The War Song of Vladimir Putin

Monday

It was just six months ago that Russia invaded Ukraine—invaded it a second time, I should say—soI’m sharing Thomas Peacock’s famous mock epic lyric to mark the occasion. Actually, reading “The War-song of Dinas Vawr” with Russia’s invasion in mind makes it a little less funny. That’s because there are Russians who actually think this way.

In normal times, the poem seems to be an over-the-top parody of epic warrior behavior such as one finds in, say, The Odyssey. Whatever darkness that that the poem may stir inside a reader is undercut by its comic use of feminine rhymes: for instance “blood enough to swim in/orphaned many women.” (Feminine rhymes are those where the end rhyme falls on an unstressed syllable rather than the final stressed one.) The straight matter-of-fact way in which we are told brutal details also comes as a shock of the black comedy variety, such as (another feminine rhyme) “ere our force we led off/ others cut his head off.”

It’s one thing, however, to imagine warriors of old behaving this way, while quite another to see modern nations doing so. Now Peacock’s poem sounds like it was written by a Russian seeking to reestablish the old Russian empire. Fortunately, “War Song of Dinas Vawr” describes a Putin wish fulfillment rather than what is actually happening. Ukraine may look sweet to Russian eyes, but the smaller nation has refused to be quelled or overthrown, and the Russians have not been able to behead Zelensky.

The invasion has produced many widows and orphans, however. Here’s the poem:

The mountain sheep are sweeter,
But the valley sheep are fatter;
We therefore deemed it meter
To carry off the latter.
We made an expedition;
We met a host, and quelled it;
We forced a strong position,
And killed the men who held it

On Dyfed’s richest valley,
Where herds of kine were browsing,
We made a mighty sally,
To furnish our carousing.
Fierce warriors rushed to meet us;
We met them, and o’erthrew them:
They struggled hard to beat us;
But we conquered them, and slew them.

As we drove our prize at leisure,
The king marched forth to catch us:
His rage surpassed all measure,
But his people could not match us.
He fled to his hall-pillars;
And, ere our force we led off,
Some sacked his house and cellars,
While others cut his head off.

We there, in strife bewild’ring,
Spilt blood enough to swim in:
We orphaned many children,
And widowed many women.
The eagles and the ravens
We glutted with our foemen;
The heroes and the cravens,
The spearmen and the bowmen.

We brought away from battle,
And much their land bemoaned them,
Two thousand head of cattle,
And the head of him who owned them:
Ednyfed, king of Dyfed,
His head was borne before us;
His wine and beasts supplied our feasts,
And his overthrow, our chorus.