Maurice Druon: Why I exhort you not to threaten each other with your armaments

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

French writers on war and peace

Maurice Druon: A contempt for all things military

Maurice Druon: The dual prerogatives of minting coins and waging wars

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Maurice Druon
From Memoirs of Zeus
Translated by Humphrey Hare

Nature for man is a school of wisdom, and he who watches over the harvest knows the value of peace.

Wild or cultivated, a flower is a mysterious manifestation of passing beauty. It invites you to marvel, and therefore to gratitude; it invites you to thought, and therefore to tolerance. A fragile culmination, it is a moment of happiness, and demands restraint in action. I often see you, mortals my children, proudly clasping a weapon or a purse; but I see you all too rarely carrying a flower in your hands.

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Do you not think it a miracle that in the great lottery of life, among the millions of billions of numbers, yours should have been drawn? To be born, my sons, is to be one of the elect!

Two thousand million threads, two thousand million spindles! Think of the immense amount of work Lachesis has; and understand why it is I recommend you not to procreate without reflection, why I advise you to be very careful in your enterprises, of your food, of every step you take, and why I exhort you not to threaten each other with your armaments.