Christopher Marlowe: Accurs’d be he that first invented war!

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Christopher Marlowe
From Tamburlaine the Great (1587)

Blood is the god of war’s rich livery.

…

Accurs’d be he that first invented war!
They knew not, ah, they knew not, simple men,
How those were hit by pelting cannon-shot
Stand staggering like a quivering aspen-leaf
Fearing the force of Boreas’ boisterous blasts!

…

Hast thou beheld a peal of ordnance strike
A ring of pikes, mingled with shot and horse,
Whose shatter’d limbs, being toss’d as high as heaven,
Hang in the air as thick as sunny motes,
…
Hast thou not seen my horsemen charge the foe,
Shot through the arms, cut overthwart the hands,
Dying their lances with their streaming blood…?