s spirit letting loose the ‘dogs of war’ is a powerful metaphor for the merciless, uncontrollable nature of war. It is easy to start conflict but difficult or impossible to call it back once released.

War is the stage on which to display heroism, skill and honour, but also to expose cowardice or treachery. Henry V on the eve of the battle of Agincourt goes among his men disguised to get a feeling for his men’s mood and emphasises that the king is just a mortal man as they are, “the violet smells to him as it doth to me” (Act 4, Scene 1). Flower is used as a metaphor for soldiers or young men who are to be cut down at the high point of their youth, but also to describe the non-combatants, the innocents of war. The Duke of York, killed by Clifford in battle, is described as ‘the flower of Europe for his chivalry’ (Henry VI, Part 3, Act 2, Scene 1) but in Henry V the inhabitants of Harfleur are warned about what will happen in they resist: “The gates of mercy shall be all shut up, and the fleshed soldier, rough and hard of heart, in liberty of bloody hand, shall range with conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass your fresh fair virgins and your flow’ring infants.” KING HENRY, Henry V, Act 3, Scene 3

The people of the land and the land itself are considered together in Richard II in a description of how war changes lives and landscapes, “ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers’ sons shall ill become the flower of England’s face, change the complexion of her maid-pale peace to scarlet indignation, and bedew her pastures’ grass with faithful English blood”. KING RICHARD, Richard II, Act 3, Scene 3

Coriolanus, the ancient Roman, is a model of the heroic warrior, honoured with the oak garland for saving the life of a fellow citizen but refusing to display his battle wounds to advance his political career, dismissing them as “scratches with briars, scars to move laughter only” (Coriolanus, Act 3, Scene 3). Despite his bravery in battle, he is unable to operate in the nuanced and fluid world of Roman politics and ends up an exile and ultimately a rebel determined to destroy his own city, devoid of pity, “there is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger” (Act 5, Scene 4). Coriolanus is full of agricultural metaphors for both society and warfare. When he is on the verge of attacking Rome, he states that he cannot spare his former friends, they must die will all the rest, “he could not stay to pick them in a pile of noisome musty chaff. He said ‘twas folly for one poor grain or two to leave unburnt and still to nose th’ offense.” (Act 5, Scene 1). In other parts of the play Roman society is like a field of grain with the rebels compared with weeds, specifically Corncockle, who are corrupting the good and productive order of Rome.

This image of the weed as the rebel is used again in Henry VI, Part 1. Pucelle (Joan of Arc) tricks her way into Roan to take the city disguised as a grain merchant but she then mocks her enemies by telling them they have bought grain full of weeds, “good morrow, gallants. Want you corn for bread? I think the Duke of Burgundy will fast before he’ll buy again at such a rage. ‘Twas full of darnel. Do you like the taste?” (Act 3, Scene 2). Joan of Arc is also connected with the imagery of the Fleur or Flower de Luce, usually identified as an Iris, and displayed on the Royals Arms of France from the 12th century. Henry V proposes marriage to Princess Katherine of France after his victory at Agincourt and asks her “What say’st thou, my faire Flower-de-Luce.” (Act 5, Scene 2). Henry V dies young leaving an infant son, Henry VI, who begins to lose the French territories his father controlled. In Henry VI, Part 1 a messenger comes to warn “awake, awake, English nobility! Let not sloth dim your honours new begot. Cropped are the flower-de-luces in your arms; Of England coat, one half if cut away.” (Act 1, Scene 1). Joan of Arc inspires the French to take back the territories held by Henry VI and Shakespeare includes the tradition that she was guided to find a sword to fight the English, “here is my keen-edged sword, decked with fine flower-de-luces on each side – the which at Touraine, in Saint Katherine’s churchyard, out of a great deal of old iron I chose forth.” (Act 1, Scene 2). The Flower-de-Luce is used to symbolise a person, a marriage, a diplomatic union, a heraldic symbol to inspire courage, the English to keep what they have, and the French to fight for it.

Henry V contains some of the most powerful battle imagery in all of Shakespeare’s works but it also contains an impassioned argument for peace. The Duke of Burgundy describes the effects on the landscape of France after years of war. It is a wild and empty place where there is no order, no crops, only weeds and there is no food or opportunity for learning anything other than killing: “all her husbandry doth lies on heaps, corrupting in its own fertility. Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart, unpruned, dies. Her hedges, even-pleached, like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair, put forth disordered twigs. Her fallow leas the darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory doth root upon, while that the coulter rusts that should deracinate such savagery. The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth the freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover, wanting the scythe, withal uncorrected, rank, conceives by idleness, and nothing teems but hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burrs, losing both beauty and utility. And all our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges, defective in their natures, grow to wildness. Even so our houses and ourselves and children have lost, or do not learn for want of time, the sciences that should become our country, but grow like savages, as soldiers will that nothing do but meditate on blood, to swearing and stern looks, diffused attire, and everything that seems unnatural.” (Henry V, Act 5, Scene 2)

Shakespeare’s own life and his achievements are a powerful example of what can happen when a country exists at peace, even an unsteady peace, and there is space and time for learning things other than how to kill.

More Information

Heraldry Society: Read the History of the Fleur de Lys in Heraldy