Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through 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 disappointed shells that dropped 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 floundering 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.
word -meaning
sludge =mire mud
haunting =frequent
flares=blazes
trudge=a long tiring walk
hoots=shouts of contemptcry
writhing =twisting
froth=bubble
arden=enthusiastic
vile=Loathsome; disgusting.Unpleasant or objectionable:
sores=An open skin lesion, wound, or ulcer..A source of pain, distress, or irritation
jolt= A sudden, strong feeling of surprise or disappointment;a shock
choking=the act of suffocating (someone) by constricting the wind pipe suffocating
floundering=struggling with stumbling or plunging movements:: struggling clumsily, helplessly, or falteringly
fumbling=proceeding awkwardly and uncertainly;blunder:
limped =walked lamely, especially with irregularity. :moved or proceeded haltingly or unsteadily
Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori - TITLE
The title of this poem ,'Dulce Et Decorum Est' has been taken from a Latin poem by Horace.But this title has ironically applied here.Owen affirms that if a reader could watch,hear,smell,taste and feel an experience in battle field ,he would never repeat the true lie propunded by Horace in his poem with high enthusiasm that 'it is sweet and seemly to die for country'. Instead Owen says ,'My subject is war,and the pity of war' .The title of the poem'Dulce et Decorum Est' apparently makes us enter into a heroic poem which usually glorifies a soldier or a warrior and the war. Anti-heroic treatment of the war and warriors subverts the idea of heroism in war and converts it into reality ,here in this realistic Poem. 'Dulce Et Decorum Est'.In reality heroism in war is a romantic myth that has no true reasons or background for heroism.Through the use of irony Owen establishes his utter hatred towards war and reveals the pity of war.
This is the original LATIN POEM in English script from which Owen has taken the Title 'Dulce Et Decorum Est'.
Horace's Odes III
Angustam amice pauperiem pati
Robustus acri militia puer
Condiscat et Parthos ferocis
Vexet eques metuendus hasta
Vitamque sub divo et trepidis agat
In rebus illum exmoenibus hosticis
Matrona bellantis tyranni
Prospiciens et adulta virgo
suspiret,eheu,ne rudis agminum
sponsus lacessat regius asperum
tactu leonem,quem cruenta
per medias rapit ita caedes.
Dulce et decorum es pro patria mori:
Mors et fugacem persequitur virum
Nec parcit imbellis inventae
Poplitibus timidove tergo.
Virtus repulsae nescia sordidae
Intaminantis fulget honoribus
Nec sumit aut ponit securis
Arbitrio popularis aurae
Virtus recludens immeritis mori
Caelum negata ramptat iter via
Coetusque vulguris et udam
Spermit humum fugiente pinna.
Est et fideli tuta silentio
Merces:vetabo,qui Cereris sacrum
Vuklgarit arcanae ,sub isdem
Sittrabibu7s fragilemque mecum
Solvat phaselon ,saepe Diespiter
Neglectus incesto addidit integrum;
Raro antecedentem scelestum
Descruit pede Poema claudo.
This poem has been translated into English by Hugh Vibart Mac Naghten.
This is given to show the difference in attitudes between the Poem by Horace and Owen's 'Dulce Et Decorum Est'.Irony is clear.
Call to the Youth
Let every Roman boy be taught to know
Constraining hardship as a friend,and grow
Strong in fierce warfare,with dread lance and horse
Encountering the gallant Parthian foe.
Aye,let him live beneath the open sky
In danger,Him from leagured wallsshould eye
Mother and daughter of the insurgent king,
And she for he betrothed,with many a sigh,
Should pray,poor maiden,lest,when hosts engage,
Unversed in arms he face that lion's rage
So dangerous to trust what time he gluts
His wrath upon the battle's blody stageeeee.
For country 'tis sweet and seemly thing
To die.Death ceases not from following
E'en runaways.Can youth with feeble knees,
That fears to face the battle,scape his wing?
Defeat true meaningless can never know;
Honoors undernished still it has to show.
Not taking up or laying office down
Because the fickle mob will have it so.
"Tis Maniness lifts men too good to die,
And finds a way to that forbidden sky:
Above the thronging multitudes,above
The clinging mistsof earth it rises high.
Nor less abides to loyal secrecy
A sure reward;I would not have him be
Neath the same roof,the babbler who reveals
Demeter's secret things,or launch with me
A shallop frail:The god of heav'n has blent
Oft in one doom th' unclean and innocent:
Seldom the miscreant his scaped the slow
And sure pursuit of halting punishment.
3rd
WHAT 'DULCE ET DECORUM EST' TELLS
Wilfred Owen never glorifies war in his poetry.Heroism is wiped out from his poetry.His poems are anti-heroic.He displays the original battlefield.His pictorial description is enough to comprehend the underlying meaning and prophecy for establishment of Pacifism.He knows the true emotions,feeling and facts that that is usually shadowed by some aircooled poets who glorify war and warriors and deliver the message of destroying and being destroyed in war .But Owen knows the truth as he has direct experience of war.He thought war as the gigantic slaughter house for the youth who die before their death,before their maturity.They would have served the nation to the development of the country.But at an immature age they are being mercilessly slaughtered.The original picturisation is clear in Dulce Et Decorum Est.
The condition of the soldiers is miserable.They are like beggars declined double.They are fatigue. On the haunting flares they turn their backs and towards their distant rest they begin to trudge.Men marched as if they are asleep. Many soldiers have lost their boots but limp on.
'All went lame; all blind;Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.'
These are the conditions of the soldiers.How can they be able to fight in a serious battle field?Are they not frightened?Even in this situation someone declares Quick!
Here the poet describes the horrible scene where a soldier can not survive from the hand of devastating gas .He can not take precautionary steps . His death before the poet is really heart rendering. His suffocating,steady death makes the poet see nightmares.
Now he challenges the reader had they observed the experience,they would not pronounce the greatest false that Horace wrote in his poem -'Dulce et decoram est pro patria mori,
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.
Dulce Et Decorum Est begins with a miserable description of the soldiers. Soldiers have become 'bent double' not only for weariness and weakness but also for the pressure that has been given to them by the authority again and again and felt due to his own feeling of commitment.Then again he has gained some bitter experiences which have created a traffic jam to the free thinking of his mind.They are like supreme wretched 'beggars'-a communities of contempt .Owen might have thought of their begging for leaving the battlefield.They are begging their lives to the almighty God because war has made them handicapped.They with their present condition cannot survive by the fatal war.They carry sacks instead of armours and kartoos.They are wanting in sympathy.The fact that their knees are knocking each other proves their extreme wretched and fatigue condition.They are coughing like hags.They have not material within.War has extracted all out of them.'Men marched asleep' ,trudged .They can not walk properly.They are so tired that they are now machines which continue to move on mechanically.Loosing boots suggests the weariness and carelessness of the soldiers.Without boots the soldiers limped on.Sense organs have become medically weak.They have become lively dead persons.
Thus this sharp and authentic description makes us alive on the war-front and watch the fatal,appalling scene which causes pity and sympathy.A humanitarian person ,after reading 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' must think thrice to go to the battle field.This is not only because he is frightened to go to war but he is employed to make a gigantic slaughter house in battle field of their opposition .
The alarming 'Gas! Gas! Quick,boys!' makes the exhausted soldiers active to save their lives.They must run for life.They must wear gas masks and helmets to save themselves. Those who can not take necessary precautions will stuff miserably or die.The poet experiences some cases .A soldier begins to froth at the mouth for the gas shells affect the lungs.'The white eyes writhing in his face' expresses the feeling that this place can only be Hell or Purgatory.The poet in this poem clearly says that the soldiers are not better than devils or else they have been entangled with the sin of the Devil. Here in this poem the poet has to unwillingly act as a prophet and warn his countrymen.Owen clearly sees the vile forces ,the prayer and exhortations,the exclamation and justification,religious and patriotic slogans
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through 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 disappointed shells that dropped 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 floundering 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.
word -meaning
sludge =mire mud
haunting =frequent
flares=blazes
trudge=a long tiring walk
hoots=shouts of contemptcry
writhing =twisting
froth=bubble
arden=enthusiastic
vile=Loathsome; disgusting.Unpleasant or objectionable:
sores=An open skin lesion, wound, or ulcer..A source of pain, distress, or irritation
jolt= A sudden, strong feeling of surprise or disappointment;a shock
choking=the act of suffocating (someone) by constricting the wind pipe suffocating
floundering=struggling with stumbling or plunging movements:: struggling clumsily, helplessly, or falteringly
fumbling=proceeding awkwardly and uncertainly;blunder:
limped =walked lamely, especially with irregularity. :moved or proceeded haltingly or unsteadily
Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori - TITLE
The title of this poem ,'Dulce Et Decorum Est' has been taken from a Latin poem by Horace.But this title has ironically applied here.Owen affirms that if a reader could watch,hear,smell,taste and feel an experience in battle field ,he would never repeat the true lie propunded by Horace in his poem with high enthusiasm that 'it is sweet and seemly to die for country'. Instead Owen says ,'My subject is war,and the pity of war' .The title of the poem'Dulce et Decorum Est' apparently makes us enter into a heroic poem which usually glorifies a soldier or a warrior and the war. Anti-heroic treatment of the war and warriors subverts the idea of heroism in war and converts it into reality ,here in this realistic Poem. 'Dulce Et Decorum Est'.In reality heroism in war is a romantic myth that has no true reasons or background for heroism.Through the use of irony Owen establishes his utter hatred towards war and reveals the pity of war.
This is the original LATIN POEM in English script from which Owen has taken the Title 'Dulce Et Decorum Est'.
Horace's Odes III
Angustam amice pauperiem pati
Robustus acri militia puer
Condiscat et Parthos ferocis
Vexet eques metuendus hasta
Vitamque sub divo et trepidis agat
In rebus illum exmoenibus hosticis
Matrona bellantis tyranni
Prospiciens et adulta virgo
suspiret,eheu,ne rudis agminum
sponsus lacessat regius asperum
tactu leonem,quem cruenta
per medias rapit ita caedes.
Dulce et decorum es pro patria mori:
Mors et fugacem persequitur virum
Nec parcit imbellis inventae
Poplitibus timidove tergo.
Virtus repulsae nescia sordidae
Intaminantis fulget honoribus
Nec sumit aut ponit securis
Arbitrio popularis aurae
Virtus recludens immeritis mori
Caelum negata ramptat iter via
Coetusque vulguris et udam
Spermit humum fugiente pinna.
Est et fideli tuta silentio
Merces:vetabo,qui Cereris sacrum
Vuklgarit arcanae ,sub isdem
Sittrabibu7s fragilemque mecum
Solvat phaselon ,saepe Diespiter
Neglectus incesto addidit integrum;
Raro antecedentem scelestum
Descruit pede Poema claudo.
This poem has been translated into English by Hugh Vibart Mac Naghten.
This is given to show the difference in attitudes between the Poem by Horace and Owen's 'Dulce Et Decorum Est'.Irony is clear.
Call to the Youth
Let every Roman boy be taught to know
Constraining hardship as a friend,and grow
Strong in fierce warfare,with dread lance and horse
Encountering the gallant Parthian foe.
Aye,let him live beneath the open sky
In danger,Him from leagured wallsshould eye
Mother and daughter of the insurgent king,
And she for he betrothed,with many a sigh,
Should pray,poor maiden,lest,when hosts engage,
Unversed in arms he face that lion's rage
So dangerous to trust what time he gluts
His wrath upon the battle's blody stageeeee.
For country 'tis sweet and seemly thing
To die.Death ceases not from following
E'en runaways.Can youth with feeble knees,
That fears to face the battle,scape his wing?
Defeat true meaningless can never know;
Honoors undernished still it has to show.
Not taking up or laying office down
Because the fickle mob will have it so.
"Tis Maniness lifts men too good to die,
And finds a way to that forbidden sky:
Above the thronging multitudes,above
The clinging mistsof earth it rises high.
Nor less abides to loyal secrecy
A sure reward;I would not have him be
Neath the same roof,the babbler who reveals
Demeter's secret things,or launch with me
A shallop frail:The god of heav'n has blent
Oft in one doom th' unclean and innocent:
Seldom the miscreant his scaped the slow
And sure pursuit of halting punishment.
3rd
WHAT 'DULCE ET DECORUM EST' TELLS
Wilfred Owen never glorifies war in his poetry.Heroism is wiped out from his poetry.His poems are anti-heroic.He displays the original battlefield.His pictorial description is enough to comprehend the underlying meaning and prophecy for establishment of Pacifism.He knows the true emotions,feeling and facts that that is usually shadowed by some aircooled poets who glorify war and warriors and deliver the message of destroying and being destroyed in war .But Owen knows the truth as he has direct experience of war.He thought war as the gigantic slaughter house for the youth who die before their death,before their maturity.They would have served the nation to the development of the country.But at an immature age they are being mercilessly slaughtered.The original picturisation is clear in Dulce Et Decorum Est.
The condition of the soldiers is miserable.They are like beggars declined double.They are fatigue. On the haunting flares they turn their backs and towards their distant rest they begin to trudge.Men marched as if they are asleep. Many soldiers have lost their boots but limp on.
'All went lame; all blind;Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.'
These are the conditions of the soldiers.How can they be able to fight in a serious battle field?Are they not frightened?Even in this situation someone declares Quick!
Here the poet describes the horrible scene where a soldier can not survive from the hand of devastating gas .He can not take precautionary steps . His death before the poet is really heart rendering. His suffocating,steady death makes the poet see nightmares.
Now he challenges the reader had they observed the experience,they would not pronounce the greatest false that Horace wrote in his poem -'Dulce et decoram est pro patria mori,
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.
Dulce Et Decorum Est begins with a miserable description of the soldiers. Soldiers have become 'bent double' not only for weariness and weakness but also for the pressure that has been given to them by the authority again and again and felt due to his own feeling of commitment.Then again he has gained some bitter experiences which have created a traffic jam to the free thinking of his mind.They are like supreme wretched 'beggars'-a communities of contempt .Owen might have thought of their begging for leaving the battlefield.They are begging their lives to the almighty God because war has made them handicapped.They with their present condition cannot survive by the fatal war.They carry sacks instead of armours and kartoos.They are wanting in sympathy.The fact that their knees are knocking each other proves their extreme wretched and fatigue condition.They are coughing like hags.They have not material within.War has extracted all out of them.'Men marched asleep' ,trudged .They can not walk properly.They are so tired that they are now machines which continue to move on mechanically.Loosing boots suggests the weariness and carelessness of the soldiers.Without boots the soldiers limped on.Sense organs have become medically weak.They have become lively dead persons.
Thus this sharp and authentic description makes us alive on the war-front and watch the fatal,appalling scene which causes pity and sympathy.A humanitarian person ,after reading 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' must think thrice to go to the battle field.This is not only because he is frightened to go to war but he is employed to make a gigantic slaughter house in battle field of their opposition .
The alarming 'Gas! Gas! Quick,boys!' makes the exhausted soldiers active to save their lives.They must run for life.They must wear gas masks and helmets to save themselves. Those who can not take necessary precautions will stuff miserably or die.The poet experiences some cases .A soldier begins to froth at the mouth for the gas shells affect the lungs.'The white eyes writhing in his face' expresses the feeling that this place can only be Hell or Purgatory.The poet in this poem clearly says that the soldiers are not better than devils or else they have been entangled with the sin of the Devil. Here in this poem the poet has to unwillingly act as a prophet and warn his countrymen.Owen clearly sees the vile forces ,the prayer and exhortations,the exclamation and justification,religious and patriotic slogans
Most pathetic
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