The Duties of an Aide-de-Camp
"The Duties of an Aide-de-Camp" is a comic ballad by Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson that deflates the glamorous image attached to the title of aide-de-camp to a colonial Governor. Where the public imagines a dashing officer in gold braid, cutting a fine figure on parade grounds and at the right hand of vice-regal authority, Paterson sets out to show the much less heroic reality of the post: a young officer reduced to a kind of glorified servant for Government House. The poem catalogues, with wry humour, the mundane and faintly absurd tasks that actually fill the aide-de-camp's days. Rather than martial glory, his duties run to fetching and carrying, minding the social calendar, shepherding guests, finding partners for wallflowers at balls, holding wraps and fans, running errands for the Governor's wife and daughters, and generally being at everyone's beck and call. He must be endlessly polite, endlessly available, and endlessly deferential, smoothing over the small social crises of vice-regal entertaining — the awkward guest, the shortage of dancing partners, the fussy demands of visiting dignitaries — all while maintaining an outward show of soldierly dignity. Paterson's comic method is to juxtapose the exalted military and social status the position implies with the trivial, even menial, realities of the job, producing the same kind of gentle mockery of colonial pretension found throughout his lighter verse. The humour turns on incongruity: a commissioned officer, trained presumably for command and combat, instead spends his energies on ballroom logistics and placating dowagers. The tone is affectionate rather than bitter — it pokes fun at the pomposity of vice-regal social ritual and at the gap between appearance and function in colonial officialdom, without any deeper political anger. It belongs to the same vein as Paterson's other satirical society pieces, where he applies his bush-balladeer's eye for absurdity to the manners of urban and official Australian life rather than to the drovers, jockeys, and outback characters of his best-known work. The poem is written in Paterson's characteristic light, rhythmic, rhyming style, built for recitation and quick comic effect, with each stanza typically adding another item to the growing, ridiculous list of the aide-de-camp's supposed responsibilities. The cumulative effect is a portrait of a young man whose "duties" amount to a form of ornamental servitude: he exists to make the Governor's household run smoothly and to be seen looking decorative and correct, his actual soldierly training almost entirely beside the point. By the poem's end, the reader is left with a clear comic thesis — that the office of aide-de-camp, for all its social cachet and gleaming uniform, is in practice a post of constant, thankless, and faintly ridiculous domestic and social service dressed up in military finery.
By Andrew Barton Paterson · First published 1940 · Genre: Satirical Verse, Comic Poetry, Narrative Poetry · 863 words
First lines
Oh, some folk think vice-royalty is festive and hilarious, / The duties of an A. D. C. are manifold and various, / So listen, whilst I tell in song, / The duties of an aide-de-tong.
Whatsoever betide / To the Governor's side / We must stick -- or the public would eat him -- / For each bounder we see / Says, "Just introduce me / To His Lordship -- I'm anxious to meet him."
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The Duties of an Aide-de-Camp is listed on Textopian as a poem by Andrew Barton Paterson, dated 1940 CE.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Andrew Barton Paterson
- Date: 1940 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Satirical Verse, Comic Poetry, Narrative Poetry, Australian Literature, Social Commentary
- Length: 863 words
- Structure: 1 section, 16 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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Genres
- Satirical Verse — The poem systematically mocks the pretensions and absurdities of colonial administrative duties through exaggerated descriptions of an aide-de-camp's responsibilities, from managing tedious social interactions to navigating ridiculous social hierarchies.
- Comic Poetry — The work employs rhyming couplets, colloquial language, and comedic timing throughout to create humor, with punchlines in nearly every stanza designed for entertainment and laughter at the expense of colonial pretentiousness.
- Narrative Poetry — The poem tells a continuous story of the various duties and scenarios an aide-de-camp must navigate, progressing through different social situations while maintaining a consistent first-person perspective.
- Australian Literature — The work is set in colonial Australia with distinctly Australian references, dialect, and perspective, written by a prominent Australian poet and published in The Bulletin, an iconic Australian magazine.
Tags
satire · humorous · poem · Australian-literature · colonial-society · social-commentary · administrative-duties · irony · verse · 19th-century · governance · social-protocol