Dulce Et Decorum Est

[WilliamPitt]

Dulce Et Decorum Est

by Wilfred Owen

First Published in 1921

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned out 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 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
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.

http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~benjamin/316kfall/316ktexts/owendulce.html

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

1. Heres' the translation before everyone asks.

Sorry, Will, if this was to be part of the fun.

"It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country."

[YNGW]

5. Translation

>It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.

Actually that saying is a few more words:

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"

But, you translated the whole phrase from a relatively few words, which was gracious of you.

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

7. Literal translation

Without any sense of syntax:
Sweet and fitting it is for the fatherland to die.

With syntax:
Sweet and fitting it is to die for the fatherland.

Yoda:
Sweet and fitting for the fatherland to die it is.

No additional words (i.e., no making the implied nominative--"one"--explicit).

[YNGW]

9. Clarification

I missed the bottom of the poem where it was written out. My mistake. I've read it so many times............... Just forgot.

[baldguy]

23. What is the Latin for "Homeland"

[Iverson]

17. "Sweet and becoming" is also taught. (n/t)

n/t

[wtmusic]

2. A classic

and from William Tecumseh Sherman:

'War is at best barbarism...its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have never fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation.

War is hell."

[knight_of_the_star]

14. Yeah

Especially considering who it was saying it.

[slor]

3. Thank you...

for posting this. It is one of my favorite poems from high school and it brought back many memories for me. It is one of the best anti-war poems ever written. You should also read "Death of a Ball Turret Gunner", the author escapes me at this time.

[betweenwars]

6. Randall Jarrell

And the poem is well anthologized.

I'd type it in, but the Norton Anthology is packed away as we repaint our living room.

Check out his "Woman at the Washington Zoo," which is not about war, but feels relevant for our predicament and has always been a favorite of mine.

Cheers,
Mitch

[MrMonk]

11. is this the one?

http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/gunner/gunner.html

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

[betweenwars]

13. Thassit!

I love the contrast in diction in the poem--the bluntness of the last line agains the rest. It says "say what you will about 'glory' and 'country', war is about our meat and bones."

Thanks for posting it.
M

[VelmaD]

4. That's twice now today...

that I've cried at one of your posts. The list of those who have died in Iraq got me earlier this morning. Good tears though. Angry and frustrated and sad and cathartic tears.

I'd blame it on being tired and sick today, but we both know better. :-)

[markses]

8. Wilfred Owen: Killed in Action, Oise-Sambre Canal

November 4, 1918 (One week before the end of the war).

His family received notice on Armistice Day. I like this one:

Smile, Smile, Smile
by Wilfred Owen

Head to limp head, the sunk-eyed wounded scanned
Yesterday's Mail; the casualties (typed small)
And (large) Vast Booty from our Latest Haul.
Also, they read of Cheap Homes, not yet planned;
For, said the paper, "When this war is done
The men's first instinct will be making homes.
Meanwhile their foremost need is aerodromes,
It being certain war has just begun.
Peace would do wrong to our undying dead, --
The sons we offered might regret they died
If we got nothing lasting in their stead.
We must be solidly indemnified.
Though all be worthy Victory which all bought,
We rulers sitting in this ancient spot
Would wrong our very selves if we forgot
The greatest glory will be theirs who fought,
Who kept this nation in integrity."
Nation? -- The half-limbed readers did not chafe
But smiled at one another curiously
Like secret men who know their secret safe.
This is the thing they know and never speak,
That England one by one had fled to France
(Not many elsewhere now save under France).
Pictures of these broad smiles appear each week,
And people in whose voice real feeling rings
Say: How they smile! They're happy now, poor things.

[markses]

10. Note on the Text

While the line "Bitter as the cud" certainly appeared as written in the 1921 book, later editors have gone to Owen's notes, and the line often appears today as

"Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud"

Obviously, the latter version keeps the meter, and is probably closer to the what Owen would have included.

[markses]

12. plato told

(plato told)

plato told

him:he couldn't
believe it(jesus

told him;he
wouldn't believe
it)lao

tsze
certainly told
him,and general
(yes

mam)
sherman;
and even
(believe it
or

not)you
told him: i told
him;we told him
(he didn't believe it,no

sir)it took
a nipponized bit of
the old sixth

avenue
el;in the top of his head:to tell

him

-- e.e.cummings

[southpaw]

15. next to of course god america i

"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country 'tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

-- e. e. cummings

[WilliamPitt]

16. Kick

[Iverson]

19. Look like folks have lost their taste for poetry.

Kick again.

[Iverson]

18. Now, who's voting for a pro-war candidate?

It strikes me that scores of people will read Wilfred Owen, tell themselves that they get the message, and then turn around and rationalize a weak "me too" on Bush's war.

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a great quote about the question that Eichmann chose to ignore, whether one is responsible for one's fellow man. Nuanced or technical objections to preventive war just don't cut it, crew.

[Jacobin]

20. Nice Find

I'm still amazed at the ability of poetry to do what other forms of language cannot. Very curious, and sadly there are so few who are truly gifted with that talent.

It's just as powerful, if not more so, in the way a Bach prelude can transport at the right time and place.

[the populist]

21. How dare you post that treasonous garbage?!!

Everyone knows that them soldiers is fightin to defend our freedom. You is disrespecting them and our patriotic leader!!!!

War is good because it's cool when I watch it on my FOX News. It's like them Bruce Willis movees.

[ulysses]

22. there's a reason our schools don't dwell much

on WWI. WWII we can mythologize, much as the slaughter was greater by degrees than in the earlier war. With the Great War, things were more gothic, death was more pure. The Brits purged their photographic archives of most of the more offensive images, but I have a book that shows a Tommy with 3/4 of his head blown clean off. Lovely little war indeed.

[silverlib]

24. Thanks again!

Haven't thought about this poem since Nam.

for anyone interested, here's a web site with many more of his patriotic poems.


http://www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/jtap/warpoems.htm