I have made no secret of the fact that Rudyard Kipling is one of my favourite poets and since it was my birthday this week, I have chosen The Peace of Dives.

Then answered cunning Dives: “Do not gold and hate abide
At the heart of every Magic, yea, and senseless fear beside?
With gold and fear and hate
I have harnessed state to state,
And by hate and fear and gold their hates are tied.
Rudyard Kipling (1865—1936)

Poem 279. The Peace of Dives

The Word came down to Dives in Torment where he lay
“Our World is full of wickedness, My Children maim and slay,
And the Saint and Seer and Prophet
Can make no better of it
Than to sanctify and prophesy and pray.

Rise up, rise up, thou Dives, and take again thy gold,
And thy women and thy housen as they were to thee of old.
It may be grace hath found thee
In the furnace where We bound thee,
And that thou shalt bring the peace My Son foretold.”

Then merrily rose Dives and leaped from out his fire,
And walked abroad with diligence to do the Lord’s desire;
And anon the battles ceased,
And the captives were released,
And Earth had rest from Goshen to Gadire,

The Word came down to Satan that raged and roared alone,
’Mid the shouting of the peoples by the cannon overthrown
(But the Prophets, Saints, and Seers
Set each other by the ears,
For each would claim the marvel as his own):

“Rise up, rise up, thou Satan, upon the Earth to go,
And prove the Peace of Dives if it be good or no:
For all that he hath planned
We deliver to thy hand,
As thy skill shall serve, to break it or bring low.”

Then mightily rose Satan, and about the Earth he hied,
And breathed on Kings in idleness and Princes drunk with pride.
But for all the wrong he breathed
There was never sword unsheathed,
And the fires he lighted flickered out and died.

Then terribly rose Satan, and he darkened Earth afar,
Till he came on cunning Dives where the money-changers are;
And he saw men pledge their gear
For the gold that buys the spear,
And the helmet and the habergeon of war.

Yea to Dives came the Persian and the Syrian and the Mede—
their hearts were nothing altered, nor their cunning nor their greed—
And they pledged their flocks and farms
For the King compelling arms,
And Dives lent according to their need,

Then Satan said to Dives:—”Return again with me,
Who hast broken His Commandment in the day He set thee free,
Who grindest for thy greed,
Man’s belly-pinch and need;
And the blood of Man to filthy usury!”

Then softly answered Dives where the money-changers sit:—
“My refuge is Our Master, O My Master in the Pit.
But behold all Earth is laid
In the Peace which I have made,
And behold I wait on thee to trouble it!”

Then angrily turned Satan, and about the Seas he fled,
To shake the new-sown peoples with insult, doubt, and dread;
But, for all the sleight he used,
There was never squadron loosed.
And the brands he flung flew dying and fell dead.

But to Dives came Atlantis and the Captains of the West—
And their hates were nothing weakened nor their anger nor unrest—
And they pawned their utmost trade
For the dry, decreeing blade;
And Dives lent and took of them their best.

Then Satan said to Dives:—“Declare thou by The Name,
The secret of thy subtlety that turneth mine to shame.
It is known through all the Hells
How my peoples mocked my spells,
And my faithless Kings denied me ere I came.”

Then answered cunning Dives: “Do not gold and hate abide
At the heart of every Magic, yea, and senseless fear beside?
With gold and fear and hate
I have harnessed state to state,
And by hate and fear and gold their hates are tied.

For hate men seek a weapon, for fear they seek a shield—
Keener blades and broader targes than their frantic neighbours wield—
For gold I arm their hands,
And for gold I buy their lands,
And for gold I sell their enemies the yield.

Their nearest foes may purchase, or their furthest friends may lease,
One by one from Ancient Accad to the Islands of the Seas.
And their covenants they make
For the naked iron’s sake,
But I—I trap them armoured into peace.

The flocks that Egypt pledged me to Assyria I drave,
And Pharaoh hath the increase of the herds that Sargon gave.
Not for Ashdod overthrown
Will the Kings destroy their own,
Or their peoples wake the strife they feign to brave.

Is not Carchemish like Calno? For the steeds of their desire
They have sold me seven harvests that I sell to Crowning Tyre;
And the Tyrian sweeps the plains
With a thousand hired wains,
And the Cities keep the peace and—share the hire.

Hast thou seen the pride of Moab? For the swords about his path,
His bond is to Philistia, in half of all he hath.
And he dare not draw the sword
Till Gaza give the word,
And he show release from Askalon and Gath,

Wilt thou call again thy peoples, wilt thou craze anew thy Kings?
Lo! my lightnings pass before thee, and their whistling servant brings,
Ere the drowsy street hath stirred—
Every masked and midnight word,
And the nations break their fast upon these things.

So I make a jest of Wonder, and a mock of Time and Space.
The roofless Seas an hostel, and the Earth a market-place,
Where the anxious traders know
Each is surety for his foe,
And none may thrive without his fellows’ grace.

Now this is all my subtlety and this is all my wit,
God give thee good enlightenment, My Master in the Pit.
But behold all Earth is laid
In the Peace which I have made,
And behold I wait on thee to trouble it!”

This is another one of Kipling’s poems that bears another message than the story it tells, though in this case, the message isn’t that well hidden. The poem ostensibly tells the story of Dives, one of the denizens of Hell, being pressed into service by a despairing God to bring peace to the world. Dives achieves this, to the great dissatisfaction of his “Master in the Pit” Satan, by setting things up so that every warring nation relies on another for trade and the interlinked treaties prevent the outbreak of open war, so that Satan is unable to foment discord amongst the kings and leaders and the world is locked in peace. The poem reflects Kipling’s opinion that international trade—in arms as much as any other commodity—would be the mechanism by which world peace could be achieved.

Dives is a contraction of the Roman name Dives Pater (meaning Father of Riches) which is also contracted to Dis Pater. Dives Pater was the Roman god of the underworld, cognate with the Greek god Pluto (from which we get the word plutocrat) and originally associated with fertile land and mineral wealth. In this poem, Dives commands all the wealth associated with his name, and God is represented by The Word (as in the initial chapter of the Gospel according to John— “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”.

In the first couple of stanzas, Dives is summoned from his place in Hell to see if he can succeed where the Lord’s prophets, saints and seers have failed and he is sent forth into the world with “thy gold/And thy women and thy housen as they were to thee of old.” Housen is an old plural form of house, just as oxen is the plural of ox.

Released from his place of torment, Dives goes about the world and sure enough, conflict between the nations subsides and prisoners of war are exchanged with the peace holding from “Goshen to Gadire” Goshen is in Egypt and Gadire is in Israel though a peace between the two still is uncertain and tenuous.

In the fourth and fifth stanzas the Lord once again appears in Hell and instructs Dives’ master Satan to “prove the Peace of Dives” (prove meaning to test, as in “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”) to see if it will hold under his provocations, subtle or overt. It is entertaining that Kipling portrays the “Prophets, Saints and Seers” as each claiming the prodigy of international peace as their own prognostication here—a dig at those who will always claim credit for an event that is none of their doing.

Satan ranges the Earth and tries his best to sow dissent, discord and destruction but is foiled at every turn as none will raise a hand against their neighbour. At last, he discovers Dives sitting with the money-changers (a reference to the story of Jesus driving the money-changers out of the Temple in Jerusalem) and reprimands him for resuming the activities that condemned him to Hell in the first place—lending money to “the Persian and the Syrian and the Mede” so that they can use it to purchase arms and armour for their soldiers— “And he saw men pledge their gear/For the gold that buys the spear,/And the helmet and the habergeon of war.”

Satan commands his erstwhile lieutenant to return to Hell with him but Dives demurs: “My refuge is Our Master, O My Master in the Pit.”—he is claiming the protection of their mutual master, God, against the strictures of Satan “My Master in the Pit”. He challenges Satan to do his best to disrupt “the peace that I have made” and the Devil rages across the world, trying to incite conflict and confusion but once again, he fails: “for all the sleight he used,/There was never squadron loosed/And the brands he flung flew dying and fell dead”.

Each nation that applies to Dives for loans comes with ill intentions against their enemies but Dives constructs a network of mutual loans such that one nation relies on a chain of others to secure its loans. This is the secret that Dives divulges to Satan when the defeated arch-fiend demands he reveal the reason for his failure “Declare thou by The Name,/The secret of thy subtlety that turneth mine to shame”: he has made every nation dependent on the well-being of the others, so that attacking an enemy would instantly result in its loans being called in and foreclosed— “With gold and fear and hate/I have harnessed state to state”.

“For hate men seek a weapon, for fear they seek a shield”—hate instils the wish to use a weapon; fear of the enemy engenders the wish for a bigger and better shield and in each case, Dives lends them the money which he has obtained from others seeking swords and shields, “And their covenants they make/For the naked iron’s sake,/But I—I trap them armoured into peace”.

In the next few stanzas, Dives expands on the nature of his peace:

Hast thou seen the pride of Moab? For the swords about his path,
His bond is to Philistia, in half of all he hath.
And he dare not draw the sword
Till Gaza give the word,
And he show release from Askalon and Gath,

In other words, though Moab strongly wishes to attack his enemies, he is in debt to the Philistines and “dare not draw the sword” until he can pay off the loans he has secured, and this is global, so that “the anxious traders know/Each is surety for his foe/And none may thrive without his fellows’ grace”.

The poem ends with Dives challenging his master once again to trouble the peace he has laid on the earth, knowing that he will be utterly incapable of doing so.

The subtext of this poem is Kipling’s belief that international trade was the key to a lasting peace, even if that trade included the sale of arms and armour—if each nation depends on a network of others for its prosperity and security, and the dependencies are spread across the globe, then none will attack another for fear of the repercussions.

Terry Pratchett’s city of Ankh-Morpork in the Discworld novels relies on a similar strategy to protect its unguarded gates and citizens from unwarranted aggression, and the first verse of its civic anthem runs like this:

When dragons belch and hippos flee
My thoughts, Ankh-Morpork, are of thee
Let others boast of martial dash
For we have boldly fought with cash
We own all your helmets, we own all your shoes
We own all your generals – touch us and you’ll lose.
Morporkia! Morporkia!
Morporkia owns the day!
We can rule you wholesale
Touch us and you’ll pay.
Sir Terry Pratchett (1948—2015)

The Pax Morporkia is thus described:

If you fight, we’ll call in your mortgages. And incidentally that’s my pike you’re pointing at me. I paid for that shield you’re holding. And take my helmet off when you speak to me, you horrible little debtor.
Feet of Clay, by Sir Terry Pratchett

I like the rhythm of this poem and the impudence of Dives who is emboldened to brave his Master Satan and challenge him to break the peace.

In writing this article, I have drawn on the background to the poem on the Kipling Society website written by Mary Hamer which I encourage you to read because it explores the poem in much more depth than I have.

Gold and Fear and Hate

Poem 279. The Peace of Dives

Links