‘Tis
certain there’s not a boy left alive; and the cowardly rascals that ran from
the battle ha’ done this slaughter:
-Gower
King Henry the Fifth Act IV Scene vii, Line 5
Gower and his
buddy Fluellen are talking about the fact that the French attacked an unprotected
luggage caravan behind the British lines and killed a bunch of unarmed servants.
On the flip side, King Henry has now ordered that all the French prisoners be
executed.
Last night I watched the movie Dunkirk, and this morning, driving to work, I was thinking about the Ukraine situation. Regarding the latter, it occurs to me that similarities between what, and ostensibly why, Putin is doing and what Hitler did are clear as day. And I can’t help but ask myself why every single person in the whole world doesn’t see this. And then I realize that Agincourt took place in 1415, with eons of countless battles and wars before and centuries of battles and war since. And no one has ever learned a damn thing from all of it. Sometimes that surprises me, and sometimes it pisses me off. Usually in the end, though, I simply close my eyes and slowly, unconsciously fill my lungs up just as much as I can, and then let it out in a loonnngggg sigh. A fathoms deep sigh.
No pic today,
just a poem. It’s from World War I. You know, the war to end all wars.
By Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through the sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets on just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
The latin phrase that ends the poem translates to It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.
