Sun Wu and his Book

Ssu-ma Ch’ien gives the following biography of Sun Tzŭ: [1]

Sun Tzŭ Wu was a native of the Ch’i State. His Art of War brought
him to the notice of Ho Lu, [2] King of Wu. Ho Lu said to him:

“I have carefully perused your 13 chapters. May I submit your theory of
managing soldiers to a slight test?”

Sun Tzŭ replied: “You may.”

Ho Lu asked: “May the test be applied to women?”

The answer was again in the affirmative, so arrangements were made to bring 180
ladies out of the Palace. Sun Tzŭ divided them into two companies, and placed
one of the King’s favourite concubines at the head of each. He then bade them
all take spears in their hands, and addressed them thus: “I presume you know
the difference between front and back, right hand and left hand?”

The girls replied: Yes.

Sun Tzŭ went on: “When I say “Eyes front,” you must look straight ahead. When I
say “Left turn,” you must face towards your left hand. When I say “Right turn,”
you must face towards your right hand. When I say “About turn,” you must face
right round towards your back.”

Again the girls assented. The words of command having been thus explained, he
set up the halberds and battle-axes in order to begin the drill. Then, to the
sound of drums, he gave the order “Right turn.” But the girls only burst out
laughing. Sun Tzŭ said: “If words of command are not clear and distinct, if
orders are not thoroughly understood, then the general is to blame.”

So he started drilling them again, and this time gave the order “Left turn,”
whereupon the girls once more burst into fits of laughter. Sun Tzŭ: “If words
of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood,
the general is to blame. But if his orders are clear, and the soldiers
nevertheless disobey, then it is the fault of their officers.”

So saying, he ordered the leaders of the two companies to be beheaded. Now the
king of Wu was watching the scene from the top of a raised pavilion; and when
he saw that his favourite concubines were about to be executed, he was greatly
alarmed and hurriedly sent down the following message: “We are now quite
satisfied as to our general’s ability to handle troops. If we are bereft of
these two concubines, our meat and drink will lose their savor. It is our wish
that they shall not be beheaded.”

Sun Tzŭ replied: “Having once received His Majesty’s commission to be the
general of his forces, there are certain commands of His Majesty which, acting
in that capacity, I am unable to accept.”

Accordingly, he had the two leaders beheaded, and straightway installed the
pair next in order as leaders in their place. When this had been done, the drum
was sounded for the drill once more; and the girls went through all the
evolutions, turning to the right or to the left, marching ahead or wheeling
back, kneeling or standing, with perfect accuracy and precision, not venturing
to utter a sound. Then Sun Tzŭ sent a messenger to the King saying: “Your
soldiers, Sire, are now properly drilled and disciplined, and ready for your
majesty’s inspection. They can be put to any use that their sovereign may
desire; bid them go through fire and water, and they will not disobey.”

But the King replied: “Let our general cease drilling and return to camp. As
for us, We have no wish to come down and inspect the troops.”

Thereupon Sun Tzŭ said: “The King is only fond of words, and cannot translate
them into deeds.”

After that, Ho Lu saw that Sun Tzŭ was
one who knew how to handle an army, and finally appointed him general. In the
west, he defeated the Ch’u State and forced his way into Ying, the
capital; to the north he put fear into the States of Ch’i and Chin, and
spread his fame abroad amongst the feudal princes. And Sun Tzŭ shared in the
might of the King.

About Sun Tzŭ himself this is all that Ssu-ma Ch’ien has to tell us in
this chapter. But he proceeds to give a biography of his descendant, Sun Pin,
born about a hundred years after his famous ancestor’s death, and also the
outstanding military genius of his time. The historian speaks of him too as Sun
Tzŭ, and in his preface we read: “Sun Tzŭ had his feet cut off and yet
continued to discuss the art of war.” [3] It seems likely, then, that “Pin” was
a nickname bestowed on him after his mutilation, unless the story was invented
in order to account for the name. The crowning incident of his career, the
crushing defeat of his treacherous rival P’ang Chuan, will be found
briefly related in Chapter V. § 19, note.

To return to the elder Sun Tzŭ. He is mentioned in two other passages of the
Shih Chi:—

In the third year of his reign [512 B.C.] Ho Lu, king of Wu, took the field
with Tzŭ-hsu [i.e. Wu Yuan] and Po P’ei, and attacked Ch’u. He
captured the town of Shu and slew the two prince’s sons who had formerly been
generals of Wu. He was then meditating a descent on Ying [the capital]; but the
general Sun Wu said: “The army is exhausted. It is not yet possible. We must
wait”…. [After further successful fighting,] “in the ninth year [506 B.C.],
King Ho Lu addressed Wu Tzŭ-hsu and Sun Wu, saying: “Formerly, you declared
that it was not yet possible for us to enter Ying. Is the time ripe now?” The
two men replied: “Ch’u’s general Tzŭ-ch’ang, [4] is grasping and
covetous, and the princes of T’ang and Ts’ai both have a grudge
against him. If Your Majesty has resolved to make a grand attack, you must win
over T’ang and Ts’ai, and then you may succeed.” Ho Lu followed
this advice, [beat Ch’u in five pitched battles and marched into Ying.]
[5]

This is the latest date at which anything is recorded of Sun Wu. He does not
appear to have survived his patron, who died from the effects of a wound in
496. In another chapter there occurs this passage:[6]

From this time onward, a number of famous soldiers arose, one after the other:
Kao-fan, [7] who was employed by the Chin State; Wang-tzu, [8] in the service
of Ch’i; and Sun Wu, in the service of Wu. These men developed and threw
light upon the principles of war.

It is obvious enough that Ssu-ma Ch’ien at least had no doubt about the
reality of Sun Wu as an historical personage; and with one exception, to be
noticed presently, he is by far the most important authority on the period in
question. It will not be necessary, therefore, to say much of such a work as
the Wu Yüeh Ch’un Ch’iu, which is supposed to have been
written by Chao Yeh of the 1st century A.D. The attribution is somewhat
doubtful; but even if it were otherwise, his account would be of little value,
based as it is on the Shih Chi and expanded with romantic details. The story of
Sun Tzŭ will be found, for what it is worth, in chapter 2. The only new points
in it worth noting are: (1) Sun Tzŭ was first recommended to Ho Lu by Wu
Tzŭ-hsu. (2) He is called a native of Wu. (3) He had previously lived a retired
life, and his contemporaries were unaware of his ability.

The following passage occurs in the Huai-nan Tzŭ: “When sovereign and ministers
show perversity of mind, it is impossible even for a Sun Tzŭ to encounter the
foe.” Assuming that this work is genuine (and hitherto no doubt has been cast
upon it), we have here the earliest direct reference for Sun Tzŭ, for Huai-nan
Tzŭ died in 122 B.C., many years before the Shih Chi was given to the world.

Liu Hsiang (80-9 B.C.) says: “The reason why Sun Tzŭ at the head of 30,000 men
beat Ch’u with 200,000 is that the latter were undisciplined.”

Teng Ming-shih informs us that the surname “Sun” was bestowed on Sun Wu’s
grandfather by Duke Ching of Ch’i [547-490 B.C.]. Sun Wu’s father Sun
P’ing, rose to be a Minister of State in Ch’i, and Sun Wu himself,
whose style was Ch’ang-ch’ing, fled to Wu on account of the
rebellion which was being fomented by the kindred of T’ien Pao. He had
three sons, of whom the second, named Ming, was the father of Sun Pin.
According to this account then, Pin was the grandson of Wu, which, considering
that Sun Pin’s victory over Wei was gained in 341 B.C., may be dismissed as
chronologically impossible. Whence these data were obtained by Teng Ming-shih I
do not know, but of course no reliance whatever can be placed in them.

An interesting document which has survived from the close of the Han period is
the short preface written by the Great Ts’ao Ts’ao, or Wei Wu Ti,
for his edition of Sun Tzŭ. I shall give it in full:—

I have heard that the ancients used bows and arrows to their advantage. [10]
The Lun Yu says: “There must be a sufficiency of military
strength.” The Shu Ching mentions “the army” among the “eight
objects of government.” The I Ching says: “‘army’ indicates firmness and
justice; the experienced leader will have good fortune.” The Shih Ching
says: “The King rose majestic in his wrath, and he marshalled his troops.” The
Yellow Emperor, T’ang the Completer and Wu Wang all used spears and
battle-axes in order to succour their generation. The Ssu-ma Fa says: “If
one man slay another of set purpose, he himself may rightfully be slain.” He
who relies solely on warlike measures shall be exterminated; he who relies
solely on peaceful measures shall perish. Instances of this are Fu Ch’ai
[11] on the one hand and Yen Wang on the other. [12] In military matters, the
Sage’s rule is normally to keep the peace, and to move his forces only when
occasion requires. He will not use armed force unless driven to it by necessity.

Many books have I read on the subject of war and fighting; but the work
composed by Sun Wu is the profoundest of them all. [Sun Tzŭ was a native of the
Ch’i state, his personal name was Wu. He wrote the Art of War in
13 chapters for Ho Lu, King of Wu. Its principles were tested on women, and he
was subsequently made a general. He led an army westwards, crushed the
Ch’u state and entered Ying the capital. In the north, he kept Ch’i
and Chin in awe. A hundred years and more after his time, Sun Pin lived. He was
a descendant of Wu.] [13] In his treatment of deliberation and planning, the
importance of rapidity in taking the field, [14] clearness of conception, and
depth of design, Sun Tzŭ stands beyond the reach of carping criticism. My
contemporaries, however, have failed to grasp the full meaning of his
instructions, and while putting into practice the smaller details in which his
work abounds, they have overlooked its essential purport. That is the motive
which has led me to outline a rough explanation of the whole.

One thing to be noticed in the above is the explicit statement that the 13
chapters were specially composed for King Ho Lu. This is supported by the
internal evidence of I. § 15, in which it seems clear that some ruler is
addressed.

In the bibliographic section of the Han Shu, there is an entry which has given
rise to much discussion: “The works of Sun Tzŭ of Wu in 82 p’ien (or
chapters), with diagrams in 9 chuan.” It is evident that this cannot be merely
the 13 chapters known to Ssu-ma Ch’ien, or those we possess today. Chang
Shou-chieh refers to an edition of Sun Tzŭ’s Art of War of which the “13
chapters” formed the first chuan, adding that there were two other chuan
besides. This has brought forth a theory, that the bulk of these 82 chapters
consisted of other writings of Sun Tzŭ—we should call them
apocryphal—similar to the Wen Ta, of which a specimen dealing with the
Nine Situations [15] is preserved in the T’ung Tien, and another in Ho
Shin’s commentary. It is suggested that before his interview with Ho Lu, Sun
Tzŭ had only written the 13 chapters, but afterwards composed a sort of
exegesis in the form of question and answer between himself and the King. Pi
I-hsun, the author of the Sun Tzŭ Hsu Lu, backs this up with a quotation from
the Wu Yüeh Ch’un Ch’iu: “The King of Wu summoned Sun Tzŭ, and
asked him questions about the art of war. Each time he set forth a chapter of
his work, the King could not find words enough to praise him.” As he points
out, if the whole work was expounded on the same scale as in the
above-mentioned fragments, the total number of chapters could not fail to be
considerable. Then the numerous other treatises attributed to Sun Tzŭ might be
included. The fact that the Han Chih mentions no work of Sun Tzŭ except the 82
p’ien, whereas the Sui and T’ang bibliographies give the titles of
others in addition to the “13 chapters,” is good proof, Pi I-hsun thinks, that
all of these were contained in the 82 p’ien. Without pinning our faith to
the accuracy of details supplied by the Wu Yüeh Ch’un Ch’iu, or
admitting the genuineness of any of the treatises cited by Pi I-hsun, we may
see in this theory a probable solution of the mystery. Between Ssu-ma
Ch’ien and Pan Ku there was plenty of time for a luxuriant crop of
forgeries to have grown up under the magic name of Sun Tzŭ, and the 82
p’ien may very well represent a collected edition of these lumped
together with the original work. It is also possible, though less likely, that
some of them existed in the time of the earlier historian and were purposely
ignored by him. [16]

Tu Mu’s conjecture seems to be based on a passage which states: “Wei Wu Ti
strung together Sun Wu’s Art of War,” which in turn may have resulted from a
misunderstanding of the final words of Ts’ao King’s preface. This, as Sun
Hsing-yen points out, is only a modest way of saying that he made an
explanatory paraphrase, or in other words, wrote a commentary on it. On the
whole, this theory has met with very little acceptance. Thus, the Ssu K’u
Ch’uan Shu says: “The mention of the 13 chapters in the Shih Chi shows
that they were in existence before the Han Chih, and that latter accretions are
not to be considered part of the original work. Tu Mu’s assertion can certainly
not be taken as proof.”

There is every reason to suppose, then, that the 13 chapters existed in the
time of Ssu-ma Ch’ien practically as we have them now. That the work was
then well known he tells us in so many words. “Sun Tzŭ’s 13 Chapters and Wu
Ch’i’s Art of War are the two books that people commonly refer to on the
subject of military matters. Both of them are widely distributed, so I will not
discuss them here.” But as we go further back, serious difficulties begin to
arise. The salient fact which has to be faced is that the Tso Chuan, the
greatest contemporary record, makes no mention whatsoever of Sun Wu, either as
a general or as a writer. It is natural, in view of this awkward circumstance,
that many scholars should not only cast doubt on the story of Sun Wu as given
in the Shih Chi, but even show themselves frankly skeptical as to the existence
of the man at all. The most powerful presentment of this side of the case is to
be found in the following disposition by Yeh Shui-hsin: [17]—

It is stated in Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s history that Sun Wu was a native of the
Ch’i State, and employed by Wu; and that in the reign of Ho Lu he crushed
Ch’u, entered Ying, and was a great general. But in Tso’s Commentary no
Sun Wu appears at all. It is true that Tso’s Commentary need not contain
absolutely everything that other histories contain. But Tso has not omitted to
mention vulgar plebeians and hireling ruffians such as Ying K’ao-shu,
[18] Ts’ao Kuei, [19], Chu Chih-wu and Chuan She-chu [20]. In the case of
Sun Wu, whose fame and achievements were so brilliant, the omission is much
more glaring. Again, details are given, in their due order, about his
contemporaries Wu Yuan and the Minister P’ei. [21] Is it credible that
Sun Wu alone should have been passed over?

In point of literary style, Sun Tzŭ’s work belongs to the same school as Kuan
Tzŭ, [22] Liu T’ao, [23] and the Yüeh Yu [24] and may have been the
production of some private scholar living towards the end of the “Spring and
Autumn” or the beginning of the “Warring States” period. [25] The story that
his precepts were actually applied by the Wu State, is merely the outcome of
big talk on the part of his followers.

From the flourishing period of the Chou dynasty [26] down to the time of the
“Spring and Autumn,” all military commanders were statesmen as well, and the
class of professional generals, for conducting external campaigns, did not then
exist. It was not until the period of the “Six States” [27] that this custom
changed. Now although Wu was an uncivilized State, it is conceivable that Tso
should have left unrecorded the fact that Sun Wu was a great general and yet
held no civil office? What we are told, therefore, about Jang-chu [28] and Sun
Wu, is not authentic matter, but the reckless fabrication of theorizing
pundits. The story of Ho Lu’s experiment on the women, in particular, is
utterly preposterous and incredible.

Yeh Shui-hsin represents Ssu-ma Ch’ien as having said that Sun Wu crushed
Ch’u and entered Ying. This is not quite correct. No doubt the impression
left on the reader’s mind is that he at least shared in these exploits. The
fact may or may not be significant; but it is nowhere explicitly stated in the
Shih Chi either that Sun Tzŭ was general on the occasion of the taking of Ying,
or that he even went there at all. Moreover, as we know that Wu Yuan and Po
P’ei both took part in the expedition, and also that its success was
largely due to the dash and enterprise of Fu Kai, Ho Lu’s younger brother, it
is not easy to see how yet another general could have played a very prominent
part in the same campaign.

Ch’en Chen-sun of the Sung dynasty has the note:—

Military writers look upon Sun Wu as the father of their art. But the fact that
he does not appear in the Tso Chuan, although he is said to have served under
Ho Lu King of Wu, makes it uncertain what period he really belonged to.

He also says:—

The works of Sun Wu and Wu Ch’i may be of genuine antiquity.

It is noticeable that both Yeh Shui-hsin and Ch’en Chen-sun, while
rejecting the personality of Sun Wu as he figures in Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s
history, are inclined to accept the date traditionally assigned to the work
which passes under his name. The author of the Hsu Lu fails to appreciate this
distinction, and consequently his bitter attack on Ch’en Chen-sun really
misses its mark. He makes one of two points, however, which certainly tell in
favour of the high antiquity of our “13 chapters.” “Sun Tzŭ,” he says, “must
have lived in the age of Ching Wang [519-476], because he is frequently
plagiarized in subsequent works of the Chou, Ch’in and Han dynasties.”
The two most shameless offenders in this respect are Wu Ch’i and Huai-nan
Tzŭ, both of them important historical personages in their day. The former
lived only a century after the alleged date of Sun Tzŭ, and his death is known
to have taken place in 381 B.C. It was to him, according to Liu Hsiang, that
Tseng Shen delivered the Tso Chuan, which had been entrusted to him by its
author. [29] Now the fact that quotations from the Art of War,
acknowledged or otherwise, are to be found in so many authors of different
epochs, establishes a very strong anterior to them all,—in other words,
that Sun Tzŭ’s treatise was already in existence towards the end of the 5th
century B.C. Further proof of Sun Tzŭ’s antiquity is furnished by the archaic
or wholly obsolete meanings attaching to a number of the words he uses. A list
of these, which might perhaps be extended, is given in the Hsu Lu; and though
some of the interpretations are doubtful, the main argument is hardly affected
thereby. Again, it must not be forgotten that Yeh Shui-hsin, a scholar and
critic of the first rank, deliberately pronounces the style of the 13 chapters
to belong to the early part of the fifth century. Seeing that he is actually
engaged in an attempt to disprove the existence of Sun Wu himself, we may be
sure that he would not have hesitated to assign the work to a later date had he
not honestly believed the contrary. And it is precisely on such a point that
the judgment of an educated Chinaman will carry most weight. Other internal
evidence is not far to seek. Thus in XIII. § 1, there is an unmistakable
allusion to the ancient system of land-tenure which had already passed away by
the time of Mencius, who was anxious to see it revived in a modified form. [30]
The only warfare Sun Tzŭ knows is that carried on between the various feudal
princes, in which armored chariots play a large part. Their use seems to have
entirely died out before the end of the Chou dynasty. He speaks as a man of Wu,
a state which ceased to exist as early as 473 B.C. On this I shall touch
presently.

But once refer the work to the 5th century or earlier, and the chances of its
being other than a bonâ fide production are sensibly diminished. The
great age of forgeries did not come until long after. That it should have been
forged in the period immediately following 473 is particularly unlikely, for no
one, as a rule, hastens to identify himself with a lost cause. As for Yeh
Shui-hsin’s theory, that the author was a literary recluse, that seems to me
quite untenable. If one thing is more apparent than another after reading the
maxims of Sun Tzŭ, it is that their essence has been distilled from a large
store of personal observation and experience. They reflect the mind not only of
a born strategist, gifted with a rare faculty of generalization, but also of a
practical soldier closely acquainted with the military conditions of his time.
To say nothing of the fact that these sayings have been accepted and endorsed
by all the greatest captains of Chinese history, they offer a combination of
freshness and sincerity, acuteness and common sense, which quite excludes the
idea that they were artificially concocted in the study. If we admit, then,
that the 13 chapters were the genuine production of a military man living
towards the end of the “Ch’un Ch’iu” period, are we not bound, in
spite of the silence of the Tso Chuan, to accept Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s account
in its entirety? In view of his high repute as a sober historian, must we not
hesitate to assume that the records he drew upon for Sun Wu’s biography were
false and untrustworthy? The answer, I fear, must be in the negative. There is
still one grave, if not fatal, objection to the chronology involved in the
story as told in the Shih Chi, which, so far as I am aware, nobody has yet
pointed out. There are two passages in Sun Tzŭ in which he alludes to
contemporary affairs. The first in in VI. § 21:—

Though according to my estimate the soldiers of Yüeh exceed our own in number,
that shall advantage them nothing in the matter of victory. I say then that
victory can be achieved.

The other is in XI. § 30:—

Asked if an army can be made to imitate the shuai-jan, I should answer,
Yes. For the men of Wu and the men of Yüeh are enemies; yet if they are
crossing a river in the same boat and are caught by a storm, they will come to
each other’s assistance just as the left hand helps the right.

These two paragraphs are extremely valuable as evidence of the date of
composition. They assign the work to the period of the struggle between Wu and
Yüeh. So much has been observed by Pi I-hsun. But what has hitherto escaped
notice is that they also seriously impair the credibility of Ssu-ma
Ch’ien’s narrative. As we have seen above, the first positive date given
in connection with Sun Wu is 512 B.C. He is then spoken of as a general, acting
as confidential adviser to Ho Lu, so that his alleged introduction to that
monarch had already taken place, and of course the 13 chapters must have been
written earlier still. But at that time, and for several years after, down to
the capture of Ying in 506, Ch’u and not Yüeh, was the great hereditary
enemy of Wu. The two states, Ch’u and Wu, had been constantly at war for
over half a century, [31] whereas the first war between Wu and Yüeh was waged
only in 510, [32] and even then was no more than a short interlude sandwiched
in the midst of the fierce struggle with Ch’u. Now Ch’u is not
mentioned in the 13 chapters at all. The natural inference is that they were
written at a time when Yüeh had become the prime antagonist of Wu, that is,
after Ch’u had suffered the great humiliation of 506. At this point, a
table of dates may be found useful.

The sentence quoted above from VI. § 21 hardly strikes me as one that could
have been written in the full flush of victory. It seems rather to imply that,
for the moment at least, the tide had turned against Wu, and that she was
getting the worst of the struggle. Hence we may conclude that our treatise was
not in existence in 505, before which date Yüeh does not appear to have scored
any notable success against Wu. Ho Lu died in 496, so that if the book was
written for him, it must have been during the period 505-496, when there was a
lull in the hostilities, Wu having presumably exhausted by its supreme effort
against Ch’u. On the other hand, if we choose to disregard the tradition
connecting Sun Wu’s name with Ho Lu, it might equally well have seen the light
between 496 and 494, or possibly in the period 482-473, when Yüeh was once
again becoming a very serious menace. [33] We may feel fairly certain that the
author, whoever he may have been, was not a man of any great eminence in his
own day. On this point the negative testimony of the Tso Chuan far outweighs
any shred of authority still attaching to the Shih Chi, if once its other facts
are discredited. Sun Hsing-yen, however, makes a feeble attempt to explain the
omission of his name from the great commentary. It was Wu Tzŭ-hsu, he says, who
got all the credit of Sun Wu’s exploits, because the latter (being an alien)
was not rewarded with an office in the State.

How then did the Sun Tzŭ legend originate? It may be that the growing celebrity
of the book imparted by degrees a kind of factitious renown to its author. It
was felt to be only right and proper that one so well versed in the science of
war should have solid achievements to his credit as well. Now the capture of
Ying was undoubtedly the greatest feat of arms in Ho Lu’s reign; it made a deep
and lasting impression on all the surrounding states, and raised Wu to the
short-lived zenith of her power. Hence, what more natural, as time went on,
than that the acknowledged master of strategy, Sun Wu, should be popularly
identified with that campaign, at first perhaps only in the sense that his
brain conceived and planned it; afterwards, that it was actually carried out by
him in conjunction with Wu Yuan, [34] Po P’ei and Fu Kai?

It is obvious that any attempt to reconstruct even the outline of Sun Tzŭ’s
life must be based almost wholly on conjecture. With this necessary proviso, I
should say that he probably entered the service of Wu about the time of Ho Lu’s
accession, and gathered experience, though only in the capacity of a
subordinate officer, during the intense military activity which marked the
first half of the prince’s reign. [35] If he rose to be a general at all, he
certainly was never on an equal footing with the three above mentioned. He was
doubtless present at the investment and occupation of Ying, and witnessed Wu’s
sudden collapse in the following year. Yüeh’s attack at this critical juncture,
when her rival was embarrassed on every side, seems to have convinced him that
this upstart kingdom was the great enemy against whom every effort would
henceforth have to be directed. Sun Wu was thus a well-seasoned warrior when he
sat down to write his famous book, which according to my reckoning must have
appeared towards the end, rather than the beginning of Ho Lu’s reign. The story
of the women may possibly have grown out of some real incident occurring about
the same time. As we hear no more of Sun Wu after this from any source, he is
hardly likely to have survived his patron or to have taken part in the
death-struggle with Yüeh, which began with the disaster at Tsui-li.

If these inferences are approximately correct, there is a certain irony in the
fate which decreed that China’s most illustrious man of peace should be
contemporary with her greatest writer on war.