Poetry Monday!: "The Persian Version" by Robert Graves

"Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon / The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon...."

Here's "The Persian Version" (1943) by Robert Graves (1895-1985). (This is on my YouTube channel, which mostly consists of my Sasha Reads playlist, plus a smattering of law-related songs.) Written during World War II, this is all about political spin and fake news—read up on the Battle of Marathon (490 B.C.) here.

Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon
The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.
As for the Greek theatrical tradition
Which represents that summer's expedition
Not as a mere reconnaissance in force
By three brigades of foot and one of horse
(Their left flank covered by some obsolete
Light craft detached from the main Persian fleet)
But as a grandiose, ill-starred attempt
To conquer Greece — they treat it with contempt….

For the rest of my "Sasha Reads" playlist, click here. Past poems are:

1. "Ulysses" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
2. "The Pulley" by George Herbert
3. "Harmonie du soir" ("Evening Harmony") by Charles Baudelaire (French)
4. "Dirge Without Music" by Edna St. Vincent Millay
5. "Clancy of the Overflow" by A.B. "Banjo" Paterson
6. "Лотова жена" ("Lotova zhena", "Lot's wife") by Anna Akhmatova (Russian)
7. "The Jumblies" by Edward Lear
8. "The Conqueror Worm" by Edgar Allan Poe
9. "Les Djinns" ("The Jinns") by Victor Hugo (French)
10. "I Have a Rendezvous with Death" by Alan Seeger
11. "When I Was One-and-Twenty" by A.E. Housman
12. "Узник" ("Uznik", "The Prisoner" or "The Captive") by Aleksandr Pushkin (Russian)
13. "God's Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins
14. "The Song of Wandering Aengus" by William Butler Yeats
15. "Je crains pas ça tellment" ("I'm not that scard about") by Raymond Queneau (French)
16. "The Naming of Cats" by T.S. Eliot
17. "The reticent volcano keeps…" by Emily Dickinson
18. "Она" ("Ona", "She") by Zinaida Gippius (Russian)
19. "Would I Be Shrived?" by John D. Swain
20. "Evolution" by Langdon Smith
21. "Chanson d'automne" ("Autumn Song") by Oscar Milosz (French)
22. "love is more thicker than forget" by e.e. cummings
23. "My Three Loves" by Henry S. Leigh
24. "Я мечтою ловил уходящие тени" ("Ia mechtoiu lovil ukhodiashchie teni", "With my dreams I caught the departing shadows") by Konstantin Balmont (Russian)
25. "Dane-geld" by Rudyard Kipling
26. "Rules and Regulations" by Lewis Carroll
27. "Vers dorés" ("Golden Lines") by Gérard de Nerval (French)
28. "So That's Who I Remind Me Of" by Ogden Nash
29. "The Epic" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
30. "La chambre double" ("The Double Room") by Charles Baudelaire (French)
31. "Медный всадник" ("The Bronze Horseman") by Aleksandr Pushkin (Russian)
32. "Herbst" ("Autumn") by Rainer Maria Rilke (German)
33. "Romance de la luna, luna" ("Ballad of the Moon Moon") by Federico García Lorca (Spanish)
34. "The Four Friends" by A.A. Milne
35. "anyone lived in a pretty how town" by e.e. cummings
36. "Листья" ("Leaves") by Fyodor Tyutchev (Russian)
37. "The Pobble Who Has No Toes" by Edward Lear