Meaning & Analysis
During the chaos and lawlessness of wartime, many people are driven to become thieves out of necessity or opportunity. When peace is restored, the legal system is re-established, and these same thieves are captured and executed.
Insights
The Cycle of Chaos and Order
The proverb illustrates the cyclical relationship between chaos and order. 'War' symbolizes a period of societal breakdown where normal rules are suspended, allowing transgressive behaviors to flourish. 'Peace' represents the inevitable return to a structured system where those who violated its norms are held accountable.
Inevitability of Consequences
It serves as a warning that actions, even those justified by desperate circumstances, have delayed consequences. The 'thieves' may thrive temporarily during the 'war', but they cannot escape the eventual retribution that 'peace' and its restored laws will bring.
The Casualties of Transition
The proverb suggests that the transition from one societal state to another creates victims. The 'thieves' are products of war's turmoil, but they become casualties of peace's new order, highlighting how individuals can be caught and destroyed by large-scale political shifts.
Historical Reality of Post-War Society
This proverb reflects the brutal reality of post-conflict societies, where soldiers and civilians, displaced and impoverished by war, often turned to crime to survive. The re-establishment of 'peace' was synonymous with the state's harsh re-imposition of authority, often through public executions, to suppress the very disorder that the war itself had created.
Critique of State Power
The proverb serves as a cynical commentary on the nature of the state. In times of war, the state itself engages in and encourages acts of plunder and violence, effectively 'making thieves'. When peace returns, the state reclaims its monopoly on justice and order by punishing the very individuals it helped create, revealing a stark hypocrisy in the application of law.
Situational Morality and Human Nature
Psychologically, the proverb highlights how extreme circumstances can erode moral norms, leading individuals to commit acts they wouldn't in peacetime. It underscores a grim view of human nature, suggesting that criminality is often a product of circumstance, yet it simultaneously depicts a system that punishes the symptom (the thief) without acknowledging the cause (the war).
Rhetorical Devices
Antithesis
The proverb is built on a stark contrast between 'war' and 'peace', and their respective actions ('makes' vs. 'hangs'). This sharp juxtaposition creates a powerful, memorable, and balanced statement.
Personification
'War' and 'peace' are treated as active agents that create and execute. This personification turns abstract concepts into powerful forces that shape human destiny, enhancing the proverb's dramatic impact.
Parallelism
The phrase follows a symmetrical structure: 'War makes thieves' is paralleled by 'peace hangs them'. This balanced construction gives the proverb a rhythmic quality, making it concise and aphoristic.
Transcription
Quotations
La guerre fait les larrons et la paix les moines au gibbet.
And when they returne from the warres, many .. became beggars or theeues, and so lead and end their liues in myserie, of whom the Italian hath a prouerb; Warres make thieues, and Peace hangeth them vp.
(and Peace brings them to the gallowes).
(hangs them up).
For then the Laws come in force again.
*Gall. It.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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